October, already! I have now been living in Corozal Belize for 1 year now. While I was attending my courses in 2008 at the University of Montana, the professors kept advising us that once we arrived in our communities take time, don’t rush anything. They said don’t try to accomplish major goals immediately, the first 3 months just meet people and hang out. As I think about the way I felt then, I remember being like, sweet, three months of just hanging and not working a ton. I had been working 30 hours a week at Adventure Cycling, attending Graduate school as a full time student, and spending at least 3 hours or more a week at the YWCA volunteering with children. I was ready to hang out full time.

Now, after having spent a year hanging out, with bursts of busyness and work, on the eve of my one year anniversary things start falling into the magical Peace Corps place I had heard about. If you talk to a lot of Peace Corps Volunteers they will tell you that most volunteers don’t accomplish much that first year, but boom, the second year hits and wow, the things that happened and the speed at which the year disappeared.

Having spent one day traversing the Northern Highway of Belize, visiting village primary schools, I thought to myself that I might as well introduce myself to Escuela Secundaria Tecnica Mexico, in the village of San Roman. It is a secondary school (1st Form-4thForm) and a Junior College (2 years called 6th Form, where 5th Form went I don’t know) that was built and supported by the Mexican Government. I had always been telling people that I wanted to work some with older students but I had yet to take the step to visit those schools. The one in Corozal town was rather far, or at least the journey guaranteed arriving a sweaty mess, plus it was big and imposing and I wasn’t sure the guards would let me in without prior contact. Escuela Mexico on the other hand was right on the highway, meaning I didn’t have to walk anywhere except to the highway near my house, to catch a shared van taxi ride to the San Roman, which meant arriving fresh and professional. The campus looks like a southern Florida high school, concrete buildings, spaced around a manageable area, utilizing the constant warm weather with students spending most of their time outside in between classes and lunch.

I met with the counselor, who immediately set a date when I could come back and assist her with planning a Self Awareness Week. A couple days later she called and asked me to give a session on teenage sexuality and self esteem to her Peer Helping Club. So I obliged, enjoyed my time with the older students and found myself invited back to help the counselor provide all students with sexual health presentations. Over the last couple of weeks I have finally found myself busy with the work I had been hoping to do in Peace Corps. All it took one year to get my groove, and then boom, the work I have been waiting for. I don’t even know at this point how many classes I have spoken to, but after one or two you begin to understand the classroom dynamics better, the interest level and knowledge level of the students, and what they seem to like. I have found that if you can make any session interactive the better it is. The students here are like robots here, they copy everything they need from the board, the classes do not foster critical thinking skills (why chess is important in developing world), and a child never has a chance to be hands on in their learning. A student approached me the other day as I was leaving the school, a girl, and she explained to me that her cousin took college courses (from a PA college) online and was working on her degree, and that she herself wanted to do the same, but she wanted to study sexology. Who would of thought? Belize certainly needs social psychologists who understand sexual behavior and what shapes it, to aid the country in combating HIV as well as other STIs.

The Nazarene Primary School still keeps me somewhat busy. Most mornings (hanging out gets boring sometimes) I go by the school and act as a teacher’s aide, helping the students with their language art lessons.They need the help since the teacher/principal does not explain or teach the lesson, just assigns a activity and they are to start working. Most of the kids in the 2 classes (it is multilevel) cannot read, so they need help, a, understanding the directions, and b, learning the concept that is being covered. As I work with each student there are usually 3 others pleading, “Miss Holly!” “Miss Holly!” 3 afternoons a week I teach a computer class (this has been awful since we have no internet), p.e., or girls club. P.E. is the most stressful of the 3 since it is so hard for the kids to cooperate. They can be the biggest tattle talers ever, and this bugs me like no other at a certain point. The part of this that I like is that at this point I know at least 4 classes of children well, and I know their personalities well, so I know what to expect and from whom which helps in dealing with these situations. In every class there is one student who complains about everything, somehow everything is unfair, the other type of student is the one who gives up easily if things don’t go their way. Sort of sounds like a complainer, but these students are silent; they quietly remove themselves from a game and sit out. Sometimes they won’t speak to you when you ask them why they are not playing or encourage them to continue with the game. If anything they mumble something or say that so and so has not passed to them. What all these kids have in common is that they are coming from turbulent home lives, after a year you figure these things out. These kids have undeveloped social coping abilities. What breaks my heart about these students is that they are the ones, who stand to gain the most in healthy recreation, and they want to engage in this healthy recreation more than most kids, yet they themselves are the obstacles to their own enjoyment.

So here I am one year after arriving in Corozal, still learning, still trying, and enjoying most moments as they pass by.

Wow! I guess I had been feeling so lazy lately that when today came and I had something I had to really come through on I was so anxious. But it turned out great.

It all started last week Wednesday I had to leave Corozal on a hurricane drill run by PC. The timing was poor since those of us working with or at schools missed graduations. And although I do not work at a high school, for kids in Belize graduating primary school is the one and only graduation they ever participate in. When we got the all clear to leave Belmopan Thursday afternoon I opted out of my 4-5 hour bus ride back to Corozal for a night in San Ignacio, my old stomping grounds. Had a great night with some fellow PCVs, as well as other friends there.

