San Marcos RC

Part of my job entails visiting schools in the Cayo district to assess implementation of the Health and Family Life Education curriculum (a national primary school health and life skills curriculum organized around the themes of Self & Interpersonal Relationships, Sexuality & Sexual Health, Eating & Fitness, and Managing the Environment). My counterpart Joe and I try to visit schools to check on whether teachers have HFLE in their class schedules, what types of topics they're covering, the presence of health-related visual aids in the classroom, etc. We also spend a minute talking with teachers about the challenges they face in implementing the curriculum, and what sort of support they could most use from the District Education Center. Information gathered through these visits allows us to create targeted trainings in the areas of greatest need, and is helping me to collect materials for an HFLE-related teacher resource center.

Joe and I recently visited the Catholic school in San Marcos, a small village in the Spanish Lookout area. Spanish Lookout is home to a large Mennonite community, and is a hub of agriculture and dairy farming. Immigrants from around Central America have settled in the area to work on Mennonite farms, and have created a ring of small villages surrounding Spanish Lookout. San Marcos is one of these (though strictly on the grounds of bizarre naming practices, my favorites are Duck Run 1, Duck Run 2 and Duck Run 3). The school has three multi-level classrooms (Belizean primary schools cover the equivalent of kindergarten through 8th grade), one of which is taught by the principal, Mr. Cabb.


The whole Spanish Lookout area sits atop rolling green hills. The majority of the land has been cleared for crops and grazing, so the views are spectacular. This is the view looking across the road from the school.


We take a look around classrooms to see what sort of visual aids teachers are using. This varies a lot from classroom to classroom, and is one thing I've heard about from many teachers. In a resource-poor country like Belize, access to good teaching tools is limited. Many teachers know their students would benefit from good visual aids, but they don't have the resources to get them. It's one of the things I'm hoping to provide in the resource center. (If anyone knows of good sources for health-related visual aids and DVDs, let me know!)


Many schools use gardening as a way to teach about plants, water cycles, the environment and nutrition. Some just plant seedlings and send them home with kids. Others have full school gardens, and sell the produce as a fundraiser, or use it to supplement their school feeding programs. The Chief Education Officer for Cayo recently asked me to create a survey to assess interest in school gardening initiatives. She is hoping to create a district wide program if there is sufficient interest on the part of schools.


And then there's just the fun of seeing what's going on... After lunch, Mrs. Cabb's lower division students line up to sing the national anthem before returning to class. It's no joke to memorize - the thing is LONG!











'Nuff said.

La Ruta Maya

this past weekend i served on the support crew for Peace Corps Belize's one and only team of racers in the annual Ruta Maya River Challenge. the Ruta Maya is a four-day endurance test (of both physical stamina and sanity), which involves canoeing the 170 miles from San Ignacio, down the Belize River to Belize City. Todd, Marcel and Johnny took on the challenge this year, and we set off from my house on Friday morning with just an hour and a half to locate the canoe they'd borrowed from a Cayo resort, find a ride for the support crew and all our gear, and send the guys off down the river. with just minutes to spare before the starting gun, they were in their beast of a boat (which was not exactly built for speed) and Alli had worked her southern magic and secured us a ride with her friends from BATSUB (British Army Training Support Unit Belize, that is). we spent the next four days riding the less than smooth side roads of Belize with the boys of her majesty's armed forces, stopping along the way to throw water and snickers bars eainto the canoe from perches on the banks of the river. my stats are probably a tad less than accurate, but our boys paddled somewhere around 8, 10, 6 and 4 hours each day from friday through monday. approximately 95 canoes entered the race, 70ish completed it, and team Peace Corps came in somewhere around 60th. the weekend was a haze of bumpy roads, river banks, tent villages, rain, mud, snack food, waiting crowds, army green, sore muscles, and arguments about who speaks real english.



waiting for the starting gun in San Ignacio



and they're off!



supaat kroo members Nicole and Ashli



Todd, Marcel & Johnny take on the Ruta Maya - day 1



Phil tosses water to one of the BATSUB boats at a checkpoint on day 1, near Spanish Lookout



you find ways to amuse yourself while waiting for the boats to arrive at camp - Banana Bank, day 1



the boys inhale dinner after 10 hours paddling - Bermudian Landing, day 2



jockeying for prime start position, day 3



Shirley mops out the tent after a particularly soggy night in Burrell Boom



spectators cheering at the finish line in Belize City



the sight that greeted many paddlers as they stepped out of their canoes. yum.



in addition to hauling us around for four days and granting us free access to their endless supply of snickers and water on ice, the boys from BATSUB served as official timekeepers for the race at each of it's four stages. he may be a bit hard to find, but that's Witz under the pink umbrella, recording finish times in Belize City.



done and done.

preschoolers on parade

the other morning when i came in to work, Alma, the early childhood education officer, asked me if i wanted to go to a parade with her. it's Child Stimulation Month here in Belize, and so it's all about raising awareness about the benefits of preschool. well, who am i to say no to the chance to watch a slew of preschoolers parading through town?



this is the youngest son of George, the guy who owns the South Indian restaurant Ashley and i (and anyone we can convince to join us) have become obsessed with. he's frequently the one who comes to hand me my menu as soon as i arrive.



float crossing the Hawkesworth Bridge



children dressed up to represent Belize's various cultural and ethnic groups



this one's a Mennonite

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...

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.

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.