from the Dead Sea, we drove across the border and north through Syria to Aleppo. again, Riyad helped us out by hooking us up with a driver friend of his, Hussam, who expertly ushered us across the border. borders always make me nervous, but in his expert hands, and with Syrian visas already in our passports, we breezed through. we still didn't reach Aleppo until 1am, where the poor guy with the late night shift at the hotel took one look at the one American passport and said, "ah, so this is why you are late!" so not true, but have a joke at my expense, no worries...

next morning at the ATM, stocking up on Syrian pounds, we noticed we were the only women in line. in fact, we were practically the only women on the streets around our hotel. could have been due to the fact that we were staying in the tire district(!), but still, the lack of women out in public was a bit disconcerting...

we made our way to the Citadel, an enormous 13th century fortress (though the site it occupies is documented to have been used since the 3rd millennium BC. Abraham is said to have milked his sheep on Citadel hill) that rises impressively over the city, offering incredible 360 degree views. inside you'll find an amphitheater, hammam (sauna, jacuzzi... all the trappings of a Turkish bath), the Mamluk hall with its elaborately carved wooden ceiling, and a mosque or two. the guy handing out guides, upon finding out where we were from, said (i'm paraphrasing here), "welcome! we like Americans. screw the politicians!" amen.

nestled against one side of Citadel hill is Aleppo's famous souq. some say it's the largest covered market in the world (which is coupled with Aleppo's claim to being one of the oldest continually-inhabited cities in the world). but what really distinguishes it is the fact that it's still used largely as a locals' market for a variety of household goods and foods. each section is devoted to a different type of goods for sale, and you'll find the scarf stalls targeting tourists not far from those selling Aleppan olive and laurel oil soap, just down the way from the butcher shops.

it's a bustling, sensory overload experience by day, filled with warm colors, the smell of soap, coffee and spices, the sound of men yelling that to look is free. and always crowded with people. but i had the opportunity to walk through at night, after the shops had closed their wooden doors. at that point, it transforms into a maze of quiet, arcaded streets, inhabited by just a few stragglers. a cool subterranean labyrinth, and an entirely different experience than souq by day.

but as fascinating as the city is, it was the people who made the experience in Aleppo. our first day wandering through the souk we happened into one store selling textiles, jewelry and such. the man there welcomed us in, and after we'd had a look around, invited us to his brother's cafe. there we found a family of sorts for the next several days, populated by a magnetic Buddhist artist and chef of delectable vegetarian dishes, a loopy British-accented (though 100% Syrian) oud player, a bespectacled intellectual with a head of curls to rival our Meg's, a few couch surfers, and a collection of Aleppo's wayward youth. they were warm and wonderful, and welcomed us in with open arms. THIS is what it's all about.

Riyad generously offered us a ride to Amman, where we spent the day wandering the streets of downtown. driving north from Petra, the first thing i noticed was the change in colors. as much as i love Cairo, i must admit that it's relentlessly brown. driving north through Jordan you begin to see more variation in color. Amman is a hilly city, all cream colored buildings couched in green hillsides. and the air - unlike the haze of Cairo - is clear and crisp. much to the amusement of its all male clientele, we wandered into a hole-in-the-wall Iraqi restaurant, where we indelicately devoured our food before taking to the streets to buy Meghan some pirated DVDs and search out some silver jewelry. that night Riyad took us to a bookstore/cafe/bar in the christian quarter. you enter through the bookstore, out a door into a back hallway and upstairs to the cafe. it's populated by foreigners and young Jordanians who don't mind a little liquor in their lives. i indulged in my first mojito in months, and i must admit it was well done. Meghan commented that it was pretty ingenious on the part of the bookstore owners to make it obligatory to pass through their shop after you've indulged in a little alcohol. she did end up making a purchase. we ended the evening at an overpopulated shawarma hole in the wall where the only meat option is goat. the kind of place that is completely nondescript from the outside but sports a line around the block.

next morning before leaving town, Riyad and his cousin took us to a famous breakfast place for beans, beans and more beans, accompanied by the hottest, freshest pita known to man. fuul, hummus, tahina, and any number of bean dishes i couldn't identify, slathered in the most flavorful olive oil and accompanied by fresh falafel and pickled veggies. can't argue with that.

the final destination for the day was the dead sea, but we stopped first for a look around mount nebo, which is held in christian and jewish tradition to be the final resting place of moses. from the top you can look out over the holy land and catch sight of the river jordan.

the site's 4th century church is famous in part for its mosaic floors. we stopped at a craft center on the way where they're still making mosaics in a workshop to one side of the gift shop. Erin commented that she found the colors too washed out for her taste, but what i noticed was that they perfectly reflected the colors in the surrounding landscape - subtle creams, browns, olive greens and dusty blues. i bought myself a blue and white Hand of Fatima (for protection against what, i'm uncertain, but everyone needs protection from something).

we ended the day at a Dead Sea resort, bobbing along the surface like many an astonished newcomer before us. it really is an extraordinary experience to be unable to stay anchored. the guys at the resort have the process well worked out. float a bit, slather yourself in salty, stinging Dead Sea mud kept in clay pots along the shore, bake in the sun till dry, back to the sea for a rinse, then off to the fresh water showers. and presto, you've got the softest skin known to man. rinse and repeat. an experience unlike any other, to be sure.

we headed straight from wadi rum to petra, where we stayed in the cheapest hotel offered up by lonely planet. that's not saying much, however, as nothing in jordan is cheap. it seems inflation has been off the charts for the past two years, and everything from food to gas to lodging fetches top dinar. we arrived on the late side and decided to indulge in the hotel's turkish bath. what could be better at the end of an adventurous day than a massage, sauna and jacuzzi, all without leaving the confines of your hotel? right? ha! seems the fates were not on our side that night. it turned into a debacle of nearly epic proportions, starting with the frenzied male guide who wasn't exactly clear about how much clothing we should leave on, and then joined us in his speedos. someone added a tad too much chlorine to the jacuzzi, and everyone but me ended up with chlorine poisoning. our guide apparently threw up out the window while i was in the other room listening to meghan and erin cough up a lung. i thought the woman giving me a massage was going to keel over. i kept telling her she could stop, but she proved to be more stubborn than i. it sounded like a horror movie infirmary, what with the bone rattling coughs and shouted instructions in arabic emanating from the fog. death by turkish bath. a surreal experience from beginning to end.

we spent the better part of a day bouncing around Wadi Rum in southern Jordan in the back of a 4x4, and i can only say i wish we'd stayed longer. the scenery is nothing less than stunning. Wadi Rum is a valley carved out of sandstone and granite, all sand and stark rock mountains, dunes and sparse vegetation. westerners might recognize it as the place where Lawrence of Arabia did his thing, but it's been inhabited since prehistoric times, and is still home to several Bedouin tribes.

many Bedouins now make their living off eco-tourism, leading climbers and trekkers on adventures through the desert. our driver, Mohamed, expertly maneuvered us through the sand, took us to a series of amazing spots, and even saved the day by restarting a jeep full of italians. and he makes tea! (using what one of his hysterical guide friends called "benzina bedouin", aka desert brush.)

after a day of scrambling across rock faces, climbing natural bridges and struggling up dunes, we wound up on a cliff watching the sunset paint the valley around us in a million shades of red, orange and brown. a person could easily get lost in contemplation there. my only wish was to stay a little longer. a lone Bedouin, watching the sunset not far from us, overheard Meghan and Erin exchange a few words in arabic. he said it was nice to hear. sometimes a little effort really does go far.

well, it's week 1 of spring semester, but i'd be a complete loser if i didn't mention a word or two about what i've been up to for the past month. had myself a little gallavant around jordan and syria! spent three and a half weeks wandering from cairo to the sinai, across the gulf of aqaba to jordan, north through wadi rum, petra and amman, across the syrian border and way up north to aleppo, then back south to the mediterranean coast town of latakia, further south to damascus, and then back through jordan, sinai, and... home! i find myself overwhelmed by the prospect of describing the experience, so i think i'll leave it to some snapshots and random impressions. suffice it to say we encountered gorgeous scenery, ate delectable food, met extraordinarily generous people, spent countless hours wandering in marketplaces, laughed heartily, and froze our asses off in the damascus rain (three years living in the tropics and now cairo have officially turned me into a winter lightweight. embarrassing for this syracuse girl to admit, but...). so, here goes...

my traveling buddies, meghan and erin. we were 1 1/2 canadians and 1 1/2 americans, owing to meghan's status as a half breed. more often than not when people asked where we were from, i'd get a grin and an "Obama!", while the other half had to suffer through "Celine!" lucky ladies! ;) more to come...

egyptians are mad for soccer. a friend of mine claims the egyptian passion for the sport is rivaled only in england and brazil. i remember coming up out of the metro station near my house one night to be greeted by the sight of a crowd of men gathered outside the cell phone store, standing stock still, staring at the shop window. there are always a few stragglers there ogling the newest nokia or samsung model, but that night the crowd was particularly thick and intensely focused. it wasn't until i looked up that i realized their gazes were focused not on phones, but on two tv sets broadcasting the game of the day. you can tell it's a game day when the droves of men gathered at the sidewalk cafes are especially dense and the energy in the air particularly intense. a couple times last month i found my study sessions punctuated by random, spontaneous cheers rising from the streets outside my balcony window. it seems egyptian soccer fandom is a community thing.

this proved to be particularly the case last month, when egypt and algeria went head to head in the african world cup qualifying rounds. i, of course, had no idea what was going on until egyptian flags started springing up everywhere - flying from balconies, shop windows and car antennae. it seems there is a longstanding rivalry between the two countries that has at times turned a bit ugly. they played one match here, (which thankfully, egypt won), and the city went mad. spontaneous street parades erupted all over town and the honking and flag waving went on into the wee hours. it was a loud night even by cairo standards. one of my professors lives across the street from the algerian embassy in zamalek, and he reported the next day in class that he had to close his balcony doors to keep the fireworks out of his living room.

