Bike Day!

So today is a big day for us. We've spent more money today than we have in total since we've been in country. Well, maybe not, I'm not that diligent about keeping track of our money. I'm sure I could figure it out, bu--wait, you don't want to hear me ranting! Never fear! Return to topic: We just bought brand new bicycles! In addition to the bikes themselves we also bought locks and sweet chrome fenders. Chrome fenders, you say? Are we really that concerned with appearances? Well, yes and no. Yes we're worried about appearances, at least to the extent that during the rainy season we won't want to have brown race-stripes down our backs. But we'll still be the nerds wearing helmets since Peace Corps vehemently implores volunteers to wear them. And don't worry, we picked ours up already so we don't have to ride home without them.

Also, I've been in the George Price Center for Peace and Development three days in a row now. I cannot tell you how incredible this place is. Not only does it have a computer lab with free high-speed internet, but it also has air-conditioning and a library geared specifically towards peace, development, and Belize. IN-credible. I'm also learning more and more about my program by the day. Apparently it has already been piloted in some area schools, and there is also a curriculum already made. So mostly my job will be making the contacts with other groups and organizations around the country, teach them the mechanics of the program, and letting them implement them with schools, groups, etc... Still a daunting task, but very, very doable.

Kathryn's situation is a little more tenuous. While her project is being sponsored by the Governor General, her focus seems to be on one school specifically. They really want her to teach classes herself, but realistically it's a much more sustainable and worthwhile endeavor for her to teach other teachers in the music basics. She has a lot of resources, though. They have donated recorders, donated steel drums, and even donated string instruments! In fact, it's unfortunate that she has those string instruments because they aren't even assembled and will have to be sent to Guatemala for that before they can even be used! Not to mention she isn't a string specialist, but I'm sure she'll learn. She's really excited about the prospect of writing a curriculum guide for teaching music, though. Something that can stay here after she's gone and will allow children to learn the joy of music has to be the pinnacle of success for her assignment.

Ok insert remark here by Kathryn: Cisco is a beautiful and very diplomatic writer and has not captured my feelings about my assignment in this blog for propriety's sake. I was not expecting to teach music or even be involved with it full time so I am surprised, to say the very least. If you are interested in how I really feel jot me an email, and I can fill you in. And now back to his post...

Finally, we're now living with a new host family in Belmopan. There is the Guatemalan grandfather who doesn't speak English, the mother who runs a small restaurant (think on the scale of a place in a mall food court), a son, a daughter, and a live-in maid. We live in the downstairs portion in the room next to the grandfather, but everyone else lives upstairs. We have tons of space, and they've been wonderful thus far. Even so, we're missing Succotz and our two other families.

Okay, this will be finally, I promise! I'm reading a book lent to me from Brian Dwyer, one of the Peace Corps staff who went to another PA Christian school (I can't remember which one) and served in the PC in El Salvador, entitled Oscar Romero: The Violence of Love. It's a collection of sermon & writing excerpts from Oscar Romero, former Archbishop of San Salvador, El Salvador. If you don't know who he is, Wikipedia him and be in awe. I'll close this time with a little humdinger he said seven years to-the-day before I was born:

"Even when they call us mad,
when they call us subversives and communists
and all the epithets they put on us,
we know that we only preach
the subversive witness of the Beatitudes,
which have turned everything upside down
to proclaim blessed the poor,
blessed the thirsting for justice,
blessed the suffering.
May 11, 1978


Peace,
Cisco