Friday morning I made the quick trip back to Belmopan where I meet up with two other HIV/AIDS committee members. We all headed together to Belize City where miraculously, for the first time ever we rode the bus free. The bus conductors, aka. the $ collectors never miss people, especially 3 gringas. I think this magical turn of events happened because we just so happened to be passing the burned out remains of a vehicle on the side of the road, and Belizeans love accidents. Anyway, on our way to Belize City we went and then to the Caye Caulker for the annual Lobsterfest celebration, where we were planning on joining with PASMO (Pan American Social Marketing Organization) to conduct HIV/AIDS outreach.

By the time PASMO arrived Friday evening the three of us had been taking advantage of a strange sunny afternoon (It was pouring in Belize City and Tropical Storm Alex was churning off the coast)by sipping beverages in bikinis at the split* (Got to go to Caye Caulker and understand what I am talking about). At that point we had already been notified by PC that we were on standfast alert, meaning don't go anywhere and that most likely we would receive a phone call tomorrow morning saying leave the island immediately. So there went the outreach plans. PASMO workers were happy to join the relaxing behavior.

The next morning sure enough we had to go. By mid morning we were on a boat leaving Caye Caulker behind and were headed into THE most hellish boat ride I have ever experienced in my life. I almost retched and that is something that has never happened to me before in car, plane or boat before. Children and adults were puking, the smell was awful, we were enclosed in a boat with like 50 other people in sweltering heat for about an hour and a half.

Once I returned to Belmopan where I had been ordered things calmed down quite a bit. And by the time I returned to Corozal on Sunday I had gotten used to doing nothing just sort of going and hanging out. I love the PC. Yet, looming on the distance was my GLOW Club afternoon party at the seaside park. I had to pull myself together and make sure the girls remembered, I had fun things for them to do, and I had arranged all food and drink requirements. Well of course I did nothing Monday and Tuesday so boom here was Wednesday.

But today was amazing! I rode around all morning visiting some houses where the girls lived. One was a very sad visit, the mom of all these children at school never lets her kids participate in anything. She made some lame excuse of why her 3 girls in the Club could not go a few blocks away to a party. I recruited one younger girl to help me so I went and visited her mother, who talks to me in the weird sort of Spanish sort not of Spanish used here, most of which I don't understand. But she likes me and I like her. I also recruited the help of some girls from a church group currently at my school working on the new church and helping with vacation bible school. I am so non religious I really had to swallow my pride and ask for some help, especially from missionary folks. The 5 girls who came were in high school and really were a tremendous help playing with the children in the water (as most Belizean children cannot swim). I could relax more and talk to the moms who came and the other girls not swimming. The girls had a lot of fun with them too so it all worked out quite well in the long run. The funny thing about that whole part was I asked some random person and was directed to another and then they had to check witht this person and that one, and inquire with the Corozal pastor about who the heck I was, like I might be some bad person they couldn't send 18 years olds with.

Well today was a good day in Corozal Town. Like most days I am really happy where I am.

As usual it has been a long while.

Recently I attended a Conference/Round table hosted by the National AIDS Commission of Belize, and UNIFEM, my fellow PCV managed to get one invite to the table and I was excited and nervous to be the one attending. Belize is one of 5 Caribbean countries UNIFEM is working with on strengthening gender responsive prevention approaches. Specifically because of the understanding of harmful gender stereotypes and relations that are a driver in the HIV epidemic in the Caribbean region.

There were two presentations, both of which were on subjects I had been exposed to before, yet interesting nonetheless.

The first was on Gender and sexuality in relation to adolescent vulnerability to HIV infection. The presenter was quite good, and someone I hope the HIV/AIDS committee could utilize in its work. The second presentation was on Human Rights and HIV and AIDS. The female lawyer was someone the Peace Corps invited as a guest speaker during our training. She is an American, who has married a local and has long since been settled in Dangriga, where she practices law as a human rights specialist. Again, a good presentation, but the material was nothing new.

Once the conference made it to the round table portion, there was barely anytime yet to really have a discussion with the 40 or 50 of us there. I mean we didn’t even get to talk about out of school youth. I just received the recommendations from the brief roundtable that need approval by conference and roundtable participants. One of the ones that I think is an interesting and necessary recommendation is about facilitating teachers understanding and acceptance of their own sexuality as a precursor to their becoming teachers of sexuality development and sexual health.

The exciting link with some of this is the survey work that the PC HIV/AIDS (I am the new chairperson!) committee has been undertaking at the moment. Surveying the teachers and asking them questions like whether students’ health is harmed by not receiving sexual health education and will more people get HIV without sexual health information, has revealed a clear area of intervention with teachers: more education, giving them the most current facts and trends of HIV and teenage pregnancy and other health knowledge. The teachers’ supplemental manual that the HIV/AIDS committee developed and is in the final approval stage at the Ministry of Education, will provide teachers with complete lesson plans following their HFLE curriculum. It seems many teachers dislike the standing in front of their class and just helplessly explaining sexual health without visual aids, and clear understanding of some of the facts.

