Friday, February 29, 2008
oh karaoke...
...you're such an epidemic. one of my co-workers had some people over to his house last night, and we honestly devoted a good 8 hours to nothing but barbecue and bad singing at absurd decibel levels. (i don't think i'll ever understand the need for loud in belize, but most people here seem to feel an obligation to share their musical adventures not only with the neighbors, but with neighboring countries.) overwrought spanish ballads and country music are the top picks around these parts. nothing more entertaining than a vince gill song as interpreted by an intoxicated belizean...
Thursday, February 28, 2008
odds & ends
the thatch roofs here ain't no joke. some even sport dormers (see bijou, i remembered my architectural vocabulary!)
i came home from work one day to find this message from another volunteer on my doorstep. that kyle, he's so crafty. you never can tell what he'll be up to next.
my down-the-street neighbor and fellow PCV, Ashley, discovered a tree of enormous green globes in her backyard. i'm convinced they're extraterrestrial, but she assures me they're just calabash.
clothes drying Belize style. and in reverse.
a Belikin in the sand
also in Ashley's backyard. it's a wild and woolly place.
trying for houseplants (as well as a vegetable garden). wish me and my brown thumb luck.
bus. of the yellow school variety. transportation choice of the masses here in Belize. i was just trying to get to Belmopan, typically just an hour's bus ride away, but the universe had other things in mind that day. a truck somehow managed to lose it's load of steel girders on the road just ahead of a narrow bridge. which left traffic backed up for ages, and my bus driver rather bored.
a town called silk grass
ok, it's not actually a town. more of a village. but it IS called Silk Grass, which for some reason i find particularly amusing. my friends Ashli and Todd live there, and i just recently went for my first visit. i keep telling Ashli she needs to write her Peace Corps story, and title it "From Lucky Strike to Silk Grass." she got all the placements with cool names, lucky girl.
anyway, i had to go to Dangriga for a WASH project workshop (that's Water and Sanitation Hygiene for those who are wondering), and decided to stop in Silk Grass to see how the village life has been treating A&T, and to do a taste test of Ashli's increasingly famous pizza-from-scratch. it's pretty fantastic, by the way, as are her Bisquick cinnamon rolls (cribbed from Clare). Silk Grass is located just south of Dangriga on the Southern Highway, amid acres of citrus groves. Belize's top two agricultural exports are citrus concentrate and bananas, and the road between Dangriga and Punta Gorda in the south is lined with miles of orange and grapefruit trees and banana palms. as soon as i walked through the door of their traditional board house, Todd offered me a grapefruit picked from their neighbor's farm down the road. he's become an expert at doing as the Belizeans do and peeling off the rind in one long curly strip. you then cut the grapefruit in half and dig in. with your teeth. no spoons, and no sugar necessary. delectable.
Todd & Ashli's home sweet home
citrus groves
destination juicer
we rode our beach cruisers (the Belizean bike of choice) six miles up the highway and off into the bush to Mayflower-Bocawina National Park, where Todd works as a small business volunteer, helping develop business and marketing plans to bring more visitors to this largely overlooked park. we stopped to chat with one of his co-workers, but couldn't stay long, as the bugs in the visitor center were brutal and overly enthusiastic about finding fresh meat. after pausing to take in the sight of a (rather sizeable) crocodile sunbathing on the banks of the creek, we started up the deceptively easy beginning of the waterfall trail. i typically don't subject myself to trails that offer ropes to help guests drag themselves up, but the promise of a freshwater pool as a reward at the end kept me chugging along straight uphill for the next 45 minutes or so. so Todd, on trail clearing duty, forged ahead chopping down overhanging vines with his excessively large machete, and Ashli and i just tried to keep up without keeling over. and yes, the ends justified the pains. we arrived at the top of the trail to find ourselves the only visitors at a small, secluded, turquoise pool, complete with its own waterfall and easy swimming access. there's nothing better than a well-deserved dip in a freshwater pool on a hot and sweaty day.
aaaahhhh.
