a little lull in the craziness

Hello my dear followers!

Sorry it has taken me more than two weeks to write ... unfortunately, I think it only gets busier from here. The last two weeks have been pretty relaxing, the weekends have been fun and restful. But now we're getting into a lot of work. And it just keeps getting hotter. It started raining a week or two ago and we did not see the sun for DAYS, so it was nice and it cooled down. But, we started hearing these sirens in the distance. They sounded like tornado or hurricane warnings, but it was not raining that hard, so we were not sure what it could be. Then my host mom informed me that the dam that keeps the river low and generates our electricity is cracking. If it busts, we lose power and the river rises, flooding downtown [do not fear, I live no where near downtown]. But a few days later, the sun reappeared and has not left us since. So I may be out of power for a while if it does break, but these sunny skies ensure we are in the clear for now.

This coming weekend, we have a few fund raisers in the works - a car wash, a jewelry sale and a "dollar day." Then Saturday one of Martha's friends offered to drive us to some waterfalls south of town. Cross your fingers because this is Belize and plans never work out, but hopefully I'll be getting some good pictures this weekend!

The weekend after this coming one, I'll be going to Tobacco Caye. I think I mentioned it before, but it's about the size of a football field and right on the reef. So that's awesome. The weekend after that will probably be my last weekend of travel. I was hoping to catch up with Kristin and Jenna in Honduras in late July, but it is way too expensive to get there from Belize. But June 9-13, I'll be going to Tikal and then to Antigua in Guatemala. I'm so excited!!

On to my work: we added another kid to tutoring this week. He is 6 years old and was found sleeping on the street. He ran away from home because his aunt is really abusive. His mom works on the Cayes during the week, so she is only home on the weekends and does not know what her sister is doing to him. So he is short term until they talk to his mother, but a crazy situation and hope that he can get out of it.

I'm also a part of the Feeding Program at Cornerstone. There is a room downstairs that has four large picnic tables and bookcases full of books and art supplies. Every lunch during the school year, kids who can't afford to buy lunch come to Cornerstone to eat at our feeding program. The room, however, looks quite gross. there's random patches of paint everywhere, one of the bookcases is falling in on itself, so we decided to fix it up. There's a group of 23 volunteers coming in a week and a half and they offered to buy paint and do anything Cornerstone needs them to do. So, we'll be cleaning it up and repainting and making it look awesome for kids in the future. I think our summer camp that is starting up in July is also going to be using that room, so it will be nice to have it all fixed up for the kids.

Well, that is all for now! I will try to get more pictures up soon, maybe of my children or of Cornerstone or my house ... or all of the above! Pictures take a long time to download, however, so maybe just one of the above.

Love love love!

Note to my future roommates: we'll be eating GOOD when I come back from Belize. My host mom taught me how to make BOMB flour tortillas! So yummy. :)

Month One.

Whew. I'm in the middle of week 5 here in San Ignacio. A lot has gone down the past couple weeks. Deep breath. Here it goes:

So, the last weekend of May, I went on this incredible hike through a cave called Actun Tunichil Makal [ATM]. We left at 8 in the morning and got back at 5 in the evening. It's an hour drive to the cave and another hour drive back along with a 2 hour hike through the jungle to this cave. From there, you swim into the cave opening and the entire 3 mile hike through the cave you are at least ankle deep in water. Sick, right? It was incredible. Once we have gotten a few miles in, we start to climb and end up in this gigantic room filled with hundreds of pots. Seriously, like nothing I could ever explain. So beautiful. And so nice and cool down there, out of the hot Belizean sun.

This past week was a whirlwind ... and not in a good way. On either Wednesday, the three boys that we started tutoring just a few weeks ago were really acting up. They have never behaved so badly in our knowing them. We had planned a fun day, no math, just a little bit of reading and then games and a felt art project. But the boys refused to read, saying they just wanted to color. I had to kick them out because they were disrupting the other four kids who were actually doing their work.

The next morning, we came to tutor and the boys were no where to be found. The ladies at Mary's Open Doors finally came and told us that they had packed up that night and moved back to Belmopan, back to their abusive father. Their father had just gotten out of jail on Tuesday or Wednesday and the mom packed up as soon as she heard. The boys were really upset and that's why they were acting up, but they didn't tell us they were moving. I felt so sick in my stomach because we didn't get to say good bye, we didn't get to hug them, we were mad at them the last time we saw them. And now they have to go back to their terrible father and probably get it worse than they did before. It just makes me so sick and sad and scared and angry all at the same time.

Good news? I have a host family. I officially moved in last night. I'm living with a woman named Martha and if you've heard any of my stories of Alice, Martha is a hundred times as crazy. She works at Cornerstone, has six grown kids in Orange Walk [northern Belize], eight grandkids and a boyfriend in Placencia [coastal, southern Belize] that visits every two-four weeks. She's awesome, really. Her house is about 10-15 minutes away from Cornerstone, so we walk there together in the mornings. Seriously crazy, but wonderful heart. And for the first time in my college career, I have my own room!! Haha ... honestly though, it's going to take some getting used to. It's going to be weird not having people everywhere I turn ... but it will be good.

And finally, I went to Caye Caulker this weekend. It was gorgeous! But I got bedbugs. I got bedbugs in Placencia too ... those are the only bugs that have bit me here. And only on my legs. But seriously, I look diseased. They're everywhere. So nasty. But besides that, the water was beautiful, we could see the reef from the shore, and we just swam and slept and read all weekend. We were planning on snorkeling on Sunday before coming home, but the other two girls got too burned, so they didn't want to. I mean, honestly, I'm really bummed, but I would never regret a trip to the beach. :)

Hennyways, life just keeps getting crazier. Tomorrow, we're taking our original four kids to the zoo [I think I may be more excited about it than the kids ... and the kids are EXCITED about it!]. It will definitely be bittersweet because we have been planning the zoo trip for the other boys ... but there's not much we can do now. I also get my visa extended tomorrow! Woo hoo! And this weekend we're having a party for Martha's birthday, a going away party for one of the volunteers, Heidi, who has been here since February, and a car wash/jewlery sale to raise money for fun things like zoo trips and such. We also have good connections with the theater in town and are planning to take our kids to watch a Planet Earth on animals one day [another thing I may enjoy more than the kids].

As for travelling, there's an overnight jungle camping trip coming up, a couple days at Lago de Peten Itza and Tikal in Guatemala, a long weekend in Antigua in the works and I'll be meeting up with some friends in Honduras in late July. I mean, seriously. Come visit me. We will travel together.

Sorry so long, it's been a crazy last couple of weeks. I hope this is interesting to you all. Love! Hope your summers are treating you well!