Have you missed us?

We've missed you! First off Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! Second thank you thank you thank you.  We can't even express how deeply grateful we are for the pictures, gifts, letters, emails, and comments on facebook and here.  I know how hard it is to be a good pen pal and cannot claim to be very good at it but you have all done so much for us here and we feel incredibly blessed.

So how do I catch you up? Well right before Christmas we got busy with our work and holiday planning.  On December 4th. My choir of kids ages 8-12 roughly had a big Christmas presentation.  It was a program starting off with a 45 minute variety show featuring the different expressive arts at our school followed by my choir presenting the holiday musical, "A Caribbean Christmas". The show turned out to be standing room only and we made $800 for the music program. The kids did a fanstastic job and this was the first concert for many of them and I was incredibly proud. I also got to sing a song by Jaci Velasquez, "Lay it Down" as part of a faculty performance and it was nice to get to perform a little again myself although we weren't very prepared.  The other big development that came out of this program isn't as positive depending on how you look at it.  A few days before the show there was a difference of opinion between myself and the lady I work with, in Peace Corps terms my counterpart.  This resulted in a meeting with her, myself, and the Peace Corps which then resulted in the mutual decision that I had been misplaced and I am no longer volunteering at this school.  Cisco and I had a debate about whether I should mention this at all for fear of being politically incorrect or offensive to anyone and I decided I felt it was important to share. This has been a big part of my experience in Belize and I wanted my family and friends to know. Out of respect for everyone involved I encourage you to refrain from commenting questions about this and if you want to ask me more details do it in email. Anyhoo moving on... now I am looking for a new primary project. I have a few ideas but nothing worth mentioning until I make more progress. I am still keeping my choir at the previous school and I have started a cub scouts troop that meets once a week. Both of these projects I absolutely love and the kids are really fantastic.

I also want to mention since I am talking about work at the moment that development work is really hard. The Peace Corps is constantly encouraging and reminding us that sustainability is one of the main goals we should be remembering in our projects. But it is hard to find projects and people that are willing to partner in truly sustainable work because it takes so much more effort and time. I could really use your prayers to find a new project where I will find this partnership and a way to make my work something that will continue to benefit people when I am gone.

One achievement I am particular proud of happened just before Christmas, I passed my 14 week long intermediate Spanish class.  I am now according to the Venezuelan Institute of Belize an advanced Spanish speaker. I will start my new advanced classes next week, and I have also signed up for individual tutoring with a friend from Nicaragua who will meet with me once a week to just have an informal conversation, entirely in Spanish, so I get more practice speaking.  I am nowhere close to being fluent but I am slowly making progress and I really love learning this language even though it is also one of the most frustrating parts of my experience here. 

On an entirely different topic in early November we invited a new member into our family. Our new kitty, his name is Erebos, in keeping with our pet theme of ancient deities Erebos is the God of primordial darkness. He is named this because he is an entirely black cat. He has not been to the vet yet so we are hoping we have been guessing his sex correctly otherwise he may have some identity issues in a few months when we take him to get snipped. I forgot how crazy kittens are, we got Isis, our kitty back home when she was 6 months old and had apparently calmed down a lot. Erebos is a terror! He likes to chew on human flesh, eat off the plates in the sink, grab your food off your plate while you are eating, walk all over the counters, and he takes comfort in the middle of the night in the crook of my neck while driving his sharp nails into the very sensitive nape of my neck. Despite all this he is incredibly entertaining and does love a good cuddle. It feels great to have a pet again and it is something we really can’t do without. Erebos is learning about the outdoors and has recently been experimenting with climbing trees. He is almost friends with the dogs in our yard and we can leave him out for awhile now without checking on him. Kids grow up so fast!

Erebos's first day in his new home and his first bath. 

My adorable boys!

Playing in the Garden and loving the outdoors!

Cisco and I had the opportunity to make our first trip with our friends John and Sylvia up to Chetumal Mexico. This is a border town close to Belize and where a lot of volunteers go for a taste of home including a mall, movie theater, new Walmart, and a McDonalds. I am a little ashamed of myself for taking such comfort in these things but man did it feel good to eat a quarter pounder and shop for several different types of things all in the same place, imagine that. I even got to see the new Harry Potter I theater with Spanish subtitles, lol. It was a lot of fun and a very expensive trip, we will go again but hopefully not too often or we will be broke.


Christmas and New Year’s Eve turned out to be a lot of fun despite missing our family. For Christmas Cisco, me, our friends John and Sylvia (landlords), their two temporary foster kids Miriam (2 years old, and Robert 6 years old, and Carol fellow Peace Corps Volunteer in Belmopan made a large dinner with the works including a turkey, pies, and several casseroles and we ate until we thought we might puke. We set off fireworks as is the tradition in Belize and spent the day relaxing in the beautiful 75 degree weather. I think this has to be my first Christmas eating outside on Christmas Day.

We travelled to a nearby town, San Ignacio, for New Year’s and stayed in the beautiful Tropicool Hotel. If only you all knew what the Tropicool Hotel looked like you would be seriously concerned about my judgment if that is what I think is beautiful these days. They closed of the main street and had a big party concluding with fireworks at midnight. It was a fun party and a great opportunity to meet a lot of travelling tourists, hear about their travels, and score free drinks!

Recently I got to travel to Melchor, Guatamala with some of my girlfriends to do some shopping in this border town. We finally purchased our own hammocks a very important thing to have in the Caribbean and one we had been waiting to do until we found exactly what we wanted. It was a nice trip with my friends but the town itself was not overly impressive and I will only go back if I need cheap clothes or more hammocks, the town if very inexpensive compared to Belize.


The last thing I am going to mention to catch you up in this blog is my newest love, my garden. I am not going to post any pictures this time or write too much about it because I am making a powerpoint I will try to include on the blog sometime soon. I know that is super nerdy, lol. My garden started as a bunch of deeply rooted banana trees that Hurricane Richard destroyed partially. Since then Cisco cut the trees down and dug up the roots then left the real work for me, just kidding those roots were like 50 pounds each. I have moved the roots, worked the earth, built a fence, lined it with rocks, made a cucumber trellis, made several plant stakes, and finally planted the seeds. Which have amazingly started to grow. It has been one of the most educational, exciting, and rewarding things I have ever done. I can’t wait to see what is next, each morning I go outside first thing to see what has happened over night and I am never disappointed there is always something new and exciting to see. I will keep you posted and soon I will add a link so you can see my nerdy but exciting power point. A special thanks to everyone that has sent me seeds I have used almost all of them!

Well that is the major stuff that has happened recently and I am glad to finally get to update you! We will try to be more consistent from now on. As always we love you and miss you all.


Peace,
   Kathryn