Ashli & Todd in post-hike/bike relax mode. despite our wildly differing living circumstances, this is a pose common to all Peace Corps Belize volunteers. it's called hammock time, and it's a highly prized commodity.
thanks for showing me a good time, kids. i'll be back.
anyway, i had to go to Dangriga for a WASH project workshop (that's Water and Sanitation Hygiene for those who are wondering), and decided to stop in Silk Grass to see how the village life has been treating A&T, and to do a taste test of Ashli's increasingly famous pizza-from-scratch. it's pretty fantastic, by the way, as are her Bisquick cinnamon rolls (cribbed from Clare). Silk Grass is located just south of Dangriga on the Southern Highway, amid acres of citrus groves. Belize's top two agricultural exports are citrus concentrate and bananas, and the road between Dangriga and Punta Gorda in the south is lined with miles of orange and grapefruit trees and banana palms. as soon as i walked through the door of their traditional board house, Todd offered me a grapefruit picked from their neighbor's farm down the road. he's become an expert at doing as the Belizeans do and peeling off the rind in one long curly strip. you then cut the grapefruit in half and dig in. with your teeth. no spoons, and no sugar necessary. delectable.
Todd & Ashli's home sweet home
citrus groves
destination juicer
we rode our beach cruisers (the Belizean bike of choice) six miles up the highway and off into the bush to Mayflower-Bocawina National Park, where Todd works as a small business volunteer, helping develop business and marketing plans to bring more visitors to this largely overlooked park. we stopped to chat with one of his co-workers, but couldn't stay long, as the bugs in the visitor center were brutal and overly enthusiastic about finding fresh meat. after pausing to take in the sight of a (rather sizeable) crocodile sunbathing on the banks of the creek, we started up the deceptively easy beginning of the waterfall trail. i typically don't subject myself to trails that offer ropes to help guests drag themselves up, but the promise of a freshwater pool as a reward at the end kept me chugging along straight uphill for the next 45 minutes or so. so Todd, on trail clearing duty, forged ahead chopping down overhanging vines with his excessively large machete, and Ashli and i just tried to keep up without keeling over. and yes, the ends justified the pains. we arrived at the top of the trail to find ourselves the only visitors at a small, secluded, turquoise pool, complete with its own waterfall and easy swimming access. there's nothing better than a well-deserved dip in a freshwater pool on a hot and sweaty day.
aaaahhhh.
Ashli & Todd in post-hike/bike relax mode. despite our wildly differing living circumstances, this is a pose common to all Peace Corps Belize volunteers. it's called hammock time, and it's a highly prized commodity.
thanks for showing me a good time, kids. i'll be back.
Sunday, February 3, 2008
Andy Palacio
on January 19th, Belize lost one of it's national heroes, Andy Palacio. a teacher, musician and cultural ambassador born in the tiny village of Barranco, Andy was known most for his mission to preserve and promote Garifuna culture. if you can find a copy of his latest album, Watina, do it. now. he gathered a variety of Garifuna musicians from Belize, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua to form the Garifuna Collective, and the results are mesmerizing. their music is joyful, celebratory, mournful, contemplative and spiritual all at once. and the world was taking notice. in fact, 2007 seemed to be the year of Andy, with the album winning awards worldwide. just a few months before his death he was named a UNESCO Artist For Peace. i was accustomed to hearing his music blasting from windows anytime i visited Dangriga or Hopkins, but after his death, you could hear it even outside those Garifuna strongholds. i walked a few blocks from my house to the center of San Ignacio to do some shopping just a few days after his death to find Watina ringing out of an impromptu sound system rigged up outside the front door of the Indian-owned furniture store. the whole country came together.
i was blessed to be able to attend his funeral. Maya got a ticket on the bus going from Hopkins to Barranco, and i managed to hitch a ride. i was concerned that some might think me an interloper on the journey, but my fears were unfounded. the Garifuna tradition holds that funerals are for celebrating life, not mourning death, and this was borne out by the raucous laughter of the folks on the back of the bus all the way to Barranco. they were going there to celebrate him and his contribution to the preservation of their culture. so... we caught the bus at 5am, and after barreling down the southern highway and breezing past sleepy Maya villages, we arrived to find the party had already started. Barranco is a tiny seaside village of 120 residents in the far south of Belize, not far from Guatemala. they'd prepared as much as they could, but with a crowd in excess of 3,000, i'm sure it had to be an overwhelming experience for them. buses poured in from every corner of the country, from as far north as Corozal, on the Mexican border. as we were waiting by the waterside to catch a glimpse of a helicopter landing (bearing the Prime Minister), we saw celebrants arriving by boat from Livingston. he brought them out of the woodwork. everywhere you went, people from around the country (and from neighboring ones as well) greeted each other in Garifuna. in addition to the thousands of Garinagu greeting each other with smiles, there was a smattering of Mestizos, a handful of Maya quietly observing the proceedings, and even a number of gringos sprinkled among all the brown faces. i noticed several Maya families peeking in at the windows of the church, which was standing room only. the crowd spilled out across the road to a temporary tent set up on a lawn overlooking the sea.