it's difficult not to get caught up in that kind of enthusiasm, especially in an newly adopted home (which also explains how this new yorker became a red sox fan...). so, meghan and i and our friend shams headed to a bar downtown to watch the next game. on my walk to meet them i passed impromptu theaters set up in a couple of electronics stores, their windows filled with rows of tv's tuned to the game. crowds of men decked out in red, white and black had arrived early with chairs and were filling the sidewalks as the game was set to begin. the bar had its own theater seating arrangement - all prime spots claimed by egyptian men who probably arrived hours early, with the periphery filled in by a mixed crowd of tourists and expats (the only place i saw any women). i'd come straight from class, which ended early, and with a warning to students to stay off the streets. i thought that was a tad alarmist, and indeed found the crowd in the streets and in the bar to be, on the whole, cheerfully enthusiastic.

alas, the egyptian world cup dream wasn't to be, as we lost that night, 1-0. as the crowd filed out of the bar the mood was more despondent than enraged, though in the days to come things did get a bit out of hand. riots broke out outside the algerian embassy, and reports of stones thrown at the algerian team bus and the mistreatment of egyptian fans in khartoum (where the final match was played) led to somewhat of a breakdown of diplomatic relations between egypt and algeria. i got a facebook invitation a few days later calling for algeria's suspension from fifa, and accusations were hurled back and forth regarding each country's inability to control its fans. seems this is a rivalry bound to continue. personally, i'm all for friendly rivalry - i love to hate the yankees as much as the next red sox fan. but when matters escalate to the point where diplomats and presidents start getting involved, it seems to me things might be getting a bit out of hand...

one of the hot spot tourist destinations for anyone traveling here for the first time is khan al-khalili, located in islamic cairo just to the west of al-hussein mosque. this is fishawi cafe, a bustling and beautiful cafe squeezed into a narrow alley and festooned with enormous mirrors in elaborately carved frames. shisha smoke fills the air, the waiters fly past yelling orders at the top of their lungs, and women stop by every few minutes to ask if you want your hands painted with intricate, flowery designs in black henna. some claim fishawi's has been in continuous operation every day (save for ramadan) for over 200 years. i think it was mohamed who told me that naguib mafouz wrote his cairo trilogy here. he apparently lived nearby, and all his novels are set in surrounding islamic cairo.

the cafe is set smack inside the khan, which is a market sprawled across an entire neighborhood of narrow alleys and small courtyards. part tourist trap, part legitimate copper, gold, spice and random household goods market, khan al-khalili has been in operation since the 14th century. it's jammed with tourists, locals, and men trying really hard to sell you perfumes, scarves, fezzes, gallabiyas, spices and loose teas, sequined bellydance costumes, inlaid backgammon boards, papyrus paintings and beautifully intricate copper trays. the men standing outside their shop doors try to get you to stop by guessing where you're from. for some reason, people keep trying to speak to me in spanish, which i'm sure my belizean friends would find hilarious.

not surprisingly, its bustling day and night. meghan and i recently spent an evening hanging out there with shams. he got us fantastic treatment at a favorite cafe where this adorable girl selling beaded headdresses spent a good ten minutes making hysterical faces at him. oh, and i recommend the egyptian pancake restaurant just one street west of midan hussein for fitiir, delectable and horribly unhealthy concoctions - party pastry part pizza, stuffed with your choice of cheeses and meats or honey and nuts. come with your appetite intact.

so, some people have been complaining that i've been a blogging slacker. i hope this picture will explain my delinquency. this scene pretty much sums up my life as of late. between readings, research papers, and fellowship responsibilities there hasn't been much room left for a life. these law classes remind me of my first semester of intensive italian (only less fun and with fewer delicious dinners) - it really is like learning a whole new language. it all makes me question why i came halfway around the world only to spend all my time in my apartment. don't get me wrong, it's a lovely apartment, but it's not exactly what i was picturing when i decided to move to cairo.

that being said, i am steeped in interesting new information. a rundown of my classes...

*Introduction to Forced Migration and Refugee Studies: doing a research paper on development-induced displacement for this one. basically, how people get shoved out of the way for large scale infrastructure programs like dams - the people who lose out in the name of development.

*Public International Law: up to my neck in the sources of international law, the law of treaties, state sovereignty, jurisdiction and immunity, international dispute settlement and such.

*International Humanitarian and Human Rights Law: the former is applied in times of war, the latter the rest of the time. we've been talking most recently about the universal (meaning, basically, UN) and regional human rights systems. this class is the reason for the mess of papers in my room. doing a research paper on how the US treats the asylum claims of former child soldiers - basically assessing how the US balances its right to exclude perpetrators of human rights violations against its obligation to protect both children and refugees.

i do take breaks to eat, and here's where the cooking magic happens. but once that's done, it's on to the fellowship... i'm helping the chair of the migration and refugee studies department research somali mixed migration, largely through the middle east. mixed migration refers to the mixture of refugees and other types of migrants traveling the same routes from one country to the next. we're looking at where they go and why and how, why they choose the destinations and routes they do, what challenges they meet along the way, and what sorts of treatment and conditions they encounter in the various states en route.

i'm making a feeble attempt at studying arabic. every time i come out with a new word my bowwab (doorman) grins from ear to ear. i feel horribly like the ugly american with my complete lack of language ability. it's not for lack of enthusiasm, just time... other than that, it's all about avoiding football-related madness (egypt and algeria have landed themselves in a diplomatic scuffle over misbehaving fans. the algerian embassy in zamalek was overrun with rioting protesters over the weekend.) and planning for a winter break trip to syria, jordan and perhaps lebanon. good times all around!

when my mom was growing up in Cairo in the 50's, the pyramids were still in the desert. the city has grown exponentially since then, and it has crept up to their very doorstep. urban neighborhoods stretch along two sides of the site, and you'll find a fleet of tour buses parked at the foot of Cheops' pyramid. and you can't climb them like you could in my mom's day. development definitely comes with a price. that being said, they still have the power to capture your imagination if you let them.

tea. typically with lots of sugar. served anytime, day or night, and with incredible hospitality. last time i was in Egypt, i remember our taxi driver serving me and Alex a cup of tea brewed in the parking lot outside the Mohammed Ali mosque. he seemed in no rush to get anywhere, and shared the moment with us. and told me that my sweet tooth meant i drank tea like a true Egyptian.

shisha. flavored tobacco smoked with religious frequency from water pipes in street side cafes throughout the country. you've got your apple, your watermelon, your peach, your honey, you name it. once the purview of men (at least in public), you find more and more women smoking shisha in cafes. we even recently saw a shisha girl (the person who prepares and brings you your pipe) at a cafe near Al Azhar Mosque in Islamic Cairo.

backgammon. also a staple of cafe life. Shams taught me his version, and never once managed to beat me.

i have to admit that i've been a bit spoiled since arriving in Egypt. first, Mohammed loaned me his apartment and ushered me around town for two weeks. most recently i was treated to a wonderfully relaxing vacation in the Red Sea coastal town of Dahab. the month of Ramadan ends with the three-day Eid Al Fitr festival, and many Cairenes take this opportunity to head out of town for a quick escape from the slightly maddening bustle of the city.

my friend Meghan has a standing invitation from a friend who owns a hotel in Dahab (here's the restaurant, located just a couple feet above the Gulf of Aqaba and looking across at the mountains of Saudi Arabia). his name is Shams and he is a living breathing example of the famed Egyptian hospitality. i don't think i've ever encountered such generosity. we stayed in his hotel with a friend of Meghan's from India for four nights and he refused to allow us to pay a piaster. we had to resort to trickery and friendly bullying to be allowed to pay even for our meals.

in addition to putting us up for free, he drove us around this beautiful area of the Sinai Peninsula, where rocky mountains and sandy desert meet the sea. the diving and snorkeling in the Red Sea is supposed to be amongst the best in the world, and the surrounding desert scenery is stunning.

here's Meghan and Shams and Meghan and Adi, doing what we did best in Dahab. Sharm El Sheikh to the south has a reputation of being the vacation destination for those who prefer the resort life. but Dahab, with its more laid back atmosphere and seaside boardwalk is perfect for those of us who like to relax without being walled in. we spent our hours indulging in the quintessentially Egyptian pastimes of backgammon, tea and shisha, and debating the relative strengths, weaknesses and quirks of our respective countries of egypt, india, canada and the u.s.

and then... the time came to head back to home and reality. across the stunning Sinai, past the turnoff to St. Catherine's monastery and Mt. Sinai, where Moses is said to have received the 10 Commandments. through a tunnel under the Suez Canal and back to the hectic city...

a strange sort of reality hit home, though, before we even left Dahab. i realize that traveling with an American passport has always given me an ease of movement that many in the world don't enjoy. the guards at the checkpoints that are littered throughout Sinai never gave my passport a second look. but it also got us a personal "security" escort all the way back to Cairo. apparently the Egyptian government isn't taking any chances with American tourists, and so we were issued with a guard who accompanied us on the 8 hour journey home. i'd honestly have been much more comfortable without, but i'm not sure my opinion mattered much.

living in Belize, i often had a hard time wrapping my brain around the fact that the population of the entire country didn't even reach 300,000 people. now i find myself in a city at least 50 times that size. estimates put the population of Cairo between 15 and 25 million, depending partially on the time of day (many commute here for work). some views from the 40th floor of the Grand Hyatt in Garden City...

i'm taking this picture from Garden City, on the east bank of the Nile, where you also find downtown, and the Islamic and Coptic "quarters". directly ahead is Zamalek, the island in the middle of the river (and the city) that has long been home to much of Cairo's international expat community, as well as the green garden oasis of the Gezira sporting club, playground of the well-heeled. to the left of the picture are the west bank communities of Giza, Dokki, Agouza and Mohandiseen.

the river Nile, it goes without saying, has always been the heart of the city. as the majority of Egypt's landscape is pretty much inhospitable, somewhere around 98% of the country's population lives along the banks of the river or in the delta region. my Survival Arabic teacher told us that there's even a color in Egyptian colloquial Arabic called Neeli - for the Nile-colored mixture of blue, green and brown.

it was a week or so ago, and my roommate Aleya was sitting in our living room surfing the internet when she heard a kitten crying from somewhere around the environs of our building. three days of incessant crying and she couldn't handle it anymore. she identified the window where the noise was coming from, and we went on an adventure through the bowels of our building. in broken arabic, she tried to explain to our bowwab (doorman) that we were trying to find the source of the cries. finally understanding what she was getting at, he led us up a largely unused metal staircase to the fourth floor, where we found this little thing...

she has since taken up residence in our apartment, and has proven herself to be an irritatingly masterful climber. an adorable handful. and one of a million egyptian street cats, who are as common here as stray dogs in Belize.

