"So you speak the Qeq'chi?"

Photo by Margarita Coh -8years

Quotes:
"Mis is the soap burning your hands?" -Maya woman at the river, asking me
"No (looking at my hands) why?" -me
"(all the women look around) well your hands are red?" -Says another woman
"Ooooh, yeah....you see white people turn red when they get cold." -me at the river washing when it was 65 degrees

"What should I do with my life?"-Grace, after our Q'eqchi instructor introduced the next topic: Future tenses of verbs

"I wish I could just write it how it smells." Erica, at her second ever Q'eqchi class

"I really like how this sheep poo just turns into grass when you step on it." -me while playing volleyball in Blue Creek.

"Does your Daddy grow corn on his plantation?" -Manuel (the 61 year old brother of Santiago) to Greg

The latest trend swiffering our village:
SLING SHOTS! It looks like our village has been infested with Denis the Menises...and I LOVE it! All the kids have these great sling shots...they borrow their dad's kuxtals (planting 'purse' thing) and fill it with rocks and travel in little gangs of three shooting targets throughout the village. Kind of like lazer tag only for real. The sling shots are home made, our shop sells the thick rubber by the foot. I cought one of my Standard 3 students eagerly buying his bit of rubber...his Y-shaped stick hanging out of his back pocket.

Joke:

A Y shaped stick walks into a bar.

Bartender: "We don't serve your kind."

Y shaped stick: "it's okay I'm with the band."

The path to Fermin and Andres' houses

Where some do their washing...my creek is cleaner and bigger (not to brag or anything)

HA! This had to be hard to fix.

One of the roads to plantation

Babies and Blues:
The good news...Saturnina had her baby!!!! A healthy baby boy of almost 7 pounds. He was just named (after his two week birthday) but it is super long and I don't remember it. He is very cute and spends most of the day in the 'lepop' which is a sort of baby hammock that they make out of a white square of fabric folded in a triangel. The two points of the triangle are tied to a 10 inch wide strip of fabric which is used to hang the lepop from any hook or from their foreheads. Saturnina said she would show me how to make one. Since it has been cold they wrap a blanket around the whole thing so it looks like a little pyramid of cloth suspended from the rafters. This I love, and the baby loves it too!

I got to observe his first bath. they heated water and poured it into the pig tail bucket of cold water. Then they scrub him down while they hold him over their lap...which since it was in the low sixties elicited angry wailing from the baby. After he was clean they wrapped him in a towel and brought him into the cocine. There Cecilia (the grandmother) called me in to watch out the 'Indians warm the babies.' She held a cloth over the fire hearth for just a few seconds then softly pushed it against the babies trunk at which point he would shiver and let out a little satisfied cooing noise. This was repeated until he was nice and pink and sleeping.

Okay now for the blues...Saturnina's husband, Estevan got in a bad accident on his motorcycle when his son was 4 days old. He was flown to Belize City and they just took him off of the coma inducing medicine two days ago. We are all still unsure of his future...he was lucky and broke no bones, no spinal injury and no skull fracture or swelling. However he has sustained massive head and face trauma and the first night all the villagers came to the house to cry and pray because we didn't think he would make it. Please keep him in your thoughts.

Our first community meeting:
Much to my delight the community meeting was announced by a series of loud conch shell blasts. The staff from the school came to introduce themselves and give an update (we just met with all of the PTA before for the first time so we informed them of these things also). The Alcalde was speaking a while and I knew he was talking about Greg and I (we went to him a couple weeks ago asking if we could just kind of introduce ourselves to the community). So when the Preschool teacher leaned over and said it was our turn I got quite nervous. Greg and I gave a 5 minute speech in Q'eqchi and I think they appreciated it. This was the most productive meeting I've been to in Belize! It was only men and there was lots discussed. They even brought up trying to get internet in our village! I love my village and left happy and excited!

Just call him the cow whisperer

Brandon loves greg, and greg loves the chicks...the two brothers.

Sheldon and Brandon

One morning Sheldon and Murphy came to our door, we gave them small 'local' bananas and they proceeded to sit down in our doorway and have a little 3 year old conversation for 10 minutes...it was TOO cute!