the ceremony lasted over 3 hours, a Catholic mass conducted in English and Garifuna, with a sprinkling of eulogies by a number of friends, many of whom happen to also be major government and cultural figures in Belize. the Prime Minister's son, Yasser Musa, broke down in tears during his eulogy. people talked about the fact that it was OK that he was taken from us, since he had succeeded at fulfilling the mission he'd been given. he had created Watina, and now he could go on to join the ancestors secure in the knowledge that he had done good in the world. as we celebrated, the skies opened and unleashed a deluge. nobody moved except to find the shelter of the tent or a neighbor's umbrella. i didn't hear a single complaint as the hordes slogged through the red mud and climbed, soaked to the bone, back in to their buses to leave Barranco in peace. it was a dramatic send off indeed. and i feel lucky to have been able to be there to witness it.
in Andy's own words (from his WOMEX Award acceptance speech in October): "I see this award not so much as a personal endorsement but in fact as an extraordinary and sincere validation of a concept in which artists such as myself take up the challenge to make music with a higher purpose that goes beyond simple entertainment. I accept this award on behalf of my fellow artists from all over the world with the hope that it will serve to reinforce those sentiments that fuel cultures of resistance and pride in one's own." he was only 47.
i was blessed to be able to attend his funeral. Maya got a ticket on the bus going from Hopkins to Barranco, and i managed to hitch a ride. i was concerned that some might think me an interloper on the journey, but my fears were unfounded. the Garifuna tradition holds that funerals are for celebrating life, not mourning death, and this was borne out by the raucous laughter of the folks on the back of the bus all the way to Barranco. they were going there to celebrate him and his contribution to the preservation of their culture. so... we caught the bus at 5am, and after barreling down the southern highway and breezing past sleepy Maya villages, we arrived to find the party had already started. Barranco is a tiny seaside village of 120 residents in the far south of Belize, not far from Guatemala. they'd prepared as much as they could, but with a crowd in excess of 3,000, i'm sure it had to be an overwhelming experience for them. buses poured in from every corner of the country, from as far north as Corozal, on the Mexican border. as we were waiting by the waterside to catch a glimpse of a helicopter landing (bearing the Prime Minister), we saw celebrants arriving by boat from Livingston. he brought them out of the woodwork. everywhere you went, people from around the country (and from neighboring ones as well) greeted each other in Garifuna. in addition to the thousands of Garinagu greeting each other with smiles, there was a smattering of Mestizos, a handful of Maya quietly observing the proceedings, and even a number of gringos sprinkled among all the brown faces. i noticed several Maya families peeking in at the windows of the church, which was standing room only. the crowd spilled out across the road to a temporary tent set up on a lawn overlooking the sea.
the ceremony lasted over 3 hours, a Catholic mass conducted in English and Garifuna, with a sprinkling of eulogies by a number of friends, many of whom happen to also be major government and cultural figures in Belize. the Prime Minister's son, Yasser Musa, broke down in tears during his eulogy. people talked about the fact that it was OK that he was taken from us, since he had succeeded at fulfilling the mission he'd been given. he had created Watina, and now he could go on to join the ancestors secure in the knowledge that he had done good in the world. as we celebrated, the skies opened and unleashed a deluge. nobody moved except to find the shelter of the tent or a neighbor's umbrella. i didn't hear a single complaint as the hordes slogged through the red mud and climbed, soaked to the bone, back in to their buses to leave Barranco in peace. it was a dramatic send off indeed. and i feel lucky to have been able to be there to witness it.
in Andy's own words (from his WOMEX Award acceptance speech in October): "I see this award not so much as a personal endorsement but in fact as an extraordinary and sincere validation of a concept in which artists such as myself take up the challenge to make music with a higher purpose that goes beyond simple entertainment. I accept this award on behalf of my fellow artists from all over the world with the hope that it will serve to reinforce those sentiments that fuel cultures of resistance and pride in one's own." he was only 47.