New Yorkers may claim theirs as the city that never sleeps, but they've got nothing on the Cairenes. maybe it's the intense heat that makes a person just want to sleep away the daytime hours, but this place comes alive at night. i routinely look up from whatever i'm doing to find that it's reached 2am without my noticing. the streets start filling up at about 10, and don't empty till the wee hours. and it's completely understandable - Cairo is beautiful by night. and the cool Nile breezes add immeasurably to the atmosphere.

my friend Meghan and i joined the Cairo Walking Group for a walking tour from Tahrir Square downtown to Khan El Khalili, the famed bazaar in the middle of Islamic Cairo. after hibiscus juice at a cafe in the Khan we did some more wandering through the narrow streets of the walled section of Fatimid Cairo. this area is a quiet haven smack in the middle of a hectic city, and boasts architecture from the Fatimid and Mamluk eras. narrow cobblestone streets, intricately carved wooden mashrabiya windows, and egypt's only mosque where men and women are allowed to pray side by side.

and the ubiquitous streetside backgammon game, accompanied by shisha and copious glasses of sugary tea...

it's after 11pm and i just got home from class (have i mentioned that my Ramadan schedule is insane?). i'm pretty sure that Intro to International Human Rights and Humanitarian Law is going to kick my ass. i'm also sure it will be fascinating. as long as i can get past the weekly papers and timed writing assignments, decide on a research topic, like, yesterday, and figure out how in the world blue booking is anything other than a medieval torture device. whoever invented the legalese citation method is watching all of us first timers from somewhere, giggling maniacally.

ok, for those of you who are visual learners, here are my first images from Cairo. they're all inside my apartment, as i haven't ventured out with my camera as of yet. still, here's where i'm living...

here's my street - Sharia Dokki. this is a view from our living room window. crossing this street is the sort of experience that can make a person reflect on her mortality. who knew getting groceries could turn into a life or death scenario?

my room. somehow i ended up with two beds, though i wouldn't recommend trying to sleep on the one on the far wall. the fan is an absolute necessity, as i don't have any air conditioning in my room. and though it's the end of summer, it's still pretty freaking hot here. i've been leaving my windows open at night to let in the cooler air, the tradeoff of which is the fact that it also lets in the sounds of this all-night city. glad i invested in some earplugs...

as in Belize, clothes here are dried on the line. don't have a drying rack yet, so i'm resorting to using hangers. these are the french doors in my room. i've got a little balcony that looks out over the alley in the back of the building. it's a great place for catching the evening breeze and for indulging in a bit of voyeurism. there's a group of three or so men who set out a small carpet on the ground every evening to have their dinner. they bring out cushions and blankets and a tv on a chair, and hang out until the wee hours in what's more or less the alley between two buildings.

here's the view from the dining room. pretty much all the buildings in Cairo sport this same shade of brown. they're mostly concrete (Egypt is a big exporter of the stuff), and there's really no way to avoid the dirt and sand that blows in from the surrounding desert. it coats every conceivable surface. but the breeze is essential for those of us without AC, and it blows constantly through all our amazingly wide windows. i'm definitely not hurting for natural light in this place.

and here's my favorite one so far. Mohamed bought me this fanoos on one of my first nights in town. these are traditional Ramadan lanterns, and you find them strung in front of shops and restaurants all around the city. they add a beautifully festive ambience to the nighttime streets.

well, it's been nearly two weeks since i touched down in Cairo, and tonight i find myself sitting in a cafe not far from my new apartment. i'll be living in Dokki, a neighborhood smack in the middle of this city of 20 or so million, in a fourth floor apartment in a huge building on a major city thoroughfare. it's a far cry from my little house on a quiet street in Cayo. the traffic on my street - both human and vehicular - is astounding. Cairo is teeming. and this city truly never sleeps. i don't know if it's a strategy for living in extreme heat, but everything here starts later than i'm accustomed to. a friend of mine was invited to dinner the other night at midnight. i've routinely seen entire families complete with small children having a nice stroll past brightly lit shops at 2 and 3 in the morning. and the sounds of traffic and street conversations never end. and from what i understand, i've only seen the tip of the iceberg. i arrived a day after the start of Ramadan, during which life in Cairo tends to slow down (comparatively speaking, of course). the notoriously clogged streets are nearly empty for the couple hours surrounding iftar. everyone rushes home to eat with their families after a day of abstaining from all food, drink and nicotine. Ramadan is a celebratory time, but people can also get a bit testy. whether your pleasure be food, caffeine or nicotine, going without can definitely affect one's mood. but driving around the streets you also find great generosity. men with trays of drinks and boxes of sweets stand in the middle of the street just before sunset, bestowing their gifts on passing drivers. and in what i understand to be a particularly Egyptian tradition, large banquet tables are set up throughout the city where the poor gather to eat a free iftar meal. you'll find these feasts set up wherever room can be found - in alleys and under bridges. space is limited, so people start gathering a couple hours before sunset. and everywhere you find store fronts hung with colorful lanterns called fanooses.

it's been an education already, and i've only just begun. i've gotten a taste of mind boggling Egyptian bureaucracy while trying to negotiate my way through the mine field of school orientation. it doesn't help that it's Ramadan, and all offices close at 2 for the duration of the month. i've stumbled through five four-hour days of Survival Arabic class. the words are floating around there somewhere, i'm just not sure i've got the correct translations attached to them. i've found an apartment and made a few friends and even taken a day trip to Alexandria. i've learned to recognize a few landmarks, though the scope of this city is absolutely overwhelming. tomorrow is a day off, and i have no more ambitious plan than to unpack and wander the streets of my new neighborhood. then monday i start school in earnest with Intro to Forced Migration and Refugee Studies. only in Egypt would my classes run from 8-10:30 at night. where exactly have i landed? can't wait to find out...

well, after a journey of somewhere around 24 hours, i touched down in cairo. it was long, but it went off without incident. i think my bags may have been THE last to come off the airplane, but other than that no issues whatsoever. and when i walked out of customs, there was Mohamed with my name on a sign. ha! he's been chauffering me around town for the past 24 hours, buying me groceries, lending me a cell phone, teaching me bits and pieces of arabic, and testing me on cairene geography. i've already had a homemade iftar feast (the evening meal that breaks the Ramadan fast). so i've been well taken care of. and too well fed. Mohamed's brother Ahmed said, "you'll notice that we'll try to feed you to death." here's to not gaining 100 pounds over the next two years...

welcome to JFK international airport! my home for eight long layover hours. traveling "cheap" sure does have its disadvantages. including not only this absurdly long layover and the fact that i had to get up before the crack of dawn this morning, but also my journey from syracuse to JFK by way of... washington DC! yes, syracuse and NYC are actually in the same state. and our nation's capital is not exactly on the way between them. oh well...

anyway, i'm officially on my way to cairo. there are butterflies waging war in my stomach, and i'm at that inevitable point at the start of every journey when i begin to wonder why i do these things to myself. what's wrong with a life lived in the comfy environs of the places i already know? but it seems that is not to be the way of things. and so i find myself sitting between the duty free shop and the "famously fresh baguettes" at Upper Crust, waiting for the ticket counter to open, so i can wait in the boarding area, so i can wait on an 11 hour flight.

hopefully Mohamed will be there to meet me on the other end of this interminable journey. i don't know him, but he's the friend of a friend of my mom's from grammar school way back in 50's cairo. supposedly he'll be wearing a grey checked (or was it striped?) jacket, armed with a picture of me and a sign sporting my name. i'm having visions of myself calling out to the assorted folks at the cairo airport, "Mohamed? are any of you Mohamed?" that would be, in a word, amazing.

hopefully, though, it won't come to that hilarity, and i'll end this day without incident at Dahab Hostel in downtown cairo. then it's a week to wander the city looking for an apartment, grad student orientation, advising and registration (oh yeah, i'm doing all of this for school, right?), five days of Survival Arabic, and then CLASSES! i speak zero arabic, am moving to a city of somewhere around 16 million people, and haven't taken a class in 11 years. oh, and did i mention it's the start of Ramadan, a month of fasting and celebrations and from what i understand, a certain amount of fasting-related irritability... no worries! like i said, how to i get myself into these situations???

despite the panic that threatens to overwhelm me every few minutes, i'm incredibly excited. i've come armed with a list of people to call once i get there. seems all you have to do is ask around (or more accurately, get your parents to ask around), and the cairo connections just come flooding in! here's hoping these folks- friends of parental friends, friends of friends of parental friends, you get the idea - can help me find my way around the chaos of the most populous city in both africa and the middle east. my home for the next two years, inshallah...

well, i'm writing these words at my mom's desk in syracuse. my 2-year belizean adventure has come to an end, and i'm having a hard time envisioning when i might be able to get back for a visit. i had strawberries on my cereal this morning, and the internet connection on mom's computer is blissfully speedy. on the other hand, the sky outside my window is overcast, and i'm wearing socks and a fleece. i find myself missing the noise outside my open window - the incessant background noise that for the longest time felt so overwhelming and intrusive. to call me conflicted would be an understatement. i find myself unsure how to bring closure to this adventure as i feverishly prepare for the next. but i thought i'd begin with a list i started in my journal nearly a year ago. here goes...

