And I'm almost done with 3 weeks here.

I'm just a few days from living in Belize for a month already. Is that crazy or what? Which means three months to go. Weirrrrrrrd. I'll be home before you know it. Which is cool, but I have so much I want to do still!!

This past weekend I went to Placencia with six of the girls living here. We left on Friday night and planned on staying til Sunday afternoon. But me and Talia ended up loving laying by the beach and reading so much, we stayed until Monday afternoon. It was INCREDIBLE!!! The water was so warm, it was like swimming in a big bowl of pee. [Sorry mom, that's the best way to describe it.] And there was no waves until about 2 or 3 in the afternoon so it was just crystal clear, warm water. AWESOME.

The tutuoring is getting a little out of hand. We took on three more kids who just moved to San Ignacio a week ago from Belmopan escaping a really bad domestic violence situation. There are three boys: Franklin, 13, William, 8, and Miguel, 3. We met their mother and hse is so traumatized she doesn't even speak. They all speak Spanish and it looks like the littlest boy doesn't know any amount of English and William can sort of get by -- however, he can't read or do math and all the numbers he writes are backwards. Add that to the chaos of the original four children and it is absolute craziness. They're all so beautiful [Miguel has this head of shocking blonde curly hair] and the biggest personalities, but they all are having immense problems learning.

This weekend we are planning a trip to "ATM" which is supposedly the best thing to do in Belize. It's a 10 hour hike/swim through a cave. Crazy, right? I'm really stoked.

Mmk I think that about brings it up to date. I love you all!! Hope your lives are going great.

To my brothers: CONGRATULATIONS ON GRADUATION!!!!! WOO HOO you did it! Now come visit me in Belize. :)

So I've been here a week ...

... And it's great. The weather: hot, wet, sticky, pretty miserable. On the hottest days all your energy is just sucked out of you. You can just sit all day reading a book and be dripping sweat. On those days, we go down to the river to cool off. This past weekend, I went to see the Xunatunich Mayan ruins on the border of Guate and Belize. They were pretty amazing -- if I can figure out how to load them on a computer with internet, I will as soon as I can. This coming weekend, a couple of the girls are planning on going to Placencia, which is on the coast, and just hanging out for the weekend. I'm so excited, it will be SO nice.

Oh my gosh, I haven't even explained where I'm living and what I'm doing!! My internship, Cornerstone Foundation, is located in San Ignacio, Belize, one of the largest cities in Belize -- even though its only 20 or 30 thousand people. It's eleven miles from the Guatemala border. I'm living in Cornerstone's volunteer house with nine other people. We all share one bathroom, one kitchen, four fans ... and it is so great. I'll be moving out within the month to live with a host family.

Right now, I'm tutoring four kids every morning: Michael, Monique, Shane and Alexis. Monique just turned 13 today and she is trying to manipulate me into buying sunglasses for her. "They're only 20 belize!" Oh heck no. They just moved here from Belize City to escape a domestic violence situation. Their mother has had to pick up night shifts to try and support her five kids (they have a baby sister, Tanisha, as well), so we take the kids for a couple hours to tutor since they can't start school until September. Monique is really smart and picks up on things very quickly. Alexis is just learning her alphabet, numbers and colors, so she is a lot of fun to work with because everything is new. Michael and Shane, at 8 and 11, still can't read. Shane is really quiet about it and Michael picks on him a lot, so that is hard to deal with. Michael refuses to do anything but simple math problems -- he's good at them, he doesn't want to try anything else. So they are great, but there are already a lot of struggles.

I think that is all the important things. I'll be starting work with the women's program in the next week, so that will be exciting and new. Updates on that in the future!

Oh, and yes, I have my bag. :)

Bienveindo a Belize.

Estoy aqui. FINALLYYYY!

I'm alive. I am warm. I am a little bit tired. Mostly, I am excited. I'm working out of an internet cafe right now, so I can't use my computer for skype. Just wanted to let you all know I'm alive. And GLT starts ... four hours ago.

Welcome to Miami.

Don't you hate when you write out a long story, hit "publish" and then it disappears? That just happened.

Basically, I'm in a gigantic hotel room for free (two beds - anyone wanna stay the night with me in miami tonight?!) and just ate a huge dinner for free. On to the bad news: Dallas airport was shut down this morning for an hour. My flight from Albuquer to DFW was subsequently delayed an hour, but my connecting flight to Belize (that was already cutting it close for me to connect to) was only delayed half an hour. By the time I got off the plane in DFW, I had 10 minutes to make it to my plane. I ran as fast as my little legs could carry me, but I could not make it. So I was re-routed to Miami so I could get an earlier flight to Belize City tomorrow morning.

Biggest problem here: where is my bag?

Did it get left in Dallas? Did it make it onto the Belize flight this afternoon? Was it able to catch up with me and go to Miami? The baggage claim person I talked to told me that it was probably in Miami and would be on my flight to Belize in the morning. Just to be on the safe side, I'll probably go early tomorrow and see if I can locate it. Otherwise all I've got is a computer, two pairs of shorts, a dress and a shirt. All of my clothes, important documents, and books for school are in there. All I'm sayin -- it BEST be in Belize City tomorrow morning.

Two days seems a little quick ...

So ... I'm home. And on Monday at like ... 5 in the morning, I'm leaving again. It's so weird, I don't really want to think about it. I went and watched a movie with my little brother tonight and I thought about all the people I won't get to watch movies with this summer ... sad. I know. Get over it, I'm going to Belize. But really, I'm going to miss home. A lot.

Roommates:
Beautiful women. I miss the craziness already. Well ... not quite. But I know I will as soon as I get on that plane. This semester was nuts, but it was made bareable knowing I would see you all at the end of the day and we could complain and/or laugh together. Micaela and Julia: enjoy your GLTs!! Megan and Rosy: enjoy being away from APU for quite a while ... I wish I could! and Ev: I will see you sooner than you know! Can't wait to live with you again!

APU friends:
You are all great! I know this last semester has been crazy busy so I didn't get to see a lot of you very much, if at all. But most of you are returning in the fall/spring, so we will be together again. Even if you're not coming back, we will NOT forget about each other and we WILL see each other in the future.

Gallup friends ... really more like family:
I miss ya, I miss ya, I really wanna kiss ya but I can't ... I love you all so much! I'm glad I got to see a few of your over spring break and hopefully I can catch some of you at the end of summer, but mostly I think I'll be saying see you at Christmas!! We will have a lot to catch up on ... :)

The real family:
Mom. Dad. Ben. Brian. I love you all. I will write and call as much as I can. As soon as I know my address for sure, I will let you know. I expect at least one letter this summer. Really, I will miss you all dearly -- but hey, with technology like it is, it will be like I'm right next to ya!

xoxo
gossip girl ... psssshhh I wish!!

Nettie