I and a few others were invited to a meeting with the country director of the United Nations Development Program in Belize. She wanted us to team up and work with them on HIV and AIDS related activities. It turns out they are to be the implementing agency of a large Global Health Fund grant. The country director mentioned the lack of good data for health trends in Belize, which is quite true, and the need to come together in the collection of data as we go along with work. Just this past Friday I traveled to Belmopan for an afternoon meeting with the other leaders of the committee and our new staff member advisor, who is the best person in the office to guide us and support us. What was discussed was our most likely assurance on continuation of the $20,000 US a year PEPFAR grant which is coordinated through the US Embassy in Belize. The encouragement of going bigger in our efforts of HIV/AIDS prevention and education was noted and coupled with the committee’s latest involvement with other agencies receiving a lot of money to be put towards HIV/AIDS education and awareness as well as sexual health initiatives it feels as if the door is wide open to innovative and large scale ideas. Although you have to be careful with large scale interventions too.

Hotter than the depths of hell here right now! I constantly have a glistening sheen of sweat covering me at all times of the day. Yesterday I had to take a shower after having my coffee and toast because I worked up such a sweat in the process. Well such is the price I pay for living in the Caribbean.

Two more months until school closes for the summer. I haven’t quite figured out what I will keep myself busy with, but I think I will probably try to organize some sporting opportunities for children who want to. Next week I will go back to Belmopan (the most boring capital city in the world) and receive survey training for a project the Peace Corps HIV/AIDS committee is working on. Myself and a friend are to be joint chair persons in a lee (a Kriol word for you, aka little) while, when one batch of PCV’s leave in Sept.

The survey is part of Designing for Behavior Change, an approach to designing and implementing development programs, a model PC Belize is trying to encourage volunteers to use if appropriate. We are going to survey all districts in Belize, surveying both rural and urban school teachers. We would like to find teachers who do not teach the mandated sexual health education curriculum, and those who do. This will be tricky, as I fear some teachers will think we are going to turn them into the Ministry of Education for their failure in teaching the subject.

What we are trying to find out is what determinants (i.e. perceived severity, perceived action efficacy, perceived social acceptability, perceived self efficacy, cues for action, perception of divine will, and positive and negative attributes of preventative action)are keeping some teachers from teaching the curriculum. Once we can identify the main determinants preventing the teaching we can plan our behavioral change intervention appropriately.

One of the trickiest parts of this effort is trying to control for the multitudes of cultures in this country. Yet, in a country this diverse I believe we will be able to see trends amongst the different groups, and I am sure there will be variations from group to group. I guess it goes without saying that in Belize programs will need to be somewhat tweaked from culture to culture. The main cultural groups we have are Kriol, Mestizo, Garifuna, and Mayan. (As a side note we also have substantial populations of East Indians, Mennonites, and Taiwanese.) Kriol folks are a lot more comfortable talking about sex and teaching it, whereas, most Mayans won’t go there. Then we have the issue of many Mayan communities having teachers who are Garifuna or Kriol. So that is another headache we have to figure out how to include and categorize.

Aside from the difficulties of this survey, I can’t wait to actually do some research here. Belize is lacking in national statistics and I can’t wait to help produce some.

I have Beth and Julie to thank for this blog. Julie for reminding to blog because she actually came to Belize and I got to see her and have her tell me in person I need to. And Beth, cause I know how those days at work go and I will try my best to give you some fresh internet reading material. I also know you will fill the rest of the “locker room” (is Jim really the one that came up with that???) in on any if not most of what I blog about. Thank you Beth!

I am fresh back from a lovely two weeks off of school for Easter. I kicked it off marvelously with a visit from Julie which took me once again out to Caye Caulker. From there I hopped another water taxi to San Pedro on Ambergris Caye. San Pedro is the big hotbed of tourism in this country. There I met up with part of Peter’s Red Lodge family, who has a lovely timeshare just north of bustling San Pedro. I had a splendid time relaxing on cushioned lounge chairs in the sun and swimming in a pool. That was my first pool experience in country and I liked the safeness of an identifiable cement bottom. My dad warned me about swimming in pools in Belize and thankfully this one looked clean. Although Peter’s aunt made a good point about how there had been some people who hung out a little too long at the swim up bar if you get what I am saying.

Here is a photo of some children from my school who participated in the Nazarene Sports Day in Orange Walk about a week prior to school closing for Easter. These girls were part of my Futbol tem. There were three events at Sports Day: Volleyball, Futbol, and Basketball. My school barely fielded a boys and girls futbol teams. I coached girls and prayed for a respectable game. When my principal brought it up with me she acted all crazy about winning us some trophies. I was just thinking god, let this not be a horrible first sporting experience so I can get some girls into sports. My school and teachers drag their feet about actually getting the kids into sports despite saying they are all for it and then these days come up and they turn all trophy winning oriented.