Things I love about Belize:

fresh pineapple year round; bus conductors that help small children on and off the bus; the 360 degree view from the top of Xunantunich; mangoes direct from the tree; strangers offering to let small kids sit on their laps on the bus; the Hummingbird Highway between Belmopan and Dangriga (easily one of the most beautiful stretches of road in the world); the fact that when someone’s name is mentioned on the radio, everyone in the room will know who they are, and several of them are probably related to them; that it’s OK for women to breastfeed in public; houses on stilts, painted in brilliant Caribbean colors; the mestizo man's love of Spanish ballad singalongs; that the bus to Dangriga and the bus to PG will stop on the road to swap passengers who otherwise would have to wait an hour for the next bus; terraced almond trees and the mighty (& useful) cohune; that I could step out my door and within a half hour be in Guatemala or on top of a Mayan pyramid; ocelots; Mestizos dancing Punta and Kriols singing along in Spanish; spinach that tastes like it actually came from the dirt; the prehistoric sound of howler monkeys getting territorial in the treetops; seven major languages in a country of fewer than 300,000 inhabitants; that people still speak ancient Mayan languages; plantain and cassava chips, johnny cakes and powder bun; that people say hello to each other when they pass on the street; the view of San Vicente from Josh’s verandah; George and his wonderful family and their delectable south indian food; a million variations on the theme of the fried corn snack (salbutes, garnaches, tostadas, tacos, pupusas, panades…); private dolphin shows just off the Placencia shore; Gustavo, Vi, Alma, Abby, Pedro, Pablo, Diana, Jorge, Brenda, Karina, Vanessa, etc...

gracias a Belice.

the long Easter weekend saw me back in Belize, at Cockscomb Basin National Park in the Stann Creek district. it's a 400 square km reserve, established in 1990 as the world's first jaguar sanctuary. word on the street is that you really can encounter a jaguar in the wild, but sightings are pretty rare, and i didn't have any expectations that i'd be that lucky.

a cribbed quote from Wikipedia: "Habitation by the ancient Mayas occurred in the Cockscomb Basin as early as 10,000 BC, but the first modern recorded history exploration of the basin did not occur until 1988." it's a haven for birdwatchers, and has enough hiking trails to keep a person busy for days. we miraculously caught a ride in from the highway. it's a 6 mile hike in, and was just approaching dark when Rebecca, Matt and i got off the bus from Belmopan. our savior, Gregorio, lives in the nearby village of Maya Centre, which was founded by Maya families displaced when the reserve was created in the 1990's. he took his time and kept his lights off, just in case there were any nocturnal felines lurking around the road. alas...

we took our time ambling through the woods, stopping at waterfalls, swimming in pools, and sweating our asses off. we even managed a lazy tubing adventure down the river, which was low enough that we had to get out and use our feet once or twice. Rebecca still managed to get freaked out by the prospect of floating into the bank, and made Matt her navigator.

shoot, they've even got a plane wreck! this is where the pesky little black flies made a mess of my legs. Belizeans are smart, they don't wear shorts in these situations. when will we gringos learn?

and then there was the hike from hell. already tired from the heat and a couple days of hiking, Rebecca and i decided to make an attempt at what's billed as the second toughest hike in the park (after Victoria Peak, which requires at least 3 days, a licensed guide and involves scaling a sheer rock face using a rope). we were looking for a view of some undisturbed jungle-covered mountains. to skip to the end, we got our view. but it involved some less than stellar signage which caused us to go a good two hours out of our way, and to question whether we might not get a good look at a jaguar while spending the night in the bush. in the end, we hiked for 9 1/2 hours and went somewhere around 25 km. still, it was a pretty kickass view...

random note: our neighbors back at the camp near the visitor's center were a group of birdwatchers from the States, led by Libby, a biology professor who brings a group out each year. when she heard of our need to get back to civilization on Easter Monday, without a vehicle, she offered us $50 to pay for a ride with a local villager. she said she appreciated the good work we were doing with the Peace Corps, and that she hoped we'd inspired her granddaughter to maybe join up once she finishes college. her son also runs an organization in Israel that uses environmental conservation issues to try to bridge the gap between Arabs and Israelis. when he heard i would be in Cairo in the fall for grad school, he gave me his email address and told me to contact him when i was in the area. he said, get yourself to the border and i'll have someone come pick you up... Israel here i come!

the bus back north

i realize it's been months that i've been blog-delinquent. my apologies. here are some highlights from my life of late...

i recently took a trip to Antigua. not the Caribbean island, but the Spanish colonial town and former capital of Guatemala. founded in the 1540's, it served at the military capital of Spain's colony of Guatemala, which included almost all of present-day Central America.

it is famous for its Spanish-influenced baroque architecture, and has been designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Antigua lies in a valley, surrounded by three volcanoes. it has suffered a series of devastating earthquakes that have leveled the town numerous times. its streets are lined with ruins of colonial buildings that have been left standing. the town's cathedral boasts an impressive facade facing the east end of the town's main plaza, behind which lay the remains of what was once an impressive structure.

the region is populated largely by Maya Indians. many of them dress in traditional clothing, and colorful Maya textiles are to be found for sale around every corner. bargaining is definitely expected, and i found that i didn't have to work too hard to do so. i'd be offered an initial, highly inflated, price, before being asked, "what would you like to pay for it?" a perfect situation for those of us who hate to haggle...

Antigua is also well known for its elaborate religious celebrations, starting at the beginning of Lent, and culminating in a grand Semana Santa (Holy Week) celebration. Janine and i decided we didn't want to deal with the immense crowds (and inflated prices) of Semana Santa, so we went a couple weeks beforehand. but we were still treated to a weekend procession that began outside of town at 6am, wound through town, past the cathedral and back to the starting point.

it was a full day event, and the whole town was thronged with visitors and processors dressed in long purple robes. young children dressed in black and white (the girls wearing lace mantillas) led the procession, swinging censers of smoking incense. they were also employed to shoulder platforms carrying life-size statues of religious figures (the smaller ones, at least). the whole proceeding was accompanied by live brass bands playing solemn processional music. Janine said it sounded like the Grim Reaper's theme song.

another famous aspect of the Semana Santa celebrations is the colorful street carpets. i saw two different varieties, one made from dried flowers arranged on a base of fresh pine needles, and the other an elaborate geometric pattern made of brightly colored sawdust. they're reminiscent of buddhist sand paintings - just as time consuming to create and just as temporary. and they line the cobblestone streets along the procession route.

aside from the shopping and the processing, Antigua is a haven for good food and drinks. the place is bursting at the seams with charming restaurants, bars and cafes, and come evening the whole town is moodlit. i've never seen so many candles! these two little girls are getting started early at Cafe No Se, just across the street from our hostel...

It’s Christmas pageant time, and the students at Faith Nazarene didn’t disappoint. I went over last week for an afternoon of mimed carols and Christmas-themed skits. Here are some of the results…

The little drummer boys of Infant 1

Shepherds and such

And by far my favorite, the 3 Kriol Ladies in a skit about the importance of showing kindness to the less fortunate. Two of these fine, buxom ladies are from our life skills group.

The HFLE curriculum is all about life skills, and gaining life skills requires practice. And as a youth development volunteer who has had little actual interaction with youth over the course of my service, I decided I needed to get out into the schools to do some life skills practice with the older primary school kids. I approached my friend Anthony Morris, the vice principal at Faith Nazarene School, about the possibility of doing a weekly life skills group.

As it turned out, there was also a Belizean police officer/reproductive health educator named Omar Rodriguez shopping around a similar idea. So, we joined forces to design and implement what turned into a six-week life skills course for Standard 4-6 students at Faith Nazarene and Santa Elena Primary School. The teachers and principals selected the students they thought would benefit most from classes in self-esteem, communication, decision-making and HIV/AIDS awareness, and we got them once a week after school for an hour of games and activities. Good Lord, but we got more than we bargained for. Just try getting a room full of boisterous, troubled 10-12 year olds to talk about the importance of listening and respect after they’ve been sitting at their desks for 8 hours, and would much prefer to hit each other over the head. What exactly was it that made me think I was cut out for youth work?

But if you want to survive in this realm, you’ve got to measure your successes by the smallest of increments. And the one kid who opens up about his or her trouble at home is worth all the hours of what feels like glorified crowd control. I’ve got to trust that the information sinks in on some level and lodges itself in the back of their frenzied minds. And in the end, they didn’t want to see us go, so that’s got to say something, right?

As an honorary member of the Peace Corps Belize HIV/AIDS Committee, I recently took a trip down to the Stann Creek District to take part in some outreach activities in the villages around Dangriga. I met up with five other volunteers on a Friday in November, and we headed over to the POWA office in Dangriga to get our briefing. POWA consists of a group of boisterous, raunchy, straight-talking Garifuna ladies who have made it their business to educate their fellow Stann Creekers about the risks of HIV transmission and the need for empathy and compassion for those infected with the virus. We hopped on their “Bashment Bus” with Crystal, the condom-filled mannequin, and headed out of town as they sang and danced in the aisles. You just cannot keep a group of Garifuna ladies from dancing – it’s a physical impossibility.

I was paired up with a woman named Maria for the day. We stopped in three different villages, and each time Maria would grab her clipboard and holler for me before blazing through the village lanes hunting for anyone who looked like they had a free minute. She was fearless – it was amazing. We knocked on doors in Sarawee, crashed the pre-lunch crowd at a roadside barbecue joint in Silk Grass, and played transmission card games at a bar in Hopkins. Talking about HIV/AIDS has never been so much fun. Get ‘em laughing, and you can pass on all sorts of important information while they’re not even looking. My thanks to Maria for inviting me along on her mission of informational merriment.

