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.
Tuesday, January 5, 2010
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.
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
Sunday, December 27, 2009
Christmas in the Tropics
Sheldon (3), Margarita (7), Tanisha (8), and Sheldon again.
For Christmas Eve we went in town for a Toledo BBQ with 16 other Peace Corps volunteers. Kristen came over to Erica’s to make a Christmas cake and died Piglet’s (Erica’s kitten) paws red and green. Everyone brought something and there was sooo much food. Potato salad, mac-n-cheese, stuffing, cranberry sauce, salad, veggie kabobs, hot dogs, porch chops, steak, brownies, cookies, bread pudding and cake. We ate ourselves into oblivion…I mean oblivion. We discussed the 2nd years’ new theories on why we are all still here/so positive. Looked at Taylor's new staff infection, and lamented on how we all got stomach worms. It was a lovely evening of lying around, catching up, and playing never have I ever. It was a very fun night. The grill was homemade and amazing (way to go Dave) and there was a beautiful art piece of a James bus, made by a volunteer of years past, to gaze upon. By 9:00 everyone was getting tired (you see most of us live in villages and our bed time is usually 8:00). We went home merrily to Erica’s where we all slept in her room, Greg slept on the floor next to us because he did not want to sleep in the bare cement room that looked like Azkaban. We woke up late (7:45) and laid around, we watched Erica open her presents, hung some Christmas lights and then set off to make the best breakfast ever. We walked to the Chiny store (miraculously open) and got all the fixins. Here is the menu of our delicious Christmas breakfast:
-French toast w/cinnamon
-eggs with tomatoes
-orange juice
-hot chocolate
Erica's Christmas Kitty, Dave enjoying his successful BBQ party!
Yummy...That is a huge pot of delicious beans which we ate long after we were full.
Christmas CAKE!
Christmas Cokes with Erica
Dave's Charlie Brown Christmas Tree...and Taylor.
Our Belizean shorts (Jorts for Greg) and our matching shirts...dorks I know.
Christmas fixins
Silence.
The best breakfast ever...with christmas decorations and a Theador the penguin.
Team Toledo
Greg, wrapped up tight with visions of sugar plums...Erica Christmas morning.
Greg wasn't even a bad Scrouge this Christmas!
After enjoying our feast and calling our parents and friends we set off to attempt to find a ride back to our village. There were only two buses on Christmas, 10:00 (it was 11:00) and one at 3:00. We went back to Erica’s and were visited by some other volunteers. I cut Dave’s hair and we had some cereal and headed off, exhausted, back home. On our walk from the junction we hitched a ride with Tracy’s host family. When we got home we were pleasantly surprised to learn that the Christmas BBQ we were invited to at Andreas’ (the eldest son of the people we rent from). We quickly changed and Margarita walked us over to his house. It was down two roads and was a nice cement house on pillars. The whole family was under the house where they had a fire hearth and benches. Kids ran out to us and gave us ‘Christmas hugs’ and pulled/dragged us to the party. Everyone was very nice and we were given BBQ and cokes and they told us all sorts of stories about the bank and about our village. The old man that died, was one of the three founders of this village! He was the last surviving founder. They told us that we were like family and they were so glad we came (they invited another American couple from town and they didn’t come). They told us of how one night when they were laughing until late it was because of Santiago, the dad. Fermin (the second oldest brother) lifted up his shirt and was complaining how his belly was growing. Andreas lifted his and said that he thinks his is not so big. This is when Santiago said that it was from all his beans. Santiago explained; he told Andreas to weed his beans on the plantation and to put pesticides on them when they were young. Andrea put it off, and every time Santiago went to plantation, there the beans were, un-weeded and being eaten. Until finally Andreas came to plantation only to find no beans left after the bugs and weeds…therefore he is so thin because he ruined his beans! We went home at dusk so that we could call our family and open our presents. What glorious presents we got…it was a wonderful Christmas, and we got to talk to everyone and hear stories of Hunter…who is sounding cuter by the day. We finished our holiday by watching Up in our hammocks with Sheldon and margarita sitting on stools beside us. Margarita had to leave the house several times and would watch from the doorway because the movie was too scary. We went to bed happy, full, and tired that night.
Our SWEET Christmas Loot! Thanks parents!
Happy Birthday Mamma Casaletto!!! Thank you for putting up with all our ridiculous ways. You are the best mother-in-law a girl could want. We love you so much. HAPPY HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!!
Boxing day
After sleeping in (the whole household slept in too!) we cleaned our thatch, burnt our trash, and planned our trip home for Easter. For all you out there here who care or would like to see us here is the itinerary:
Easter Trip Home
Monday 29th
Fly into Charlotte 11:35 PM American Airlines 2172
Tuesday 30th –Thursday 1st
Greg in Raleigh
Kevina in Wilmington
Thursday 1st – Saturday 3rd
Wilmington
(Thursday 1:30 meet at Flaming Amy’s, Friday dinner at the Copper Penny and good times to follow, Saturday breakfast at the Dixie Grille)
*anyone and everyone welcome!
Saturday 3rd –Friday 9th
Raleigh with little Hunter!!!
