This week--still learning!

(written on Wednesday, posted on Thursday)

I feel like this whole experience is helping me to step out of comfort zones. For the past three days, I have gone to Cornerstone high school to help out, in whatever way I can. Monday, I showed up 45 minutes late(note: I do not advise buying a youth large raincoat from Wal-Mart even though you might be tempted, as I was, by the small price tag of $10. What I learned on Monday, standing in the rain waiting for my bus, was that the reason youth raincoats are designed for the youth is because the head doesn’t fully cover the head of adults, or at least not mine. Unless I have some abnormally large head (which I may), this raincoat is great for covering my upper body, but not so much my head. I digress..so I showed up late to my first day on the job which was fine because all the teachers and students (it was the first day of summer school) were in orientation and so I slipped in the back, and thankful to be in the back so as not to attract any attention to my muddy shoes and soaking wet skirt. Once orientation concluded, the principal told me my duty for the day: to clean out one of the classrooms. I walked in and this wasn’t just a dirty classroom; it was filthy not excluding dust balls the size of fists, dead bugs on every counter and book, floors that looked like they hadn’t been cleaned in months and I had one dirty rag to use to start my day-long cleaning spree. Four hours later, I felt like I had moved mountains and I felt like it looked pretty good, or at least better than when I had arrived that morning. If nothing else, the floor was swept and mopped and for some reason, clean floors make you feel like the rest of the room is clean, right? The janitor, who has become my friend, Toto (at least I think that is his name) came in to check on me half way through my cleaning and asked “are you still cleaning” to which I responded “can you not tell!!?” He joked with me but told me I was doing a good job. Just a little encouragement was all I needed:)

Day #2 at Cornerstone was filled with helping shelve books in the library and then (yea!) getting to help out in a keyboarding class. The teacher’s father passed away unexpectedly Tuesday morning so the principal came and found me and asked if I could help him with two classes of about 30 kids each. They are learning how to type and so spent much of the class with a cloth draped across their fingers and letters on the screen which they had to push with their covered fingers. I don’t think I have ever tried typing with a cloth on top of my hands; just for kicks, I now have the youth large raincoat over my hands to see how hard it is; good thing you can’t see how many mistakes I am making, it is harder than it may seem! Wednesday was much the same as the day before and slowly feel like I am warming up (and vice versa) to these high schoolers. It’s not that I am intimidated by them but, traditionally, I have always been drawn more to younger kids, more elementary age; maybe it’s because I was awkward as a teenager and it brings back memories:); whatever the reason, I am remembering so clearly how being a teenager is hard—if you are considered “cool”, you don’t really know how you received such status but are happy to be there and if you are considered “not cool”, you are just hoping that no one notices. Internally, as I watch these awkward teenagers, I keep wanting to pull them aside and tell them none of that matters; right now it may be hard but you will look back on this time and laugh. So, in the midst of me trying to learn my place at Cornerstone and not knowing if I am going to be helping out here for just these three days(as I have other projects I need to work on for The Belize Project and Sports Servants) but trying to at least make the most of these three days, there is a girl who, for whatever reason, has decided to be my friend. On Monday, she recognized me as one of the coaches from Sports Servants and although she was in the “older” kids group (as I had the younger kids), I remembered her sweet face. So, now whenever she sees me, she gives me a hug and a kiss on the cheeks and says “Hi Presh.” It’s always the little things that get me and Roxanna definitely got me and has made my week. My mom sent me chocolate chip cookies which after two weeks floating around the post office mystery hole finally arrived on Monday. Despite being mostly crumbs, they were just what the doctor ordered, a little taste of home and Mom, all wrapped in a tin. I couldn’t wait to get to school on Tuesday to share my treat from the states and when I passed them out to the teachers at lunch, I got a few giggles as they slowly reached their hand into the plastic bag filled with chocolate chip crumbles. They raised their eyebrows and said “Ahh—good!!” It’s not like they’ve never seen chocolate chip cookies here, but I have been told that their flour is not like our flour and their chocolate it not like our chocolate so to find a really good(or even half decent) chocolate chip cookie is rare. I went outside and immediately found Roxanna and her friends and after I assured them it was ok, they reached their hands several times into the ziplock and thanked me several times for the treat. Mom, not only did your cookies make me smile but also several Belizeans:)

While that is a recap of the past few days, I wanted to give some more description of what life is like here. Several of you have asked me some questions that I want to do my best to answer them here:

There are no “stores” in town like we would know them—the stores, instead of cute clothes and coffee shops and cute card stores, include cell phone unlocking stores, stores that sell fans and buckets and balls, hardware stores and then on most street corners, you will see a shack (or sometimes a push cart) where a family is selling random things like pales or chips or chicken or who knows what else.


The town of Corozal, where I am living, is..well, dirty. There have been several times that I have wanted to get a huge garbage truck and pick up all the trash that is left on the side of the road, in the water, etc. Corozal is a beautiful city because it sits on the water, but the sad reality is that its residents do not take care of the beauty but instead use it as a trash can. It makes me sad, really.

The buses that I now take most days are, honestly hard to describe. They are like the buses we have at home, but have a lot more color and by color, I mean LOUD. It is not uncommon to hear the buses from blocks away not only because of the loud engines but also because of the ‘pump it up’ music. Some of the buses even have little flicking lights that light up with the beat of the music; needless to say, it is pure entertainment as we all file in, take our seats and listen to the driver’s music du jour, which is more often than not, rock, although today, believe it or not, my bus driver apparently liked Mozart!

Things I have gotten used to which might have bothered me before: I have gotten pretty used to the loud fans and have grown to love cold showers. There is no need for a sound machine here as the fans are loud enough to wake you up, but I have surprisingly learned to love them. And the cold showers—at first, they were somewhat hard to get used to but because it is so dang hot outside, I have learned to really appreciate them. I have also grown rather accustomed to seeing lizzards,or geicos. It is not uncommon to see them climbing the walls and rafters in my apartment and until they other night, I somehow convinced myself that they only like to be up high and didn’t like to come down below…until I saw one on my PILLOW!Needless to say, I hit my shoe against the wall several times, as if playing the drum, to make him (or her?) scurry along and then proceeded to look under, around and in my sheets to make sure no other geico friends were around. I’ll forever look at the insurance company in a whole new light. Another thing I have gotten used to are the mosquitoes. I now put on OFF like it is perfume or since I rarely wore perfume at home anyway, I guess I put it on like deodorant, although I seem to apply it routinely, in the morning before I leave, maybe once during the day and always at night, after I shower and before I come outside to check email. One last thing that sticks out that I have gotten used to is washing my clothes in the tub and hanging them on the clotheslines out back. No, the clothes do not get as clean, but heck, who am I trying to impress. There seems to always be a funny odor here(whether it is trash, funny smelling chicken or BO)so I figure my ½ way clean clothes are just contributing to the odor in Belize.

I have gotten pretty creative in my culinary creations. As most of you know, I do not cook much in Nashville and I am learning that it was not because I didn’t like to but because it was sometimes easier to pick up something, go out with friends or have cereal for dinner. Well, here, it is much easier to just cook in so I have made everything from pasta(a lot!), to grilled veggies to cous cous(yes, Delphine and Monya, I have found cous cous here!), to quesadillas, to grits; and I am happy to say I have only had cereal once for dinner (milk is hard to find here so have learned to semi-like powdered milk).

Well, that wraps up this blog. My conquistadors are calling my name (can we say addicted?) as is the hammock. Hope this blog wasn’t too boring; just not feeling all that creative tonight which some would say would be a good reason to not write, but just kind of felt like it:)