The POWA ladies get their dance on

The end of October saw me celebrating the end of my GRE nightmare across the border in Mexico. Matt, Nikki and I bussed it from Corozal to Chetumal, and then across the Yucatan Peninsula to Merida, which is reputed to host some of the best Day of the Dead celebrations in Mexico. Unfortunately, heavy rains in Belize and flooding on the Northern Highway - our only route to Corozal and beyond - delayed our departure and we ended up missing the festivities. But our truncated vacation was still worth the 15 or so hours on the bus. Merida is a charming city, with a bustling, beautiful, colonial town center focused around the Plaza Mayor, which boasts a huge park, the city’s cathedral and main government building, outdoor cafes along a covered colonnade, and a juice bar where they squeeze your orange, melon or carrot juice right in front of your eyes.

The weekend market is an insanely crowded conglomeration of stalls selling everything from fresh produce and fish to shoes and the traditional Day of the Dead sugar skulls. Every few feet we encountered someone with a bundle of newspaper-wrapped flowers in the most brilliant combinations of colors, purchased for placing on family graves as part of the holiday celebrations. On “Sundays in Merida” the city blocks of a maze of streets in the center of the old town to make way for bike and pedestrian paths. Not far from our hostel we stumbled on a senior citizen dance party – a 10-piece band sharing a shaded stage with at least 20 elderly couples dancing every Latin step you can imagine. You could see from the way the couples greeted each other with relaxed waves and friendly jibes that this is a regular affair.

Just a couple blocks down the road, the Plaza Mayor hosts stalls selling churros and Panama hats, and another live band and packed dance floor, surrounded by spectators just taking in the view. Everywhere we went that weekend we found people dancing. And with such undisguised, relaxed joy. It was refreshing and restorative just to see the smiles on their faces. Not to mention the pleasure of air conditioned coach buses, handmade pasta, good, cheap wine and shrimp ceviche on a terrace overlooking the beach. And people who were more than happy to encourage you to practice your Spanish on them. Ah, sweet Mexico!

Back in September, we lost a valued member of our Peace Corps family. Bertie Murphy, probably the most beloved member of our training crew, died in her sleep in her beach-side house in Hopkins village. In the year plus I knew her, I never heard a single person speak a word against her. A former bee-keeper from Virginia, she decided in her early 70’s to join the Peace Corps. She was a gentle soul, brimming with a long lifetime’s worth of wisdom that she shared willingly but without pretence or judgment. She laughed easily, and smiled often, typically with a glint of mischief in her eyes. I didn’t see her much once we got our assignments – not because she didn’t care to hang out with the rest of us, but because she was dedicated to becoming a member of the Hopkins community. And she was well loved there, as she was everywhere. They called her dunuru, Garifuna for “bird.”

In late October I traveled down to Hopkins to watch as the school where she worked dedicated their library to “Miss Bertie.” A fitting tribute to an extraordinary woman, who brought out the best in everyone she turned her beautiful smile to.

It's been a soggy week in Belize. Unrelenting rains from Tropical Depression #16 have blanketed the country, causing widespread flooding. Even in the face of last year's Hurricanes Dean and Felix, where I live in the west we saw very little damage. This time, however, parts of San Ignacio town have been sitting under more than a foot of water since Friday. The fruit and vegetable market, recently constructed on the banks of the Macal River, is under water, and one of the two bridges that grant access to the Western Highway (and thus the rest of the country) is nowhere to be seen.

Many villages have been cut off due to road and bridge flooding, and people are being evacuated by the National Emergency Management Organization. School in the Cayo District has been canceled since Friday, and probably won't commence until at least this Friday, and businesses are losing out due to closures and a lack of travel and commerce. As the rivers out my way flow eastward to empty into the sea, the Belize District will continue to see rising water levels. On a personal note, my house has escaped the flood waters, though the water from my taps is now coming out brown. I'm thinking maybe it's time to spring for that 5-gallon jug of the bottled stuff.

Check out lovefm.com for more pictures.

An excerpt from a letter recently written to my former down the street neighbor and fellow PCV Ashley:

So, I just buried one of my neighbor’s million and a half cats. I came home from work thinking, “Ah, its Friday. I have a three-day weekend laid out before me. Why not stretch out in the hammock with a stout and some Gabriel Garcia Marquez, and enjoy the moment?” So, I cracked open a Belikin (OK, not cracked, it was a glass bottle) and walked out to find... a dead cat in the storm drain directly outside my patio. No sign of a violent death, but attracting enough flies to have me worried about how long it had been there. I stood over it for a few minutes, cursing and wondering what the fuck to do, before decided that I at least owed it to the venerable cat lady to let her know that one of her brood had passed on. But the woman’s 92, after all. I’m not even sure she understood what I was trying to tell her. So I trekked over to DePaz’s son’s vet clinic, only to find that he was down in Stann Creek and wouldn’t be back for a few hours. What the hell does one do in this sort of situation? Next stop – Linda and Gustavo’s jewelry stand. They’ll know whether there’s a Friday night emergency dead cat pickup service, right? Mmm…. consensus is I’m going to have to take care of this myself. But Gustavo, bless his heart, decided to lend me a hand. I led him back to my place and handed him the fork my mom purchased for our nonexistent garden (which has been completely yanked up, by the way). I proceeded to wrap my hands in plastic bags and extract the deceased feline from my gutter. Not 15 minutes later and the job was done. I thanked Gustavo with one of the two stouts I’d bought anticipating a nice, quiet Friday night, and proceeded to get into a conversation with him about homosexuality. What a random start to this Pan American/Columbus Day weekend. And now there’s a dead cat under my backyard.

Sidenote: this is Linda and Gustavo's daughter Fabiola, who is in no way related to this story, but is adorable, and thus needs to have her picture posted.

OK, I realize I’m a little behind, but I thought I’d wish Belize a happy birthday! September is a month of celebrations countrywide. It’s kicked off with Carnival, a slightly scaled down version of the festivities found in many Caribbean countries, and is followed up with parades, fireworks and various other festivities celebrating St. George’s Caye Day (September 10th) and Independence Day (September 21st). 2008 marks Belize’s 27th anniversary as an independent nation, so independence fever runs strong.

I started the month’s celebrations at Carnival, in Belize City, trying not to get run over by floats or poked in the eye with feathers from the variety of outlandish costumes. Here's the Peace Corps Carnival crew hanging out on the median in the middle of the street, waiting for the parade to arrive. Unlike in the States, where people start showing up HOURS in advance to get prime seats, we were practically the only people around when we arrived an hour or so before the parade was supposed to start. Who knows when it actually started, but several hours later, when it did actually arrive, there was a packed crowd to welcome it. They call it Belizean time... But it was well worth the wait.

The next day I sat on the sidelines to cheer on my more masochistic fellow PCV’s, some of whom decided to brave the punishing tropical sun and filthy Belize City shoreline to participate in the Lionman triathlon.

A week and a half to rest up, and then I headed north to Corozal to ring in Independence Day with Matt, Rebecca, Jackie, Marcel and Rebecca’s sister Katie at a dance party by the sea wall. A good month was had by all.

just because i feel like it... one of the newer traditions at Peace Corps Belize is the mass migration of volunteers to the Gibnuts futbol games. we put together a team to go out and play local teams around the country. it's a way to interact with Belizeans in the form of the most revered sport in the world, while simultaneously allowing us to get out of our sites and see some countryside. it's also a perfect excuse for volunteers to hang out with folks they don't get to see often, and typically involves late night extravaganzas and crashing on each other's floors. the latest game was hosted by Matt and Rebecca in the far northland of Corozal. PCV's ventured all the way from the villages of the deep south, tempted by the promise of a day in Chetumal, Mexico, where can be found highways with overpasses (gasp), a mall, movie theater, and yes, McDonald's. sad to say, but that was honestly our first stop. even those who had sworn off McD's for years couldn't resist the call of the fries. i swear they must lace them with crack.

3 of the 4 horsemen of the Toledan apocalypse roam the streets of Corozal, leaving famine, pestilence and war in their wake. too bad they didn't have such success on the futbol field. but it's never a fair match-up - Belizeans, like most people around the world, seem to be born with soccer cleats on their feet. we poor Americans never did stand a chance...

our gracious host Matt and i getting the best out of a fleeting moment in Mexico...

a couple weeks after our trip just up the road to Xunantunich, Cameron, Jessica and i rented a car and braved the Cristo Rey road and beyond to Caracol, Belize's most isolated site. the road winds through the villages of Cristo Rey and San Antonio (one of the few villages in Belize where the majority of residents speak Yucatec Maya, as opposed to the more common K'ekchi and Mopan you find in the south), before venturing in to the surprising pine forests of Mountain Pine Ridge. don't know why, but i certainly never expected to find pines in subtropical Belize. shows what i know...

with an estimated 36,000 structures, Caracol is said to be one of the largest sites in the Mayan world. but this being Belize, where funds are scarce, the site is largely unexcavated. it's truly a bizarre experience to look up on a walk through the jungle to realize that the hill you're staring at is in all likelihood a building that a thousand or so years ago housed the ancient Maya or played host to their religious ceremonies. the people living at Caracol have all long since fallen prey to disease, famine, war and European conquest (though no one seems to be sure which), and the jungle has taken over. their descendants live on, but in far reduced numbers, and in small villages scattered around Central America. Caracol alone housed a population nearly half the size of the entire present-day country of Belize. its largest pyramid is still one of the tallest structures in the country.

it's been a month of Mayan adventures for me. after having lived here for over a year, it's embarrassing to say that i'd only visited two of the many incredible Mayan sites in Belize. that is, until a couple weeks ago. and it's all thanks to the folks next door. Jonathan, Bria, Cameron and Jessica moved in to the house in front of me a couple months ago while Jonathan was completing research for his PhD in archaeology. they spent their days buried in analysis of Mayan pottery sherds (no, not shards. sherds.) evenings saw us hanging out on the patio, indulging in booze and burritos made with Erva's ginormous tortillas.

they generously shared their wine, and invited me to tag along on visits to Xunantunich and Caracol, two of Belize's most famous Mayan sites. Xunantunich is just up the road from San Ignacio, and can be reached only by a hand-cranked bridge across the Macal River. this is the site's largest pyramid.

