Thanksgiving and Stache Bash 09

First Thanksgiving in Belize

All volunteers were assigned dishes by district. We cooked in shifts at the volunteers' houses who lived in Belmopan. We began setting up at 1:00 as the food began to roll in. We transformed a boring room into a festive thanksgiving feasting dinning hall. The food really blew our minds...there was lots of stealing of food during set up. Eventually we were all seated and Bryan gave a great motivating speech as always and people shared what they were thankful for. We tore into the food, with no real order but somehow no one was knocked down and we all got food...a lot. There were 3 turkeys and a ham, lovely salad with non iceberg lettuce, fruit salad, watermelon, Belikin beer bread (10 loves baked by Greg and Erica) potatoes (mashed and cubed) deviled eggs, artichoke dip, green bean casserole, sweet potatoes, cooked carrots, 3 kinds of stuffing, brownies, pumpkin pie, carrot cake, pumpkin cookies, oatmeal cookies, jello and corn fritters. For about 45 minutes there was glutinous amounts of eating and laughing. Eventually the trips to the 4 serving tables declined and chairs were pushed back, pants unbuttoned, and content smiles were pasted on all our faces. We slowly made it to the stage to read what people were thankful for, digressed into a heap of bloated bodies until we were kicked out because the hall had to close at 6:30. It was a fabulous thanksgiving...vegan stuffing and all. We miss all of our family and friends and we hope that your thanksgiving was wonderful too...HAPPY THANKSGIVING EVERYONE!

The Kevs are hungry

Look at this delicious food....look!

Our table for thanksgiving

Table centerpiece and the 'healthy' table

8 dozen deviled eggs

The quiet before the storm...and the queen of domestication with her cranberry sauce.

Almost everyone serving in Belize

Lounging around with our full bellies.

Mustaches for Kids: Stache Bash
The first annual Mustaches for Kids Belize Chapter Mustache Bash took place after the Thanksgiving festivities. Six growers participated this year and $279 was raised for the kids of Belize. We hope to see both these numbers multiply exponentially next year! There were three trials that the mustaches had to go through; absorption, strength, and feel.
Absorption was tested with two glasses (one filled with water, the other empty). Contestants were to dip their stache into the cup and then see how much they could collect in the empty cup...using just the stache. Mike won this with almost 3 times as much water as anyone else.
Next was the strength test. A clip was attached to a single stache hair follicle and to an empty cup. A capful at a time of water was then added to the cup. The contest continued until the hair could not withstand anymore weight and was pulled out. The winner of this was Adam with 5 capfuls of water.
The final contest was the touch. Four brave girls judged the men's staches on softness, texture and most importantly desirability. The hands down winner of this was Peter.
After an exhausting trying night for the staches, the awards were given. The six awards were presented. Richest Stache: for the most money raised whet to my very own grower...GREG! Poorest Stache: least money raised (none) went to Adam. Half Assed: for not consistently keeping the stache went to Andy. Most enthusiastic: for getting Belize a recognized chapter and setting up the website...Mike. Weakest Stache: for the stache most like a 14 year old boys...Kevin. and Finally BEST Stache....hands down...PETER!!!

Kevin and Peter

Mike

Adam

Peter...a fine stache, a real fine stache

Strength competition.

Awards!

2009 Growers...until next year!

Thatch-tastic!

Our Very Own Thatch House!

2 hammocks $40

Foam bed $89

Sheets $60

Hammer, nails, and locks $40

Pillows $11 each

Rent $125 BZE a month ($62.50 USD)

Getting to live in one room thatch house...priceless

Our future 'sink' area (a basin with a bucket of water) and Greg hanging our mosquito net!

Our landlords are building us our own shower...they won't let us help or pay for it:) The back of the house with our curtain bedroom divider!

The front of the house...there won't always be clothes hanging.

We had a lovely last couple of days with our host family...they really went all out for our meals and even gave Greg a Belizean soccer shirt and myself a Belizean book bag! We loaded all our stuff in the back of a pickup and Ovidio drove us to silver creek (sitting in the back holding onto our bedroll). When we got there our hose was cleaned spotless. They even scrubbed the floors! I found the dad and three of the brothers building our shower and then after we unpacked they were in the latrine building a partition so we could have our own personal latrine. They live on an orange grove and they have pigs in the back of their lot. We are going to get our 're-fridge' (as they call it here),our table top burners and a toaster oven soon. Here goes!

Happy Cows

Twice now the cows have broken their gate and ran in a heard

across the highway. This was the last little calf (which Angel took off after straight away!)

We hitched a ride with some university students and their Belizean

guide had the same bracelet as us from Italy!

Battle of the Drums (the recovered photos):

The dance I was telling you of last post...behold!

One side of the packed house

Exam and Childrens day

The horse and cart the Menonites come on

"Do you have alarm clocks?"

