Placating My Mother...

I know Kathryn might be a little disappointed that I'm choosing to do this now, since we have almost a month's worth of events to recount prior to Richard running rampant through Belize, but I'm going to go ahead with it anyway. While mom was here, we spent a lot of time talking--about life, home, work, and most of all, Belize. She was quite surprised by the general state of things here, and I imagine most who would read this blog would be unaccustomed to life as Kathryn and I know it currently. So, placating my mother, I would like to describe to you, to the best of my ability, a typical day in my life as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Belize. Mind you, this is more of an amalgamation of typical activities rather than events of an actual calendar day--I'm not sure I will ever experience a "typical" day. Anyway, enough preamble, let's go!

Around 6 o'clock I wake up to either Kathryn's alarm (telling her to get up and ready to run) or rays of sunlight peaking through the wire-mesh screen that surrounds the top few inches of our bathroom walls. Morning routine being paramount to my sanity, I stumble to the kitchen and put on water for coffee, and no, it's not too hot here for coffee. I generally read while imbibing my coffee at the kitchen table next to the window. From there I can intermittently stare out at the goings-on of the neighborhood as well. Whether that includes seeing our two-year-old neighbor being bathed in the outdoor sink just on the other side of the fence (they don't have indoor plumbing) or watching a cohort of pink- and blue-clad primary-schoolers in uniform walking to school suspiciously close to the time school is scheduled to start all depends on the day. Sometimes I simply watch the variety of birds and reptiles that inhabit our yard, trees, garden, and, often enough, house. I should also mention what I hear, too. While the noises often begin somewhere between 2 and 4 a.m. (roosters do NOT wait for sunrise to crow, contrary to popular belief), the fan in our bedroom generally drowns out the worst of them. However, upon entering the kitchen, I am serenaded by a cacophony of a variety I would have never expected prior to living in Belize. First, as I already mentioned, are the fowl. Chickens, ducks, and turkeys that belong to our neighbors add to the native blackbirds and other quite vocal birds. On top of that are the dogs, who bark at vehicles, people, and other dogs that might wander down our street. John and Sylvia have two dogs, the neighbor next door has one, the neighbor on our other side has three (I think), and the neighbor across the road has one as well. All of these dogs are outdoors at all times, and the general rule is that if one barks, they all bark. Finally, there are the people. Culture dictates that in our community at least, if you're looking for someone, you stand where you are and yell. If they don't respond, you yell again, often louder. If you are being yelled at, you stop and yell back. This is particularly true with children. Most of this happens in a very rapid, very harsh-sounding Spanish, leaving me wondering what could possibly be the cause of it all. And apart from their voices, I hear the neighbors' music as well. Most homes here are much more open than in the states; there's really no need to seal your home against the cold. That said, noises like music coming from inside those homes receive little if no resistance before traveling out of them and into my ears. And like most teenagers, my neighbors listen to their music cranked to 11. Yes it is still morning, and no that doesn't matter to them at all.

After coffee, reading, and a bowl of Honey Bunches of Oats, I get ready to go to work. I guess this is as good a point as any to mention that prior to moving to our house, we had little hope of accessing hot water. I have only ever seen one hot water heater in Belize, and that probably only had space to hold 5 gallons or less. We're delighted to have a "shower shocker," as it's affectionately known, that heats water in the shower-head via electrical current. To my knowledge, it has never lead to injury, and, as they say, ignorance is bliss. Back to the day's activities, I'm leaving for work around 9.

I don my helmet--Peace Corps issued and required while operating a bicycle--on the way out of the house, because if I leave the helmet on my bike it gets wet and smelly. I walk out of our yard completely unaware of the flora and fauna that surround me. Mom and dad loved this part; not only does everything retain its vibrant hue of green during the "fall" and "winter" here, but also everything continues to bloom (except when a hurricane swoops in and blows it all away). As you can imagine, the types of plant-life on display here are quite different from anything back home. I think the most striking difference is the color of the flowers. While white, orange, and yellow are all common at home, it is the varying shades of red and purple that one most often sees in Belize. Fuchsia, magenta, and red often complement the green trees including lime, avocado, and various relatives of the banana (By the way, there are at least three banana-like fruits of a similar shape and color: plantain, blogo, and apple banana. But all that to tell you: No, the banana is not as unique as American supermarkets make it out to be). Likewise, flower shapes vary from the typical daisy-like to conical to tusk-like and many more.