I had one practice with the girls prior to the game. We played Sarteneja in Orange Walk and thankfully their mostly Mesitzo girls were new to the sport as well. One of my best players tried backing out of the game immediately as we take the field. I pepped talked her back into it, but it is a strange behavior I see a lot when I do sports activities with the kids. They want to play, they plead for it, then we start a game and people get huffy and keep saying “Miss Holly I don’t want to play.” They visibly want to play but won’t. They don’t get a ball passed to them or something like that and they are out. It happened today with a boy during P.E. I told him how I rode the bench for much of my sporting years, yet I still loved to play. Again, I am slowly turning into a good pep talker.

Every week I have to answer to the accusations of why this class gets P.E. today and not them and their class. It is usually a long three days until Thursday when Standard 2 gets their club hour with me. Yet all week long I listen to them ask me if today is the day and why not and it is not fair. Two girls I have a soft spot for kept telling me how unfair it is, and I always tease back about their sour faced expressions. This afternoon the two talked me into brining sweets for them on Thursday, which I eventually agreed to. And as I was just starting to ride away on my bike they ran after me saying they thought it would be a good idea if I brought juice too. I couldn’t say no to their reasoning on that one as well.

While I do get annoyed at times with their complaining of a very fair schedule I love the little conversations I have with the children. I have a particular closeness with the Standard 2 class (about 8-9 years). Yesterday I baby sat the class for the last 45 minutes and let the boys watch one boy make a kite and the girls act out Goldilocks. After the bell rang I sat in the classroom letting the kite maker and his friend finish up their work. I just chatted with them about this and that and listened to the two of them go on. The conversation even brought me relief when one boy mentioned being shocked by his fridge and the other laughed and had stories about that too. I too have been shocked by my fridge and I felt vindicated that mine wasn’t the only one like that. I think what I loved most of those 30 minutes with them was that they told me their dreams. Not like what they want to be when they are older, that I already know, but their actual dreams, and they were so cute.

PS..I added photos of my spring break on my shuttrfly site too.

It sure has been a long while since I have lasted posted anything to my blog. My apologies. It has been a fairly busy past few months. Things are going pretty well at the primary school. School reopened a week ago and this semester I am going to start a GLOW Club (Girls Leading Our World) for the older females at the school. Then in two other classes under the auspices of being a "club" I am going to be doing creative arts and physical education activities. I am excited to get those moving. The kids, and especially the girls seem really excited about the clubs.

My life has really quieted down and I have settled comfortably into my apartment. I do not feel as if I have been in Belize very long, but I do feel that Corozal is my new home and will be for quite some time. I have even suceeded in having the men who usually yell at me for my attention to now at least shout "Hey teecha!" This is definiely a step in the right direction compared to the usual "Hey white gyal!"

Peter came for Christmas which was nice. We stayed mostly in Corozal and then for a couple days over Christmas spent some time out on Caye Caulker. Before going to Caye Caulker though, we did a snorkeling trip through an organization based across the bay in Sartenja that another volunteer is working with. We had a lovely hour plus boat ride to a reserve area off the coast of Ambergis Caye called Bacalar Chico. The snorkeling was amazing. Another really great day trip we did was going to the Mayan ruins of Lamanai. Lamanai is located south of Corozal and most easily reached by boat up the New River. The river was a trip in itself. We saw lots of little crocodiles that our guide, who must have amazing eye sight spotted from the boat. On the way home from the site we even had a monkey get in the boat. The ruins were amazing, it was a beautiful place with some lovely temples you could climb with great veiws from the top.

I don't have too much else to report. Life if good, calm, and usually fulfillig.

Myself enjoying delicous Caye Caulker ice cream.

I was going to start this blog describing my agony this past weekend at having discovered I’ve eaten a fair amount of the Belizean equivalent to Spam, Dak. This revelation came out over the course of a lovely dinner in Caye Caulker with two of my fellow Peace Corps ladies. We had at the last minute decided to head out to Caye Caulker for Saturday and Sunday night. Our conversation during this meal was centered on how much fried food we have been eating since living with host families. I love fried food as much as the next person, but even I, was slowly feeling my arteries getting clogged by the meal. Recently, I had a discussion with my host mother, Rosa, about how fried food and sweet breads are good for growing children. Without these fundamental foods, Rosa tells me children get sick more often and more severely. She told me about her sister in law who outlaws salty, sugary, and fatty foods for her children, and Rosa said “them children just done drop when they sick.”

Which brings to me my next bit of news. I guess my host mom has “done dropped.” I knew she hasn’t been feeling so good for a while, almost every few days she would complain of feeling really bad. I personally had thought she might of come done with dengue fever since her described symptoms were almost verbatim what I had heard the warning signs of dengue fever to be. It also made sense because of the major outbreak of dengue fever in the country this year, even the Prime Minister got it. Yesterday afternoon when I came home from the Cayes, no one was home, yet laundry was hanging to dry outside. It was strange no one was home since it was lunch time and my little host brother and host father come home from school to eat lunch everyday. Yet the hanging laundry convinced me there was a probable explanation for the quiet house. After putting away my folded laundry I found on my bed, I went to school. On my way home yesterday evening my host father calls me and tells me Rosa has been rushed to the Orange Walk hospital and he wouldn’t be home tonight. I was shocked and concerned about what had happened to my host mother. My host father gave me no explanation other than, she was “rushed to the hospital.”

