Belize so far

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Trip Start Jun 16, 2005 Trip End Jul 24, 2007 Next
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  Belize City, Belize
Tuesday, July 19, 2005

We're making an attempt here to catch you up on life in Belize over the last 5 weeks. It's been a whirlwind, for sure.

We spent the first 3 weeks in San Ignacio, the "district town" of the Cayo district (similar to a county seat). It's about 10 miles from the border with Guatemala, so we heard Spanish almost as frequently as English and Creole.

For most of the time there we lived with a host family. Though we actually stayed at our host family's guest house (for those who want to Google it, it's Martha's Guest House and we'd definitely recommend it for those who will be coming to visit!). It was a nice transition into life in Belize.

The training mostly consisted of language classes in Creole and lectures on what we should and should not do while here

Amy at the Blue Hole

. The best thing about San Ignacio, according to Amy, was the ice cream shop that sold only soy ice cream! (She only made 3 trips there during the whole 3 weeks.) Rob counts among the highlights here getting crushed at soccer (futbol) by everyone in town. It seems even little kids here are expert ballers. Actually, it's a great little town and we definitely plan on returning at some point during our stay here.

We celebrated our 6th anniversary in Dangriga, which is the district town of Stann Creek district. It's right on the Caribbean Sea and is where the Garifuna culture is most alive and celebrated in Belize. (Garifuna are descendents of Carib Indians and African slaves and first settled in Belize, and parts of Honduras and Guatemala, about 150 years ago.) We had a great swim in the sea!

We also got to visit Xunantunich - a Mayan ruin about 5 miles from San Ignacio - and Spanish Lookout - a Mennonite community about 30 minutes away. Both provided interesting glimpses into different cultures represented here.

During this pre-service period, we also got matched up with our host agencies. Amy is going to be working as a "teacher trainer" with the aim of helping to improve literacy in the early levels of primary school

Friends

. They were not put off by her lack of actual classroom experience, so she's going to give it a try and see if the experiences of reading to Alex and Caroline gave her any tips to work from! She'll be working at St. Luke's Methodist Primary School with 9 teachers in all - 3 each in grades equivalent to 1st-3rd in the U.S. The project is part of the Caribbean Center for Excellence in Teacher Training, a Caribbean-wide initative that is based in Jamaica. (You can check out www.ub.edu.bz/ccett for more details, though Amy's school is the only one without a profile.) Amy is also planning to work with the director of the Belize project to help identify some national and/or international funding partners.

Rob will be attached to the Department of Fisheries in the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Environment. He'll be splitting his time between the main office in Belize City and the Caye Caulker Marine Reserve. While on the caye, he'll be doing some reef monitoring and working with the environmental club at the local primary school on reef etiquette. One of his first assignments will be to get his scuba certification. Needless to say, he's a bit excited.

In early July, we parted ways to go on "technical training" with our respective groups. Amy spent most of her time in Belize City (just known as Belize to those living here), with side trips to Dangriga, Independence, Punta Gorda, Santa Cruz and San Benito Poite

Honduran coastline

. Santa Cruz is home to a 20 ft waterfall that has a nifty place to jump from - yep, Amy jumped, four times. Despite the major bathing suit wedgie, she reports that it was great fun. And in San Benito Poite - which is in the SW corner of Belize, about 2 miles from Guatemala - she climbed yet another Mayan ruin: Pusilha. While discovered a while ago, excavation has only recently begun. So the path to the top was a tricky one. First, there's a log across a river, then wading through muck and slashing down the tall grass, then the steep last 20 ft. However, once at the top, the view was amazing!

Rob traveled around a lot more of the country. He got to snorkle around Sapodilla Caye, camp out in Cockscomb Basin, among other adventures. During his travels he spotted giant and colorful fish, some rare birds, and a boa constrictor. The last he killed with one blow from a machete (no kidding). Cockscomb included a long hike into deep jungle where Rob and some friends found a waterfall and practiced some cliff diving. Unfortunately most of Rob's group came down with some intestinal bug, which made camping in remote bush less than ideal. (All of these locations are easily found via Google if you want more details.)

So far, we've managed to stay relatively healthy - except for Amy jamming her left foot, and Rob getting food poisoning and an ear infection

Mayan Children

. Compared to some others in the group, this was nothing!

For those who were watching the weather channel, yes, Hurricane Emily did give us a scare. Though it ended up not hitting Belize directly, as a precaution all Peace Corps Trainees and Volunteers in the country were consolidated to designated evacuation points. Because it was in the middle of tech training, we ended up in different locations. :( However, Amy discovered that Rob's group was at Monkey Bay Research Center, only 20 minutes away from where she was in Belmopan. She was able to convince the staff that it would be a great idea to send her to Monkey Bay (freeing up space in Belmopan for others being evacuated, of course) and got herself transferred to Monkey Bay along with another married trainee whose husband was with Rob's group.

One of the Peace Corps staff actually founded and still lives at Monkey Bay so we were able to hang out in his house, watch bad movies and play games and pool. (We had to stay in bunks though.) Amy had a pretty successful winning streak going at games: pool (with Rob as a partner, of course), pictionary (with 2 teammates) and poker. No kidding on that last one. We were both in the "pictionary poker tournament" (pictionary cards served as chips) and while Rob got knocked out second, Amy lasted through and won all 500 pictionary cards by the end of the evening

Mr. Peters and the Boom and Chime Band

. It was a little unsettling to the guys she knocked out, especially when they found out that she'd never played poker before. Watch out Vegas!

We're now back in Belize City charged with finalizing our housing arrangements and lining up household purchases. We just settled on our place this morning and hope to have photos posted soon!. Even after moving in on August 1, we will likely continue to use the Peace Corps office as our mailing address. If you want/need the address, e-mail one of us and we'll send it along.

Til next time!

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Rio Blanco Waterfall	Rob atop Xunantunich	San Benito Poite Village	Thatched Hut
The Bridge to PusilHa	Xunantunich

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