Mom's visit: Part 2
we spent the second half of mom's visit in Hopkins with cuz Maya. on the way there, we stopped by the Belize Zoo, which i highly recommend. it was started by an American woman who initially came to Belize to work on a documentary film. she has since carved her little zoo that could out of the woods halfway between Belize City and Belmopan. the animal enclosures are basically just fences put up in the jungle, with paths carved out between. all the zoo's inhabitants are native to Belize, and all are rescue animals - whether from injury, abandonment, illegal ownership, or threatened death at the hands of angry farmers. since most are unfit for re-introduction to the wild, they're re-educated and sent to zoos in the states. the signs all around the zoo are written in a Kriol/English hybrid, and stress the importance of conserving the natural habitats in which these species live. they've got spider and howler monkeys, a couple tapirs (Belize's national animal, which is much bigger than i'd expected, and kind of reminds one of a fat anteater, but which is apparently related to the horse and rhinocerous. pretty prehistoric looking, if you ask me), eagles and scarlet macaws. but the highlight, for both me and mom, were the cats. Belize is known as one of the only places in the world where jaguars live in the wild. they're absolutely exquisite! a few examples...
who wouldn't love that face? he's about a year old, with paws big for his size.
black jaguar pacing. he did this the entire time we were standing in front of the cage. head down, back and forth, back and forth. we got down on the ground at one point to see his face, and i can say with authority that i would NOT want to meet him in the wild. all muscle and pent up energy. one interesting note: you can see the typical jaguar patterns on his fur, just that they're in shades of black and very dark brown.
ocelot curled up in the corner for a nap. he was maybe twice the size of Rufus. SO tempted to take him home...
Hopkins was wonderful. relaxing as a seaside vacation should be. we wandered about town, bought some carved wooden pieces from Maya's neighbor, walked the beach, ate some of Belize's best pizza and Indian food, and sailed down the Sittee River and out to Southwater Caye on a catamaran. didn't take mom long to find her favorite spot right at the front of the boat, where she could gaze into the impossibly bright blue and turquoise of the Caribbean. Maya and i did some snorkeling, where i started out by seeing an eel, swam with several schools of fish, encountered lots of my favorite Stoplight Parrotfish (look them up online, they're really cool), and ended the adventure with the sighting of a huge stingray. and i got to introduce mom to the world's best Mormons, Ashli and Todd, who charmed as usual.
Southwater Caye. one of the few places in Belize with a white sand beach. and you can see where sand comes from, as most of the beach consisted of small pieces of shells in the process of being ground down. the clouds in the background became increasingly threatening, and i got to watch as a gathering storm descended upon us. note: when being rained upon and choosing between the options of staying on not-so-sheltered land, returning to the boat, and hanging out in the water, definitely go for the latter. it's way warmer under the waves.
baby palm tree just trying to hold it's own (with a little help) against the sea breeze.
frigate bird circling for fish guts being tossed out by the fisherman cleaning the day's catch
who wouldn't love that face? he's about a year old, with paws big for his size.
black jaguar pacing. he did this the entire time we were standing in front of the cage. head down, back and forth, back and forth. we got down on the ground at one point to see his face, and i can say with authority that i would NOT want to meet him in the wild. all muscle and pent up energy. one interesting note: you can see the typical jaguar patterns on his fur, just that they're in shades of black and very dark brown.
ocelot curled up in the corner for a nap. he was maybe twice the size of Rufus. SO tempted to take him home...
Hopkins was wonderful. relaxing as a seaside vacation should be. we wandered about town, bought some carved wooden pieces from Maya's neighbor, walked the beach, ate some of Belize's best pizza and Indian food, and sailed down the Sittee River and out to Southwater Caye on a catamaran. didn't take mom long to find her favorite spot right at the front of the boat, where she could gaze into the impossibly bright blue and turquoise of the Caribbean. Maya and i did some snorkeling, where i started out by seeing an eel, swam with several schools of fish, encountered lots of my favorite Stoplight Parrotfish (look them up online, they're really cool), and ended the adventure with the sighting of a huge stingray. and i got to introduce mom to the world's best Mormons, Ashli and Todd, who charmed as usual.
Southwater Caye. one of the few places in Belize with a white sand beach. and you can see where sand comes from, as most of the beach consisted of small pieces of shells in the process of being ground down. the clouds in the background became increasingly threatening, and i got to watch as a gathering storm descended upon us. note: when being rained upon and choosing between the options of staying on not-so-sheltered land, returning to the boat, and hanging out in the water, definitely go for the latter. it's way warmer under the waves.
baby palm tree just trying to hold it's own (with a little help) against the sea breeze.
frigate bird circling for fish guts being tossed out by the fisherman cleaning the day's catch
Saturday, February 2, 2008
Mom's visit: Part 1
Mom came for a visit, which gave me an excuse to do all sorts of things i hadn't gotten around to yet. some highlights...