As I leave, I lock the gate behind me. In addition to our double-dog security system, our yard is surrounded by an 8-foot-tall fence that has a single strand of barbed-wire at the top. The area where we live is probably well short of economic prosperity, so as Westerners with a fair few nice things, we take every precaution not to make ourselves targets.

On the way to the George Price Centre for Peace and Development, I ride for the most part on dirt roads. A fun-fact, according to the CIA World Factbook and Mapquest, is that there are more miles of paved road between Wyalusing, PA--where Kathryn grew up--and Martinsville, VA--where I grew up--than there are in all of Belize. In any case, potholes abound across this small but proud nation, and my commute of about 500 yards is no different. There's one road in particular that I take daily on which I have to concentrate to ride over the foot-long patch of level road and avoid the three-foot wide, six-inch deep pothole that stretches the remainder of my path. But potholes are much more manageable on a bike than in a car. Even though it can be grueling to ride a bike anywhere at midday in this tropical climate, vehicles bring their own worries, and $10-per-gallon gas prices and wrecked suspensions are among them.

I'm going to give my work the short end of the stick, here, and simply say that even though the bulk of my day is spent at the Centre, there's very little that fits the ethos of this blog post. I plan workshops, hound school administrators to schedule said workshops, work on lesson plans, and a variety of other minutiae that might be better recorded separately. For the sake of my typical day, however, I do go to work.

For lunch, I pedal back home and prepare my standard triple-decker PB&J sandwich. I generally use mango or strawberry "J". By the time I get home a little after noon Kathryn has already been home long enough to make whatever her varying tastes require for the day. Schools let out from 11:30-1 for lunch to accommodate students who go home for their lunch. Of course, in the capital city where there are no fewer than nine primary schools, and students are not divided by geographic proximity, there are only a relatively small number of students that can actually take advantage of this. But old habits die hard, and Kathryn isn't complaining about her leisurely lunches. It's at this point during the last few days that I've really been noticing the material used in constructing our house. I've known from the beginning that it is a concrete building, but since the hurricane has passed and the trees shading the back of our house are gone, it has taken on all the most important attributes of an oven. I've heard a rumor that buildings in Belmopan must be made from concrete--I assume to reduce the risk of fire--but whatever the reason, most are. Concrete cubes are the standard fare, and zinc roofing to top it off. Our house was built from the shell of one such house, and let me tell you, we have been baking the last few days.

After returning to and from work, I try to call it a day, though there's often something else to occupy my attention. Kathryn and I have Spanish classes Tuesdays and Thursdays, and I've begun coaching a girl's soccer team on Wednesdays, so I very rarely have the time immediately after returning home to relax. But once home for good, Kathryn and I chit-chat about our respective days. Kathryn usually starts dinner around 5 or 5:30, and I'll most commonly end up with an unexciting, low-risk job like chopping vegetables or washing dishes. We generally eat under the pergola because it gives us a little more elbow room than our kitchen "table," and provides a much nicer surrounding with the passion fruit vines overhead and various flowers and trees around us.

Once dinner is through, we either read and laze outside until the mosquitoes become a nuisance or we play games. Scrabble has become the game du jour recently, but others we engage in frequently are Backgammon, Blockus, Farkle, and an assortment of card games. We usually try our best to rope John and Sylvia into these as well.

We finally wear down between 9 and 10, and I have recently insisted on showering before bed. It's unbearable going to bed sweating, and there's nothing like a cold shower to cool you down and rinse off the day's sweat. The neighbors usually resume playing their music--which I forgot to mention ranges from traditional Latin to pop to the most vulgar rap--so that we can have a soundtrack to sleep to. And that's a typical day.

To wrap up, I promise we will post more pictures soon. We have lots from our travels with mom and dad and from the aftermath of the hurricane, too. I hope you have taken a moment to read over Kathryn's account of Richard's rampage. If not continue scrolling down. In the meantime, we love hearing from you all. I for one am terrible at maintaining lines of communication with friends and family--as evidenced by the month-long absence of blog entries--but that doesn't mean we've forgotten about you. So send us an e-mail, Facebook message, or even a post after this blog! I'm looking forward to reading them!

