A month in Belize!

Baanu! (Hello in Q’eqchi)

Hope everyone’s doing well up in the States! I figured it’s been just about a month down here, so it’s probably time for another blog post. I also said I’d post some pictures at some point, so I’ll throw some of those up at the bottom here. We’ve been keeping really busy, the training schedule is pretty rigorous being M-F 8a-5p, longer if we have to go into Belmopan for training days in the office. We sometimes have homework on the weekends as well, and most of our free time is spent hanging out with our host families. We’re also starting some projects around here in Valley of Peace where we’re staying, so that’ll just add to all the stuff we’re doing. Everyone’s super pumped about those though, and all 17 of us are involved in multiple projects. So far, we’re working on putting together a literacy club every T and Th, sports clinics on Saturdays (both of which we’re starting this week, WOO!), a trash cleanup project we’re kicking off in two weeks, and we’re working on putting together a mural of the world map hopefully on the back of the library that we’ll get a bunch of the local kids involved in. Especially pumped about the first two, but all the projects will be fantastic. I think we’re all glad to be giving back to the community in some way, since we’re spending 3 months here and hadn’t done anything for them up until now. We met with the village council last weekend to discuss everything, and they were on board with everything we had planned, so we’re excited about that as well.

It’s not aaalll work work work all the time though, which is nice. We have 4 culture days throughout PST that allow us to experience a lot of the different cultures around Belize, which is awesome. Our first one was last week, and Mayan was up first. We went to a place called Maya Centre, which was pretty awesome. Being a part of the Q’eqchi crew, we were all super pumped for everyone else to experience some of the Mayan culture we’ve been living in for the past three weeks, and it was fantastic. We got to see some traditional Mayan artifacts like the Marimba instrument, some dancing, chocolate making, bug repellant making, traditional lunch of Caldo (which I’ll come back to in a second), and we learned a ton about the history of the Mayan people in Belize. It was fascinating. Now, Caldo. I seriously cannot get enough of this stuff, it’s so amazing. Caldo is a spicy soup that’s the traditional dish of the Mayan people. It’s usually served with chicken (chilan) and either tortilla (wa, pronounced kwah) or poch (which is basically a giant corn brick). I love this stuff. I had it 4 times last week and I’m still not sick of it. And the WA! I love normal tortillas, but the way the Mayan people make wa is so so so much better than any tortillas I’ve ever had. It’s super thin and fantastic, and it’s awesome to see people make it. It’s traditionally the Mayan women who make them (xorok – to make tortillas), but I’ve tried making them once. It actually came out pretty round, but they’re supposed to puff up on the tortilla stone (q’il) when they’re done, and mine definitely did not puff up. Sad day. Still delicious though! Anyway, culture day 1 was awesome, next one is Mestizo (Spanish) a week from Friday and that’ll be awesome too.

