After drooling over the Motobecane Fantom Pro SL 29 for more than a year I finally put my order in for two a 15" for my wife and a 21" for me. My wife is 5'7" and I'm 6'4".

Pre-Initial changes:I am putting 400 mm Kalloy seatposts on because I know that the included seatpost is only 350mm which won't be long enough for my wife, and I love the two bolt clamp on this post.

I am also going to switch out the tires as soon as I pull the wheels out of the box, my wife has the Nevegals that came on her OutCast 29 and I ordered a pair of Continental Mountain King 2.4's.

I'll put my favorite Oury grips on mine and I am looking at the Ergon grips, or something similar but cheaper.

Any suggestions? Or questions? I'll try to keep this updated with my impressions and the changes I make on our bikes.

My students are learning! I was greatly intimidated at first to try to teach people so different from me a language as crazy as English in a language not my own. However, I am finding it gratifying to realize at this point that the students who have proven to be most dedicated and who have developed a relationship with me through patience and good attitude have learned something! I am now able to note baby steps of progress in adult students and schoolchildren and in myself.

While it is important to me to note progress, I keep in mind that easily they could learn without me in their lives, easily it could be someone else in their paths teaching them, easily they could improve their lives without my presence. The resources are here. The keys to their learning remain in their own hands.

These keys include the willingness to seek knowledge despite feelings of ineptitude and awkwardness and to listen to and involve others, the initiative to take responsibility for and engage themselves in their own learning, and the commitment to practice putting it into practice on a regular basis so that it is cemented into their minds and ingrained in their habits.

I understand that what they are learning is at best minimally important within the greater context of their entire lives, but I am glad to have been present at this stage and to have been a part of their lives and learning nonetheless.

Evelyn and Ingrid are two of three sisters of one family in Club Glow. We took an adventurous bike ride the last week of school. Ingrid especially is a gifted child with leadership abilities and communication skills. She always has a spark in her eye. She is the leader of the girls' tenacious and dogged knocking on our door at any hour to visit us. I'm grateful one person likes us enough to visit!

Ruth, my former host mom, and Silas, my prized pupil. He has made phenomenal strides in his language learning; he has also been one of the primary students responsible for my understanding of the best methods of teaching Spanish speakers who lack formal education.

The promised Internet Cafe has become a reality this spring. The youth group continues to manage its use on their own.

Late in the school year the girls club has enjoyed a wealth of enriching activities outside of school, visiting my house, painting, learning about HIV/AIDS, playing boardgames, and discussing stereotypes and gender. I was very proud the day the girls began to ask questions of the larger world and were interested in learning about places on the map I have of Central America. Regrettably, the girls who were selected to participate in camp this summer never gained the permission of their parents, mostly due to the notion that a trip to Belmopan (in tiny Belize) is too far from home. Que lastima!

Our friend Yin from China began to visit the house for regular English lessons as well. He helped me learn the appropriate way to show Chinese speakers how to form the sounds of the English letters and how to remember them in relation to the sounds which are familiar to their mouths. We spent hours seemingly yelling in each other's faces and peering at the settings of each other's mouths in order to learn.

We arrived in Quetzeltenango (also known as Xelaju, or Xela pronounced Shayla) Guatemala late friday, found a cheap and clean enough hostel and crashed. On Saturday we toured the city, second largest in Guatemala, and checked into the apartment we rented for the week. Sunday we woke around 5 caught a bus to the base of the mountain around 7 and started walking the 1st gear road up to the climbing area near La Muela. We started climbing the first route we came too, I thought it was a 5.10 and was very frustrated at how poorly I was climbing, or actually hanging at each draw. Around half-way up the route I noticed two more climbers on the neighboring crag, one local and one obviously not. It turned out that the local was Miguel Arango, the first rock climber in all of Guatemala.

Miguel started climbing at age 12 after reading an Italian book about mountaineering. Since then he has hand bolted about 30 quality but very difficult sport routes in the nearby hills, most in the 5.12 range. During the week he works his six days selling wool yarn to manufacturers and every Sunday he is cranking on his latest testpiece or guiding a newbie Gringo for extra cash. Last night we had Miguel over for beers, wine and crepes to chat about climbing, it was fun hearing stories about the many different trips throughout Latin America pursuing his passion.

I was sick all day Monday and Tuesday so our plan to climb on Tuesday was changed to Wednesday, then finally we made it back up on Thursday. This time we were fortunate to catch rides both up and down the mountain, saving my lungs and especially my knees from the steep cobbled road. We wanted to go surfing in Guatemala while here, but there is a huge competition in El Salvador so all the instructors are headed south to compete, plus the waves are supposed to be HUGE this weekend, probably not the best for rookies. Maybe when we move to Portland I can get a board and stash it at my parents???

Hands-On! Project made possible by Kids to Kids

Bella Vista Girls Club GLOW (Girls Leading Our World)

Part 1

Club Glow offers female students an opportunity to learn about themselves and each other and participate in empowering, creative projects in a safe, positive environment. It was brought to Belize through Peace Corps Volunteers in local communities and through Camp GLOW, a summer camp for young women leaders of the future all over the world.

The first three pictures feature Zulma, Deiri, and Ruthy, the girls who have been selected to attend camp this summer in the Cayo District of Belize, near the capital Belmopan. Each summer, girls from the six districts of Belize attend camp to learn leadership skills, build self-esteem, discuss health-related topics, play sports, express themselves through arts and crafts, act out skits, dance, and build lasting friendships.

The Bella Vista Girls Club GLOW began in the Bella Vista Catholic School when I obtained permission from the principals to meet with Standard V girls (approx. ages 11-14) before school two mornings a week, primarily with health topics in mind. I also focused on self- esteem and enrichment activities according to a curriculum from Costa Rica for youth called “Como planear mi vida,” or “How to Plan My Life.”

The girls work on projects at every meeting that allow them to express themselves and help them think about the future. One of the creative projects we planned was painting a mural on a community building wall. The girls would each paint an outline of her hand and fill it in with representations of goals and dreams she has for herself and her community. This idea was primarily inspired by our friend Denise Coelho, a Humana Volunteer from Brasil who lived in Bella Vista in the fall of 2008. We called this the Hands-On! Project when applying for a grant through Kids to Kids, Massachusetts. From this program, we received funds to buy each participant in club art supplies for all projects and supplies specific to the Hands-On! Mural.

This past Saturday morning female students from both Standard IV and V (approx. ages 9-14) met to begin their art project together. Before Saturday, the two grades had met for club on separate mornings. The first step involved simply painting the chosen wall for their mural one clean color for the background, cream being the preferred color of the vice principal with whom I have been coordinating.

The girls seemed to participate cheerfully and eagerly and developed teamwork and a sense of camaraderie in the task, taking turns with the rollers. After finishing rapidly, I was impressed with the efficient manner in which they helped me clean up, return the materials to my house, and replace the ladder in its usual position.

Here the girls enjoyed eating a snack of different fresh fruit, including grapes, pineapple, apples, and bananas. They were also careful to drink plenty of water! Pictured from the left are Janet, Karla, Cindy, Melbian, Paulina, Cindy, and Dalia.

Mid-week the girls visited my house to decorate inside-out cereal boxes in which to keep their own brand-new art supplies! Some of the girls stayed for hours on Saturday to paint watercolor pictures for me to hang up on the fridge.

I look forward to sharing the results of the next step in our girls club project.

I would like you to meet my new friend Bella. She is from Guatemala and is fully committed to learning the English language. In late March, she started coming to our house every afternoon for several hours to study with me. She also wanted to learn new recipes, especially pizza, so one night we kneaded wheat dough and made healthy pizza together, which her husband shared when he came to pick her up on his bike. They are both very young-18-years-old-and don’t have their papers to be here. Bella gets up at 4 o’clock every morning to make her husband breakfast, sometimes biking all the way out to the farm to take him lunch also.

Bella, which means beautiful, is her nickname. She is very light-skinned with bright, light eyes, and everyone here equates those traits with beauty. Her in-laws and friends in Bella Vista joke that I am the mother of her niece because she is white like me.

