Dios Dear Friends,

It is hard to know where to begin this blog as so much has happened and not happened.

Our last days in Medina Bank were fun filled. We (the volunteers) held a health fair for the villagers. Almost the whole village put on their Sunday best and showed up for fun and games - mostly for the children. We had self-esteem building activities, a nutrition store and the Manleys had the race from the pigpen to the cotelebal (latrine) with a handwashing event between each stage. It was a crowd pleaser. We were all so pleased at the turnout of the villagers. Much laughter was shared by all.

We left our village almost 3 weeks ago. We will miss our host families very much as they are now part of us. The past couple of weeks were there,the other volunteers as well as many of their family members joined us for nights of spades and hearts. Our little plywood home would be full of us sac i quinks (basically white folk) and many more Mayans. We played in the candlelight til late nite...at least 9:00pm or later. Woohoo!

Our village thru us a good-bye part in the form of a Mayan Marimba evening in traditional garb. The instruments were all hand hewn. A "guitar", "harp" and "fiddle". The music started and a young couple in Mayan colors began the dance. After that it was time for the village to watch the white folks dance and sweat. Many of the elder woman would join in but it took about an hour and a half for the shyness to wear away and then we were all dancing. By that time we were literally dripping and wringing water out of sweat rags. The gathering lasted about two and a half hours and we all gave in before they did.

The sac i cuinks threw a dinner for the host families. We made fajitas for 65 people. All of us gathered in one thatch - made cua(tortillas) - cooked chickens, peppers and onions over the fires. We also made guacamole and beans. They did seem to enjoy it but one never knows as there is very little emotion ever shown. Still it was fun. Again they wanted the white folk to dance to music but none of them participated. We had learned our lesson and that particular fiesta didn't last as long. We left this village with a little tear in our eye.

Since then basically our backpacks have rarely been off our backs. We spent three days in our new village before the first evacuation. Off to Belmopan to ride out "Dean". After that we were sworn in as official volunteers. We headed back to Punta Gorda on Friday (couldn't begin to know what date) and spent the night. We had much business to attend to such as opening a bank account and gathering some essentials for our permanent stay.

After our first three days at our new home we had to discuss the food situation as we were not going to maintain well at the level of lard we had been receiving. One egg would be scrambled and cooked in three inches of oil. Won't bore you with other eating dishes as it is all basically the same. After what we thought was a positive gathering which culminated in lets cook together (18 people and no less at a meal) and share what we eat and teach nutrition. This resulted in confusion and then no food! So, that didn't work. Meanwhile, we hooked up with TOLCA (Toledo Children and Adolescents) and have begun to go to other villages as well as our own and teach nutrition and hygiene. Much inspired we returned to our home and have attempted to cook meals with our family in very small quarters with multiple species of animals biting and eliminating in the same arena...from pigs, ducks to children. We will just say "challenge". ....Michael has came up with a way to rat proof our sleeping area and we think we have it conquered. "challenge"...want to say all in a day's work .... since our village has the highest rate of worms the head of our PC project is going to help us facilitate a change. xoxoxoxxoxox

This past Monday as you know we were evacuated again...just as we had fixed a breadfruit salad for dinner that night. (sort of a potato salad with lots of veggies) We will never know if they liked it. Did get a few duck bites cooking over the fire and piglets nibbling on the toes!!!!!!????

Off to Belmopan we go again. As Felix "Petered" out it did flood a few areas in the Toledo district where some of us live so, those of us living in that area didn't get to leave Belmopan until yesterday.

We have stopped along the way and are spending two days in Hopkins with Bertie one of the volunteers. We are in a little cabana watching the manatees float by in the blue green Carribean Sea. This morning a "flotilla" of dolphins silently passed by. A welcome relief. We will be heading home tomorrow and waiting out the change that must be made. Will fill you in later.

Meanwhile, we have made many friends and are anxious to be working and productive. It was very fun going out to the villages deep in the jungle to teach the nutrition classes. Heard the howler monkeys from Aguacate. Very cool. Overall, our job is to teach nutrition, hygiene and help with latrine building. Seventy-five percent of the homes in our village do not have latrines. They use the bush. It will take time to effect change...as they don't see that as an issue but request help with adding on to the school. Time............

Much love to all
us

Dios

We have just met our Peace Corps counterparts from the village we will be living in. We met the village chairman and the alcalde.

