PCV: Paid Caribbean Vacation

The intention of this blog is nothing, just the inner thoughts of my mind right now.

• I am so ready to get out of my training site. Another week of sitting in the bottom of a church getting talked to for 8 hours a day on a hard wooden chair with a bad fan blowing at me and I may kill people.
• Air conditioning is quite possibly the greatest thing ever created and if you for one second doubt its usefulness, reconsider for me. It's hot and it's rare to find a cool spot
• While they run rampant, I do value the intelligence of dogs for their ability to find spots to keep cool. Im not sure I would think of getting under a broken down car or laying inside sewer drains and I commend them for their wits.
• Getting on a bus at 6:20am and hearing R&B jams from the 90's is truly satisfying. This morning I got to hear Brandi, Boyz II Men, Brian McKnight, and Monica. The Monica song was none other than "For you I will" from the Space Jam soundtrack. Yeah... I owned it. But this was before R. Kelly was peeing on people.
• I thought I would be more tan by now being that Im living in the tropics but I dont feel like this is happening. I still hold strong to refusing to wear sunscreen but if you sat in a classroom from sun up until sun down you would understand.
• People's stress levels stress me out. We have so many sessions in the Peace Corps, perhaps one of them should be "deep breathing."
• My camera broke. I dropped it and I guess that happens when you do that. Oh well. Most of my pictures are stolen from other people anyway.
• Im going to write a Peace Corps manual before I leave here and make millions. Imagine any common sense thought you ever had about anything. Write a manual about it and I guarantee Peace Corps has a manual for it. It cant be that hard, most of them are 30 years old and are useless. Im sure they were useless then too. Ok, perhaps Im being rough, but whoever started the trend was a genius. I want my piece of the pie.
• Whoever owns Belikin Beer should be ashamed of themselves. They have a monopoly on all beverages in this country and they choose to produce a beer so bad that it's hard to stomach at times. Shame on you. If you are the only person distributing, you owe it to the people to give them something crisp, refreshing, and smooth.
• 5 weeks in this country and I havent really seen the ocean. Who would have thought that?
• Im going to miss seasons. I mean we have 2 here: wet and dry. That doesnt seem like enough. I think if I ever come back to the states, Im going to Minnesota or something so I can freeze just for the sake of being able to get cold
• Belizeans, well mostly Mayans, have extremely large families. 16 kids is a walk in the park. While I respect these women for their enormous fertility, I have 1 question for all the couples of Belize. How do you possibly procreate in this heat?
• This blog entry is ludicrous. Its like diahrrea coming from my mouth. but Im not finished quite yet
• My addiction to nasal spray seems to be subsiding. It takes work, I only get the shakes in the morning for a few hours now.
• Back to that procreation bullet point... our Medical Officer (PCMO) Jackie told us last week that she just ordered 10,000 condoms. I started to think about this. I cant even imagine being next to someone in that heat. She tells me I will change my mind. We have roughly 70 volunteers in this country. Assuming no one is having sex with another PCV, each volunteer would have to have sex about every 5 days for thier entire 2 year stay in order for us to use them in the alotted 2 years. That is an absurd amount of sex. I feel like this is a study I want to look more into because I just dont see it happening.
• On that note, Im going to go make a fool of myself and attend a yoga class.

t-minus 3 days until site assignments...