Bella and I have become good friends. It is wonderful to get to know someone in another culture who actually cares that you exist and wants to know more about you, where you are from, and where you have been, without prejudice or judgment. This kind of friendship is rare. Many women in Bella Vista have mentioned that they have few friends or none at all, partly due to the fact that people are from different countries and situations and have not necessarily lived in BV long. Bella has only lived here for 1 year.

Our friendship is a fun cultural exchange for us. She is teaching me Spanish almost as much as I am teaching her English. She is also helping me improve my methods of teaching Spanish speakers. Now I show my students not only how to spell each English vocabulary word correctly but how to write the pronunciation for a Spanish speaker as well so they can practice at home.

Bella and I have had fun making jewelry with beads my mother-in-law Joyce generously sent me, sharing pictures of family, and talking of our homes. We are each learning about the world of the other. She doesn’t know much about snow, mountains, or sports. When we were going over vocabulary for sports in a book, she said climbing and skiing sound terrifying! She told me all about Carnival in Guatemala. The circus came to Mango Creek last week, and you could enter for free if you donated a live dog to feed the lions! Really!

Bella taught me a saying, one of the hundred or so “piropos” or “flores” boyfriends tell girlfriends she has compiled:

No quiero perlas del mar ni perfume del oriente solo quiero tu amistad y cariño para siempre.

I don’t want pearls of the sea nor perfume from the Orient, only your friendship and affection forever.

She was sitting primly

On the wooden love seat

So pretty & young & fresh & sweet

Seawater light eyes

Freckles high on her cheeks

Wavy hair held back at her neck

The sun from the day

Beaming out of her skin & her teeth

Aqua blue flowers

Against a silky white dress

Glittery flip flops

The color of an American pool

Her sobrina malcriada

Me as a child

Unkempt, barefoot little girl

Wild hair of straw

White face, wide eyes, blue jean skirt

After the phone call

Staring at my tears & trying not to

Mi abuela se murio

She took her leave

A white ghost, an angel

But not before

A quick squeeze y un beso

In my ear, tranquila

May God give you peace.

~4 April 2009

The community clean-up day was mostly a gratifying success for everyone involved, beautiful even. I was amazed at how organized community leaders were in mobilizing groups of volunteers first thing Saturday morning. Many groups picked up trash, including a large number of kids sent by their mothers to help us. They were eager to be included once they saw us working, despite the hot sun! I think it was easier to ignore the heat when we were working together toward a common goal. I was informed that in a single day 9 dump truck loads of trash were driven out of Bella Vista!! Another group, including Scott, painted and cleaned the water tank, and parks were constructed by several other select volunteers. Already I have seen the children enjoying the parks built in different community spaces. Nurseries were planted. On Saturday night, a movie projected on the side of the water tank was enjoyed by all. It was meaningful in that it conveyed a message that resonated with the people of Bella Vista, people from many Central American countries and different plights. The movie was from El Salvador, called Innocent Voices. It caused people to think more deeply about why they came to Belize in the first place and how they will move forward for the benefit of their children.

This is the first time I can say with conviction I am proud to be a part of this community.

COMMUNITY-WIDE CLEAN-UP

“For a Better Bella Vista”

“Para una Bella Vista Mejor”

Topic: Health and Sanitation, and on a larger scale, the Environment and Conservation

Events: Drainage cleaning, Road maintenance, Water tank cleaning and painting, Construction of 4 new parks, Park beautification, Health information distribution, Community movie night, Minister’s speech, Trash pick-up!

The purpose of introducing this topic is to bring to our attention some of the vital aspects of daily living that perhaps many of us take for granted. For example, trash bins. For another, the Earth. Where does your trash go? How do you dispose of it? What impact does it make on this planet?

We’ve all heard a lot about pollution, greenhouse gases, global warming, etc. But let’s take a step closer and simply look at the land, the streams and fields and trees (maybe there aren’t too many streams near you), around us. Also, let’s observe the physical make-up of our communities, the streets, the water system, the parks, the sanitary landfill. How does your city maintain an organized and safe way of life for people within its particular environment? What infrastructure is necessary for a city? How does it protect people’s health and the environment?

Where I live in Belize, the landscape is the typical gloriously tropical kind, with lush vegetation thickening toward the horizon in the west and toward the karsts of the Maya Mountains (Scott calls the separate mounds of rocky cliffs covered with jungle where he has put up an outdoor climbing route karsts; the people here call all of the terrain in the bush and the mountains, monte). However, the landscape is marred. The streams and the countryside around Bella Vista are filthy, littered with everything from baby diapers to Coke bottles to plastic wrappers to tin cans. Food scraps are quickly torn into by the stray dogs, which are plentiful and pitiful. There are no trash cans. No trash bins. No regular trash pick-up. No dump trucks.

As I said before, infrastructure is lacking.

The responsible citizens of Bella Vista collect trash inside their houses in the kind of small, flimsy plastic bags you get groceries in and then rake all of the trash in their yards together with the bags into a huge pile to burn. Kitchen scraps are either thrown to the animals or taken by them, or used for compost in the garden. Frequently, especially on weekend nights, the air is full of smoke from the burning trash piles behind every house. The smoke cloaks the village like a thick blanket with the humidity. Everyone in the community breathes trash during these times.

The less responsible citizens tend to toss their trash every which way at the outskirts of the village. The amount of trash along a path we ride our bikes on to the next village has increased at an astounding rate in the time we have lived here. It is stinky and strung out on the beautiful land and disgusting. Believe me, when your tires are splashing through puddles full of soiled diapers and rotting heads of cabbages, this is what you think: this is hideous and a despicable and senseless waste. The emotional reaction to littering is quite strong at that point!

Don’t worry, I have good news! There has been planned a community-wide clean-up and beautification project for this weekend. It is merely a first step, mobilizing, but at least a step in the right direction of bringing this need to the attention of the common person in Bella Vista. Changing minds and attitudes is necessary.

The village council and the Humana organization, also doing health projects, are coordinating with the big banana farms to use the equipment to clean out the draining ditches full of stagnant water, pressure spray the water tank and paint the outside, grate the bumpy dirt roads, build playgrounds for the children, and transport all trash to the dump near Mango Creek. I am coordinating with the health workers to have a health booth and first aid on site for the volunteers working and for the community at large. At the end of the day, there will be an outdoor movie, an inspirational one about a community changing for the better in El Salvador, projected in the main field for families to enjoy. I would say almost no one in Bella Vista has seen a movie projected on a big screen.

The entire event sounds phenomenal, but we will see how smoothly it goes. I look forward to letting you know the results!

His mom says he likes to make sure everyone he meets is his friend. He is worried if he doesn't gain your affection. He is remarkably thoughtful for his age, and remembers every face. This is Jared, the 4-year-old son of the Nicaraguan family I mentioned before in a blog, our former neighbors behind our first host family's house in BV. They have recently had a new addition to their family, a baby girl, though they still live in one room, the same size as the one we lived in. I cherish this family picture. Gretchen, Samwell, Jared, and Ashira. They visited us weeks ago, brought delicious coconut bread to share with us, and I showed Jared's mother, Gretchen, how to bake a marbled chocolate and vanilla boxed cake, at her request. They wanted to use our oven to bake the coconut bread and the cake. The kids thought it was a terrific time, though since it was late, their mother curtailed their sugar intake! Jared's sister, Ashira, is pictured here as well. She has changed dramatically since we first met her in August. Now that they can afford to pay for Jared to be watched at another woman's house while they are at work, Ashira is free to go to school! Gretchen used to tell me her daughter had no idea what life could have been like for her, how lucky she is to be here. Ashira used to pout and pick fights with Jared sullenly, ever washing dishes or shoes or sitting on the front stoop listlessly. I never saw her smile in all the time we lived next door, but now she is all smiles. She visits me before or after school and climbs on the climbing wall or plays with Holly. She is confident, friendly, and curious.