Brushing their teeth...Ofelia and Whindon

Tanisha

TFABB-ulous:
Teacher For A Better Belize (of which we are a model school) came the first week we were back and spent two intensive days in my village, two in Amy's village and one with the big wigs of management and Ministry. It was great letting the teachers see model lessons, and getting to collaborate with everyone. There is a lot of work, but it will be worth it. One of the volunteers who came down was a former volunteer from Punta Gorda and she spoke some mean Kriol. One of my teachers later said, "I like hear her speak da Kriol Miss Kevina." So I told her I would work on mine. We had quite an adventure one night trying to get back to my village, it involved nearly running out of gas, hailing gas men in the middle of the night, and dog poo. I will leave it at that.

TFABB and staff at Luis' house for his daughter's 12th birthday...Caldo and cake!

Plenty Garden Workshop:

Fun Fact: Plants with yellow leaves are most likely lacking nitrogen.

Solution: Add manure or plant peanuts or other legume plants in between

This workshop is for educators and it was very informative...we made 'medicine' for plants (a dry compost that will fix most ailments), learned how to take care of cabbage, identify simple problems, and keep garden logs. It was great being outside and playing in the dirt.

Greg helping to make the plant 'medicine' and the magic cacao leaf used for pesticide and bug replant

Our instructor

This was in one of the gardening books!

Tending to the cabbage

Qeq'chi Training at Tumulkin Institute of Learning:
All of us first years who were trained in Qeq'chi got to go to an alternative high school (focused on preserving Maya culture and agriculture) for three days of intense language training. We were all picked up by a van rented by Peace Corps in our villages. We were the second ones to be picked up and it was quite hilarious with all the kids yelling bye and waving at us. As we left the village I saw one of my favorite students walking with his mom so I stuck my head out and yelled "By Serapio!" He got so excited and ran a little bit after us smiling. Tumulkin is a boarding school where the students sleep in dorms for 10 days then have 4 days to go home. They have to get up and start their chores at 4am (we found one of their schedules). We all slept in the boys dorm, it felt like college playing games and cutting hair all night. Our classes were held in a cement and thatch classroom with screens and we were fed 3 meals a day and two snacks of fresh fruit or johnny cakes...delicious. Our training was just what we needed...verbs, verbs, verbs! Now we could survive in Qeq'chi ex: Your house is burning. Will you go bathe now? I have to vomit. Can we help? You get the idea. We can all now count to 40 and name all our body parts.

Fun Fact 1: lips are called 'mouth-skin' I like to think of a Qeq'chi man looking into his wife's eyes and saying "oh your lip skin is so beautiful."

Fun Fact 2: Kis=fart

After the first day of training we played several games of volleyball in our flip flops with the two language trainers. We were sweaty, the ball was covered in sheep poo, and Megan broke her flip flop but it was so much fun! We also went and explored some of the creek for which the village is named. The water was so clear and blue and like sirens pulled me into its sweet refreshing depths.

Traffic jam in Belize.

Grace leaving school all ready to learn.

Look mom! Sequence!

Taylor's hair before and after...this being the 18th haircut I've done.

Yeah we chased the goats...

The namesake of the village...Blue Creek (and a lizard)

A lovely washing stone.

Playing bananagrams before dinner

The campus.

Our classroom.

We played a lot of bananagrams

Operation Integration

So I have been feeling very discouraged as far as our progress in integration. Since we don’t have a host family in my village and my counterpart does not live here we have been kind of left on our own to integrate. Our landlords are great and that has been wonderful but we need to venture out. Thus, my new year’s resolution:

Operation Integration

The operation began with deciding to go to church after we got back. Greg and I had a lovely walk from the junction to our house after a 6 hour bus ride. We greeted several people along the way and I was feeling quite good about life. This continued when Sofia and her little sister Sharon came over with cake and gave me a hug wishing me happy new years. I invited her in and we chatted for a while. Sofia is really nice and is in 3rd form at the high school in town (like a junior). I found out her mom had a baby a month ago and I said how I’ve never seen her. I mustered up my nerve and asked if it would be okay if we came by to meet with the rest of her family. She said that would be fine and that her mom would like that. Excellent.