Other fun stuff! Hanging with our homestay families is a blast, and my little sister is starting to get more used to me being around, so we play a lot, and that’s pretty great. Hanging out with the rest of BH4 (our cohort) is always a good time, because everyone is wonderful. Learning with the Q’eqchi crew is pretty damn great, and it feels like we’re all coming along really well. On that note, if you’re reading this, we miss you Carly! We’re all sending you our best and hope everything is well back home. Playing with the kids around here is a blast. We ran off to get banana peanut butter smoothies the other day after training (even more amazing than it sounds, especially because they can make them sin leche [without milk]) and ended up playing football (soccer) with some of the kids for awhile in the yard of the shop. So much fun. Chatting with everyone in VoP (Valley of Peace) is such an awesome experience as well. Eating. Seriously, we’d all get super fat around here if we weren’t walking and exercising a ton. The food is soo good, and I swear to you, I’ve never had better pineapple (ch’op in Q’eqchi) and cantaloupe in my life. And mangoes. Blech to the avocados (o) though. For all of you that know that I dislike avocado’s (here’s looking at you Jen and Q), I tried a fresh one the other day when my host mom served it to me with lunch, and I just couldn’t do more than the one piece I had. Just can’t do it, more o for the rest of y’all then! I’ve also had fresh coconut (ko’ok) and that’s spectacular. Star showers! (chahim achink!) This is my favorite part of every night. I bucket bathe outside every night, and there’s nothing quite like looking up and seeing a bajillion stars. It’s breathtaking how many there are out here on a clear night. Finally, just being here in general is amazing. Some days are tough, and it feels like the language isn’t going as well as it should (no worries, it is, especially for being 3 weeks into it), the people don’t want us here, or it’s just really effing hot. But those days are few and far between. Most days I really do love it here. Belize is a strikingly beautiful country, the people are amazing, the culture is fascinating, and the people I’m with are beyond spectacular. Frequently I have a moment here that’s just so amazing that I’m left stunned thinking, “This is exactly where I’m supposed to be right now.” It happens more than you’d think, but it’s great reassurance that I’m not only doing what I’m passionate about and have been dreaming of most of my life, but that it feels right here too. What’s even better about all that, is that I’m pretty sure most (if not all) of us have felt something similar at least once since coming down here. Crazy to think it'll be a month Friday!

Still, it is challenging. The language is hard, integration is a 24/7 job, and while I enjoy more alone time than most of my colleagues, that’s a double-edged sword. It’s nice to be able to get some solo time especially given how exhausting training is, but I also wish at the same time that I was spending that with my family or out in the community. I think all things considered though, there’s been a pretty good balance. I’ve fallen into a bit of a routine here now. Mornings I wake up, clean my room and sweep, then study or read in my room until breakfast. I’ll hang out with the family for a bit and get ready to leave for the day. Training all day, home for lunch and back again, then home for supper. I’ll usually decompress a little bit in my room until dinner, then hang out with the family most of the night until around 7 or 8. Star shower, read or study a bit, maybe watch a movie with the family, and head to bed early. Most nights I’m out by 8:30 or 9 (having to get up around 5:30/6 every morning), and rarely I’ll be in bed as late as 10. Saturdays I’ll lounge about a bit, maybe get together with some fellow trainees, and help my host dad out in the afternoon if there’s something that needs doing around the house. Sundays are extended family days, and we go to my host dad’s parents every Sunday, usually for lunch. They almost always serve Caldo, so I mega love that, and my host grandpa is awesome (and super helpful with Q’eqchi). He told me last week I was coming along well, so that was really encouraging. It’s still really difficult to understand a lot of what they’re saying when speaking to each other since they talk so fast, but again, 3 weeks in.

Overall though, things are amazing down here. Getting ready for month 2 of Belize, and before I know it, I’ll no longer be a PCT (trainee), but a sworn in PCV (volunteer) on September 15. It’s nuts how fast the time is flying, but as our CD (country director) told us early on, the key is to “Be present.”

As promised, here are some pictures below!

Grant, Mia and me on a teeter-totter near our hotel the first week in Belmopan.

People crowding around Mia’s mad piano skills while Josh films it.

First week at CBT (community based training), birthday party at my little sister’s friends house.

 Piñata broken, kids scrambling for candy!

Our first project here, community garden!

4^th of July with everyone at the office!

Some of the awesome scenery on the way to Maya Centre, got yelled at for sticking my head out the window to get this shot. Worth it.

Lindsey! Seriously one of the nicest people you’ll ever meet in your life.

Sorry Andy, your face is priceless here.

Chat (aachinak!). Chat is absolutely hysterical, never fails to make us all laugh all the time.

















Learning about herbs and making insect repellant at Maya Centre. 

First Week in Belize!

Welp, here comes the first “real” post since I’m in country now, so it’s probably going to be a long one. Here goes!

For future volunteers, my packing list can be found in a separate document, there’s a lot going on there and I’ll upload that later on. Packing itself wasn’t too bad, but that’s mostly because I had moved cross-country back from Boston to Wisconsin prior to leaving for service, so I already knew where everything was!