My husband, climbing, and our dog! These photos were taken outside our village down a rad bike trail, al monte, toward the Maya Mountain karsts. Along the trail, a blue morpho, the vibrantly colored butterfly of Belize, fluttered beside my head. Scott found a treasure of a boulder and a wall, and we biked out to check them out together for the first time a couple of weeks ago. He also found the ideal swimming hole for us and bathing spot for Holly the dog. She is growing fast and able to keep up her pace on a fairly long bike ride, but alas, running the entire distance to the climbing wall is not within her limits of endurance yet. I brought her home in my backpack on her first attempt this week. She is such a sweet and patient companion that it is difficult to remember why I liked cats so much!

Her name is Joyce, and she is working as an administrator of health in the Independence area. She is a compassionate and well-spoken advocate for change, and we look forward to partnering with her in realizing health project goals in Bella Vista.

The first girls club meeting was amusing, mostly me amused at myself trying to communicate with a roomful of girls who only understand Spanish. I am using a curriculum from Costa Rica, fortunately, in Spanish, called Como planear mi vida. It is very enriching and focuses on self-esteem and health topics for teenagers. During the second class, I encouraged the girls to draw their personal flag, an activity which required them to think about what represents them. At first, they didn't understand the concept of thinking of themselves in a creative way, or of even telling other people about themselves. I showed them an example, and half of the group copied it exactly. However, some of the girls began to get the idea as I prompted them with questions, like, What do you like to do? What is the best thing about your family? your community? your culture? What are you good at? What do you like about yourself? What are your goals? Some of the girls chose to write phrases instead of drawing to fill in their flags, and I was impressed at the insights they shared. Many of them wrote they were proud to be educated, perhaps a characteristic their mothers were not fortunate enough to possess.

We have been dealing with bikes a lot lately. Last weekend a local metal worker that is going to build an ultra burly bike rack for me gave me a rusty mountain bike frame. We sanded it down and painted it pink for April, we took all the parts off of her cruiser and made a super heavy mountain bike for her. We also made friends with a couple of Americans that were attempting to roll past our town on bikes heading towards the US. I talked them into crashing at our house. They were super cool, very much what I was expecting the people in Peace Corps to be like, but unfortunately Peace Corps attracts a very much different person. These two had been volunteering for a bike shop/NGO in Guatemala that helped people get bikes and machines that use bikes to make life a little easier. One machine they built while there was a washing machine that uses human power to clean clothes! They also built a blender that uses pedal power. Super cool kids. The guy Tyson started his trip on bike in Argentina and met up with Sara in Guatemala at the shop.

Here a few pics of what we have been up to. The last one is the only kid in town that is willing to give the slackline more than one shot, he can make it about 5 or so steps before 'falling off', he is still scared of getting hurt so it is more like a step off.

To: Grape Creek Classes Re: My Impressions of Life in Bella Vista Village, Belize, and of Peace Corps in General A normal day in Bella Vista begins with roosters crowing from every direction, from about 4 AM and increasing in intensity through the morning hours. Men with machetes or pesticide tanks on their backs ride their creaky bicycles, often loaded with bananas, plantains, or another person on the front handlebars, toward the banana farms in the dark around 5 AM. On regular errands, a man gives his wife a lift by having her sit side-saddle on the frame in front of him, so that his legs have to bow out awkwardly as he pedals. It is also common to see women, whether Latino, Mestizo, Mayan, or black, ride a bike with a tiny baby perched either on a basket above the front wheel or holding on for dear life to the main tube of the bike frame. School buses come and go by 6 AM, stopping along the highway and near the school grounds to pick up groups of men and women in tattered work clothes who also work on the farms and groups of students bound for the closest high school in Mango Creek/Independence. School buses painted with a bright red or orange stripe are used for public transportation throughout Belize. This is what we take to get to the capital or any town farther away than we can ride to by bike. Taking the bus is an adventure. The widest roads in Belize are paved, narrow two lanes without a proper shoulder, and the bus drivers race each other to pick up the most passengers, often taking up the entire roadway while speeding side-by-side in the same direction and honking at each other. The bus drivers also do not slow down on hilly curves; rather, they speed up at the turns so that we lose our stomachs and feel like we are on a roller coaster. It can be sort of fun.

Most days in Bella Vista village are the same for families. Fathers and sometimes mothers go to work on the farm or in the little stores they own next to their houses, children go to the Roman Catholic School, and the women and sometimes Mayan housekeepers help with any number of chores in the household all day long. It seems that each chore takes much more time that it would take to accomplish in the States. For example, washing clothes takes hours of hauling water, scrubbing, and rinsing by hand in the pila, a cement wash basin with a rub board on either side. The water from the center of town only runs to each house for an hour every morning and an hour every evening due to a meager well and an inadequate pump. As a result, water is conserved very carefully in rain barrels and various containers and buckets and then used frugally throughout the day by scooping a bowlful at a time from a basin. This affects everything from brushing one’s teeth to washing dishes. Just picture washing dishes in that situation. No running water. Soaking the clothes in Suavetel, clothes softener that improves the smell of clothes easily mildewed in the humid climate, follows washing and rinsing the clothes. Finally, the clothes are hung to dry outside, which can be hampered during the rainy season, although the sun is strong enough to dry clothes very quickly when it is not cloudy. Cooking takes on a new meaning as well. People in Bella Vista tend to keep very few items in refrigerators and prefer to prepare and eat all of the food the same day, perhaps because the refrigerators are the size of a big TV. My host mother would choose one of the local chickens running around the village, owned by this or that person, cut its throat, bleed it, de-feather it, stew it, and serve it bones and all alongside the classic Belizean beans ‘n’ rice for lunch by 1:00 PM for her children, the time they should have been back at school. Even tamales have bones in them in this country. We usually were not served lunch in our host home until 1:30 or 2:00 PM. Remember, Belizean time is similar to that of all of Latin America. It is expected to be late by half an hour to an hour. Or more. All of the children in Bella Vista walk home from school for a long lunch at midday, a break of close to two hours. The students return for a final two hours of classes before being released to play in the dirty streets, kick a ball around or play marbles, finish homework, watch TV, take bucket baths, and help their parents with the small business or chores until an early bedtime. There are not many extracurricular activities for children or youth, and it is not safe or beneficial for them to be outside of the home after dark in Bella Vista. Most days follow this pattern, except for Sundays. Sunday is different in the village because for many farm workers, it is the only day off. Families spend time together, and everyone seems to be around. Many do chores and washing as usual because even a day off is not really a day off for the women, especially those who work during the week in addition to doing housework. Although there are not as many churches as bars in Bella Vista, churchgoing is prominent in village life. However, Sunday is not necessarily special in this regard because religious people in Bella Vista go to church every night of the week, and on Fridays, it is normal to attend services the entire night. There are primarily Evangelical, Pentecostal, and Catholic churches. Scott and I have personally noticed differences in the way the Christians treat us and the way they conduct themselves compared to those who are not a part of a church. They are more likely to be trustworthy, hard working, dependable, and honest than those who do not call themselves Christians. We are helping a youth group apply for a program and receive funds to begin an Internet Café in Bella Vista so that high school students can complete their homework without commuting. The youth who will coordinate the project are turning out to be those who attend church because they do not steal, let their friends use the computers for free, or fail to be responsible in keeping the facility clean and secure. They also are the ones trying their best at school so they will actually take advantage of the opportunity to use the computers for homework assignments. This seems discriminatory, but in the developing world, there are very nearly no rules, not like in the States. Political correctness does not exist. People refer to other races with every slanderous name imaginable in normal conversation. Whole villages revolve around one political party’s whims, denied critical federal funds if the political leanings of the village do not line up with the party in office at the time. Infrastructure is lacking, from law enforcement to road maintenance, entities we take for granted in the States. For one thing, most people do not even own the land nor know who does in Bella Vista! It is a culture of every person for herself or himself. No one has a concept of waiting in line, or waiting for a turn. In the store, the person is served first who cuts up to the front and thrusts money in the face of the storeowner the fastest. If the bus is almost full, a person boards the bus and finds a seat by shoving children, elbowing the lady with the baby, and grabbing a seat before the elderly. It clearly pays to be selfish here. Many of my perceptions of the world, social justice, and making right the wrong have shifted during my stint so far in Peace Corps due to the reality of daily life in poverty. There is often boredom, tedium, desperation, or apathy, and the rest of what you might expect in life does not matter, except for survival or escape to something better. Any kind of development work, especially Peace Corps in its long-term commitments to solidarity and sustainability, is a delicate balance of taking the pulse of the village, understanding how things work through the political and social fabric, and finding a respectful role in which to encourage and promote change. The important words to understand are solidarity and sustainability. They look and sound good upon reading, but they mean something quite radical when carried out.

