Where I will live.

I am going to a place called Blue Creek in the Toledo District.  I am about 21 miles West of Punta Gorda, which is really really south and really really really rural.  My village has a population of 49 households and does not have running water or indoor plumbing.  All of the houses are wood and thatch, though most have some sort of electricity.  I am going to be working with the village council on a ecotourism projects related to nearby caves and mountains as well as doing women's development.  My counterpart is actually the village mid-wife and is a community leader and advocate for life-skills training for the women.  The village is almost completely Mayan, so I will be learning at least one, if not two, of the indigenous Mayan langauges along with a little bit of Spanish, being so close to Guatemala.  I am actually really stoked about the local and there is another volunteer in my same village and a few people that I have made friends with in nearby villages.  We have a 3 month home stay once we get there, which is fine, so I will keep you posted.  We leave for technical next week, and I will be traveling for a couple weeks before returing to Belize City on Aug 10th for our last week then swearing in.

 

The Ocean and Punta

Yesterday we were finally able to get to the ocean.  Yes, three weeks in this country and I am losing my tan line and have not even dipped a toe into the Caribbean Sea.  The inland scenery is amazing though, so I don't really have too much to complain about.  So we went to Dangriga, in the Stann Creek District, home of the Garifuna ( read here for more).  We traveled down the hummingbird highway past some of the most amazing scenery I have ever seen and ended up on the coast.  We learned how to dance the Punta, a traditional and very sexy dance.  Click here for the video I took and put on Google. 

After the culture center, we saw how to make bread out of Cassava and then ate a wonderful lunch of fish sere (surray) and hutu (mashed plantains).  The house where we ate looked over the ocean, and it would have been a wonderful day for swimming had it not been raining for the past three weeks straight.  The rivers that feed into the sea in the area are all flooding and bringing tons of dirt into the water, so it was pretty dirty.  Instead, we stopped at the INLAND Blue Hole, which is a natural lagoon, and took a swim.  It was great and I have put some more pictures up, so enjoy.

3 days til I know my site!

On Sweating

So way back in the day I used to occasionly partake in a sauna for personal pleasure and for the many health benefits.  I also used to pride myself on my lack of sweat until the hottest rounds of these saunas.  This minimal sweating also once applied to my runs, which my dear roommates from PLU can attest to.  Well, no more.  I can now sweat with the best of them.  People here keep telling me that once your pores open up, you can not stop the sweating.  So that is what I do, day in and day out.  But no worries, I am not alone. 

In other news, life in Cayo is still great.  Rainy, but that is because it is the mango season and you take the good with the bad.  Bug bites are frequent but not that annoying and training days are long.  I really really love this country and all the other volunteers are great.  Check out our group blog at http://pcbelize.blogspot.com.

In Ruins

We had our first cultural day/field trip today. From San Ignacio, we went just a few miles towards Guatemala and stopped in Benque Viejo to learn about the Mestizo people in Belize (one of many cultures in the country). We had a little history lesson about the Maya in Belize, which I wont bore you with. If interested look it up on wikipedia.com. Anyways, after a great lunches of Bolles (kind of like tamales but wrapped in Plantain leaves), we headed out Xuanantunich, a local Mayan Ruin. Very cool, even though some of the guys were bummed that we missed the world cup game.

BTW - host family life is great. We did a little partying over the weekend for my host-mom's B-day and she is an excellent cook. I am living next to two other volunteers, Stan and Molly, and Molly and I have gone for runs the past two days in a row. Overall life is good and i have posted tons of new pics, so go to my zoto site at http://biallasa.zoto.com

Georgeville, Cayo District

Last night we moved in with our host families and all of the apprehensions that I once had are no longer.  My family is great and I am with another volunteer.  Our host mom, Miss Elizabeth is a great cook and she has promised to show me how to make homemade tortillas.  I am picking up a little bit of Creole and its aarite.

Today we traveled to Georgeville for our first little bit of independence.  So far our time has been very structured, but this gave us a chance to experience a very small village in a small group.  We were just given the name of the village and an assignment.  It was fun to find the bus, take the bus, find the village, meet people in the village and learn about the people.  It sounds hard, but the people here are so open that it was quite easy to find people willing to talk with us. 

I am trying to keep my photos updated, but sometimes it is hard to keep up with things and life.  Back to world cup soccer, this town is all about Brazil.