I spent my last night in the Midwest in Minnesota with the Shackeltons, Jefe, Cooper, and Kylie, and that was awesome, I couldn’t have asked for a better send off. It was pretty surreal hopping on the plane to Miami, but I was definitely ready to go. Plus I knew at least one person who’d be on the same flight as me, Chelsea, who was from the same program in Boston and joining the same program with me in Belize. Little did I know that another trainee was from St. Paul too, so I met Megan, and the 3 of us flew off to Miami.

Miami was hot, but it was actually a nice precursor to Belize, which would be just about as hot, if not a little more, and more humid. We got to Miami a day early, so we had nothing for Staging until the next day, so the 3 of us bummed around Miami with Chelsea and I’s friend Odette. We had some amazing food and got to check out this awesome outdoor mural art gallery in Wynwood, which lent us some pretty sick pictures. Even I wasn’t opposed to taking some there, and I guess it was a good way to force me into starting to get used to taking lots of pictures. (I’m still not super great at that, but I’m getting better, Q :-P). After a great night, we had Staging bright and early the next day. Getting to know everyone was awesome, and I loved my cohort from the start, all 22 of them (shoutout to Chelsea, Megan, Andy, Nicole, Trinity, Chat, Carly, Yanni, Nick, Josh, Grant, Morris, Mio, Eileen, Ellen, Lindsey, Loryann, Taylor, Latisha, Grace, Oishee, and Anna – I swear I didn’t even look that up because I know them all because they’re all that awesome). After a long day of staging, we packed up to get ready for an early departure from the hotel.

I was one of the 4 section leaders for leaving the hotel, so I had a checklist to follow (you’re damn right I loved that part), but also had to coordinate things when we got to the airport, which I’ll admit I was a little anxious about. Things went well minus a couple minor hiccups at security though, and we got through alright, and were off to Belize! It was pretty crazy touching down there knowing this is where we were all going to be spending the next 27 months of our lives, but I was crazy excited about it. No trouble with customs, and then we walked outside to only the 2nd greatest welcome I’ve ever had, greeted by a bunch of the Peace Corps staff. The greatest would come later when we got to the office and met ALL the PC staff. That was some seriously awesome stuff, and I’d never felt more welcome anywhere in my life. On the way to the office though, the first bit of culture shock set in. Belize definitely wasn’t what I expected, and it really hit home that we enjoy a great bit of luxury in the U.S. At the same time though, Belize was absolutely beautiful. I began falling in love with this country on that first bus ride in to Belmopan.

We had a few days of training in Belmopan, and were staying at a hotel in the city. It was actually a bit overwhelming at first with all the information they were throwing at us, and frankly, that hasn’t really stopped yet. Those first few days in Belize were amazing, getting to know everyone, the culture and the city. We had some absolutely amazing food as well – in particular, our driver Abel took us to this small restaurant off the beaten path that I swear for just $3.50 US I had some of the best food I’ve ever had, and we hadn’t even gotten to our CBT (Community Based Training) sites with our first host families. We also had some interviews during those first few days to go over medical stuff and figure out which language we’d all be learning. Among the 23 of us, 12 would be learning Spanish, 5 Kriol, and 6 Q’eqchi (a Mayan language).

They told us not to have any expectations going into the language decision, but it’s hard not to have at least a little bit, especially when this effectively decided the direction of the next 27 months of our lives. I’ll admit, I really wanted Q’eqchi, because the culture is fascinating, but I would have been happy with either of the other two. I was absolutely stoked to find out at the language reveal that I was one of the 6 Q’eqchi volunteers. We’d be training with the 12 Spanish volunteers, and the 5 Kriol would be in a different location. It sucked separating from the Kriol people, even though we’d known each other less than a week, it already felt a lot longer than that. We would get to see them at least once a week though, often much more than that.