Peace,

Cisco

Hurricane Richard

     I will start with the most recent event first, Hurricane Richard! Yes we are ok but yes we did get hit rather hard. Fortunately this was only a category one hurricane I cannot imagine what anything stronger than this feels like, it is a terrifying thought. It began with rumors that I tropical storm was coming our way but since this is the 3rd or 4th time we have heard this and nothing major had happened we weren't overly concerned. Finally on Saturday the Peace Corps started to take precautions and the rumors were that this was going to be the real deal. It was still hard to believe because the weather was beautiful as always. By Saturday night we were on standfast which means we weren't allowed to leave our sites and we were told some districts would be consolidated the following morning. I would like to mention I spent a beautiful day on Saturday at Spanish Lookout, this is where many of the Mennonites live. It literally looks like they picked up a huge chunk of Pennsylvania farmland and just stuck it in Belize. I mean this place has actual yellow lines on their paved roads, oil drilling, and a whole John Deere factory. These things are not found anywhere else in Belize. But I went with Cisco's counterpart, Elsie, and we went to a real grocery store and stocked up which was very lucky for us because I happened to pick up candles an other such supplies that I did not know I would need very soon. Sunday morning was cloudy but still no exceptional weather change yet and we were called in for an emergency meeting with the Peace Corps. At this meeting we found the tropical storm was now a hurricane and it was headed straight at the center of Belize where we live. We live 40 miles inland and our city rarely gets more that some wind or rain so we remained skeptical but wary enough to take things seriously and start preparing. The northern volunteers were all consolidated to one hotel together, the southern volunteers were all consolidated to one hotel, although these places weren't on target to be hit, and our district was all consolidated to the smelly Garden City Hotel in Belmopan. Once again because we live in Belmopan and we have a structurally sound house we got to stay home for the hurricane. We spend the rest of the afternoon cleaning the yard of all moveable objects, nailing our shutters in tight, setting up candles, collecting water, shopping for canned goods, and stocking up on rum:) It was very cloudy by this point and you could feel something terrible was coming but other than it being dark exceptionally early the weather was still fine. At about 5 the wind started to pick up a little and it started to rain, for the next two hours it just kept increasing, at 7 the electricity went out, at 8 we were being hit full force by Hurricane Richard. We sat through the storm in our landlords house John and Sylvia, and our fellow PCV Andy, peeking out the window, making pizzas (thank God for gas stoves), drinking sprite/rum/lime, and playing games. At about 8:30 we had to bring their two dogs inside because they wouldn't stay on the porch and were panicking. At about 9 the eye of the storm came through and it actual calms down during this time. We ran outside, I know probably not smart but I had to check to see if the roof was still on our house, and we were extremely surprised. We had no idea the amount of damage that had been done in such a short amount of time. All of the houses, and our pretty pergola were fine, but the yard and trees were completely trashed. There were huge trees down in our yard and electrical lines, garbage everywhere, and people all running into the streets to check on things. I have to mention the one time I actually got scared was when Sylvia and I were peaking out the window and we was our neighbors roof fly off into the road. That was the house where our friends were staying because their house isn't very strong and the roof flew off, that was scary. Fortunately everyone seemed to get back in time because it all started up again when the eye passed. The second half wasn't as bad but we didn't realize there would even be a second half so it still took us by surprise. A very large coconut tree in our neighbors yard withstood the first half but after the second half was no longer standing so the wind must have continued to be pretty bad.  We returned to our house at about 11:30 to go to bed and everything inside was fine. Although the wind blew in a lot of dirt so we had some cleanup to do and are slowly recleaning all of our dishes and sheets. The next day was crazy, we still didn't have power so I am pretty sure everyone in our village woke up with the sun and got up to begin the clean up. We were walking around the yard and village at 5:30 am and we couldn't believe the damage that was done. Many roofs gone, some houses destroyed, many houses flooded, and many trees down. We worked for 8 hours on Monday to get our yard functional again, we cleared a lot of trees down and I am still sore from the work. Fortunately the water never went out and the electricity was back on by 6pm the Monday.  It really was an event we will not forget but don't worry too much because this hasn't happened here in years and it was rumored to be a rough hurricane season this year. I promise to post some pictures soon and to keep you updated. I have run out of time but we will catch you up on our visit with Marsha, and the fun vacation we took recently. Hope you are all doing well!!
Paz,
  Kathryn