The holidays in Belize have been different, expectedly, from any others I have had in my life. Strangely, they are pleasantly different and seem somehow more special and enjoyable in a way, perhaps because they involve no stress, latent from jobs, money, or trips. They are what we make of them, simple, and even a single phone call to family or a mere visit from a new friend can seem powerfully significant and can make me want to cry. The little Nicaraguan family, our former neighbors in a one-room shed, stopped by our new place after church on Christmas, and the kids gave me hugs and proudly showed me their new necklaces and generally looked precious in their best attire. They were sipping juice boxes and looked pleased with themselves, and it made me smile for a long time that the family cared enough to come and see me.

As with most experiences in Peace Corps, I believe the lesson has been to learn simplicity and to focus on relationships. It also constantly causes us to ask questions like, are we becoming "better" people, or "worse," for this experience? It does seem that whatever traits we already possessed are often accentuated. But, what is at the heart of volunteerism and humanitarian work and development? We continue to notice the innate selfishness of human beings, both within ourselves and our new community.

This year, as part of trying to be a stronger, more assertive, more decisive me (though balanced and kind, like my mother-in-law or my host mom), I decided to make my birthday as positive as possible, given the circumstances. I requested going to Placencia to snorkel, my first time ever, and a red velvet cake, like Scott and I saw on a cooking show when we were staying with another Volunteer couple. Funny, I never liked red velvet cake before. Above are a few photos of snorkeling, despite the interspersed storms. You can see where the clouds began to part for us to have a sunny spot in which to snorkel. I even saw barracudas and a sting ray up-close! Also, check out Scott's new ride that he put together with a good deal on a frame from New York that actually fits him. I think the striped seat and matching grips he found in Belize City are rad, and so does every other villager who happens to pass. In fact, I am endangered when riding behind Scott because if the staring person is on a bike when he passes Scott, he fails to look forward again until he has very nearly crashed into me!

To view the clips of students' responses about self-esteem, go to:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9CpY7aLfo7k.

To learn more about the Millenium Development Goals, go to: youthink.worldbank.org/issues.

People say the scum of the earth live in this village. How can we call another human being scum, as though one could step on another like a boot on trodden ground, to crush another as easily? Meanwhile, human beings, no matter their label, breathe and feel and struggle alike.

I believe this addresses the heart of what is at stake in the Millenium Development Goals: human dignity. How much do we bestow by respecting one another and how much do we cheat one another? I thought dignity was a possession both innate and self-determined. But if a human being defines his or her worth according to a community, as in the developing world, what responsibility has the world community in bestowing such dignity?

I live in Belize as a Peace Corps Volunteer. I stand out as a gringa. What I represent upon sight has already been determined for me by the world. The approach of Peace Corps isn't immediately to gloss it over and make everything shiny and clean and right. How can we pare away the layers of perception we have of one another to appreciate the basics?

We live side by side. We see that we can be friends, and we teach each other. In so doing, we claim our own dignity as human beings and support the dignity of others and the larger community.

What is the significance of human dignity in the world today? I know a young Nicaraguan family here of which the mother and father work ten hours six days a week, their five-year-old daughter caring for her younger brother all day. They cannot afford to send her to school. Each parent makes only $2.25 per hour on a banana farm, while food is priced congruously to that in the United States. A pound of tomatoes costs $4.50; a box of cereal, $8.75; a jar of peanut butter, $5.25; a papaya, $3.00; a head of lettuce, $7.00. Consequently, people eat rice and beans everyday in Belize. This is basic.

So, how does this family, hard-working, trustworthy, and upstanding, conceive of justice and equality among human beings? How do they view me and conceive of the contrasts between people in this world when chancing to glimpse even one of my possessions, such as a Chaco sandal? Or a headlamp, which would be quite useful for late night trips to the latrine? Or a mosquito net, which was issued to me and which they cannot even find to buy here?

Poverty and wealth are relative to some extent, and happiness does not reside in riches. But where is the line defining the basics and human dignity from the whole of resources humankind utilizes and enjoys?

As a health education volunteer, I coordinated a self-esteem activity for several groups of primary schoolchildren in Belize because I believe human dignity is central to overall health and well being. The children didn't know the word in English, Spanish, or Kriol. I will post clips of a few responses when I find a CD Rom that actually works.

Part of settling into life as a Peace Corps Volunteer is finding activities that help other people and that also make you happy. Scott has been successful at this by acquiring all the tools and materials for building the climbing wall in the backyard and building it as quickly as possible. I have noticed that each child learns a different lesson from the wall, whether it's simply confidence or perseverance or even teamwork. I admire the determination and ingenuity projects like this require.

Yesterday our Brazilian comrades completed a final project, in which we got to take part, of fashioning a school playground out of tree trunks hewn from the jungle into an obstacle course of steps and high bars. Scott helped dig holes and set posts. It was their final project before leaving Bella Vista this morning for farflung parts of the world. They may soon be living in Namibia, for example, and with their contagious enthusiasm for world development and for cultivating and conserving the earth's resources, both human and material, they will surely continue to make a remarkable difference in people's lives. They will be sorely missed here.

We only hope to continue the ongoing projects they have begun and to attain some measure of their positive energy.

Here Scott is all smiles with his fancy new drill from the States. Thanks, Dad! He says.

And below are pictures of our trip to Placencia several weeks ago to purchase a saw, another important toy-I mean, tool- for the project.

Here are some pics of April and I enjoying the climbing wall I built. I originally built a too-wide hand crack from wood that our host family had intended to use for firewood; I will probably build another one out of wood that won’t break in 3 days. The new wall is missing a couple of boards because when I went to the lumber yard I didn’t have quite enough cash on me for all that I required (not that wood is expensive, not including tools, the entire thing thus far only cost me $140 US), the gaps do provide big jugs for the kids. I made the headwall adjustable, it can be parallel with the slightly less than 45 degree section, or vertical like shown. I made the wall so that it could be disassembled into three main pieces for when we move into our own home in the middle of December. Unfortunately the wood is heavy because it is fresh and they don’t cure it like in the states, hopefully I’ll be able to get a few people to help me take it apart and move the pieces.

The town we live in, Bella Vista, is a community of 3000 with mostly Spanish speaking Immigrants from near-by Central American countries, mostly Guatemala, Nicaragua, Honduras, El Salvador, and a few hundred Belizean Mayans. The majority of people moved here to work at the nearby banana and orange plantations, shrimp farms and the nearby tourist town of Placencia. The town is relatively healthy, people brush their teeth, get three meals a day, and most have running water, but only for an hour in the mornings. The main health problems we’ve seen here are the ones typical in the US, kids eat too much candy and everyone drinks too much Coke, and the food is very salty therefore many of the adults have diabetes and hyper tension. We are supposed to work on projects that the Village Council and the local health clinic need help with, but neither act very excited for us to do anything. We have been working with a couple of Brazilians that have been here for a couple of months for an NGO called Humana. They are creating a community garden, building a playground and teaching adults to speak and read English, and some basic nutrition classes, we plan to continue with several of their projects and find a few of our own.

