And the Drumroll Please...

It is without further ado that I would like to announce our Peace Corps placement. This will be where we live and our job assignments for the mext two years. Are you nervous? Do you have any expectations? Do you think we're working with schools, youth groups, or something else? Are we up north, down south, or somewhere else? Would you like to venture a guess???















WE ARE LIVING IN BELMOPAN! If you guessed it, it's probably because it's the capital city and I'm not sure how many cities people in the states would know about! We've already been in the capital a good bit and won't be "roughing it" in the traditional sense. Most things are available here, and we're pretty much in the center of the country. We have one of the biggest bus stations and are also in town with the Peace Corps office. I'm incredibly excited. But the best is yet to come.

My job is with the George Price Center for Peace and Development, and my primary assignment is helping to develop a conflict resolution cirriculum that can be used in classrooms as well as a cirriculum for teachers to assist them in teaching conflict resolution. The project will be piloted in the Belmopan schools with the hope of then integrating it country-wide. Wow. So now it's your turn to point me towards people and places that can assist me in finding material to learn more about conflict resolution. I'm still jittery from learning all of this. I think I've always been interested in this sort of thing, but now it's going to be necessary to learn more. So like I said, who knows about this stuff?

Kathryn will be working with Our Lady of Guadelupe Primary School. Apparently the school is literally withing walking distance from my site. Her job will entail helping integrate music in schools--everything from primary to secondary schools, choirs to bands to string-classes. It's been mandated, I think, by the Governor General, the Queen of England's representative here in Belize (Queen is technically the head of state; but like England, she holds no real political powers.) We have heard the Governor General specifically request a Peace Corps Volunteer to help him with this project.

I'm really surprised that we're both working on such over-arching projects. I'm a bit overwhelmed, but soooooo excited. Alright, I need to stop this. I just used the "so" with mutiple o's. I must be ranting. I hope all is well at home. Please tell me what you're thinking and feeling! And thanks for everyone being so communicative. I think I'm hearing from most of you more than I would at home.

Peace,
Cisco