The following day we woke early and dressed for church. We found out that there would not be a prayer service but mass at 11:00 so I cleaned and organized the house. At around 10:45 all the kids with their green ketchi songbooks in hand came to our door eagerly telling us it was time for mass to start and that the priest would soon reach. We walked over to the church. It was very muddy (some dry season) and I immediately stepped in a huge mud puddle. Sheldon ran and got me a bowl of water from their rain barrel and we were off again, slipping and sliding in my wet flip flops. We are almost to the church and my foot slips right off my flip flop and it breaks! It is too far and muddy to go back so I decide to just go barefoot (half the people don’t have shoes so I won’t be weird). As I get to the church 3 boys from school are sitting on a bench outside. They look at my flip flops in hand and say, “your slippers burst miss?” I nod and put them down by the bench and head inside. There are not too many people in there and we go to the small benches in the back and have a seat. I must admit it was a free feeling going to church without shoes…I do love being barefoot. Everyone was singing and people started to come in until the church was packed, standing room only. We could then see the obvious divide in the church. Women and children were on one side, our side, and men on the other. Oops, well next time Greg will sit with the men but I think people will forgive us for our mistake.

We are surrounded by kids, one is playing with Greg’s arm hair, others are just staring at us or smiling. Every time we stood to sing this little baby would hold my thumb and when I smiled at him a huge one toothed smile would spread across his face. He also like my new watch. Once, after he played with it his sister taped his mom and pointed to my watch. She then wiped it off…I guess there was baby drool. I smiled at the mom and said it was fine; he was a cute little boy. Us nene’ (good baby). Mass was fine, I did not feel awkward…perhaps because my feet were free of modern man’s prison of shoes. All the important people of the village were there except the chairman (I think he is Baptist) and they all seemed pleased that we came. Afterward Sofia ran up to walk beside me as we went out and she was excited that I came. I went outside and a boy ran off to find the other ‘slipper’ and then we started to walk home. There was a group of women looking at me with smiles on their faces. I held up my slippers and explained, ‘my slippers burst right before I reach the church.’ “ooooh” they all giggled and we walked home surrounded by a gaggle of kids waving to people we knew. A great feeling.

Later that day we walked over to the PTA chairman’s house, he wasn’t home and so we decided to go to Sofia’s house. The whole family was there except the dad (who camps in Placencia for his job all week). We chatted with the older brother and then Sofia ran inside and much to my delight reappeared with the little baby which she thrust into my arms! She was so tiny and cute! I held her for a while and then she started to cry and was clearly hungry so I reluctantly gave her back to her mom. It started to rain so we excused ourselves and went home so I could bake my tortillas. First house visit…check!

The following day the integration did not stop! I saw the bucket with clothes and soap by the cocine and I quick asked Saturnina if they were going to the river today. She said yes and I then asked if I could come with to try washing clothes in the river. She said that would be fine and a half an hour later I was walking with a bucket behind a very pregnant Saturnina caring her bucket on her head. I could not stop singing the song from Jungle Book when the girl is getting water, “I will go and fetch the water, till the day that I am grown….till I’m grown, till I’m grown.” We walked in-between houses on a muddy path and I began to hear the river. We had to climb down about 15 feet of slippery muddy rock (with Spotty, the dog, jumping around in-between us). Cecila (the mom) was already washing. There were about 8 nice washing stones at a bend in the river and we left our bags with our towels and change of clothes on the banks and wadded in. It was about thigh deep and we began by scrubbing all the stones (ducks like to use them too). You need three rocks, one to wash, one to put soapy clothes to soak, and one to put the clean clothes. This was much easier work than washing by hand in the buckets, you could just lay the garment out on the rock and use the brush then use the whole rock as a washboard. The whole while little fish are nibbling my ankles and Margarita and Sheldon and splashing around and calling my name every minute and saying in ketchi that I am big, or my ears are big or my feet are big, etc.

Saturnina asked if we had rivers and creeks back where I’m from, which I explained yes we do. Then she asked, “and do many people bathe in the river?” I told her I don’t think anyone did, that mainly we take rafts down, swim, or fish in the rivers. She looked a little shocked and went back to washing for a while. Then she asked if lots of people had washers. I said yes that everyone I knew had a washer AND dryer and that people thought we were crazy for not having a dryer. She seemed a little puzzled by this and then said, ‘I’ve seen those big washers, the ones the size of a stove.’ I told her yes that is what everyone has and that I had never seen the spinner type they have here before. By this time we were nearly done with our clothes, Sheldon had caught a little fish and had his whole head and shoulders in the 5 gallon bucket to stare at it, and it was time to bathe. The mom was already naked except some shorts and continued to chat as she floated around and soaped up. I took off my shirt (I had a bathing suit on) and then began to bathe. You had to swim to a little deeper part to go under and everyone laughed because I thought it was freezing. It was very fun bathing in the middle of a jungle gazing at the satisfying stack of wet folded clothes on my rock. We then dressed and walked back with our loads on our heads…it is a good life.