Peace Corps takes good care of us, Belize is an expensive country and although we don’t feel rich we definitely won’t be starving. Belize has a rather good selection of American foods, although they can be somewhat expensive for our living allowance, we haven’t had to miss out like most of the Peace Corps’ folk spread out around the world. Although I really was looking forward to all the coastal cliffs in Jamaica I’m really glad that we came here, Belize is much safer, there are a lot more options for traveling to other countries, I could actually buy all the hardware and wood for a climbing wall, Mennonites are spread out all over the country and make the best cookies which are sold in stores throughout Belize, we get to learn Spanish so when I get to Tucson I’ll have one nice thing on my resume, siestas aren’t looked down-on in our town, we are 30 minutes from Placencia and a couple of hours from a sick limestone cave that has a river flowing out of it (the water is sometimes deep enough for a little bit of DWS), we have bikes and even a fun trail that connects our community to one that a fellow PC volunteer lives in, and we have a decent variety of American foods. There are definitely things I miss about the states, most notably climbing but the rest of the things I miss will be there in two years, and hopefully I’ll still have the finger strength to come back strong into climbing.

P.S. Do you have any good training tips or routines that will keep me injury/boredom free for the next two years???

We're happily settling in. The Sotos are a wonderful family and treat us affectionately and openly. They seem to be as interested in us as we are in them. They truly care about us!

Ruth Soto is a very admirable woman. She works from sunup to long after sundown. She cares for her four children, cooks, cleans with diligence with the little water available on any given day, runs the little store they have connected to the front of the house, and maintains her household with calm dignity and authority, and with apparent ease.

I have only seen her sit to mend clothes. She works tirelessly, except for the intermittent, nagging migraines and an occasional toothache or backache. She taught me how to wash the dishes, after I insisted, with only a few handfuls of water at a time. She wants to learn to cook with more variety and healthier with the local resources, which have been few lately with the flooding and the bridge washing out. Ruth also wants to learn English and Maya Kekchi, how to use a computer, and more about health topics, especially nutrition. Her father could only afford three years of education for her back in Guatemala, but she has quite a vision for her children.

Ruth is an ideal host mom and in-country friend.

Upon her request, we have begun English and Spanish lessons together at the kitchen table, when time permits. It allows for cultural exchange and benefits both of us. She has requested I teach a nutrition class for her women's group at the church that occupies the corner opposite their house. Her husband Demetrio is a kind of pastor and plays guitar and sings. Almost every night of the week, we can hear familiar Christian songs being sung with much heart and at the top of people's lungs.

Ruth says that she and Demetrio work so hard because they want to raise their children right and want them to have more than they have had here. Ruth and Demetrio want to give their children their best, so that they can be educated, good people. As parents, they want their children to understand the sacrifices that are made for their futures.

Excerpts from a lovely book my Brazilian friend lent me, set in Zimbabwe during its social upheaval, by J. Nozipo Maraire:

There coexists the timeless poverty of the villages, the fear, the old prejudices, the familiar injustices, and the eternal existence of evil. These things have not changed; my parents saw them before me and you shall observe them after me.

But I have loved, and surely this is enough. It is to have tasted from the cup of milk and honey.

Courage is, after all, to take great risks--and in loving, I have known the pain of risk and loss.

I no longer see the world as ready-made, requiring only that we occupy our own little spot and do unto others as we would have them do unto us as they taught me at the Sunday School in Chakowa Mission...I am coming to understand that this world is as yet unfinished. There is no Eden here save the one we create for one another. Our mission is to complete and preserve the work that was started.

It can be terribly difficult at times to be at peace within. I wanted a smooth life. But I have learned that the furrows and ridges of inconsistency and pain are the very contours that give life a meaningful form.

And, from Elizabeth Gilbert's Eat Pray Love:

The search for contentment is, therefore, not merely a self-preserving, self-benefiting act, but also a generous gift to the world. Clearing out all your misery gets you out of the way. You cease being an obstacle, not only to yourself but to anyone else. Only then are you free to serve and enjoy other people.

That's right. Kroppf's Bakery, Belize: absolutely the best chocolate chip cookies we've ever tasted. So far in training, Scott has lost 12 pounds, and I've lost 7. About the cookies, we don't know if this is our conclusion simply because we're hungry, or because they are truly light, crispy yet slightly chewy, cinnamon-y sweet morsels of perfection. No offense, Mom.

Meet our new host family! Demetrio y Ruth Soto, y Brian, Ronald, Ludin, y Keylin. They are so sweet and caring. They have been hosting our fellow trainee Alejandro and are graciously accepting us for a couple of months after he moves to nearby Trio. They are from Guatemala. These pictures are from dinner preparations one night during which Ruth taught us to make tortillas, Scott cut chicken from the bone for fajitas, and I taught Ruth to bake peanut butter cookies. It was exhausting and hot, but a lot of fun.

These are our Brazilian friends, Denise and Bruno. As part of a different humanitarian organization, they are living in Bella Vista for 4 months and are involved currently with health projects similar to what we hope to have. They also travel to several communities near the banana farms, promote HIV/AIDS prevention, teach English classes, and lead meetings about organic gardening in this area. They hope the gardens families begin to plant in Bella Vista will not only improve nutritional intake, but benefit budgets as well. With the price of food similar to America, it is nearly impossible to make ends meet on the amount of money a person makes working on the farms. Most workers make $2.50 an hour, which is $1.25 US.

A gardening resource for Peace Corps Volunteers is a book called How to Grow More Vegetables and is a result of the research and practices of an organization based in California called Ecology Action and its program GROW BIOINTENSIVE. They propose working toward sustainability by returning to small-scale farming to meet each person’s caloric needs, taking care in turn to grow crops in a way that replenishes nutrients in the soil up to 99%. The GROW BIOINTENSIVE mini-farm model is proportioned as 60% grains and other high-carbon crops, 30% high-calorie root crops, and 10% vegetable crops (Jeavons 28). A percentage of the vegetable crops can be grown as income crops. A living project called Biosphere II, which used Ecology Action agricultural techniques, proved that a complete year’s diet for one person could be raised on the equivalent of 3,403 square feet (Jeavons 30). By contrast, commercial agriculture uses 15,000 to 30,000 square feet to produce all the food for one person for one year, 16,000 in the developing world. These Biointensive methods are used as nutrition intervention in Mexico and are spreading throughout Latin America.

We hope to build on the interest in family gardens here in the coming months.

Jeavons, John. How to Grow More Vegetables* (and fruits, nuts, berries, grains, and other crops) *than you ever thought possible on less land than you can imagine: A Primer on the Life-Giving Sustainable GROW BIOINTENSIVE Method of Organic Horticulture. Ecology Action of the Midpeninsula. Willits, California: 2002.

http://www.growbiointensive.org/

This is a rad picture of Bella Vista, the “beautiful view.” Scott took it when we were walking after language class late one afternoon, and I took a similar shot that did not turn out nearly as rad. We had reached the edge of town to the northeast, toward the sea, and a storm was brewing. The clouds were moving east to west, which can throw someone off when that someone is from the west coast of the United States.

I am infatuated with the clouds above this country. They never sit still. They shift, sifting light, and heave, and toss themselves into great heaps of color and robustness; they float softly, then swiftly, darkening and sweeping the sky with curtains of rain.

It is the rainy season, and this week has been proof of that. Our moods have mirrored the weather in some ways. It rains torrentially like a good thunderstorm in Alabama, sudden and surprising, except that the surprising thing to us is it continues at that rate for hours on end. A thousand tiny hammer-blows on the zinc roof. We have to repeat ourselves to hear each other over the roar. The improvised bridge between the sites in the south and Belmopan flooded, I suppose a fairly common occurrence considering it consists of a pile of stones and planks a scant 5 feet above the river at its normal level.

Despite it all, our training team, a group of 11 assigned to promote Healthy Communities, has built a latrine together and planted gardens at three different sites. The other two community training sites are Maya Mopan-speaking and are called Maya Mopan and San Roman. A helter-skelter fence, made of random boards, some wire screening, a gate, and the rusted hood of a car from the dump, guards our garden from the many chickens that peck and scratch about as they please.