I have been in San Ignacio for a little over a month now and the time has flown by. They told us it would, but like most things in life, I didnt listen. On Friday we pack up all our things, get on a bus to Belmopan and find out what lies ahead for the next two years. Here are some of the options that I could be working with:

1. Carazol Town
- Working at a school with kids
2. Orange Walk Village
-I should know the name of the village but cant remember it
-Working at a school
3. Benque Viejo
-Working for the Belize House of Culture
-Running and development of programs that teach Belizeans about their culture and facilitate youth groups on various topics
4. San Ignacio
-Cornerstone Foundation
- This is a volunteer organization where people from all over the world pay money to come volunteer in Belize. They do lots of HIV/AIDS awareness work
-From what we have heard, this is a site without much supervision but a lot of funding. Depending on how you work, you could do amazing things.
5. Armenia
-Belize National Youth Chess Foundation (BNYCF)
-Uses chess as a tool to teach youth about life. Goal setting, cause and effect, math, geography, architecture... you'd be surprised to see how much this curriculum teaches by using Chess.
-This is the site I explained in an earlier post comparing the luxury I live in San Ignacio compared to other training sites (this could be karma).

Some people are freaking out about where they are going to send us. The Kriol YD people are going to Belmopan and Punta Gorda (2 each). They actually have their meeting today to decide where we are going and we will find out on Friday during, with no doubt, some kind of "fun activity."

No matter which site I get placed in, I will probably be living on my own around the first of November. Starting next Monday, I'll be living with a new host family while looking for a place of my own and getting settled into my assignment.

San Ignacio has been fun but all things must come to an end. I will surely come back here from time to time to visit friends and live in "luxury" if that luxury only means something as simple as a fan to cool me off from sweating so profusely.

I'll keep you posted

I think we can all agree that the Price is Right has never been the same since Bob left the show but for this instance, let us keep our opinions of Drew Carey to ourselves. Now, you may be asking yourself, what the hell does Bob Barker have to do with Belize. He spoke one vital line over and over again that Belize needs to hear so dearly.

Since Bob is no longer working for the Price is Right, and he isn't dead yet, I was thinking that maybe he would come down to Belize and help out a bit. We have a serious stray problem here and when one dog is in heat, every dog in town knows it. Based on what we have learned in Health class growing up, when animals (be that humans, dogs, or rabbits) bump uglies together, the result is usual more animals.

If Bob Barker were here, this would have never happened. Belize is in desperate need of an intervention and there is no better soul alive to do it than the man. If he can beat up Happy Gilmore than surely the canines in Belize dont stand a chance.

So if you havent noticed, which you probably havent since I leave them out to spare you, Peace Corps is so full of acronyms that I almost go insane.There are so many. Here are just a few from memory, there is no way I can remember them all...

PCV- Peace Corps Volunteer
PCT- Peace Corps Trainee
PM- Progam Manager
APCD- Assistant Peace Corps Director
PCMO- Peace Corps Medical Officer
LCF- Language and Cultural Facilitator
TT- Technical Trainer
PCVL- Peace Corps Volunteer Leader

you get the point... its ridiculous

Those are just the positions, you dont want to get me started with the organizations and other things they put an abbreviation on.

But something I noticed recently is just what I seeem to have a problem with every major program I've been a part of. Call it being in ResLife or the Peace Corps, everything has to be completely politically correct.

Most American culture also abbreviates politically correct to PC but its hard because here, everything that is given the letters PC is Peace Corps. Get the irony?

I rest my case

I think when the founding fathers of the US decided to sign a declaration of Independence, they picked the wrong time of the month. The 4th day? They got it all wrong. In Belize, their Independence Day is September 21. It also happened to fall on a Monday this year, which naturally means that all weekend is full of festivities and other fun times.

Dont be so dense as to think people here only party for the weekend. Being that there are 30 days in the month of September, Belizeans tend to party for the first 21 days of the month to celebrate their Independence.
Im not sure if we have lost some of our senses in terms of how important independence can be being that we have been independent for 233 years and all, but Belize has only been a country for 28 years of today. This means that many who celebrate remember being a British Colony and know how important being Belizean is.
The amount of flags and the number of times I've heard the national anthem here is ridiculous. Every car has a minimum of 10 flags on it, houses are often decorated with flags, streamers and other festive things. Somehow in the states, we get by and call ourselves patriotic by only putting a flag up in the yard. Here, they take it to a whole new level.
So while we may claim stake to beer, barbeque, hot dogs, cornhole and fireworks... We still have a lot to learn. Or we probably have learned these things, but somewhere in the past 233 years we forgot. So I guess what Im trying to say is that we have some work to do in the states and I think that upon my return, I will celebrate the 4th of July with a fervor that I will have learned from being fortunate enough to celebrate 3 Independence Days with Belize.

