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