Healthy Communities training is led by the world’s best cheerleader, Jamie. As Peace Corps Volunteers, one of the most important roles we can fill is that of cheerleader, or change agent, or advocate, in our communities. Jamie is pictured below wearing the t-shirt proclaiming, “Everything is possible,” which is indicative of the way she lives her life. She is sort of my hero. She is just too happy to be a realistic role model for my personality, but I admire her very much and would like to emulate at least some aspects of her character and sunny disposition. She describes herself as having a big heart for people, which is true. Somehow she is able to overlook all of the annoying, petty obstacles that stand in the way of helping and encouraging people, without being naive, and in the end, community goals are realized. And she smiles all the way through it.

One afternoon last weekend, we had welcome relief from the adjustment to the oppressive heat and climate. A friend of our host family took us to property owned by relatives several miles distant from Bella Vista, toward the mountains and the rocky cliffs covered in thick jungle in view to the west. We were to visit a cave. Una cueva.

Scott and I piled into a little pickup with four others, all men. As dark clouds gathered over the mountains, one man decided to wait for another day and hopped out. There is not a paved road where we live, except for the Southern Highway, which slices through the outer edge of town and separates the bulk of the town from the banana farms. We took this highway west at surprising speed, the wind in our faces and a storm ahead.

Large drops fell during most of our drive along a heavily rutted dirt road, but hesitated long enough for us to walk among towering cornstalks at the roadside to pick a few cobs to roast over the fire at the farm hut. A young woman lives at the hut with her husband, who is a kind of caretaker. She cooks and paints. She is from Guatemala, and she has no legs. I am not sure if she was born this way, or if she had a terrible accident. Either way, she has one of the brightest dispositions I have seen and is more optimistic than I ever could imagine being in her position. When we met her, she proudly showed us a stack of paintings of different scenes on cardboard, each one featuring a smiling woman with beautiful legs.

It was pleasant in the thatch-roofed hut, with an open fire over which to cook (the woman was pressing tortillas to bake over the fire when we arrived). It was in the middle of an open meadow, surrounded by lush vegetation, a stream on one side, neat gardens, many chickens, and a pheasant or two. They grow tomatoes, chile dulce, green beans, beans, squash, pumpkins, okra, and cucumbers.

The nearest rocky mound was roughly a half-mile away, and our friends led us up to the entrance to the cave, cutting vines and undergrowth with their machetes on the path. The holds on the rock face were awesome. Very nice pockets. Scott kept saying, “Sweet,” and gesturing to the others about climbing. They just smiled, crazy Americans.

Ducking into the cave’s mouth at waist level, dozens of bats whizzed past my head. I could feel the wind of their passing on my ears, their tiny wings seeming to brush my forehead. Scott took many pictures, one of a huge beetle the length of his finger and twice as thick. The following pictures scarcely capture the vast interior of the cave or the intricacy of its features. Some of them were like gigantic curtains and enormous chandeliers in an underground castle. Our friends had walked for more than an hour and a half straight into it on a previous occasion. The rooms varied little in depth, and the air was dank with the smell of bats and was exceedingly humid. We also saw an example of broken pottery from a Mayan vessel for carrying water.

Our community-based training site is a village called Bella Vista, which is largely Spanish-speaking. We have begun settling into our host home and village; our host family is very amiable and was one of the first to live in this location, near sprawling banana farms. Most families are originally from Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala. We will stay in Bella Vista for the following two months for training and will have little Internet access. Most Fridays we will attend additional classes in the capital, Belmopan.

Even so, people can write us sweet letters and send awesome packages at any time to:

P. O. Box 492

Belmopan, Belize

CENTRAL AMERICA

First of all, we really feel like we are melting in this picture. Secondly, it is paradise. It is dreadfully hot, but we see so many people, girls in school uniforms, policemen, young men with tobogans on their heads, walking along as if it is not hot that we pretend like we do not notice the heat either. That is, until we crowd onto the school buses that are used for public transport here and gulp from the rapidly cooling water bottles provided by Peace Corps staff.

While we have noticed how people carry themselves in this climate and how they dress, the most striking of my first impressions is the different, sometimes unexpected, words that come out of their mouths. Belizeans in general speak at least four or five languages, including English, which is taught in schools and is the official language, Kriol, Spanish, Garifuna, from a people group exiled from St. Vincent, and two Mayan languages called Kekchi and Mopan. Where we have begun training in the capital of Belmopan, the most commonly spoken language in public is Kriol. I am tempted to say, "Buenos dias," when I see a woman who looks like one of the women I knew in Mexico, but she may speak Mayan and is only in the capital to sell produce at the market. Or she may speak Spanish but greet people on the street with, "Maanin," like everyone else.

Kriol is such a lively language. We are receiving a handful of lessons in survival Kriol. It is a lot of fun. Recently, a dictionary was published to standardize the spellings of Kriol words, but largely it is not written, only spoken. One of the instructors who lived in Jamaica before coming here urges us to "step up to it," or "stand up and put some rhythm in it." It is as if it takes all of your powers of expression and body language to do it justice. The following is a poem/song in Kriol on behalf of Peace Corps Belize. You probably need to sound it out audibly to recognize the words.

Gud maanin We da pees koar

We kom da bileez

Wid wahn speshal goal

Fi shayr wi talens;

Shoa wee da gud nayba

Ahn fu enjai unu food

An unu eksaitin kolcha

Over the weekend, our training group took a field trip to Dangriga for an introduction to Garifuna or Garinagu culture. We visited a museum, where we were told the stories of their ancestors and their combined heritage from Africa, represented by a group that was shipwrecked on St. Vincent and escaped slavery at that time, and from the Orinoco Basin of South America. We saw drum-making and cassava bread-baking demonstrations. We ate snapper in coconut milk soup, bones and eyes and all, and plaintain dumplings. The day was finished with a presentation of traditional dancing, as seen above.

Thus ends the first day we are a part of the Peace Corps family: my mind simply will not stop. For once it is not due to stress or anxiety. Quite simply, I am thrilled and finally can allow myself to feel so. I feel like the luckiest girl in the world! That is what I used to tell Scott when we first got together. Cheesy, I know, but I am so happy and literally cannot stop smiling and thinking about how lucky we are to be going to Belize and to be going together. It is proving to be worth the wait, already.

Our Staging Director, in charge of our general introduction to the organization, told our training group of forty-five people we hit the jackpot in the Peace Corps lottery with Belize. Tropical paradise. The scary bugs are there only so we will have stories to tell people back at home.

We were prompted to create lists related to our anxieties and aspirations, with illustrations. I drew a scorpion at the request of someone in my group. Scott, in a different group, wrote about being able to use what he learned in school. Other examples were language learning, outhouses, malaria, host families, lack of vegetables, usefulness, the job, playing with children, gender roles, creative projects, acceptance, integration.

We talked about Maslow's hierarchy of needs and how the bottom of the pyramid consists of the most basic needs, which is the survival level and the place at which most people the Peace Corps serve exist. From there, in general, people graduate to increasing levels of awareness. Once the basic need for food is satisfied, people in turn try to satisfy the need for security, like shelter and bodily protection, and then the need for love, or belonging and becoming a part of a community, and then the need for dignity and self-respect, relating to the ego.

Finally, when all of the other needs have been satisfied, people can attain the top triangle of the pyramid which is self-actualization. The director asserted that each of us had reached the point of self-actualization by persevering in the process of becoming a Peace Corps trainee, but that each of us in the next few weeks would probably spring up and down among the levels of the hierarchy of needs. Reasons for this may vary from getting enough food to eat in a country unfamiliar to us to beginning meaningful and lasting personal relationships with hosts very different from us in custom and manner.

These are ideas and realities I discussed in college with classmates and experienced to some degree while working for a nonprofit and traveling a bit overseas. Even so, it is exciting to think of living with them as a reality in daily life again. Change can be exhilarating, as can challenges, especially when bolstered by lofty ideals. I can understand what our director means by this term self-actualization in that something as seemingly intangible and ethereal as reaching outside oneself to help someone else can be realized by something as simple as committing to learn and share. How elemental is that! It is something we did in kindergarten, learning and sharing with others, and yet it can contribute to the betterment of societies. I also can understand that an important facet of self-actualization is that it makes you feel good, and not just about yourself.