Sak' Eb (White People)

New Years

For new years all the volunteers had been planning to go to Caye Caulker, a vacation spot where we could dress like Americans and just relax for a while. Most everyone caught the 6am express and we had a 6 hour bus ride up to Belize City. Then we made a hilarious white people train as we walked through the rain to the water taxi…you see none of us wanted to pay the 6 dollars for a taxi. We quickly discovered it was indeed cruise ship day (even though it is supposed to be Tues and Thurs and it was Wednesday). I have never seen so many white people since arriving in Belize. It was weird. I found myself staring at them, at their new clothes bought just for this cruise, at their short shorts, at the way they bumbled around sticking out like sore thumbs…I repressed my feelings though and we made our way to the water taxi. An hour on a speeding boat later and we are at our hostel. We toured the island, which took about 40 minutes (it is a small island) then went swimming at the split. They have picnic tables in the water that you can drink at. We just splashed all around and swam until we were freezing. After dinner we proceed to sing karaoke for several hours in a bar full of tourists.

Patrick is so integrated...look at that pillowcase bag!

Our hostel

On new years eve we went on an all day snorkel adventure that we got a great discount on because of one of Kevin’s friends from his village! 65 Belize for lunch, fresh fruit, seviche, 3 hour long snorkel stops…the last being a guided tour, and punch. The captain and first mate (Rasta man) remembered Emily, because she speaks kriol so well, and we had a great time. On the way out only one person, Kevin, succumbed to sea sickness…we would have had more but the captain keeps Dramamine on hand. We saw more fish on this tour than we have anywhere…Hawaii, Italy, California, anywhere! It was amazing. We swam with sharks and rays at the second stop. They threw off a bunch of little fish bits and a lot of nurse sharks appeared out of nowhere. Then we jumped off the other side of the boat and we could swim right with them. We fed big blue fish oranges from our hands and Greg got caught in a feeding frenzy while hand feeding bait to the eager fish. He even got little nibbles around his hand.

All of us about to have the most awesome snorkel time ever!



Even the dogs are happy and enjoy the blue waters

The split


LUNCH

Look at the sharks! Such blue water!

On our guided snorkel tour we saw a moray eel. Our guide just dove down, made some clicking sounds with his hands near a hole and bam, out comes a huge green eel! The guided tour was along this natural channel and we were told to swim close to the 20ft wall of reef so we don’t go into the open channel That’s where the ‘big fish’ come in from sea. We saw a fish that looked like something out of the life aquatic. It was four inches and bright royal blue, but it had bright blue rhinestone looking dots all over it that glittered as it swam. I was mesmerized. We saw a devilish looking group of 4 to 5 foot barracudas daydreaming with their nightmarish grins staring off into the distance. We didn’t linger there. We swam over to the shallows and after a few minutes we were right up on a green sea turtle. He looked over and seemed to care less that we were there and dove back down to munch on some broken coral. I had never seen a sea turtle in real life in the ocean; I thought they would move quicker. We also saw goliath carp or grouper (I can’t remember which) they were about 4 feet and just huge…like the size of a pig with a big trap door mouth the size of my hand. One was lurking in the shadows of an anchored boat and yeah, maybe I got a little scared. On our way back we were under sail the whole time as the sun set and it was just super. A fantastic way to end the year!

Lilly got that hat for free, the Kev's dominated in arm wrestling.

New Years was spent overeating on lobster pockets and then dancing our hearts out until 1AM. Everyone was sweaty and happy, it was one of the best new years I’ve had. We relaxed at Pat and Keri’s awesome house…used the internet and the washer AND DRYER and watched TV with Peter. Great vacation, just what we needed.

What a sweaty fun night!

Belize City bus station vendors