The day after language reveal was Saturday, our 4th day in Belize, and this was the day we would meet and move in with our host families. We all packed up and got ready to meet them at lunch, where they had us do this activity where we had to match puzzle pieces of our host family’s house to find out who we’d be living with. That was when I first met (part of) my host family: Floridalma (my host mom), Elmira (my host little sister), and Gina (Flor’s sister who wasn’t living with us), and that first encounter was actually pretty rough. My Q’eqchi (we had a basic crash course that morning) was pretty non-existent at that point, but they spoke English as well, so that helped…still a bit rough through. My host mom, host sister, and my host mom’s sister were all there to pick me up, but my host dad (Vialto) couldn’t be there, so I met him that night when we got to the house. I settled in and we had chicken panades at a local restaurant, and they were fantastic. The next day, I actually went to the farm with my host dad, meeting his dad and 2 of his brothers while we planted corn. That was definitely an awesome experience, though I can say for certainty I am definitely not a farmer. Still, I got to learn a lot about my host family and Q’eqchi culture doing that, and it was pretty damn good exercise. I took a hard earned nap when we got home and then helped my host dad fill in mud holes caused by the rain with stones and dirt. My host sister didn’t want to talk to me yet, but by the end of that second day, I was really loving Belize.

Then came this week, the first full week of CBT, which means long days and lots of information. Learning Q’eqchi is difficult, but I’m definitely enjoying it, and it’s unlike any other language I’ve experienced. I’m starting to get better at it, and my family is talking to me in Q’eqchi more and more, which is great. I still can’t understand or say much at this point, but it’s improving, and they’re helping me along a lot. The Wednesday of this week we got to go back to the office for what they call Core Training, which everyone gets, so we got to see the Kriol people. It’s amazing how excited you can be to see people you’ve only known a week when it’s only been a few days since you’ve left them. But it feels like we’ve known each other longer than a week, and it felt much longer than just a few days. Core days aren’t the most exciting, but it means we get to see the Kriol people and use the internet, so that’s pretty great. It was also Nicole’s birthday, so the 6 of us Q’eqchi volunteers learned how to sing happy birthday in Q’eqchi, and the PC staff got her a cake, so that was pretty cool.

Going home that night was super interesting though, as the bus popped a tire on the way back. They called for another bus, and there happened to be one ahead of us, so we plodded along at a few miles an hour anyway in a jam-packed sweaty bus until we made it to the next bus. There was a pretty crazy point where we were inching around a corner and it felt like the bus was going to tip over to the left, so we all instinctively leaned right to try and keep the bus up. Thankfully we were fine, made it to the next bus, and made it home.

After a rough day, I was greeted by my host sister actually saying my name for the first time, when until now she hadn’t ever talked to me, and just referred to me as “Saq”, which means White in Q’eqchi. I thought that was pretty funny, but it was awesome that she was now fine with talking to me. We played for a couple hours that night running around the yard and playing a lot of hide and go seek/peek-a-boo (she’s 4), and that was the happiest I’ve been since I’ve gotten here (which is saying a lot, because I love this place). The next two days were more training and nothing really notable. Saturday I helped my host dad for a bit in laying the foundation for a new store house, and played soccer with some of the other volunteers. It’s super hot today though, so I took a nap afterward. Oh yeah, the house. We have a big yard and 3 little structures here: one is the common room and my room, the 2nd is the store that my host family runs, and the 3rd is the kitchen. There’s a wooden stall that’s ¼ open in the backyard for bucket bathing, so learning how to do that was interesting. Think I’m doing alright at it now though about a week in.

Overall though, things here are great and I’m doing well. I love the people and the culture, my cohort, and my host family. The language is tough, but awesome, and I can’t wait to get through PST (Pre-Service Training) to swear in on September 15 and move to site. Haven’t taken a ton of pictures yet, but I’ll try to take more and post them sometime this week or next.

Xikwe! (I’m going in Q’eqchi)

Bryan