Lindsford, one of Greg's little proteges, came over the other night (as he does every day) to tell Greg about his trip to the San Miguel Internet Lab. "Mr. Greg when I was on the Internet, I typed in 'motorcycles' into google and there were so many clean pictures!" (clean means cool in Belizean). Greg's motorcycle magazines have now been placed on our game shelf and it is not unusual to see 2-6 boys in a circle on our floor with a few of the mags out between them silently flipping the pages.
Lynette the 'modern maya' cleaning her beans
Life in a Cartoon
It's fourth of July, and Greg is on a mission to attempt to find relish for our 4th hot dogs. His fruitless search is coming to an end, as he has tried the only 3 shops in town that might carry such fancy substances. Well it is the rainy season, not raining at the moment, but puddles abound. Greg is on Erica's bike, and is approaching a large puddle. He looks back and checks if she has a fender, she does not, so he slows down right before riding in the puddle. Thank goodness he did. As he entered the puddle he quickly realized it was not some surface puddle on the road but a huge waist deep hole filled with water! He rode both tires in, sunk the bike up to the seat, AND lost both shoes in the mud at the bottom. It had to look like a cartoon, a man riding up to a puddle, disappearing IN the 'puddle' then spending 10 minutes retrieving all his belongings from the bottomless mud pit. *see below*
Our table-scape and Greg, myself and Erica!
You Must Tell Them Your Name:
I was visiting with Ms. Ico the other day and we were on one of the villages' favorite topics, illness (the top conversation topics being weather, food, and sickness (other people's sickness too). She brought up my 'face sickness' and said that I most likely caught obia that was left for someone else. Obia is like black magic, evil spirits, that is attributed to most illnesses. Two people have moved from this village while I've been here due to obia. She said that what I could have done was when I first came, tell the 'ancients' my name. She said an old belief/tradition is that whenever you traveled away from your home you would find out some of the ancient names and call them, say your name, what you are doing on their land, and apologize if you have to defile it in any way (such as bathing in the creek, or relieving yourself on their land). I told her I thought that is a pretty nice thing to do in general, so I have taken it up and think it's a good idea all over this world. She said I should say something like this, "Ancients of this land, my name is Kevina Casaletto. I just came to this place to do some works, I won't be staying here forever. Please let me leave as I have come."
My 'works' Almost all the cloths
Comparing all the work
You may remember when, several month ago we traded one of Dobby's remaining puppies for a chicken. Our chicken was brown and gold and beautiful. Since I came back from Canada I haven't seen it, there are about 35 chickens that live at our house so I thought I just wasn't paying good attention, or it was wandering far for bugs and worms. Wrong. Mrs. Cecilia came to my door the other day and said, "Keveen, I no want to tell you from long, but your chicken, she's gone." She explained about the chicken sickness that is sweeping the village. Chickens are fine and eating one day then dead the next morning! Villagers have been slaughtering troves of chickens 10,14, 20 at once to get food out of them before the sickness gets them. They don't get sores or weak just good one day, dead the next. I told her I understood and that it was okay. They said they didn't want to tell me because they know I 'cry after puppies' and since Ms. Cecilia cries when her chicks or chickens get killed (not by her hand) she thought I surely would be distraught too. She said they never did find my chicken, they went all around the village looking and asking after her, but I assured her it was okay. She said my chicken had laid just 4 eggs, just starting her life, and she wanted to try to roost her and see if she was a good mother hen or not. "I ma tink maybe keveen da have plenty chicken." (I was thinking maybe kevina would have lots of chickens.) Alas, no more chicken.
I Hope My Wasp Isn't Dead
Over the past few weeks we have developed a certain fondness for this one little wasp. Greg discovered it while bathing one day gathering wood pulp from the top board of our shower. Greg would watch it, research how mud wasps build their nest, then bring me out at 6:00am to show me and explain his little actions. He would carefully point out the tracks the wasp has made slowly chewing the wood into a pulp and mixing it with his spit to form a little ball which he then caries between his chin and chest to a clothespin on our line he's chosen to build his nest. We've carefully tracked his progress over the days, spending many minutes together in the shower standing, our faces inches away from the little wasps busily doing his hard work. Now his work is finished, and he's gone.
Double Digit Count Down
Our official COS (Close of Service) date is October 14th! Two years, it is a long time, a long long time and now we are nearly finished. The villagers only talk about this; when I'm leaving, how I will feel, will I come visit, and don't I want to just find work here and stay. I have so many different feelings. Excitement about being back in the states, convinces, and most of all family and friends. Sadness about never living here again, about leaving my rock at the creek, about the children forgetting us, about forgetting hard work. This time in our life is nearly finished, two whole years! The 22nd of this month we will have spent exactly half our marriage as Peace Corps Volunteers. The hardest thing we've ever done in our lives.
Email from our friend Rachael: "I was totally reminded of this while reading Kevina's description of your puddle incident:
Did you see any manatees while diving for your shoes?"
Awe, Honey, that was just awesome. I can't stop crying when I read about leaving Belize. I can't imagine what you're going through with the sadness of leaving these great people! xo
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