Village politics:

There is a village council
Village Chairman
Vice Chairman
Village Secretary
Vice Secretary
Village Treasurer
Vice Treasurer

These people handle all the non-judicial issues of the village.

Alcalde
Deputy Alcalde
3-4 policeman

These folks handle all the judicial issues...fights..."thieving"...etc. If it is very serious the erroring parties are sent to P.G. to jail/court.

There is a village waterboard that takes care of the village water supply if there is one.

These entities are not always functional but good news!!!

We will have running water and electricity in our new village. We don't know if it will be all working all the time...but it will be a first for us since we have come to Belize. We are very hopeful!!

In our current village the rains last weekend raised the river almost 15 feet. Even the spring was flooded out and muddy. Since the waterboard at this village is dysfunctional the whole village was without any clean water for several days. Fortunately, the spring became clear within a couple days and we were at least able to get a river bath and some laundry done. The PC is great about supplying us with drinking water. It does however, suck to be without water.

We will be leaving this village next Thursday and despite the hassles we will greatly miss our family. There have been nightly card games with them and the other volunteers. All quite fun. Had a visitor last nite....SNAKE (c'anchi) coming up the wall in our abode. Long and skinny...never saw the end of him before he went back to his hiding place. He was searching for pelpels (frogs). All is well...never saw him again. We have been lucky on that front...everyone else has had rats(cho'), scorpions (xooc) and turantulas (??? can't remember).

Signing off...we are getting a gourmet vegetarian meal tonite compliments of the PC. Can't miss it.

Anyone wanting to send some CUTTER's ADVANCED down to us we would be most grateful. If we had 20 - 25 bottles of it - it wouldn't be too much.

Flush a toilet for us!

howan chic

Dios

We are in Belmopan just finding out where we will be stationed for the next two years!!! We are very excited about our placement...it is very close to the ocean!!! We will be working with the local health workers, the school and TOLCA (Toledo Children and Adolescents) A very amitious organization trying to upgrade the schools with such things as flush toilets and play grounds. Around here that is a very ambitious goal. They also want to create "healthy beginnings" for children from 0 - 8 and promote prenatal and post natal care. We have made some great connections to individuals who requested personally that we be involved in this process. Michael will be going into town 1 -2 times a week while I work with the local health worker and school principal. There will be more to tell when we get on the job. We leave for our sites on August 16 for 3 days and then back to Belmopan for a few days to be sworn in as official Peace Corps volunteers at the American Embassy on August 22. We then head to our jobs for two years.

Yesterday - we got a playday and went to Hopkins with our tech trainer! We spent an beautiful day in the sun and ocean. A sleepy little Garifuna community where some of our trainee sisters are working. We spent the day at a lovely resort called Parrot Cove! We hope to get back to make a weekend visit there. It was lovely, small, CLEAN and initmate. It even had a small pool but the ocean was our choice. The beautiful Carribean blue was too hard to resist.

One of the trainees within our group of 6 got giardia and ecoli. He was getting rice meals three times a day sometimes with ketchup. YUMMMM! His health went very downhill...he is doing fine now and has moved in with us. As I got a little sun sickness our host parents have worried that they served us something that might have caused it. At the time even I wasn't sure as the food in our household is meager. A chicken neck and chicken feet just don't cut it for us. The whole village went on alert unbeknownst to us when I got ill. It's like an instant telegraph when there is anything changing the status quo. Our food situation still didn't change until Rob moved in with us. Now we get papaya, avocado and vegetable soup for breakfast and lunch. Dinner is very meager however but after breakfast and lunch we don't care. Fruit and Vegetables are provided by the PC weekly for now. Broccoli has now been introduced to the Mayans!!! They are not in love with it. We however, are very greatful for the color green in our diet. Michael has lost 10 pounds.

We are both well and healthy. The bugs are about the only thing that gets tough. We look a little like we have chicken pox. No matter how much we try they seem to help themselves to a meal on our body. We weren't going to use the DEET but it is now our friend. We have however just been introduced to Cutters Advanced...sent especially to one of our volunteers by her family who says it is better than DEET...it is a soldier against chiggers without using the dreaded DEET! It will be our next offense in the battle. If it works we will be asking for buckets of it from back the U.S.

Das all for now folks!

love to hear from ya
howan chic