2.27.2007

Conquering Fear

I just made a list of personal things that I have accomplished in the Peace
Corps so far:
~ I have slowed down and nearly eliminated stress from my life
~ I have learned to appreciate kids and their abundant energy
~ I recognize the importance of setting aside pre-conceived notions
~ I have can now make fun of and laugh at myself
~ I have conquered fear

The last item on the list includes all sorts of things. The fear of spiders,
scorpions, the dark, loneliness, and most recently, dark water. For as long
as I can remember, the thought of jumping into any body of water in general,
and in the dark especially, nearly gave me a panic attack. In direct
conflict with this fear has been my desire to explore the cave that sits
right here in my village. The cave is awesome, but to truly experience Blue
Creek cave, you have to swim in with nothing but a headlamp and some guts
for over a mile underground to an interior waterfall. I have heard of this
experience, but have so far shied away. Sunday, a group of visiting students
from the U of Vermont invited me to go with them on a guided tour, and since
I am friends with the guide, I agreed to go.

So I donned my headlamp, my chacos, and some swimming shorts and followed
the eager group into the 50 ft tall cavern. Swimming into darkness, with
stalactites looming high above is one of the creepiest feelings I have ever
had. Our small lights created eerie shadows on the limestone walls, and the
crystal clear water was black for lack of light. Rosalio, our guide,
pointed out the bats above and the catfish and eels below. I wasn't
panicking yet, a good sign. I kept up with the group, but swimming nearly a
mile against a mild current is tough. At some points we scrambled over rocks
and small waterfalls, but then it was back to swimming, at times through
passages as narrow as a hallway and at others through rooms with Cathedral
like dimensions. We rested in a large cavern, taking the opportunity to
turn out our lights and sit in the complete darkness, with only the sounds
of the river and the waterfall we were seeking to remind us that we were
awake. We reached the 30 ft fall and it was worth the trip. The soft
limestone rock created pools and ledges as the water made its way out the
cave, reminding me more of an indoor climbing wall than anything.

Going out was easier with the current, but I was in no hurry. I let my legs
dangle into the the cool, dark, water, not even worried about the unknowns
underneath. Emerging into the light was wonderful, but I knew that from
that point on, I would have a whole new outlook on the water.

2.20.2007

Hitchhiking in Placencia

I just returned to Blue Creek from a lee vacation out on the Placencia Peninsula. Our Peace Corps men's futbol team, the Mighty Gibnuts, played a challenging match against the much more prepared and feisty Seine Bight team. We didn't win, but that didn't discourage us from celebrating and making the most of good beaches and pleasant weather. Placencia is located on the tip of a very long, narrow, dusty peninsula and is about 5 miles from Seine Bight. The easiest and most reliable form of transportation down this road is hitchhiking. Well, you can also walk along the beach the entire way, which I did on Saturday, passing numerous resorts and wetting my feet in the Caribbean Sea on along the way, but it takes a couple hours.

Anyways, Sunday around noon, a friend and I were making our way from Seine Bight down to Placencia to meet up with the rest of the Peace Corps crew. We didn't make it 100 yards out of the village before a beat-up Dodge Neon comes rolling down the road and stopped to see if we needed a ride. Score, we got to ride inside a car rather than in the back of a dirty pick-up. We settled in and prepared for the standard small talk that comes with getting picked up by another white person. Usually it is along the lines of of what we do in Belize, how long we are here, where are we from, etc. etc. The man who picked us up decided to skip small talk and go straight for the big question. "Do you consider yourself a Christian?" he asked. This is not the first time I have been asked this after hopping in a car with a stranger, but it still throws me off. The trouble with this question is that in my experience, the people who are asking it are less in interested in hearing about your beliefs and more interested in telling you ALL about theirs. I mumbled a generic reply in order to avoid a deep philosophical conversation, but could not avoid his stare when the next question to come out of his mouth was, "So...what would you say is the purpose of human existence?" Good question, but not exactly light road conversation. Ken, my friend in the back seat replied, "to find the purpose of human existence." The driver ignored his response and went on a 10 minute long Bible quoting session that only ended when I asked him what church he worked with. "Do you think that there is more than one Church?" he replied. I breathed deep and responded, "oh look, here is where we need to get out, thanks for the ride."

I recovered from the ride by making a bee-line to the Gelateria (the only one in Belize) and getting a Bailey's Gelato cone and washing that down with an Americano. I then went on to contemplating the meaning of human existence while laying on beach chair under a palm tree with a Belikin in my hand while the crystal clear Caribbean Sea lapped at the powdery sand between my toes. I breathed in the slightly cool air, listened to the reggae beats and decided that at that particular moment, I was living the meaning of human existence.

2.13.2007

Epiphany

I remember the brilliant and inspiring thing that I was going to write. Did
you know that Anna Nicole what's her face died?? Bear with me here, I write
about this surprising tidbit of world news because of how long it took me to
hear it. I guess its been about a week now and thanks to my blissful bubble
I just caught wind. So I wanted to write about how great it is to live in a
way and in a place where only the most important news reaches me.