our first stop after a day spent wandering around San Ignacio was the Mayan ruins at Tikal, Guatemala. a co-worker of mine drove us the 2+ hours across the border, and we explored the ruins in the rain. depending on who you talk to or what you read, Tikal is the largest Mayan site in Central America. regardless of the accuracy of that distinction, it's quite a place. the site ranges far and wide, and the temples, palaces and pyramids jut up out of the lush surrounding jungle. you can stand gazing at a temple in awe only to turn around to find a similarly shaped pyramid right behind you, covered in vines and moss. so much of the site has yet to be excavated. i can only imagine what it must have felt like to walk through the thick jungle and come upon the realization that you're standing in the midst of the relics of an ancient civilization, claimed by thousands of years of vegetation. spooky to say the least. we opted to go without a guide, but so much of what is said about the Maya is speculation, that we decided our imaginations would do us just fine. and in the misty rain, with the site nearly to ourselves, imagination had free rein.
we ended the afternoon with lunch, where mom and i drank te de la selva (jungle tea), made by boiling the leaves (or bark?) of the allspice tree. the liquid was nearly clear, but had a robust, spicy flavor. i'm going to have to go out to the forest and find myself an allspice tree of my own...
the Gran Plaza as viewed from near the top of one of it's twin temples. every year the plaza plays host to a gathering of Maya from all around Central America. they burn incense taken from the bark of a local tree in the stone circle set into the ground directly in front of the temple in this picture. the gathering was a few months ago, but we could still smell the char.
Mom loved what she dubbed "nature's decorations" of this fallen stone
tree root or snake?
i roped Mom in to doing some work on her vacation by inviting her to do a reading and literacy workshop for teachers. they teach at a Seventh Day Adventist primary school, and are experiencing difficulty with students that are far behind in their literacy skills. the school has just received a donation of 2,000 books from a teacher in Colorado, and mom's contribution was to share with them strategies for getting kids excited about reading and books. Belizean teachers have a tendency to be a bit over-workshopped, and if you combine that with the Belizean tendency to turn impassive and stone-faced as soon as one's butt hits a classroom chair, along with the complexities of advocating literacy in a language that isn't native to anyone here (even though it's the national language), mom's job was less than easy. but it's hard for anyone to tune out when she's telling a story (and she told three!). and i will always cherish the sight of a roomful of Belizean teachers doing readers' theater (to a Terry Jones book, no less). i'd count that as a success.
readers' theater
daughter of one of the teachers. this is exactly what we're going for, no true?
our first stop after a day spent wandering around San Ignacio was the Mayan ruins at Tikal, Guatemala. a co-worker of mine drove us the 2+ hours across the border, and we explored the ruins in the rain. depending on who you talk to or what you read, Tikal is the largest Mayan site in Central America. regardless of the accuracy of that distinction, it's quite a place. the site ranges far and wide, and the temples, palaces and pyramids jut up out of the lush surrounding jungle. you can stand gazing at a temple in awe only to turn around to find a similarly shaped pyramid right behind you, covered in vines and moss. so much of the site has yet to be excavated. i can only imagine what it must have felt like to walk through the thick jungle and come upon the realization that you're standing in the midst of the relics of an ancient civilization, claimed by thousands of years of vegetation. spooky to say the least. we opted to go without a guide, but so much of what is said about the Maya is speculation, that we decided our imaginations would do us just fine. and in the misty rain, with the site nearly to ourselves, imagination had free rein.
we ended the afternoon with lunch, where mom and i drank te de la selva (jungle tea), made by boiling the leaves (or bark?) of the allspice tree. the liquid was nearly clear, but had a robust, spicy flavor. i'm going to have to go out to the forest and find myself an allspice tree of my own...
the Gran Plaza as viewed from near the top of one of it's twin temples. every year the plaza plays host to a gathering of Maya from all around Central America. they burn incense taken from the bark of a local tree in the stone circle set into the ground directly in front of the temple in this picture. the gathering was a few months ago, but we could still smell the char.