Earlier today I received a phone call from my host father, saying he would not be home again tonight as Rosa was undergoing surgery at the moment. She is having her uterus removed. My biggest fear for Rosa now is that she is having a surgery like that done in Belize. If you get sick in this country your best option is to get out. Most people go to Guatemala or Mexico to receive care or surgery. In fact my counterpart, who herself fell ill two weeks ago went to Mexico for better care and diagnosis. My counterpart is still not back at school yet. I just hope Rosa receives the best care there, and hopefully she will as her brother is a nurse in that hospital.

I feel rather guilty now of complaining about all the fried food Rosa cooked (it was good), and how I couldn’t wait to move out so I could actually cook for myself. Now two days later I got my wish in a fashion I wouldn’t of wished for. When I spoke with my host father he mentioned the obvious to me, that Rosa couldn’t look after me anymore. As we all know I am big enough to look after myself, but my host family takes the hosting quite seriously, and they won’t be able to do that for me anymore. I also know that my bedroom is now much needed for their son to sleep in again. My only dilemma now is that the apartment I was planning on moving into in a couple of weeks is being worked on. This past weekend (even in the Cayes) we experienced very heavy rains, in fact the most rain I had seen in this country. It more or less rained all day on Saturday and through the night into Sunday morning. The bedroom in my apartment had a lot of water in in, so my landlord (more about her later) is having the floor level raised and I won’t be able to move into it until the earliest, at the end of this week, but possibly not until next week. I’ve called Peace Corps and informed them of my situation so I should be hearing from them soon about what I can do. I think my only option at this point is to move into a hotel for the couple of nights between now and when my apartment is ready to be moved into. I guess I will just wait and see.

It’s official, I am now a Peace Corps Volunteer. In Peace Corps lingo, that is PCV. Like any government agency Peace Corps loves acronyms. 40 new volunteers swore in, ages ranging from 71 to 22. This all happened on the 22nd of October. We had all arrived back in Belmopan on Sunday afternoon, after spending two weeks in our new communities and at our counterpart agencies. It was great to listen to everyone’s two week experience. One of my fellow youth development volunteers working in the south, at the Community Rehabilitation Department managed to write a proposal (without her counterpart even present) for an after school program that was even approved. She felt a little thrown to wolves, but went with it. One of the business/organizational management volunteers placed at the Audubon Society was showing off his certificate of bravery (really they made him a certificate for this) when the boat he, another volunteer, his counterpart, and members of a community ran aground on the barrier reef (yes cringe, on the declared UNESCO world heritage coral reef). He assisted people out of the boat to another boat and they all passed the night at a caye about 60 miles off the coast. Other new volunteers had weeks similar to mine, nice, but perhaps a bit boring. That was definitely a better experience than what some volunteers had. The youth development volunteer who was placed in our training site, San Ignacio had ½ of her organization quit during her first days there.

After we all came together, Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday were spent in our final training sessions. Highlights included the lesson on hanging a hammock, lighting the ovens here so as to avoid blowing up your new abode, and proper machete handling. All training sectors presented a little something on our Community Bases Training (CBT) sites, as well as another presentation on the objectives of each sector’s work. For our CBT presentation we started with a skit on how ridiculously nice we had it compared to all other training sites. We presented it as the San Ignacio survivors support group, where we shared the “horrors” we experienced such as slow wireless connections, air conditioning malfunctions, loss of hot water for a brief period in our indoor showers, etc., we really had it made in San Ignacio.

Once Thursday morning rolled around we were bused to the Governor General’s residence where we had the swearing in ceremony. It was as to be expected, speeches, calling of names, shaking hands, tons of small Mayan children on the loose, their moms chatting away with one another as the ceremony progressed. The pinnacle of the ceremony, was the speech in Kriol made by an Education volunteer. It was hilarious to hear a white guy speaking Kriol, and pretty dang well too. It brought the house down. I wish I could say that the Spanish and K’etchi speech were as funny, but as I had no idea what was said in the K’etchi speech I can’t make a comparison. After the ceremony ended we stayed for a little while and lunched, then we were bused back to the hotel and started hydrating for the futbol match and the night ahead. The new volunteers squared off against the one year volunteers on the pitch, where we sadly got served. Once the game ended there was barely enough time to shower off and get dressed for the dinner celebration at the US ambassador’s residence. It was an experience to be sure. Many of us were beside ourselves at the thought of having wine, and we were not disappointed. The ambassador recently arrived after swearing in after Congress came back from their summer recess. The ambassador is of Indian origin, and his wife handled all of the cooking for our dinner which was an Indian buffet. I got the chance to chat with both the ambassador and his wife, and when I mentioned I was from Missoula, they both got so excited because they came through Missoula with the campaign and then headed to Butte for the Lee Metcalf dinner. Apparently this memory triggered the ambassador to go on to tell me how crazy the campaigning got, and all the crazy adventures they had on the campaign trail. I am glad Montana was such a fun adventure for Obama and his friends on the campaign trail with him. Once dinner was over, in true Peace Corps tradition all the new volunteers and one year volunteers partied back at the hotel all night. In my opinion that part of the night was not nearly as enjoyable as the dinner celebration.