I'll call it the Peace Corps filter. A system of living that allows only
the most pertinent information to reach us in timely manner. I'm sure that
come next month's shipment of Newsweeks, there will be a detailed
examination into the aforementioned person's death, but until then I get to
focus on more important things. For example: Belize is taking bids on
finishing a 9 mile section of the Southern Hwy. This is important because
this highway is the only way in and out of Punta Gorda by road, and for
political reasons beyond my grasp, is beautifully paved to about 25 miles
before Punta Gorda before turning into a pot-holed, cratered, dirt fiasco.
After 9 miles of this nonsense it again turns into a regular two-laned
highway. Imagine going along I-90 towards Spokane, and somewhere around
Ritzville the road suddenly turns into a logging access road better pit for
the Colville National Forest. It then turns back into a proper highway at
Cheney. It is that weird. Anyways, enough ranting about the bumpy bus ride
anytime I need to leave Southern Belize. I have other news to focus on, like
the upcoming Village Council Elections. If you thought politics in the US
were good, let me tell you, nothing beats the race for Village Chair in a
community of 300 for good theatre.

One of those weeks

I can't believe how this week has gone. Personally, I blame Jeff for the
time warp that was the past 8 days. While he is up in Cayo taking a class on
strategic writing (which I respect), I am hiking up and down the road in
Blue Creek, monitoring his classes, keeping the computer lab open, opening
the library, and teaching the primary school kids. In addition, I actually
have been making progress on HIV/AIDS education in the village thanks to a
group of village members that have taken it upon themselves to form a sort
of action committee, so that took up some time. Then I was asked to judge
the school spelling bee and help the PTA do an inventory of all of the
books. Just writing about it makes me exhausted and I may need to lay in my
hammock with a book for an hour or two just to recover.

And then tomorrow is Valentines day, which means absolutely nothing to me
since I'm pretty sure no one in my village has even heard of it. Sure, they
celebrate it in town by drinking too much (standard celebration mode), but
the whole notion of romance is lost on a place where marriages are commonly
arranged and people sometimes barely speak before their wedding. This is in
no way a critical comment, since from what I can see families here in Blue
Creek are happy and work well together. I better stop myself now before I
dig myself into a hole of seeming cultural bias.

Yesterday, sometime between riding the packed bus into town and returning
with my newly purchased plastic chairs and weekly groceries, I had a great
idea of something witty and refreshing to write about. However, because I
lacked a pen and the personal space to reach into my bag to look for one, I
lost the revelation and am stuck writing about the mundane. Sorry, maybe
next time for your sake, I will retain that wonderful insight long enough to
catalogue it for all to see.

2.08.2007

Superbowl and Sleeping In

This past weekend was Superbowl, and while I am sure many of you pictured us
poor Peace Corps volunteers hunkered down in some rural village eating
tortillas and wondering who was even in the game, I am here to tell you that
I just had one of the best Superbowl weekends in recent years. Not paint
your face blue and orange and throw beer cans at the TV kind of partying,
but a good friends + good friends + just the right amount of cold beer kind
of weekend. Marianne & Darren, the coolest married couple in Belize, managed
to make it out of Monkey River (which just happens to be the place where I
thought I was going before I came to Belize) and Ken, from Seine Beight,
joined us as well.

Saturday evening Marianne had the genius idea of making Lasagna. So while
the boys went to the distributors to get a case of Belikin, we went to every
grocery store in town to gather the necessary ingredients. We found Lasagna
noodles, tomato sauce, and onions at one place and ricotta cheese,
mozzarella, and eggplant at another. After 3 or 4 beers, some music, and
some group work in the kitchen, we had our lasagna. It was amazing, to say
the least and fed us for a late Saturday night.

Sunday I woke to the smell of French Toast and fresh coffee. I don't think
anything is better than Sunday mornings spent in your PJ's with a bunch of
friends. We hung around until noon when Nurse D came by with our flu shots,
a foam cooler, and some medical grade ice packs. Now that we were all
immune from the flu and had cold beer, all that was left was BBQ for the
game. Darren and Matt went looking for charcoal while Ken and Jeff built a
makeshift grill on top of our cement water tank using concrete blocks and
the rack from our oven. Lacking lighter fluid was no problem since Ken was
able to make a hot box fire starter using a used caramel corn tin. The lady
across the street hooked us up with some marinated chicken and the local
Rasta, Gormier, found us in time to provide us with some mean tofu burgers.
All we needed now was some football.

We all now how the game went (and if we don't then I'm sorry that we either
lacked access to TV or that we purposely shunned this American tradition).
Even though the Seahawks didn't make it, I still enjoyed the game, and even
won $5BZ in a pool. Monday came too quickly and I gathered up the
left-overs and found my way back to Blue Creek.