Happy Birthday Belize

Some people have asked how they can get an email every time I post something. If you look at the top of this page, there is a black bar that has options like "flag this blog" "follow". From what I have been told, if you click on the "Follow" button you can do something that allows you to find out when I post something new.

I hope that alleviates some confusion. If it doesnt work, then we'll work on something else.

While in San Jose, I did do more than just sit there the entire time. As I said earlier, there were no buses on Sunday. Well we wanted to go swimming. It was just the next town over. haha If I would have only known what I was in for.

The day started at 6:00am like most days but we were out of the house by 7 and going for a "little walk". This walk turned into an hour and 40 minutes of walking through the jungle on a tiny dirt road. It was great. And by great, I mean it was nothing like what I was expecting by a "little walk".

We got to the next town over, Santa Cruz, and then turned on a "main road" (this was a town of about 300). Another mile up the hill was El Rio Blanco national park. It was like showing up to a movie set or some kind of tropical dream. I'll just let the pictures do the talking.


I wish I had taken more pictures but I know that other people have some of me diving from the top of the waterfall into the falls themselves. The water was about 30 feet deep and I never touched bottom where we swam. The overhang of the waterfall created a small "room" behind the falls that we hung out in for awhile. A bit surreal and absolutely amazing.

So in end, we walked for about 3 hours and 15 minutes to swim for about 2 hours. All this was accomplished before noon. Then we sat around and did more sitting around. Great weekend, and even better experience. I'm excited to be out on my own in a month.

Last weekend, every trainee got the opportunity to go spend the weekend with a PCV that has been here for a year already and see how they live their lives. Since I have been living in San Ignacio in what I consider to be luxury, I was fortunate enough to see the exact opposite all weekend.

It all started with a night in Punta Gorda which is a 4 hour bus ride from Belmopan. The town that I was staying in didnt have a bus running that late at night so we had to stay in Punta Gorda that night. Punta Gorda is the district town of Toledo, one of the 6 districts in Belize. That night was a good time and I finally got to see the ocean for the first time. I was in the middle of some rant about how I've been in Belize for 3 weeks and I still havent seen the ocean. Then Rion pointed behind me and said it was right there. I said, "Where?" And of course, like the idiot that I am... I was literally 30 yards from the ocean the entire time. It was a little dark in my defense, but either way... I could have thrown a rock into the Caribbean Sea. I still wasnt sold on it, so I decided to taste it. Sure enough, it was salty. Good to know.

Now, moving on. We had a great breakfast in PG, followed by going to the market to get some food for the weekend. Little did I know that there isnt much food, or much of anything where I was going. Our bus ride from Punta Gorda was about 2 hours. None of which was on paved roads and we travelled probably 20 miles in 2 hours. Remember that Belize is only roughly the size of Massachussetts, but you can easily ride for 10 hours and not leave the country.

Upon arriving in San Jose, I looked around and wondered what we were going to do. My host looked at me and said, "what do you want do to?" My response was, "what is there to do?" "This is it." We were sitting there. No electricity. He had 1 spoon, 1 bowl, 1 fork. In a year of being in Belize, he has never had a visitor. Just because there was nothing to do, that doesnt mean I was bored. It was so great to do nothing for 2 days. Another note... I was stuck there. We got there on Saturday and there wasnt another bus leaving town until Monday morning.

Most of our time was spent looking at eachother and laughing due to the lack of things happening or just genuine good conversation. When I first walked into his house, I thought I was put with someone who had lost their mind. Have you ever seen "A Beautiful Mind"? This is what his house looked like. There were papers on the wall everywhere and it freaked me out a bit. Not to mention the newspaper article of a missing persons report.