Friday 9th –Saturday 10th
Charlotte and flight home at 6:00AM Saturday
"Sure that guitar makes fine music...but the piano makes even finer music"
We woke up to a text from Miss Arlene (the young teacher who I get along with really well) inviting us to her brother’s wedding. After a morning of texting we decided we could go and made quick arrangements. The wedding was on the outskirts of Punta Gorda in a village called Indianville at Teul’s Billiards. I had no idea what to expect. The village bus came early resulting in us missing it and walking to the junction. A while after 1 o’clock we decided we most likely missed the James bus too and to try to hitch it. We caught a ride with an old white guy’s pickup truck full of mayas and a dory on a roof rack. He was nice but drove slow and swerved all over the road. He took us to the school. We waited at the speed bump (you see the cars must slow down and then we can give pitiful looks and try to get a ride). It was quite hot but after about 15 minutes we got another ride. It was a younger guy and we chatted easily about the holidays and Belize. He got us to Dump. Where we then caught the 2:00 James bus…success! After a ridiculous walk in the heat to our friends house, and a quick trip to the corner store to buy a wedding present (a mirror and Tupperware) we were off.
We walked down the street to Teul’s Billiards (which just 30 minutes ago looked deserted) and we saw several people standing around under a big balloon arch. We fought through the awkwardness and walked in with our silver and pink presents…the bride and groom were right there on the pool table side of the bar. We did some circles and then pushed into the main part where all the guests were seated and some people were standing to the sides. We put our present on a table and huddled in the corner. I did not see Miss Arlene or Mrs. Benguche (who was also supposed to come). Greg tried to calm me by suggesting that Arlene was in the wedding party, but seeing as how the whole wedding party was on the other side of the glass partition I could easily rule that out. After a few minutes Arlene appears from the kitchen! We chat for a while and she explains that she will be serving all day. Then the procession began.
Flower Girls and the beginning of the ceremony.
An electronic keyboard was brought in, and after a short clip of the wrong song the music was playing and out came the first little girl. Her role was to cut the ribbons between each row of chairs down the aisle. Next, the flower girls came and sprinkled pink and silver glitter and sequence on the aisle. Lastly, the bride. The Pastor had a very interesting sense of humor. He opened the ceremony by asking each one if they truly wanted to marry this person and said that if they don’t they can just let go of their arm and walk out, which they had to then answer into the microphone, ‘yes sir.’ He said that you must love god above anyone else and then quizzed the bride and groom saying, “Who do you love more, God or your spouse to be?” They both answered, “God sir.” Then he told them that to truly love someone you must first love yourself. He asked the bride if she liked what she saw when she looked in the mirror today. Then, he said that if a woman doesn’t love herself she’ll wrap herself up in 15 sheets and by the time the husband gets to the 10th one he’s tired. He told them that if they love each other God said that they should be naked together and unashamed. The groom was told that even though his wife had a guitar shape today that he must love her even if she becomes piano shaped. He said because a guitar ‘makes fine music’ but a piano ‘makes even finer music’ which he finished up with, ‘the older the berry the sweeter the juice.’ Throughout this entire service he would periodically say, “Hello!” to the bride or groom whoever he was telling something too. To explain how love is not a feeling, he gave the hypothetical situation that if his wife comes home and wants pizza, and the closest pizza is in Belmopan (5 hours away) that his feelings might be saying, ‘get your own pizza’ but that love must tell him to go and get it for his wife. By the time he finally got to the vows he had asked the groom so many questions when it was time to say ‘I do’ he said, ‘yes sir.’ At the end of the traditional vows he added, “and to you (spouse’s name) you are the most handsome/ beautiful, man/woman in the world” which they were both uncomfortable saying and caused a lot of nervous giggling on behalf of the bride. Finally, he told them to get close and ‘hug up on each other.’ This looked exactly like two nervous kids at a middle school dance. After they finally got close enough to satisfy the pastor he then had the audience do a countdown for their first ‘legal’ kiss (which of course he did not approve of so they had to do it again). At last they were announced husband and wife and instead of walking down the aisle as such for the first time he requested two chairs so that they could sit with their backs towards the audience and sign the papers. It took about 10 minutes for everyone to sign. Then he faced them back to the crowd and said he forgot to do something in the beginning and proceeded to ask, “Who gives this woman to be married?” There was some chatter and much looking around in shock at his mistake and the father calmly stood up and said, “I gave my daughter to this man for marriage.” The bride and groom then went to take a lap around the town with much horn honking and then came back where we were all given a small bit (of what we quickly discovered to be apple juice not wine) in plastic cups with ice and we toasted the couple. Words of encouragement were given by both sets of parents (Miss Arlene spoke for her mom who mainly speaks Mopan) and then dinner was served. Chicken with cahoon cabbage, potato salad, rice and a roll. We all got juice also. The entire community turned out and everyone was fed…people on the street were encouraged to come and eat. We ate standing and left before the cake so they wouldn’t have two more mouths to feed. The whole event took about 2 ½ hours and was really pretty entertaining. I hope they have a wonderful and long-lasting marriage like the bride’s parents who have been married 36 years. A funeral and a wedding all in one week.
Check out those amazing shelves!!
Hanging out at Cali's and my growing hair.
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