Jessica, Cameron & Jonathan take in the view from the top. it's an incredible 360 degree panorama of the site's main plaza, the surrounding jungle canopy, and the villages of Succotz and Benque Viejo. on a clear day you can see Guatemala (which in truth isn't that far away).

the main plaza...

... and Xunantunich's famous frieze.

I recently returned from a 5-day adventure which took me way down south to the Mayan hinterland of San Vicente, just a hop, skip and jump from the Guatemalan border. I took the cramped 6-hour bus ride to Punta Gorda on Tuesday, where I stayed overnight with John & Mica. At 6 a.m. the following day, Dov and I were on Bol’s bus to Jalacte. Upon disembarking, we trudged down the hill from the center of town, through the most tenacious mud I’ve ever encountered. It nearly claimed my flip flop (along with my entire leg), at which point I decided to switch to the mud boots Dov had grabbed from Mike’s house before we left PG. Obviously, I’d come completely unprepared for the realities of rural Toledo in the rainy season. Didn’t help that it was Josh I was going to visit, who apparently doesn’t think people from the comparatively dry and paved north need instruction in how to pack. Or maybe he just delights in watching us flounder through what has become his life over the past year. I could see him getting a certain perverse pleasure out of that.

After strapping on my mud boots, Dov and I contracted with a young boy to give us a ride across a small though slightly swollen river on his horse. He was a masterful salesman – “You wait for me? See the black horse? I be back. Wait for the black horse!” After mounting the horse, I was handed the guide rope, and immediately proceeded to convince the horse to turn around so we were facing the wrong direction. Couldn’t help noticing the folks on the river bank chuckling at the useless gringa. But our young entrepreneur managed to drag me and his horse across the river, at which point Dov paid him 20 quetzales with the understanding that he would wait to take us back across the river once we’d concluded our business across the border in Guatemala.

So we headed up the muddy hill toward the border, which is marked only by a wooden & barbed wire fence, and is completely absent any sort of official border guard. We simply passed through a narrow gate and made our way into Guatemala and up the hill to the small village of Santa Cruz, where it was our mission to buy vegetables for dinner at Josh’s over the next few nights. In order to get produce of any kind, Josh has to either make this trip to Santa Cruz or take the 2-3 hour bus ride in to PG. We climbed across brilliantly green hills and up to Santa Cruz, where we used our elementary Spanish to get Dov the requisite Bruce Lee t-shirt, along with four pounds of tomatoes, two pounds of onions and a pound of sweet (green bell) peppers. The boys in Guatemala and southern Belize are a bit obsessed with action movie stars, and can pretty much always be seen wearing worn t-shirts sporting sweaty, muscled pictures of Sylvester Stallone, Arnold Swarzenegger, Jean Claude Van Damme or Bruce Lee. They’ve also become collector’s items for a number of our PCV guys down south.

After powering up on a bottle each of Super Cola, we headed back down the hill to cross back into Belize. Upon arriving back at the river, we found that our friend with the black horse had taken Dov’s 20 quetzales and fled the scene. There being no other young entrepreneurs in sight, we waded through the waist high water, carrying our bags on our heads. We trudged up the first in a long series of hills, only to find our young friend and his horse lounging in the center of town. “Where’d you go?” asked Dov. “He made enough money for today,” responded the man we assumed was the boy’s father. Yeah, no kidding. But why put up a fight for the equivalent of somewhere around $1.50 US? So instead, we laughed and left them lounging while we headed out on the 4-5 mile hike to find Josh in San Vicente.

Dov had prepared me for a hellish walk from Jalacte to San Vicente. Hilly and hot. He wasn’t exactly wrong, but it wasn’t nearly as bad as he’d prepared me for. There’s definitely no shade to be found along the way, but I was entranced enough by the lush, rolling green hills to not worry too much about the trek. It’s roughly a 4-5 mile walk through uninhabited green hills dotted with corn fields. So beautiful. And so unlike the “densely” populated stretches of road I’m accustomed to in my part of the country. (Funny how I’ve adjusted to the point of considering ANY part of Belize to be densely populated.)

About an hour or so after departing Jalacte we saw San Vicente approaching, perched in and around a valley. Dov steered us up the side of a hill near the middle of the village and straight to Josh’s verandah, which has an insanely kickass view of town. We spent an absurd amount of time there over the course of the next few days. I can only imagine that’s where Josh spends the majority of his time. I know I would.

And it’s a great spot to sit out thunderstorms. The verandah is covered, which shelters you from the rain while you lounge in the hammock, watching the weather move across the hills. Very dramatic. Just how I like it. It’s also an incredible place to watch the fireflies. I’ve never seen so many of them in my life. They start appearing around dusk, dotting the entire hillside surrounding the house. The numbers taper off as the evening progresses, but a few stalwarts could be found hanging out as we headed off to bed. It was pretty freaking magical.

I realize this may not be an earth shattering observation, but it’s incredible how the presence or absence of electricity shapes the rhythm of a person’s (or a community’s) life. Most of the world has grown accustomed to the ability to do what they want when they want. Just by virtue of the fact that they can see what they’re doing. But Josh’s movements are limited by what can be accomplished during daylight hours and what can’t be once the sun has gone down and he has only a kerosene lamp and a small flashlight to light the way. So, bathing in the river, a 5 or so minute walk down a steep and muddy hill, must be done after he gets back from the school and before the sun goes down. Food prep is best fit in to that time as well, since chopping by kerosene lamp, while certainly not impossible, is a bit tedious. With no light pollution, night is truly night. It descends quickly and completely, and limits what you can do in a way I’ve never had to confront. I was struck by how early I started feeling sleepy. At home in San Ignacio, I often find myself reluctant to go to bed even after 10pm. I guess I still am a night person at heart – but would that be true were I to live by the natural rhythms of the world? There’s definitely a certain charm to spending a dark evening swinging in the hammock and talking with friends, but it was a rare night that we weren’t all ready to be in bed well before 9. What would feel absurd in town seemed perfectly logical and justifiable in the village.

The whole reason for my trek to San Vicente (though to be honest, I was really using it as an excuse to finally make my way to one of the more remote villages) was Josh’s HFLE camp. He recruited a bunch of the hundred or so primary school kids in the village to come hang out for three days and play health-related games. So, we had them running relay races back and forth between chairs set up to represent latrines and a bucket where they had to wash their hands, identifying health hazards in and around the house (like latrines placed too close to water sources and pigs running amuck throughout the village), and doing a number of activities which required them to identify healthy foods and place them in the proper food groups. The kids were fun and rambunctious, easily entertained and mischevious. They were far bolder and less shy than I was expecting, considering all I’ve heard about Mayans living in traditional communities. Several of the older girls took to me in no time, and like children everywhere, were fascinated by my piercings. How is it that I’ve worked with adults for over six months before they’ve realized I have my tongue pierced, while it’s a rare child who doesn’t notice it within 10 minutes of meeting me? Do we really lose our powers of observation that drastically as we age? It’s astonishing. I love it that all the kids in the village know Josh’s name. And though I’m sure it can be tedious at times to be such an attraction, I found it charming that they would come by his house to pay visits, and park themselves in his hammock for a stretch. Definitely a far cry from the town experience.

All in all, camp was a success. On our last night there we went by the village chairman’s house for a bowl of caldo (traditional chicken and vegetable soup) and fresh corn tortillas straight off the comal. That night the heavens unleashed an unbelievable torrent of rain. We had set the alarm for 2am so Dov and I could catch the market bus back to PG, but wondering whether we would end up getting rained in to the village kept me up most of the night. That, and the sound of rain pounding on Josh’s zinc roof. It was unrelenting!

We rose at 2, packed up our stuff and waited for the honking of the bus horn to signal its departure. Would the driver decide to risk a flooded road, or would he opt to stay in bed? We finally caught the sound of the horn from up the hill by the community center, and trudged down to the road in the pitch black, bidding Josh farewell. Lucky bastard got to return to the comfort of his foam mattress while Dov and I bounced down the dirt road, through the night, in yet another yellow bus. About a half hour down the road we came to a halt before a flooded portion of road. The river had risen above the road and had expanded to a width of at least two bus lengths and a depth of who knew what. And it was raging. Our driver stepped outside to assess the situation, and the conductor, after 20 or so minutes of deliberation, decided to brave the elements and the dark, stripped down to his skivvies and waded across to the other side. Guess the situation wasn’t quite as stark as it seemed to my untrained eyes, for as soon as he reached back to the bus and had dried and re-dressed, the driver started the engine and inched tentatively along. A few more river crossings and a few hours later and we were back in PG, in time for everyone on the bus to get in a full day of buying and selling in town before heading back where they came from. And they do this every week! Not exactly a trip to Safeway for the week’s groceries.

One of the four theme areas of the HFLE curriculum is "Managing the Environment." So, when I was offered the opportunity to help organize the 2008 Summer Teacher Institute in Environmental Studies and Culture, I ran with it. This project has been passed down from one Cayo volunteer to another for the past 6 years, and also gave me the opportunity to hang out at the famous Lodge at Chaa Creek for 5 days. No complaints there.

The Institute is an environmental education workshop for primary school teachers from Belize and the U.S. Organized through a partnership between the Belize Foundation for Conservation and SUNY Cortland, it focuses on the Maya archaeology, ecology and ecotourism of western Belize, while also serving as an opportunity for cultural exchange between Belizean and American teachers. Here a group tours Chaa Creek's Maya Organic Farm.

Chaa Creek is a luxury resort with an incredible dedication to ecotourism and community involvement. They've invested an enormous amount of time and effort into the development of their employees, most of whom come from the nearby village of Cristo Rey. They've committed themselves to being the greenest resort around, and are leaders in the ecotourism push in Belize. As part of the workshop, we toured the grounds, including the Medicinal Plant trail, Butterly farm (home to the famous Blue Morpho butterfly) and Maya Organic Farm, and took a night hike to hunt for nocturnal creatures.

