Cacao Fest: What is the Meaning of Life? All Evidence to Date Suggest it's Chocolate. -Anonymous

Toledo hosts this wonderful celebration of all things cacao called, appropriately: Cacao Fest. Christine managed to get around 12 or so Peace Corps Volunteers to well...volunteer Friday and Saturday. There was a potential for a west side story dance off between all the volunteers in the Ketchi Po'ots (shirts) and the tiny Maya women in their mopan shirts. We were each huddled in our own semi-circles, eyeing each other. The evening was winding down and the flute man was playing the theme to titanic...I was hoping we would unleash our sweet moves, and either school or get schooled but alas I had to go back to work. It was a wine and cheese fest on the roof of UB (University of Belize). The only beverage available to drink was wine until around 9:20. We were paid in chocolate.


Sunday was an all day fest at Lubaantun. The chunk of cleared jungle intended for a parking lot at the entrance was just a huge mud puddle. The rain held off and people packed onto the ruins to enjoy the Monkey dance and a performance by the 3 kings. The Monkey dance depicted both max (spider monkeys) and batz (howler monkeys). I decided that day that Morpheus' new nick name is batz, the family agreed. The American Ambassador was there along with a British couple honeymooning who loved the 75 euro cent beers.

Did I mention it is the rainy season?

I finally got my Maya ear rings. EVERYONE comments. The standard six boys say, "Miss you fashion." Mrs. Cecilia has told me I am beautiful now every morning since and Tanisha told me, "Kevina your kind now. You know like...Indian. The Indian kind." A mopan woman and I had a little ketchi conversation and then I got to shake the hand of her grandbaby Kevin...who was 2 months.

There was a free fair in the park on Saturday. There was a lady, I will not name names or organizations but she did say...in the blistering heat, "If you're helping, you should be standing." I worked the rock painting station. Children had to sign their name then they were given 5 cacao beans to go 'spend' on face painting, story telling, puppet making, etc.

Cacao:
An evergreen tropical American tree (Theobroma cacao) having leathery, ellipsoid, ten-ribbed fruits borne on the trunks and older branches. Also called chocolate tree.
The seed of this plant, used in making chocolate, cocoa, and cocoa butter. Also called cacao bean, cocoa bean.

Cacao Uk...for 50 cents.

Water cooler cups of chocolate...good pay for a good day's work.

http://www.toledochocolate.com/

Cacao Ice Cream... Icing on the Cake

'China Saq' The 'Little White' comes to visit:

Last weekend most of the current volunteers took in a trainee or two to show them what life is like on the outside (of training). We got Kaytlin a fellow Teacher Trainer and it started off with a bang...as in thunder. Right when her bus was about to reach a torrential down poor unleashed itself (this is supposed to be the dry season). We started getting worried because she caught the early bus and Fermin didn't know. We were going to walk over to Fermin's but Santiago said no and said he would 'call' him. This is when I saw the 'village phone' in action. Santiago stood under the thatch of the cocine and proceeded to yell Fermin's name and then do a wolf howl thing. The dogs of the village all responded right away but it was a few attempts before we heard a responding human yell. This man lived down by the shop and Santiago yelled "Se'bah Fermin!"( Hurry Fermin) which was then passed to Fermin. Fermin responded through the man that he would come right now and a few minutes later we were piled in the truck on our way to pick up Kaytlin!

Tortilla time!

Sunday we woke up at 5 to go watch/ help bake for the thatching of Ms. Yatz's house. Here's how it works:

There are two sides and you must have the same number of men as beams (this house had nine beams across so 9 per side). As the men arrive they climb up one next to the other until a side is filled. Once all 9 are on that side they can begin. They hoist up cahoon leaves two at a time and layer them alternating leaf direction then tie them every 5. The other side cannot start until all 9 men come. It is a race to the top and whichever side gets to the top first gets to come down and eat while the losers have to thatch the crest (a long and hot process since it is not around8:30 and the sun is feeling quite strong). Kaytlin and I made tortillas, well she made one and it kinda didn't work so she watched. Greg said when the men first started working one guy yelled, "Cacao uk!!!!"(cacao drink) then they all started yelling it until women tied containers or cacao to strings and hoisted them up to the workers.

Greg hauling leaves

Our village at 5:30am

Tortilla pizza's and ginger tea. Yummy!

We met up with all the Toledo volunteers and their respective trainees in town for market. We caught the bus with Tracy and Jane and ate fruit at her house until we could catch the return bus to the ruins. We played at the ruins for a long time. They were excavating some more sites and the guy in charge let us touch and blow through the whistles they dug up...from ancient Maya time!

Also there is a movie about the crystal skull found at our very own neighborhood ruins...check it out if you can find it!
It is called: The Crystal Skull of Lubaantun (1990)

The ball game...I am sure this is exactly how it looked.

But I don't wanna be sacrificed!

Our trainee...Kaytlin

Sunday was packed, by 9:30 we watched a house be thatched, had cacao and caldo, and washed our clothes at the creek. After we almost napped, and played with Morpheus we rode our bikes to Big Falls Lodge and enjoyed swimming in a real live pool!! We then went and visited Mr. Chun and his family then walked across the village to Mr and Mrs. Choco. They made us dinner last Thursday and invited us again for our trainee visit! They made BBQ! During dinner Martin (Mr. Choco's brother) kept us up to date on the Big Falls village elections. Then we learned that each village has a jail...INCLUDING Silver Creek! They thought it was hilarious I did not know this. Turns out, in the community center there is a cell and a few times a week they throw in a drunk person to sleep it off. Then after chatting for a while about their cat that just had kittens, she brings out a container and says, "You will taste my cacao ice cream?" This was the best ice cream I have EVER had!!!!! It had small pieces of cacao, was dark brown and tasted almost like dark chocolate ice cream with a hint of coffee taste.

We finished off the visit with a visit to my school and then it was back to training for Kaytlin!

Our garden's first harvest!

Our football team squashed Indian Creek Village...4-0 That is our guy in the white.