This is one of the first pictures I saw of Logan, Utah, where I have lived with Scott for almost two years now. It does not capture the open views of Cache Valley and surrounding mountains, but still I like it. These are simple, uncluttered days for us, so we have had time to reflect and prepare for Peace Corps. This week we have been taking care of last minute details for our upcoming itinerant life and seeing friends when we can.

The picture is of Scott and Andrew, the son of our friends Scott and Liz, and it was taken near Brian's house. Brian is the good friend with whom we are staying until we leave for Miami. I am thankful we have friends like him. I have learned a lot from Brian; I think Scott and I both have.

Brian lives in a rustic house north of Logan, where there are more hayfields and open land compared to where we lived this year a block from downtown. It is refreshing and peaceful. After Scott sold our car on Friday and our remaining unclaimed possessions were littering Brian's driveway, Brian and I talked about how attached people can become to material things. I felt it was freeing to be rid of so much stuff, but the process was somewhat awkward and humiliating, finding people who wanted some of our stuff and then seeing in the end what was left on the ground like trash. How can we be strapped to so many things?

Brian told me about meeting a guy who saw his house and asked about his ambitions, if he eventually wanted one of the sprawling houses of the well-to-do on the mountainside. Brian said no without hesitation. I guess the guy thought that having excess wealth would guarantee him friends and an exciting life. I agreed with Brian that it is best to have only what you need and to be content with fewer things rather than always wanting more. It seems like such a fair and sustainable way to live. I am glad we are going to a different world, in a sense, with Peace Corps, where money is not so handy and priorities are sometimes upside down to the American way of accumulating extraneous possessions.

Brian is unassuming and has a generous personality, not only in giving of material things like sharing his house with us, but in his evenness of temper. I think he could get along with almost anyone. He can see other people's points-of-view, or at least agrees to try. At the same time, he is ready to admit his limitations as a human being. We all have limitations, but I do not think he has very many. Brian was a very strong climber before I knew what climbing was. This is a picture of Brian climbing a 5.13b route in Logan Canyon, and below is a picture of Brian mountain biking with us in Green Canyon.

We have one more week before leaving for Belize, via Miami. The last two weeks have been filled with fun and adventure. Instead of describing everything I'll just make a list in chronological order starting on July 30:

July 30

We cleaned our apartment out and left for California to see my parents (with a car load of crap we wanted to keep) at 10:30 pm.

July 31

Slept in the car around 4 am in central Nevada.

Met my parents in Nice California around 3 pm, hung out and threw the frisbee after dinner.

Aug 1

Spent a whole day near Mendocino California kayaking in a bay that has sea caves and blow-holes and lots of seaweed and divers getting Abalone and April even saw a seal!

Ate dinner at a fancy 'organic' restaraunt and drove back to Nice.

Aug 2

Went wine sampling nearby my parents hotel and even bought two cases of Rose' wine that is delicious and only cost $26 for both cases (the wine was made by the winery we went to for another company that was targeted towards the gay community, it is called Butch Blush and has a half naked farm-boy on the label).

Unpacked our car and loaded down my parents van.

Said goodbye to my parents.

Aug 3

Left Nice and headed towards the Bay Area, we got ourselves a really nice campsite at China Camp State Park near San Rafael Ca which is about 15 miles north of San Francisco.

The camping area had really nice mountain bike trails, so April and I rode them on our single-speeds, mine is a mountain bike but hers is a road bike. It was a lot of fun passing guys on $6,000 (I mean that) bikes with my thrift store find, some people spend too much time at work and not enough on their bicycles.

Had a good campfire and smores.

Aug 4

Packed up our camping gear and drove to San Francisco. We parked near the warf and rode our bikes down the Embarcadero, up Market Street and to the Castro District. We walke around the Castro and stopped at a specialty cheese store that I recognized from the television show 30 Days where they sent a middle American boy that believes homosexuality is a sin to live with a gay man in Castro, they had the guy get a job at the cheese store we went to. Next we went to Hot Cookie to get some of the best cookies I have ever had.

We rode our bikes to Haight Street and checked our Email at a coffee shop that had free wifi and I looked for a pair of adidas I wanted at a few of the trendy shoe stores there. Then we went back to the car and drove to Berkeley so I could check out the guide book for Lover's Leap near Tahoe at the Marmot Mountain Works.

We drove to Angel's Camp and stayed at a Hotel sort of thing that my dad got us for the night, with intentions to go to Yosemite the next day.

Aug 5

We got up late and dinked around the hotel room till check out time and decided to forgo Yosemite and headed towards Tahoe.

We stopped for lunch at Kirkwood ski resort and payed too much for lunch meat and cheese, but it was a good place to stop.

We stopped in Tahoe for some supplies and went to Lover's Leap to set up camp.

Lover's leap is gorgeous, a quiet campground with wonderful rock.

Aug 6

We got up early so we could try to do two big routes in one day, but after the first route we decided to hang out at this single pitch crag that had some really fun crack climbs that we could top rope after climbing this fun 5.9.

we arrived back at camp around 4 pm ate some food and went down to the river and sat in the cold waters, it felt great.

Aug 7

We got up packed up our camping gear, ate breakfast and headed back up to the wall to do Corrugation Corner, probably the best 5.7 anywhere! We decided to do the first pitch of Travellers Buttress to get us up onto the ledge that Corrugation Corner starts on, it was a fun but kinda burly 5.8. We climbed Corrugation Corner in three long pitches and hiked down to the car and headed towards Utah.

We stopped in Tahoe to eat some dinner and then drove straight through with stops for bathrooms and gas arriving back in Logan around 7 am on Aug 8.

So now we are crashing at my friend Brians house for the week. We sold our car on Friday, I posted it on Craigslist and had it sold within 3 hours of the post. I should have asked for more, but I thought we would have a hard time getting what we owed on it, but I under-valued what a Honda Civic in crappy condition would sell for. So now we both still have our bikes to get around town, no big debt to worry about and just a few bags of food and the two bags each we are taking to Belize.

here are some pictures we took on our trip:

We drove up to Idaho, about 20 miles from here, to drop our adorable cats off with a family that lives on a farm up there. We were excited to give them to a family that we thought loved animals, so much so that we decided to drive up instead of letting April's coworker take them up there. The family is April's coworkers sister. They have two small children, a couple of dogs and 5 or so cats and the live on a rural highway that people haul ass on. We left sad, April crying and me feeling like a jerk. The family must like cats, but I think they felt as though they were doing a good deed, but could really care less about them. The cats they already have are really small, and 4 of them are half grown kittens and the other is there mother. I believe that if you care about pets you will get them fixed, so that was one big reason we felt so terrible about leaving them there. The Mother of the family said that they go through a lot of cats because they chase mice from out of the adjacent wheat field onto the highway, so another great reason for this horrible feeling. Also the mother cat was very upset about these two new cats showing up she even chased our girl cat around the house within 5 minutes of us showing up, I guess our cat which is twice the size was too unsettled to attempt to stand up for herself because she was scared out of her mind. I really just hope that this decision was better than taking them to the pound where they would likely have been put down, or end up at an old ladies house with a huge heart and tiny house. After we get back from California I think we might go up and check to see if the cats have settled into this new life and if not try to find a different home for them, if you know anyone that loves cats and hasn't already overloaded their household with animals please let us know so we can 'rescue' them.

Also I would encourage people to take a stand against the rascist/right wing propaganda machine that is Fox News. People that scream hate speach like Bill O'Reilly are holding this country back. To see Nas talk about this subject go here: http://www.hulu.com/watch/27867/the-colbert-report-wed-jul-23-2008

Also to learn more about this one-sided 'news' network go to http://colorofchange.org/

Today we had some input on what to bring to Belize with us, one item was soccer cleats. So I looked around the internet to see what soccer boots would cost and decided to check out a local outdoor store called Al's which had a pair of leather shoes marked down from $60 to $20 that fit me, so now I have a pair of bright white soccer cleats with bright red swooshes that represents that they are a devil brand. I also picked up a really nice looking soccer ball and shin guards from Ross for much less than suggested retail. I figured April would get upset if only the boys were playing soccer so I headed back to Al's and convinced the sales guy that the same model but for females should be marked down as low as mine were, so now April also has some fancy footballer boots.