What impressed me most about the experience was how quickly the American and Belizean participants got to know each other. Within a day they were staying up late into the night telling jokes, serenading each other with Spanish love songs and teaching each other (drinking) games. A little One Barrel always helps! Courtney was comfortable enough with Earl to play squirrel to his Cohune tree in a dramatic representation of the symbiotic relationships found within ecosystems.

Day 4 was a trip to San Antonio village, Cayo's only majority Mayan community. Unlike the K'ekchi and Mopan Maya that live throughout the southern districts of Toledo and Stann Creek, San Antonio's residents are largely Yucatec Maya, who came from the Yucatan in Mexico during the Caste Wars. In addition to the treat of a Mayan cultural dance presentation, the trip gave the American teachers an opportunity to tour a small village school, a teaching environment far removed from what they're accustomed to back in the States.

The American teachers put on a 4th of July celebration complete with hot dogs and a water balloon toss. We suffered a moment of cultural miscommunication when our host Docio went out shopping and came back with saltines for the s'mores. But we perservered, as you can see from Earl's valiant attempt at Chubby Bunny...

One of the responsibilities of the district HFLE officers is to oversee the annual primary school HIV/AIDS poster competition. Several months ago, Joe and I solicited submissions from Standard IV-VI (roughly 5th-8th grade) students throughout the Cayo District. They were given the task of creating an eye-catching poster on the themes of HIV transmission & prevention or stigma & discrimination. We ended up with around 200 submissions. Joe then recruited artists, teachers and professionals in the HIV/AIDS field to judge the submissions, who pared them down to the top 20. Joe and I spent a week traveling around the district to take the top 20 posters on tour. We asked 30 students from a variety of schools to vote on their top 3, from which our winners were chosen. Awards were presented at a ceremony in San Ignacio. Our 1st place winner, Christopher Pulido, went on to the U.S. Embassy in Belmopan along with the top winners from the other districts, where they were interviewed for the news and had lunch with the Ambassador.

All in all, it was a successful endeavor, which hopefully succeeded in the aim of raising awareness about HIV & AIDS among Belizean youth. In a nation which suffers from a 2.4% HIV infection rate and intense stigma aginst people with HIV and AIDS, increased awareness is sorely needed.

I think I may have witnessed the beginning of the rainy season last weekend. I’d been back in Belize just four days, the first three of which were bone dry. Dust had settled thick over the whole country, coating every conceivable surface in my house (neglected as it had been). My plants were looking decidedly close to death. The dust from the dirt roads, kicked up by stiff daily afternoon winds, coated not only the grass and shrubs by the roadside (as had been the case for much of the past few months), but reached up into the leaves of the trees surrounding the education center where I work, lending them a silvery-grey hue. The color of the trees, accentuated by the strangely crisp and rosy light of a sky just waiting for the right moment to unleash the deluge that had been accumulating for months, gave my daily walk home from work an otherworldly feel. The entire atmosphere was charged with a feeling of change on the horizon. And then last Saturday it came. Great torrents of wind and rain dampening down the incessant dust. For hours the lightning flashed in great white-hot charges and thunder boomed from every direction. Now I’m a sucker for a good spell of dramatic weather, so I sat it out on the patio in my hammock, outside the confines of my cement walls. And what blessed relief! From the oppressive heat I’d been suffering (with great complaint) since my return from a decidedly cooler early (read indecisive) spring in the northeastern US. Thank God! My only complaint – and of course there had to be one – is that the rain came just in time to make drying my laundry out on the line a little less than convenient. I can see I’m going to have to rig up a better rainy season clothesline system than the one I’ve got. Pain in the ass weather!

a sight from the dusty past (as of a week ago)

And on an entirely different note, in late April, Alli and I found ourselves bumming a ride from BATSUB again, this time on a boat to St. George’s Caye. It was St. George’s Day, and the Brits were celebrating in style, thanks to Andy, my old friend from the Orange Walk days. They set up tents, a barbecue, coolers of beer and even a volleyball net out on a sandbar just off shore from the caye. Wading in crystal blue Caribbean water up to my knees with a Guinness in one hand and the sea stretching out as far as the eye can see is not too shabby a way to spend an afternoon.

I happened to be down in Punta Gorda for Maya Days, a celebration sponsored by Tumul K’in, a high school in the village of Blue Creek that’s dedicated to the preservation of Maya culture. I was lucky enough to witness a game of Chajchaay, the sacred Maya ballgame. The players of the two teams are typically painted and dressed to represent the warrior eagles of the Orient and the warrior jaguars of the Occident (who were covered head to toe in green dye). Players support themselves on the floor with one arm and return the 3½ lb. ball to the other team by hitting it with their hips. A team wins by either scoring a certain number of points, or by getting the ball through one of two rings suspended from the ceiling at a height of about 6 feet. By hitting it with their hips. Chajchaay is “the personification of the fight between necessary oppositions. It is the everyday fight, it is the eternal duality, light and darkness, health and sickness, birth and death, man and woman, the being or not being, heat and cold, water and fire, good and evil.”

The next day’s festivities, like those of any good community gathering, included food, music, games, and a greased pig competition. I was sorry I missed the greased pole competition, as it looked like the pole was covered in motor oil. But I did get to see six Maya ladies take each other on in the traditional corn-grinding competition.

Mica, John and I headed to Blue Creek early in the morning to catch the festivities, so I had a chance to check out the creek that lends it’s name to the town. Yes, this picture is doctored, but the creek really is that blue, even without help.

Here’s Mica chatting up some friends…

...and my new friend for the day.

I live in a remarkably spacious cement house right in the middle of San Ignacio town. It’s a pretty sweet spot – good location, not far from the South Indian restaurant run by my uncle’s fellow Malayali, George, as well as a little movie theater that puts on free matinees every weekend. There’s more than enough room for me to knock around comfortably, and I have a little private patio for my hammock, and a yard full of brand new kittens next door. My landlord is a lovely, slightly deaf older man by the name of Mr. DePaz, who insists on taking me out for a beer (or several) every time I go by to pay the rent. All in all, I dig it. My only complaint about the place is that when I moved in, it was painted in the most hideous shade of dooky brown. And when I say painted, I’m talking about EVERY SINGLE CONCEIVABLE SURFACE. Walls, ceilings, trim, cupboards – ev er y thing. Even if I were a fan of dooky brown, I think it would’ve been overkill. It was painful. And depressing.

But, with a little assistance from a mother who understands the harmful psychological effects of depressing paint jobs, I’ve remedied the situation. One thing I love about living in the Caribbean is that there’s no reason not to paint your house outlandish colors. Everyone around you is doing it, so why not? Hot pink, electric blue, eye-popping chartreuse, you name it. I decided it was only fitting to go for shades of Caribbean blue and turquoise. Might even help keep me cooler in the sweltering tropical heat. I can’t tell you what it’s done for my state of mind…

aaaah...much better!

Part of my job entails visiting schools in the Cayo district to assess implementation of the Health and Family Life Education curriculum (a national primary school health and life skills curriculum organized around the themes of Self & Interpersonal Relationships, Sexuality & Sexual Health, Eating & Fitness, and Managing the Environment). My counterpart Joe and I try to visit schools to check on whether teachers have HFLE in their class schedules, what types of topics they're covering, the presence of health-related visual aids in the classroom, etc. We also spend a minute talking with teachers about the challenges they face in implementing the curriculum, and what sort of support they could most use from the District Education Center. Information gathered through these visits allows us to create targeted trainings in the areas of greatest need, and is helping me to collect materials for an HFLE-related teacher resource center.

Joe and I recently visited the Catholic school in San Marcos, a small village in the Spanish Lookout area. Spanish Lookout is home to a large Mennonite community, and is a hub of agriculture and dairy farming. Immigrants from around Central America have settled in the area to work on Mennonite farms, and have created a ring of small villages surrounding Spanish Lookout. San Marcos is one of these (though strictly on the grounds of bizarre naming practices, my favorites are Duck Run 1, Duck Run 2 and Duck Run 3). The school has three multi-level classrooms (Belizean primary schools cover the equivalent of kindergarten through 8th grade), one of which is taught by the principal, Mr. Cabb.

The whole Spanish Lookout area sits atop rolling green hills. The majority of the land has been cleared for crops and grazing, so the views are spectacular. This is the view looking across the road from the school.

We take a look around classrooms to see what sort of visual aids teachers are using. This varies a lot from classroom to classroom, and is one thing I've heard about from many teachers. In a resource-poor country like Belize, access to good teaching tools is limited. Many teachers know their students would benefit from good visual aids, but they don't have the resources to get them. It's one of the things I'm hoping to provide in the resource center. (If anyone knows of good sources for health-related visual aids and DVDs, let me know!)

Many schools use gardening as a way to teach about plants, water cycles, the environment and nutrition. Some just plant seedlings and send them home with kids. Others have full school gardens, and sell the produce as a fundraiser, or use it to supplement their school feeding programs. The Chief Education Officer for Cayo recently asked me to create a survey to assess interest in school gardening initiatives. She is hoping to create a district wide program if there is sufficient interest on the part of schools.

And then there's just the fun of seeing what's going on... After lunch, Mrs. Cabb's lower division students line up to sing the national anthem before returning to class. It's no joke to memorize - the thing is LONG!