Now I am back in Corozal and ready to start working. I got a resource book, recommended by another volunteer on setting up a school library. I actually missed the students while I was back in Belmopan, and I was looking forward to seeing them this morning.

Made it to Corozal town. Happy as a clam here too. I haven't had the chance to go swimming yet in the bay, and I don't know when I will, but I''m sure I'll do it soon. My latest host family, the Pasos, are extremely kind and inviting. They hosted a volunteer about two years ago, so they are familiar with the process and very accommodating. My new host mom, loves to cook, and is an amazing cook. This Sunday, her family is having a birthday party for her mom, and she is making 300 tamales! I walk home for lunch everyday and have an excellent meal waiting for me. It is probably a good thing that the walk is 20 minutes each way, cause after that mid day meal, I need some physical movement. I was just thinking I need to start taking photos of my meals at her home. For example today at lunch we had fried fish, rice and beans and egg salad. It was all good. A little later today I am going to check out my future place of residence, I am excited to see it, although it will probably just make me itch to move out onto my own.

Here are a couple of photos from the past few weeks. The first one is of myself and another trainee and our counterpart for CBT. She is the school counselor from a local secondry school. The second and fourth photos are from an HIV/AIDS workshop we ran for 4H. The third photo is myself and some other trainees at a Role of the Volunteer in Development session. And the last photo is a self portrai of myself in Corozal.

I found out yesterday that I will be going to Corozal Town. It is the northern most town in Belize. I will be only 15 minutes aways from Mexico, which is great for cheap shopping. I am going to be working at a local primary school there. It has 117 students, with five teachers, including my counterpart, who is also the acting principal. I guess I have two counterparts, the other is the Pastor of the Church. The school is religiously affiliated, I am still not sure with what denomination, but I know it is not a Catholic institution.

My job description has a lot of variety as to the projects they would like me to work on. I really like that about the site. In no apparent order I will be....

Helping teach computer literacy, and help the school acquire more computers. In Belize if you can secure a certain number of operational computers to students, then the major telecommunications company in Belize will provide free Internet service. So I will help them get to that point, hopefully. Anyone want to send me some computers?

I will be helping organize and expand the school's library. Anyone want to send me some children's books?

I will do reading pullouts for students who need the additional help and attention. Katie, I will probably be asking you for some help on this.

I will help start after school clubs for the students. I think the school would like to have some programs in the arts as well as some sports clubs started. I am excited for this opportunity to see what the children would like to create.

I am going to work with the PTA, and hopefully drum up more parental support at the school.

And lastly, I will be helping teach, and also train teachers to implement the Health and Family Life Education curriculum for the school. HFLE curriculum includes sexual health education, as well other topics like self esteem, healthy decision making, etc.

Belize's Independence Day was this past Monday, the 21st. I had planned to go downtown to watch the parade in the afternoon, but when my host brother came by and asked if I wanted to join him and my host dad in riding the familiy's horses in the parade, I could not resist. Despite the heat and the three hours in the saddle I had a great time. I did request that someone who knew how to handle and control a horse ride with me. So myself and my young friend rode together. What is missing from the picture is the handle of rum my friend had in his other hand, hidden from the photograph. By the time we crossed the bridge into Santa Elena we had a lot of free beer and water given to us by pals of my host brother and my new friend on the horse with me. There were about 40 or so horse riders in the parade. Most riders got progressively more intoxicated as the parade wound its way through the route. There was no organization to it at all, if you had a horse and you wanted to ride it in the parade you were welcome to. Half the riders were Mestizo looking cowboys and the other half were rasta mans with dreadlocks and all. Not the typical Montana horse rider. To cap off the experience we rode the horses across the river. The water current is fairly strong, and I really had no idea how deep the river was. The water would of come up to my thigh if I had kept my feet in the stirups. Pretty deep I would say. I ended up throwing my feet around the neck of the horse to keep myself as dry as I could. It was exhilirating, I do not have much experience riding horses and riding one through the water was a lot of fun for me.

Finally, today there was a little bit of rain, only a little bit though, in this incredibly dry rainy season. Although, this made an excursion to Blue Hole National Park a bit more buggy. And to add insult to that, Blue Hole is ground zero for getting a botfly. Botflys are picked up through an initial prick of a mosquito, and possibly other types of flys. Anyway, the moral of the story is you later have to extract a larvae from under your skin. The articulate and well spoken young man working at the entrance to the park, shared with some of us his total number of botfly bites, totaling 30. Blue Hole is apparently 500 acres, I saw a mere fraction of that today. We swam at a refreshing pool, that is linked with a cave system. You could actually go into a big caverneous room, swimming or wading in. It was quite dark, and not that the bats scared me, the dark, unsure waterlevel and current inside the cave, kept me at the mouth of it. Later, a small group of us attempted a small hike of 1 1/2 miles. We probably covered half a mile before we aborted due to an incessant attack of mosiquitos. We all just ended up elevating our liklihood of getting a botfly. Shoot.