April got to help watch kids at a summer program today so after she played with the children I made her play with me, by kicking the soccer ball around a local school field which was very fun but hot. Hopefully by the time we get to Belize we'll be able to kick the ball straight, and in the direction we intend. We also played with our new 200 gram frisbee which is nice when it is windy and easier to chuck for long distances. So maybe I'll get off my ass a touch more often before leaving.

So far I've sold about $1600 worth of stuff on Ebay, some stuff went for far less than I thought it would and some went for more than I actually paid for it, so goes the free market. I also went to SLC for the weekend with April. We went for two reasons first to see the Band of Annuals play with Hello Kavita and Will Sartain, and to sell my fixed gear bike. The show was great although everywhere on the web claimed the show started at 9, but as most SLC'ers know the Urban Lounge doesn't start shows till 1030, so we got to bed around 2 that night. We stayed with our friend Jon that we both met when we were living in Yosemite, the same time that we met each other. Sunday Jon talked April into hiking up to Blanche Lake up Big Cottonwood Canyon, so I got to hike the 3 miles with them so Jon and I could climb Sundial Peak. Some might think that because I ride bicycles around and climb 3 days a week I would have a touch of fitness, but this was proven wrong as I crawled up the trail Sunday. I did make it, but I definitely need to be much fitter which might be why April says I have to run with her in Belize. Monday April and I had an interview with our Peace Corps Belize training official, she was really nice and the 'interview' was for her to establish what needs we have for training so we don't waste each others time going over redundant information. I am really excited to go to Belize, I wish we didn't have to stress out about all of this everyday crap like emptying our house. After our interview we ate lunch and took a nap on the floor of Jon's house which he shares with 5 other 24 year old friends, 4 of which also work at BD. After our nap we rode our bikes the 8 miles downtown to hit up a swimming pool then we headed back which is all up-hill for 8 miles, good thing cycling is a lot easier than hiking. Soon after getting back to Jon's I got a call from the kid that wanted my Fixie, so I headed over to his house to make the lucrative exchange, lucrative for him. If you ever have a bike you love don't sell it unless you have to, they go for approximately half of what they are worth monetarily and about 1/10th of what they are really worth. So we ended up going back downtown to meet up with April's friend Heather that used to live in Logan but recently decided to go to Culinary School in SLC. Heather is a really nice girl and it was fun to see her again, probably for the last time before leaving.

Sun Dial Peak, the route started around the lowest point of the wall, bottom right of face in pic and ended before the actuall summit (picture from http://www.panoramio.com/photo/3251693)

When I thought we were headed for Jamaica I was super stoked and read every touch of info about it, made contacts with people and even invested in some equipment to establish climbing routes down there. For Belize I've emailed a couple of PCV's, but mostly I've just stopped worrying about what it will be like and I'm just waiting to find out in person. For Tucson I've been looking at all the pictures of Mtn. Biking and climbing going on there, I'm not to keen on the heat of summer, but the 9 months of perfect climbing/cycling weather is getting me stoked, I've already been looking at what I would want for a bike down there even though I know that by the time I get back the bike industry will probably look a lot different, which would be great since it currently looks like crap. I'm actually thinking that there is a strong likelihood we will stay in Belize longer than 2 years, I'm not too sure April is dying to do so, but 2 years probably isn't enough time to ween ourselves from all of the material comforts we deem necessities right now.

Since I don't have a job right now I've been sitting around the house trying to not spend any money, which isn't going so well. I have been climbing 3 whole days per week most of this month, last night I even dragged April up to China Cave where I'm working on a route that I have no business getting. I think April went just so she could use her new Chacos. I bought April a pair of Chacos for $66 w/shipping this week even though we get a bigger discount from Chaco ($47.50) once we actually get to Belize, which sucks because we would have to get them shipped to a U.S. address ($5) and then have someone ship them to Belize ($24), overall it was cheaper to get them sooner ($10 difference) and April gets to wear them for a month longer (priceless). I brought my camera along last night so we could show off the beauty of China Cave:

April on the 5.9 gear mixed routeApril with her new ChacosTodd Parr on his Project: Tweak (5.13d)

Mr. Yuck sorting gear

So April and I have decided to get rid of pertnear everything we own, so I sold my bikes. Since I didn't have a bike anymore I bought a new one today at the thrift store, a 1982 Nishiki Caribou designed by NORCO, I brought it home and so far I've only spent about $30 total since I had so many spare parts laying about. I switched out the wheels for the ones that came with April's bike (FOR SALE!), put a longer seatpost that was slightly to large in diameter (about .2 mm, so I just lubed it up real good), the saddle that came on my road bike went next and I used a derailer from several bikes ago to act as a chain tensioner since the bike has vertical dropouts instead of the more common (for 1982) horizontal. I just got back from a test ride, very stable and fun, wish I could take it to Belize. Here is a pic of my trash turned to treasure:

I haven't been posting lately because I haven't been up to much, mostly just climbing and hanging out by myself because April went to Texass for 10 days. I did finally get on the route i bolted, my friend Brian got on it also, he said it set a new standard for Logan canyon; possibly the worst route in the canyon. The wall is extremely dirty and has no flow from hold to hold, much like the routes in the gym. Well we have approximately a month and a half left in Logan, we are paying our last months rent tomorrow. We might go to California to meet my parents there and have them take a few items to store in Oregon for the next few years. I will hopefully make enough money on my bicycles and the few other items that are worth a few dollars to pay for the cost of living between now and leaving, but at least I still have one bike for now!

One more thing, I just watched the most exciting documentary last week Life in the Undergrowth, it was done by BBC, if you have Netflix you definately need to check it out.

April and I went to see my parents in Tillamook Oregon last thursday, we left while it was raining and landed with rain, had a day and a half of good weather and returned to rain. Today is overcast, but not wet so I'm gonna try to get some exercise. April leaves again on saturday to see her sister and family in Texas for ten days. My Mom and I hiking Cape Lookout, this chunk of land juts into the ocean more than 2 miles, in the 50's a military bomber hit the cape.Looking down from the cape, it was around 300 feet tall.We still have a crap load of paperwork to do before going to Belize, but we have a little bit of time to do it. We also have to get rid of almost all of our stuff, some of it has value and will probably go on ebay, the rest will probably go to either our friends or the local thrift store. My dad makes really nice furniture out of wood which means we have a really nice leather chair like the ones seen in men's smoking clubs (on the movies) and a really nice three drawer dresser that is super bomber, it would be nice to get em back after we come back from Belize, but I'm not to sure if we will have a vehicle to move furniture from Logan to Tucson in two years, so I guess I would rather just find a good home for them, one where they won't get overly abused but will see some use. I have some friends that say they will take my tools for me while we are gone, I'm not too sure if we will actually get to come back for them like I said, but I would rather give stuff to good friends than sell it for less than it is worth. I'm planning to take some climbing gear with us, not sure what, but I'll probably sell my cams on Ebay because people pay rediculous prices on there, higher than any of my bum friends will pay. We also have to find a home for our two cats, otherwise I'll have to put them down.

There was a small misunderstanding, not central South America, but Central or South America. So we have our assignment to Belize, the Toledo District. While searching for Peace Corps Volunteer blogs in Belize I found good friends of mine that I haven't talked to since they graduated from USU named Todd and Ashley, they just returned from Belize hopefully I can find out some cool stuff about their experience. I can't find any info about climbing down there, but there are Mayan ruins everywhere in the southern area, I am very interested in Mayan culture, there are still large parts of the population that speak Mayan. The official language is English, but most speak a form of Creole, Spanish or Mayan.