Come to find out later, he is writing a novel and the walls are covered with character sketches, plot diagrams, maps of the town, timelines of the story, etc. It was obvious this is something he does a lot and has put copious amounts of time into. After learninga about the book, I wasnt freaked out anymore.

The rest of the time was spent hanging out with his "kids." He has basically adopted every child in the village. It's very funny because they are used to him, but then being that he has never had a visitor in his village, they didnt know what to do when 2 white people showed up. They mostly just stared. It was great, and before long there were kids coming from everywhere even after dark just to scream "nice to meet you" even though they couldnt see me due to there being no electricity.


One of my friends that I met along the way.

Im not sure this is something I could do and luckily, I know that I will not be doing. He is healthy communities and I am Youth Development and needless to say, I will not be in that remote of a village. Not to mention that he was in a Mayan village in the South and I will probably be in the North with a Spanish community. I think I would have a problem having so much "me" time. I like myself and all, but without human interaction... I'd be totally crazy in no time.

When we had to leave, the bus only leaves on Monday, Wednesday, Friday and every other Saturday. Now you would think that's not too bad. However, in order to leave, we got the privilege of catching the bus at 4:05am. Nothing like getting up at 3:45am to get on a bus. The sun is far from up by this point, which meant we got to wait for the bus by candle light. Then when the bus's lights could be seen from over the hill, he would take the candle inside and lock the door. It seems crazy at the time, but before long, it's just life. It's amazing to see what we can adapt to in such a short time.

I've been here maybe a month now, although it feels a lot longer. It was only a matter of time before this gringo would get into trouble. Usually I have no problem finding trouble, but here it seems to find me.

Every Tuesday and Friday, I am required to go into the capital in Belmopan for training. We get on the bus at 6:40 and arrive just around 8:00am. It seems to work flawless on Tuesdays. Fridays always seem to be a different story...

There we were, just minding out our business, riding the bus when the bus got stopped by immigration. They get on the bus, check IDs and then usually let you go. We got stopped last week and they were not pleased that we didnt have our passports (We were told by PC that we shouldnt carry them) and we had no other forms of ID. Last friday they let us go when we told them we were PC. Not this Friday.

They got on the bus and were not happy that a bus made for 48 had 76 people on it. Something to do with safety but its how the bus system works here! By this time, we all had our PC IDs and we thought we were good. This apparently wasnt good enough. They made all of the Whiteys get off the bus unless we had our passport. I luckily had mine but the Police Officer took my passport and then left the bus so I ran after him.

They told us we were illegally in the country and there was lots of confusing until one of the PC people showed up and saved the day. We all got our IDs back except for my passport. I would have bet my life that the Police Officer had my passport which he said he never even saw it. It was a lot of confusion, some arguing in Kriol, before I decided to check my bag and there it was. I guess in the confusion, he gave it back to me and then I got off the bus for no reason.

Who's the stupid white guy that makes a scene for no reason? Yup... thats me.

So I did this a few weeks ago but I got the chance to see some Mayan ruins. We went for our cultural day of training and it was fun. The tour guide is something that if I were Mayan, I would want to do because you can tell stupid tourists anything and they would believe you.


This is the first of many "Batman Adventure photos"

Today, we celebrated the Battle of St. George's Caye. It was not nearly as festive as I would have thought but most people seem to be saving up their party pants for the 21st which is Independence Day here.

211 years ago, Belize fought a battle with the Spanish and won. This is basically the reason why Belize is still an english speaking nation today. Belize is the only English speaking country south of the United States border on the American continent. Every other country is Spanish speaking with the exception of Brazil.

Last night, I came home to help my host father load a truck with about 80 cases of beer for them to sell in front of the police station as a fund raiser for the Town Council. I thought my days of carrying cases of beer were over, I was wrong.