Other than that, it has been an interesting night. Just listened to a strange altercation outside my window. Earlier listened to my host nephew catalog the various spirits and creatures that haunt this country. I had been talking to him about camping, and he told me that here, strange things come out at night. I initially thought to myself, yeah I could see that,some dangereous elements out there in the jungle at night, the danger element with that seemed reasonable to me. San Ignacio is practically on the border with Guatemala and I reason a fair amount of illegal activity occurs along the jungly pourous border in these parts. But no, he was alluding to el dwende. Some creature that comes out at night, his feet are faced backwards, and you must hide your thumbs from him. My host nephew has mentioned him now a couple times. He listed a couple others, one of which, he claims his sister saw last Wednesday. This bird, human, apparition, a "soch" flys in the air, and forcasts a death.

Today is a national holiday in Belize. It is St. George's Caye Day, commemorating the British victory over a Spanish invasion 211 years ago. If I remember my history correctly it is one of the few if only successes the British had in defeating a Spanish invasion. There were some fireworks in town last night at midnight, and today there was a parade.

Tomorrow is another all day training session in Belmopan with the entire group of trainees, which means an early morning bus ride into the capital. Afterwards though, we are all heading out in groups of two's and three's to visit current PCV's in their sites. I am fortunate to be heading north to Corozal district. A number of us will travel to Corozal town tomorrow night and spend the night in a hotel, and enjoy the town and beach the next day. Saturday evening, myself and two other trainees are heading to a village to visit a teacher trainer volunteer. I am excited to see village life in Belize, as well as the lagoon that the village is located on. I have been told by current PCV's that our host has a spectacular view from the house. It is directly on the lagoon, with a yard as the beach, I don't know how I keep getting so lucky! Let's hope I feel that way when I get my permanent site assignment on October 2nd.

I made it through another week of training, and although I had training over the weekend it was at least not all day. We had quite a few guest speakers this past week, and all contributed to a better understanding of Belize and the situation of youth here. We had a nurse speak to us from the Belize Family Life Association, which I would liken to Planned Parenthood in the States, minus the abortion services. They offer a lot of really important services concerning many aspects of health, including counseling for a variety of concerns. One thing in particular that the nurse mentioned that I had never really thought of concerned STI testing. She explained that whenever anyone comes to the clinic with a concern about an STI they automatically treat whatever symptoms the patient is experiencing instead of waiting for the test results to come back. This is due to the unlikely event of a patient returning for those test results.

On Saturday night I learned how to make salbutes, a popular Belizean street/stand food. I went to the market on Saturday morning before Spanish class and bought some tomatoes and onions, and later my host brother and I went to a little street stand and bought 4lbs of masa. It was a fairly simple dish to make, although time consuming as you must fry one round of masa dough at a time. The frying part was slightly nerve racking as I now have two little burn droplets on the top of my finger from the hot oil splashing up. I don't know how to best explain what salbutes are, so if anyone is curious, use google or a search engine of your choice to get a better understanding. And anyone who comes to visit is more than welcome to request that I make them some.

Sunday was uneventful aside from another horse ride, this time around la cancha de futbol. Now, today however was eventful. This morning my fellow trainees and I held a basic computer skills workshop for a nearby primary school. It went well, I was in charge of teaching Microsoft Word skills. The most difficult part was teaching to a group of students who varied significantly in their computer knowledge.Later, in the afternoon, another trainee and I went over the bridge to Santa Elena to meet with a secondary school counselor. All trainees were assigned youth groups to work with as well as the requirement of holding a community service project with them. The meeting was difficult and stressful in that we (my fellow trainee and myself) both felt our trainer did not help clarify our time restraints in San Ignacio as well as our objectives in this endeavor with the school counselor. Not to mention the fact the counselor is not a youth group. The counselor expected the two us to run and facilitate 4 workshops for the students' parents. I could go on at length of the mixed messages we had been given by our trainer, but needless to say we spent a lot of time clarifying our ability to assist her and the time we had left in San Ignacio. My fellow trainee and I will facilitate the second and third workshop, after seeing the counselor go through the first one. With that said, I am not sure that after the first workshop is held, that parents will show up for any more. This experience has given me a little bit more understanding of the nature of work here in Belize and some of the struggles I will experience in setting about my job here.

Today was one of the handful of full days off I will have for the next 5 weeks or so. I have moved to San Ignacio, which is about 7 miles from the Guatemalan border, and is the district town for Cayo. It is a bustling town of about 16,000 people. I feel very fortunate to have my Community Based Training taking place here. Our group of 9 youth development trainees has been split in half for language lessons, and I was happy to find myself in the Spanish group. Monday, Thursday, Friday, and I think most Saturdays we have language instruction from 8am to 12pm. The rest of the afternoon is dedicated to what is referred to as Technical Training. We are going to be quite busy for the coming weeks; listening to guest speakers, working on our community assessment tools and compentencies, and also collorborating with local youth groups here on small projects. Every Tuesday, those of us learning Spanish will travel to Belmopan for intensive language instruction (8am-3pm). On Wednesday, we will have a full day of Tech training to make up for the missed afternoon session on Tuesday that the Kriol trainees had.