'Nuff said.

this past weekend i served on the support crew for Peace Corps Belize's one and only team of racers in the annual Ruta Maya River Challenge. the Ruta Maya is a four-day endurance test (of both physical stamina and sanity), which involves canoeing the 170 miles from San Ignacio, down the Belize River to Belize City. Todd, Marcel and Johnny took on the challenge this year, and we set off from my house on Friday morning with just an hour and a half to locate the canoe they'd borrowed from a Cayo resort, find a ride for the support crew and all our gear, and send the guys off down the river. with just minutes to spare before the starting gun, they were in their beast of a boat (which was not exactly built for speed) and Alli had worked her southern magic and secured us a ride with her friends from BATSUB (British Army Training Support Unit Belize, that is). we spent the next four days riding the less than smooth side roads of Belize with the boys of her majesty's armed forces, stopping along the way to throw water and snickers bars eainto the canoe from perches on the banks of the river. my stats are probably a tad less than accurate, but our boys paddled somewhere around 8, 10, 6 and 4 hours each day from friday through monday. approximately 95 canoes entered the race, 70ish completed it, and team Peace Corps came in somewhere around 60th. the weekend was a haze of bumpy roads, river banks, tent villages, rain, mud, snack food, waiting crowds, army green, sore muscles, and arguments about who speaks real english.

waiting for the starting gun in San Ignacio

and they're off!

supaat kroo members Nicole and Ashli

Todd, Marcel & Johnny take on the Ruta Maya - day 1

Phil tosses water to one of the BATSUB boats at a checkpoint on day 1, near Spanish Lookout

you find ways to amuse yourself while waiting for the boats to arrive at camp - Banana Bank, day 1

the boys inhale dinner after 10 hours paddling - Bermudian Landing, day 2

jockeying for prime start position, day 3

Shirley mops out the tent after a particularly soggy night in Burrell Boom

spectators cheering at the finish line in Belize City

the sight that greeted many paddlers as they stepped out of their canoes. yum.

in addition to hauling us around for four days and granting us free access to their endless supply of snickers and water on ice, the boys from BATSUB served as official timekeepers for the race at each of it's four stages. he may be a bit hard to find, but that's Witz under the pink umbrella, recording finish times in Belize City.

done and done.

the other morning when i came in to work, Alma, the early childhood education officer, asked me if i wanted to go to a parade with her. it's Child Stimulation Month here in Belize, and so it's all about raising awareness about the benefits of preschool. well, who am i to say no to the chance to watch a slew of preschoolers parading through town?

this is the youngest son of George, the guy who owns the South Indian restaurant Ashley and i (and anyone we can convince to join us) have become obsessed with. he's frequently the one who comes to hand me my menu as soon as i arrive.

float crossing the Hawkesworth Bridge

children dressed up to represent Belize's various cultural and ethnic groups

this one's a Mennonite

...you're such an epidemic. one of my co-workers had some people over to his house last night, and we honestly devoted a good 8 hours to nothing but barbecue and bad singing at absurd decibel levels. (i don't think i'll ever understand the need for loud in belize, but most people here seem to feel an obligation to share their musical adventures not only with the neighbors, but with neighboring countries.) overwrought spanish ballads and country music are the top picks around these parts. nothing more entertaining than a vince gill song as interpreted by an intoxicated belizean...

the thatch roofs here ain't no joke. some even sport dormers (see bijou, i remembered my architectural vocabulary!)

i came home from work one day to find this message from another volunteer on my doorstep. that kyle, he's so crafty. you never can tell what he'll be up to next.

my down-the-street neighbor and fellow PCV, Ashley, discovered a tree of enormous green globes in her backyard. i'm convinced they're extraterrestrial, but she assures me they're just calabash.

clothes drying Belize style. and in reverse.

a Belikin in the sand

also in Ashley's backyard. it's a wild and woolly place.

trying for houseplants (as well as a vegetable garden). wish me and my brown thumb luck.

bus. of the yellow school variety. transportation choice of the masses here in Belize. i was just trying to get to Belmopan, typically just an hour's bus ride away, but the universe had other things in mind that day. a truck somehow managed to lose it's load of steel girders on the road just ahead of a narrow bridge. which left traffic backed up for ages, and my bus driver rather bored.

ok, it's not actually a town. more of a village. but it IS called Silk Grass, which for some reason i find particularly amusing. my friends Ashli and Todd live there, and i just recently went for my first visit. i keep telling Ashli she needs to write her Peace Corps story, and title it "From Lucky Strike to Silk Grass." she got all the placements with cool names, lucky girl.

anyway, i had to go to Dangriga for a WASH project workshop (that's Water and Sanitation Hygiene for those who are wondering), and decided to stop in Silk Grass to see how the village life has been treating A&T, and to do a taste test of Ashli's increasingly famous pizza-from-scratch. it's pretty fantastic, by the way, as are her Bisquick cinnamon rolls (cribbed from Clare). Silk Grass is located just south of Dangriga on the Southern Highway, amid acres of citrus groves. Belize's top two agricultural exports are citrus concentrate and bananas, and the road between Dangriga and Punta Gorda in the south is lined with miles of orange and grapefruit trees and banana palms. as soon as i walked through the door of their traditional board house, Todd offered me a grapefruit picked from their neighbor's farm down the road. he's become an expert at doing as the Belizeans do and peeling off the rind in one long curly strip. you then cut the grapefruit in half and dig in. with your teeth. no spoons, and no sugar necessary. delectable.

Todd & Ashli's home sweet home

citrus groves

destination juicer

we rode our beach cruisers (the Belizean bike of choice) six miles up the highway and off into the bush to Mayflower-Bocawina National Park, where Todd works as a small business volunteer, helping develop business and marketing plans to bring more visitors to this largely overlooked park. we stopped to chat with one of his co-workers, but couldn't stay long, as the bugs in the visitor center were brutal and overly enthusiastic about finding fresh meat. after pausing to take in the sight of a (rather sizeable) crocodile sunbathing on the banks of the creek, we started up the deceptively easy beginning of the waterfall trail. i typically don't subject myself to trails that offer ropes to help guests drag themselves up, but the promise of a freshwater pool as a reward at the end kept me chugging along straight uphill for the next 45 minutes or so. so Todd, on trail clearing duty, forged ahead chopping down overhanging vines with his excessively large machete, and Ashli and i just tried to keep up without keeling over. and yes, the ends justified the pains. we arrived at the top of the trail to find ourselves the only visitors at a small, secluded, turquoise pool, complete with its own waterfall and easy swimming access. there's nothing better than a well-deserved dip in a freshwater pool on a hot and sweaty day.

aaaahhhh.

Ashli & Todd in post-hike/bike relax mode. despite our wildly differing living circumstances, this is a pose common to all Peace Corps Belize volunteers. it's called hammock time, and it's a highly prized commodity.

thanks for showing me a good time, kids. i'll be back.

on January 19th, Belize lost one of it's national heroes, Andy Palacio. a teacher, musician and cultural ambassador born in the tiny village of Barranco, Andy was known most for his mission to preserve and promote Garifuna culture. if you can find a copy of his latest album, Watina, do it. now. he gathered a variety of Garifuna musicians from Belize, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua to form the Garifuna Collective, and the results are mesmerizing. their music is joyful, celebratory, mournful, contemplative and spiritual all at once. and the world was taking notice. in fact, 2007 seemed to be the year of Andy, with the album winning awards worldwide. just a few months before his death he was named a UNESCO Artist For Peace. i was accustomed to hearing his music blasting from windows anytime i visited Dangriga or Hopkins, but after his death, you could hear it even outside those Garifuna strongholds. i walked a few blocks from my house to the center of San Ignacio to do some shopping just a few days after his death to find Watina ringing out of an impromptu sound system rigged up outside the front door of the Indian-owned furniture store. the whole country came together.

i was blessed to be able to attend his funeral. Maya got a ticket on the bus going from Hopkins to Barranco, and i managed to hitch a ride. i was concerned that some might think me an interloper on the journey, but my fears were unfounded. the Garifuna tradition holds that funerals are for celebrating life, not mourning death, and this was borne out by the raucous laughter of the folks on the back of the bus all the way to Barranco. they were going there to celebrate him and his contribution to the preservation of their culture. so... we caught the bus at 5am, and after barreling down the southern highway and breezing past sleepy Maya villages, we arrived to find the party had already started. Barranco is a tiny seaside village of 120 residents in the far south of Belize, not far from Guatemala. they'd prepared as much as they could, but with a crowd in excess of 3,000, i'm sure it had to be an overwhelming experience for them. buses poured in from every corner of the country, from as far north as Corozal, on the Mexican border. as we were waiting by the waterside to catch a glimpse of a helicopter landing (bearing the Prime Minister), we saw celebrants arriving by boat from Livingston. he brought them out of the woodwork. everywhere you went, people from around the country (and from neighboring ones as well) greeted each other in Garifuna. in addition to the thousands of Garinagu greeting each other with smiles, there was a smattering of Mestizos, a handful of Maya quietly observing the proceedings, and even a number of gringos sprinkled among all the brown faces. i noticed several Maya families peeking in at the windows of the church, which was standing room only. the crowd spilled out across the road to a temporary tent set up on a lawn overlooking the sea.

the ceremony lasted over 3 hours, a Catholic mass conducted in English and Garifuna, with a sprinkling of eulogies by a number of friends, many of whom happen to also be major government and cultural figures in Belize. the Prime Minister's son, Yasser Musa, broke down in tears during his eulogy. people talked about the fact that it was OK that he was taken from us, since he had succeeded at fulfilling the mission he'd been given. he had created Watina, and now he could go on to join the ancestors secure in the knowledge that he had done good in the world. as we celebrated, the skies opened and unleashed a deluge. nobody moved except to find the shelter of the tent or a neighbor's umbrella. i didn't hear a single complaint as the hordes slogged through the red mud and climbed, soaked to the bone, back in to their buses to leave Barranco in peace. it was a dramatic send off indeed. and i feel lucky to have been able to be there to witness it.

in Andy's own words (from his WOMEX Award acceptance speech in October): "I see this award not so much as a personal endorsement but in fact as an extraordinary and sincere validation of a concept in which artists such as myself take up the challenge to make music with a higher purpose that goes beyond simple entertainment. I accept this award on behalf of my fellow artists from all over the world with the hope that it will serve to reinforce those sentiments that fuel cultures of resistance and pride in one's own." he was only 47.