Greg told me about some Mennonites coming to the shop after I left for school. Mennonites often come to sell eggs and chicken so it isn't unusual to see them. So this family came in and walked around a little and then asked, "Do you sell alarm clocks?" There was much conversation as to the kinds available (two) and then they finally bought one. Our host sister thought it was funny since it was the second time it had happened. One morning I was waiting for my ride by myself and I heard the rhythmic beating of hooves approaching. I eagerly peered around the corner and saw, much to my delight a family of Mennonites in a horse drawn cart (usually they drive very nice trucks). I snapped this picture after they went inside. I exchanged glances and smiles with the children and then much to my delight I heard the oldest man ask...in a thick German accent, "do you sell alarm clocks?" I had to restrain myself from laughing and my mind was racing...why do they need so many alarm clocks. Has there been an epidemic of sleeping in?

Exams:
I recently found out that students have to pay an exam fee (from Infant I to Standard VI) to cover copying the exams and the cost of the report card. This is 2.oo for the infants and 2.50 for the upper division. From Infant I (5 years old) to Standard six all next week they will be sitting with their multi page exams testing all day for 4 days. I will not be able to see what the tests are like, or how the little ones handle it, because of training... I just thought it was interesting that they have to pay to take the exams...and many families have a very hard time getting the money.

Eating PIZZA at Dan and Maria's from the HIllside Clinic

Children's Day:
Planning started the week before. The upper division was invited to the neighboring village to play in a football marathon. Preschool through Standard II will stay and have fun activities all day in our village. We had a fun lunch meeting with four teachers and myself where we hashed out what the game plan for the day. The day started pretty eventfully with some kids running to me and leading me to a small Infant boy crying with his entire face covered in blood. After I cleaned him up it turned out to be a half inch laceration on his forehead, he got a band aide and a hug and was good as new. The rest of the day was great, hot, but great. The teachers even played too....Miss Arlene won the sack hop and I won the footrace. The sack race was my favorite. Only in Belize could you assign children to each bring a sack with no second thought. The teachers went out for lunch and Greg met us there, I really like my teachers and we had fun joking around. We even smelled Noni juice...it smelled like feet but it's supposed to cure everything.

Humana People to People
http://www.humana.org/
These volunteers are throughout Belize and they spend four months here working with health and fitness. There is one girl who just moved to my village. She comes into the school and does lessons on art related to health sciences. They will also be building a little playground for the infants!

Battle of the Drums:

We came in town after school on Friday to see the Battle of the Drums. A drumming competition with 8 teams from Belize, Honduras, and Guatemala. I might have lost the other pictures...so here are just a few. They battled each other (two groups at once) and then for round two they did an interpretive song and dance while drumming. Then they performed a dance with the Wanaragua where men dress up as women with pink masks to represent the slave owners and they have strings of small shells sewn to knee pads or to ribbon around their knees. There is a lot of really fast bouncing on tip toes, and then quick changes from fast to slow controlled movements. It is the drummers job to match the beat to the dancing! When the drummers were really going at it the crowd became a pulsing entity thriving on the ridiculously fast beats. The sports complex, packed with more than a thousand people reminded me of the third matrix when they were in zion dancing to the drums in a cave. It didn't finish until 11:30 and we were all too exhausted to stay for the dance that followed.

Garifuna Settlement Day

We wanted to go into town right after school on Wednesday for all the Settlement Day activities. So we hurried home from school, threw some clothes in our bag and raced off to wait on the side of the highway for the 5:00 bus. A man joined us and we chatted about the pros and cons of diesel while the time slipped bye. Now at six o'clock our host sister is going partway to town and we all jump in with her and another lady and Rayare (the 3 year old, who immediately climbs onto Greg's lap). By the time we got to the junction Rayare was fast asleep. When we got out he awoke, and instantly started screaming and freaking out grasping for the seats anything. Greg had to hold him towards his mom so that he could finally realize where he was and who this white man was that was holding him. We started to wait for the bus again and we heard our names. It was Grace on her way in town with her principal! They let us hitch a ride with them the rest of the way...free trip!

Garifuna Settlement day is a two day party. The block party goes until 10 then at 12 or 1 all the bars reopen and go again until 5 or 6. We went to the Sports Bar, with a roof top dance floor and danced to the interesting DJing of the 'Black Chiny' They only play the main part of the song, then start talking and play the hit part of the next one. It was a pretty eventful night resulting in only getting one hour of sleep, some of us none, and then meeting at the wharf at 5:45 in the morning to watch the reenactment of settlement day.

Katie, Erica and I. Greg and our future cat (possibly)

After an all night celebration the drumming and dancing continues at 5:45 AM

Costumes of all sorts surrounded us

The wharf and the dorry (canoe)

Meet My School:

Preschool: Ms. Choco

4 Year olds

3 Year olds

Infant I: Ms. Peck

Infant II: Ms. Benguche

Standard I and II: Mr. Jarez

Standard I

Standard II

Standard III and IV: Mr. Cal

Standard III

Standard IV

Standard V and VI: Mr. Baltazar (Principal)

Standard V

Standard VI