While I am here in San Ignacio, I am living with a host family, whom is absolutely wonderful. They have many children around my own age so I am fortunate to feel like I already have some good Belizean friends. There are also many younger children in and out of the house since I am living with their grandpa. I defintely feel a part of their family already. My host father is a cowboy, and the family is involved in horse racing, so today one of my host brothers brought me by a stable and I went on a little horse trot. My host father works at a nice resort nearby taking people out on horses so hopefully in a week or so, I am going to go with him on a long horseback ride through the jungle. I cannot wait! They want to do so many fun things with me, but I am afraid I don't have much time to fit in these activities. I just remind myself though that I will be able to come and visit them anytime during my two years so I shouldn't worry.

I have made it! Belize seems wonderful, but oh my gosh so hot and humid. You would think that walking at 7:00 AM to the Peace Corps office would be an easy enough of a time of day to avoid sweating through your clothes, but no. I was amazed upon arrival to the office just how many staff work there and support the volunteers in their work. It really reaffirmed my decision to join the Peace Corps. We have a group of 41 trainees, we are all ages and come from all across the country. I believe the oldest volunteer in the group is 71 with the youngest at 22. So quite the range.

We have had one full day of overview in the office, and more to come Monday through Wednesday. Thursday this coming week the group will be divided into groups and sent to our Community Based Training sites. I have found out I will be training in San Ignacio, which is literally a stone's throw from the Guatemalan border. I also know the local hotspot there, which called Cayo twist, a soy ice cream shop that is to die for. I was lucky enough to ride in a vehicle versus the big bus on our cultural day excursion which I why I was afforded this insider information and preview of what to look forward to while living there for the next 5 weeks. I still do not know if I will be trained in Spanish or Kriol, but I have my fingers crossed for Spanish.

Our cultural day consisted of a visit to the house of culture where we saw a giant Marimba. Then we went to a local high school where we learned about Maya and Mestizo culture heard more music from a giant marimba, which was being played by 3 guys. After all of this we headed to Xunatunich a Mayan ruin nearby. It was a small site, and afforded lovely views from the top of the largest temple. Still makes me sick to my stomach being on top of those things though.

As this blog is meant to share my experience in the Peace Corps, I will make this my first real Peace Corps related entry. I will share the little I know, and some of what I have pieced together by reading other Volunteer blogs.

I am not yet a Peace Corps volunteer, that is slated to take place October 21st. Before that can happen I must make it through staging, then through the Pre-Service training. I have made my travel arrangements and I fly to D.C. on the 18th of August. I feel fortunate that Carolyn lives there, I will be in desperate need to be with close company and familiar surroundings. I would not care as much if staging started right after I arrived, but I would rather pass an afternoon, evening, night, and morning before the staging actually starts with a loved one. I already have a list of possible things I would like to do with her, most of them involving a good red wine and a nice meal.

Staging starts at 1:30 PM on the 19th of August. We are to show up with all of our forms signed. After that we have various information sessions on the background of PC, managing risk, anxieties and aspirations, and you can only imagine the other couple of sessions. That concludes at 7 PM, and apparently at 1:30 AM (this early time puts even my time zealous traveling mother to shame!) we check out of the hotel, just to make sure we catch the 6:05 AM flight down to Miami, then onto Belize.

Although I have a rough idea of some of what is to come after this, it is just that, rough. We are to spend a week in Belmopan, the capital of Belize, after arriving. I figure this week is a lot of general group training and getting to know you games. After a week, if I understand correctly we are broken up by area of work, so for myself, Youth Development, and then broken up again by the language we are to be trained in. I have been told by PC staff in Belize that Youth Development volunteers are either trained in Spanish or Kriol. After this separation into groups, the now relatively small groups travel to various small towns where they will live for the next two months of training. It is in this small town, location unknown, where I will train and live with my first host family. I will live with another host family for the first couple of months in my site placement, which I will find out about towards the end of Pre-Service training.

I remember my friend Brandon telling me how little he really knew about what awaited him in Panama, where he served with the Peace Corps. Now I find myself in the same place.

And, for those of you who might feel inclined to write or send a care package *hint *hint, here is my address for the next long while...

Peace Corps

PO Box 492

Belmopan

Belize

Well that is about as much information as I have at the moment, and I will continue to blog as I continue this journey.

My parents have now come and left Missoula, another, sign that my departure for Belize is getting closer. We had a great visit, which included floating the Bitterroot River with a fishing guide. My dad had a busy day on the river, constantly catching and releasing fish. I finished the day with an honorable 2 fish count to my name, I can't remember what Peter's finish was but it could not have been more than 4. Another highlight of the visit was the large family outing to Virginia City, MT. I can't say too much for Virginia City except it had a lively bar and homemade ice cream. After doing the tourist thing for a few hours, the Gleason family decamped to Ennis for the night. Ennis was a neat small town, After that road trip my dad and I took off for Harrison, ID to ride the Trail of the Coeur d'Alenes. It is a continuous, paved, recreation trail in the Idaho panhandle. We rode about 50 miles the first day along the Coeur d'Alene river, and then the next morning about 20 more along Lake Coeur d'Alene. We had a great time and I always learn more about my father's family on these rides. I am not sure when or where our next bike trip will be.