Mom loved what she dubbed "nature's decorations" of this fallen stone
tree root or snake?
i roped Mom in to doing some work on her vacation by inviting her to do a reading and literacy workshop for teachers. they teach at a Seventh Day Adventist primary school, and are experiencing difficulty with students that are far behind in their literacy skills. the school has just received a donation of 2,000 books from a teacher in Colorado, and mom's contribution was to share with them strategies for getting kids excited about reading and books. Belizean teachers have a tendency to be a bit over-workshopped, and if you combine that with the Belizean tendency to turn impassive and stone-faced as soon as one's butt hits a classroom chair, along with the complexities of advocating literacy in a language that isn't native to anyone here (even though it's the national language), mom's job was less than easy. but it's hard for anyone to tune out when she's telling a story (and she told three!). and i will always cherish the sight of a roomful of Belizean teachers doing readers' theater (to a Terry Jones book, no less). i'd count that as a success.
readers' theater
daughter of one of the teachers. this is exactly what we're going for, no true?
New Year's Livingston style
it has been pointed out to me by a number of people that i have been a delinquent blogger. many apologies! let's see if i can make up for missing the past month with some pictures and accompanying explanations of some of what i've been up to...
Maya, Janine (a fellow PCV) and i traveled to Livingston, Guatemala to ring in 2008. Livingston is the only Garifuna village in Guatemala, and is unique in that it can only be reached by boat - from Honduras and Belize by way of the Caribbean, or down the Rio Dulce from points farther north in Guatemala. it's home to a mix of Garifuna, Maya and ladino (the Guatemalan version of Mestizo) residents, who seem to coexist peacefully, though live in segregated parts of town. though isolated, it seems to be a popular tourist spot, and we spent a few evenings sitting on the elevated patio of a hotel, sipping mojitos and wine and watching the mixture of tourist and local traffic drift by. we befriended a rasta couple who sold beautiful jewelry from a table at the foot of the hotel. thanks to Maya's bionic eavesdropping skills, we met a group of Peace Corps Guatemala volunteers on a vacation of their own. rang in the new year with them at a party that skipped between several beach bars. Maya and Janine were fascinated to hear Garifuna being spoken with a Spanish inflection.
Maya and Janine walking down the beach back towards Livingston, after our visit to Siete Altares (Seven Altars), a series of small waterfalls. the walk was beautiful, though we were a bit disappointed by the fact that the lack of rain had rendered the waterfalls slightly less than spectacular.
we took a trip up the Rio Dulce, a wide, beautiful river flowing out to the Caribbean just on the edge of town. we pulled up our boat next to a young man in a dugout canoe to buy fish he'd caught a few minutes before with just a line - no fishing rod. our guide took them to a woman who cooked them for us Maya style, wrapped in leaves and roasted over a fire. these young boys rode past in their own dugout as we were relaxing on shore while our fish cooked.
our river guide chopped down some fresh coconuts as an appetizer. coconut water is drunk straight from the green coconut. just tip it back and try to keep it from pouring down your chin.
i have no idea what this statue represents, but it sits in the water just off the Livingston coast.
Maya, Janine (a fellow PCV) and i traveled to Livingston, Guatemala to ring in 2008. Livingston is the only Garifuna village in Guatemala, and is unique in that it can only be reached by boat - from Honduras and Belize by way of the Caribbean, or down the Rio Dulce from points farther north in Guatemala. it's home to a mix of Garifuna, Maya and ladino (the Guatemalan version of Mestizo) residents, who seem to coexist peacefully, though live in segregated parts of town. though isolated, it seems to be a popular tourist spot, and we spent a few evenings sitting on the elevated patio of a hotel, sipping mojitos and wine and watching the mixture of tourist and local traffic drift by. we befriended a rasta couple who sold beautiful jewelry from a table at the foot of the hotel. thanks to Maya's bionic eavesdropping skills, we met a group of Peace Corps Guatemala volunteers on a vacation of their own. rang in the new year with them at a party that skipped between several beach bars. Maya and Janine were fascinated to hear Garifuna being spoken with a Spanish inflection.
Maya and Janine walking down the beach back towards Livingston, after our visit to Siete Altares (Seven Altars), a series of small waterfalls. the walk was beautiful, though we were a bit disappointed by the fact that the lack of rain had rendered the waterfalls slightly less than spectacular.
we took a trip up the Rio Dulce, a wide, beautiful river flowing out to the Caribbean just on the edge of town. we pulled up our boat next to a young man in a dugout canoe to buy fish he'd caught a few minutes before with just a line - no fishing rod. our guide took them to a woman who cooked them for us Maya style, wrapped in leaves and roasted over a fire. these young boys rode past in their own dugout as we were relaxing on shore while our fish cooked.
our river guide chopped down some fresh coconuts as an appetizer. coconut water is drunk straight from the green coconut. just tip it back and try to keep it from pouring down your chin.
i have no idea what this statue represents, but it sits in the water just off the Livingston coast.
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