Uno Mes Mas.

Man. I am not ready to go. And for the past few weeks, volunteers that have been here since before I got here have been packing up and going home. It's making it more of a reality. My best friend here, Talia, just left today and I'm bummed because she's leaving and because that means I leave pretty soon.

Man.

I gotta stop thinking about it. Enjoy this last month. Try and get this INSANE amount of school work done. I hate it!!! I know it will be good in the long run to look back on and have so much written to remember Belize, but I'm sick of school and reading and writing and whatnot ... I just want to hang out with my host family without having to say, "Sorry, I have to go in and work on homework before I go to bed." It just gets in the way of everything ...

Anyway.

Let me tell you about July: I got to do a LOT of travelling this past month and it's been soooo fun!! I went to Guatemala with two other girls, Talia and Sara, and we to' Guat UP! We camped in Tikal [and heard a jaguar growl -- fo real!], checked out all the ruins and did a canopy tour/zip line thing through the JUNGLE! It was awesome. We were in Antigua for four or five days, and that's where most of the action happened. We climbed a volcano, took a tour of a coffee plantation, drank a lot of coffee, ate very little food [Belizean proportions vs. Guate proportions just did not cut it ...], snuck into a resort pool, and shopped a lot at the market [where most of your gifts will come from].

I just got back an hour ago from a couple days in Caye Caulker. It was a good bye to Talia and Sara trip -- I still may see Sara again, but she moved to the Cayes so it will just be harder to see her. *sigh* Man. Good byes are the worst part about this. Martha tells me everyday she's going to cry when I leave. Man oh man.

Well. That's the updates for now. Not too much going on, just dreading the days before I come home. I love you all ... but I really love it here. So ... how bout I never leave and ya'll just come visit? Word.

lots o' my kids

Alexis, Michael and Shane sitting in our now brown, brown, brown riva


Alexis in the riva ... she can't swim, so she just sits the shallow parts.


Trishel and Alexis


Shane on the teeter totter


all five on the teeter totters!


a day at the park!


Trishel -- the 3 year old li' sista


Alexis, Monique, Shane, Talia


Monique, showin off the beautiful jewlery she made!


Shane

kids at the zoo!

The kids in front of the Belize Zoo sign. Acting ridiculous. Of course.
















Alexis, Shane, Michael and Monique ... and a jaguar!!!




















Michael ... and look in the tree -- you will see a monkey!!




















Alexis, Monique and Shane at the jaguar cage.















Alexis, Monique and Shane at the jaguar cage.




















Micahel and a tapir.

Hello July!

Hokay. So. I'm attempting to put pictures up of my kiddies ... it takes some time, so I'm putting up at least one picture with all of them in it. And it's from the zoo and we're at the jaguar cage so they all look really scared ... haha but I'm working on it!! They're so flipping cute ... but it's not working. I only got this picture of Alexis, the 4 year old, to work.

So. I'm smack dab in the middle of GLT. And sometimes when I look at it, I'm like "geez, two more months? That's so long!" But the girl that I've gotten closest to here, Talia, is leaving at the end of July. Which means she only has 3 weekends left. And then it's what ... August? And then I have to SCRAMBLE to get all my work done! sheesh ... and I'm ready to be home, but when I get home, I just have to do work, work, work ... maybe I'm ready for Christmas? Haha I've got a long way to go if that's the case.

Today, we hope to finish work on the Feeding Program room. Sad story, we planned this huge thing to fix up this room that kids use during the school year to eat lunch because they can't afford to buy food, right? It's just got a lot of stuff in it and it needed to be repainted, so we planned a huge fund-raising deal to buy paint. Suddenly, seemingly falling from heaven, this group of 23 kids from Santa Monica College confirmed they were coming to Cornerstone for a couple weeks. They were going to buy whatever paint we needed and do any job we wanted them to do. Awesome, right? So on Friday, June 26, me and Talia primered almost the entire room. It took us five + hours, but we got it done so that they could start painting on Monday.

On Monday, it took them about an hour to completely ruin the feeding program room. They spilled paint everywhere, those who didn't have paint brushes painted with their hands, they wasted primer on tables we were not going to paint in the first place and the ones with paint brushes and rollers didn't even know what they were doing. Talia cried it was so bad. I was on the verge of punching someone. And the next day, Tuesday, Talia had plans to meet up with a friend and go travelling with her. So it left me to fix everything last week. So it took me all of Wednesday and Thursday to repaint the entire room. Monday, Talia was back and her friend Bailey helped to touch ups. Yesterday, we tried to start early on the tables, but due to some drama in the office, we couldn't start until the afternoon. Which was awesome. Really frustrating actually. So we have to postpone using the room for summer camp ANOTHER day when it should have been done for today. Gosh.

Haha these last couple weeks have been filled with disappointments for sure. I tried to meet up with some friends on the coast to go to Tobacco Caye last Friday and we ended up completely missing each other. I caught a sweet Garifuna drum cirlce, though, so that was tight. We had a fun 4th of July cookout on Saturday and have just been working working working since Monday. Another day of it, man. Then we join the summer camp tomorrow if all goes to plan.

And I think that about brings us up to date. There's the typical sort-of plans for fund raising and travelling -- we'll see if anything happens this coming weekend.

You all are awesome for caring about my life!!! Haha love love love!