We had a good time and got to hear the mayor speak at midnight as they raised the flag in honor of the day. Its known here as either St. George Caye Day or National Day. They had fireworks which were cool but lets just say they dont have anything on WEBN.

I got the chance to try Potato wine last night and it tastes just like that... potatoes. Not really my cup of tea but they ferment anything here because alcohol is held onto tightly and run like a monopoly. Belikin or potatoes... I havent decided which tastes worst.

Coming up... a full description of Belikin Beer and the varieties of horrible beer contained in the confines of Belize.

Just something that could happen to me or anyone else down here. I want one!

My placement during training with a youth group is with the San Ignacio Police Cadets. They are mostly boys and a few girls ranging in age from 8-17. It reminds me a lot of ROTC for kids, but not as serious. They do a lot of community service and march in parades and such.

It doesnt seem as serious as ROTC because the focus is not on the military but creating a way for kids to respect the police and enjoy what they are doing while learning quality life skills along the way.

They have a cheer they say over and over again that goes a little something like this:

"Motivation Check"
"We Got it"
"Life is good"
"All the time"
"All the time"
"Life is good"

It was neat to say the least and I look forward to working with them even though it is only a short time. We will probably get to march with them in the Independence Day Parade on the 21st at the front of the parade with the police. Our co-worker, Mr. Medina is very excited and proud of the cadets. He showed us about 400 pictures of what they have done in the past from sleeping to community service to marching.

I'll try to get some pictures up here soon with some stuff to show everyone the beauty of Belize. The only difference is the pictures dont show the temperature... or the humidity.

So I knew that as soon as I got to San Ignacio for my host family stay that I was in a very privileged position. There are things that we have that we enjoy and there are things that arent so great but we didnt really have a frame of reference for which to compare until yesterday.

The other 39 volunteers and I went to the capital in Belmopan for training and it was the first time we had a chance to exchange stories of what our host family lives were like. We are the luckiest people on the planet. Here are a few of the things that San Ignacio has that other towns do not:

-running water
-showers
-this little thing called electricity
-phone service
-bars
-trivia night
-a movie theater showing movies sooner than the U.S.A.
-fans
-internet cafes
-cars
-roads
-police
-bridges to cross the river
-parks

those are just some of the few that come to mind. I have most of those things in my house. I may not have hot water in my shower, but trust me... I dont think I want another hot shower until I get back into the States. I didnt even know we didnt have hot water until a week of living there when I asked just because every time I turned the water on, the cold was so good that it was all I needed.

As for the bars, I guess every town has at least 1 bar. However, some of these towns have such a church presence that only "whores, homosexuals, and drunks" go to places like that. Therefore, some people basically have no bars to enjoy. It is something we like to laugh at them for.

Training on Friday was quite comical to hear some of the stories. While we all seem to like our families, it's very hard not to compare our sites. I have a cold shower with plenty of pressure, others wash themselves in a bucket of water. I have a working toilet, others spray bug spray the entire time they use the restroom in order to keep the mosquitoes away. Nothing wrong with either... just different.

One of the conversations that happened the other day at dinner was Adam talking about how his family in Belmopan had 4 cars (extremely rare), Taylor's reply was, "You have a car? We dont even have a horse!" All this and they live about 9 miles from each other.

Just goes to show you the differences that exist from town to town. I live in the 2nd biggest town in the country with a population of about 17,000 and its considered huge here. When I was trying to explain to my host brother about how big towns are in the US it was hard because he didnt really understand.

I think some of the biggest differences between where I am and where some of the other volunteers are is the reason that families decide to host volunteers. For example, I would assume that most of the families in San Ignacio do not need the money that PC gives them to host a volunteer. They are not rich by any means but they seem to be able to get by just fine. In other villages, however, families will host a volunteer in order to survive and supplement their income. Nothing wrong with either one, just different.