The Spirit of God Like a Fire is Burning

This is the gorgeous new temple dedicated today in San Salvador, El Salvador (a country whose name means "The Savior"). I attended the broadcast of the dedication at the district center chapel here in San Ignacio and got to see all my friends from both the San Ignacio and Santa Elena branches--most of them, sadly, for the last time.

The dedication was wonderful. Pres. Eyring presided and dedicated the temple--his first ever! Katie, Maren, Sarah, and I attended the 9 AM dedicatory session. This was an extra-advantageous choice since the first session included the sealing of the cornerstone and also had an English dubbed channel which was not present during the later sessions, much to some of our fellow team members' chagrin.

Pres. Eyring talked about how temples should awaken a sense of gratitude within each of us for the things God has given us and the blessings of the ordinances received therein. He noted that the creative beauty of each temple is an expression of our gratitude to our own Creator. All the talks were great and there was much reverence but also great excitement for this, the fourth temple to grace Central America.

After the dedication, I said rounds of goodbyes. Of a few of them I make special note:

This is Sister Sandra Trapp. She is one of the sweetest ladies you'll ever meet and I've really enjoyed getting to know her in the Santa Elena Branch. She has had many trials that have left her mostly paralyzed and her voice is very quiet so you have to lean in close to understand her when she speaks, but she is very wise and has many keen spiritual insights. She has faithfully come to Church every week I've been here and has rarely missed a week for the past decade since she joined the Church. We often talk about the Sunday School lesson and Sacrament talks after Church and she always has phenomenal insights. When I said goodbye today she gave me the most touching goodbye letter including her testimony. How blessed we are to have sisters like Sandra Trapp in the Kingdom to inspire us!

Here's my Belizean Branch Presidents! At left is Pres. Lemos of the San Ignacio Branch. Even though I didn't attend the San Igancio Branch, I had quite a few opportunities to interact with that branch and Pres. Lemos specifically. He is an incredible man and will likely continue to be an important Church leader in Belize for decades to come. At right is Pres. Pinelo, the President of the Santa Elena branch where I've attended. He is soft-spoken, but a great leader also and I've loved helping serve in his branch, even if only temporarily.

Right after the dedication session, I had another goodbye, this time to fellow team mate Katie. She was supposed to leave yesterday, but her flight got cancelled due to the hurricane, so she left today. She had to get back early because she has a race for BYU Track and Field tomorrow in Park City! Best of luck, Katie!

Speaking of the hurricane, Harvey truly was pretty lame, as mentioned yesterday. In fact, as you noticed in the pictures above, especially with Presidents Pinelo and Lemos, the day today has already been completely clear and beautiful. Now, I actually don't mind that at all! In fact, good weather will be a great blessing to be able to get our work done the next few days before leaving. 

Later in the afternoon we watched some "Mormon Messages" videos and now I'm writing my blog post, and that's my day so far. 

Moral of today's post: don't undervalue the blessing of a temple! The saints here in Belize are ecstatic to have a new temple that will only require them to travel a day and a half each way at huge expense to be able to attend. I don't know about you, but for me in Provo, the temple is a fifteen minute WALK from my apartment! Let us not neglect that blessing. Remember: Pres. Eyring taught today that temples should turn our hearts to gratitude, and a great deal of that gratitude should certainly be for temples themselves, especially ones with such close proximity!

Hurricane Harvey: What a letdown!

Well, Harvey came and went without too much excitement. In fact, the brunt of the storm went right over us, but if you hadn't told us so we never would have assumed it was something other than a slightly heavy long-lasting rain storm. It may have been only a Tropical Storm by the time it hit us (in fact it was only ever a hurricane for 1 hour), but the Weather Channel's website made it look like it was still really powerful even though it was nothing. We were all bracing ourselves for a cool show and were ultimately let down by Harvey's utter weak-sauce display. Meanwhile, everyone in the country had shut everything down for the day, so we couldn't even go do anything, especially even work on projects, which would have been nice considering how little time we have left!

Katie was scheduled to fly out today since she has a race on Monday morning, but her flight got cancelled because of the impending storm and now she flies out tomorrow instead. So, we at least got to hang on to Katie a little longer, but for causing such an inconvenience to Katie, I figured Harvey at least owed us some good lightning. Oh, well. Better luck next time, I suppose. Not every Hurricane can be a massive swirling tool of destruction and good wearther theatrics. ;) (Do any of you remember the "big blizzard" that was supposed to hit Provo last year on Thanksgiving? It was all kind of like that story.)

The day itself was rather lazy and laid back. We were mostly stuck inside all day and we all knew we should be packing or cleaning or something, but nobody really had the motivation to do anything. I tried in vain to organize a hurricane party so that at least we could have fun together inside during the rain, but nobody seemed that interested. I kept thinking soon everyone would be together and we'd do something, but it was all in vain and my day became mostly composed of waiting around for others and not doing anything at all in the end. :-/ Talk about a boring day!

In preparation for the Hurricane party that never happened, I made my signature blondie cookie bars, albeit with a few substitute ingredients that worked just fine. More unusual than substitute ingredients, though, was the substitute kitchen tools. We have no mixing bowls or 9X13 pans, so...

...I used a pitcher to mix it in instead! First you have your dry ingredients...

...then wet ingredients on top of that...

...then I put the lid on and just shook it all up! (James Bond would appreciate that these brownies are shaken, not stirred.)

For lack of a 9X13, I just shaped the rather thick batter into half of this larger pan. I would have just doubled the recipe, but I didn't have enough flour. Anyway, they bake for 22 minutes, and...

...Voila! Blondies!

Anyway, despite not having a hurricane party, we did have fun this evening venturing out through the drizzle to the chapel where they were broadcasting the cultural celebration from El Salvador tonight in preparation for tomorrow's temple dedication. It was a wonderful performance and they zoomed in on Pres. Eyring at the end and he and his wife were just in tears from how touched they were are the thousands of Salvadoran Saints who put so much time and dedication into the performance. They had rented out the national arena and completely packed it with audience members, not including the cast, which, at the very end came out in its entirety and filled the entire field shoulder to shoulder!

*     *     *     *     *

Okay, so I was about to publish this post, but I'm glad I waited a bit, because I was called away for a bit to participate in a pillow fight and foam pad jumping extravaganza with the other team members who were still awake. We have a ton of extra foam pads since the previous waves of volunteers had lots more people and now we don't need all of them, so we stacked them up and jumped around. Ultimately, it culminated in the coolest photo-shoot ever, as demonstrated:

Rockstar Katie

SuperPete

Lindsay, bouncin' along

Beach Bum Kyle

Sarah, the well-educated

Maren the Guru

And finally, yours truly.

(I thought about jumping with my machete, but my mother reads this blog too frequently. ;)

And with that, I bid you all farewell for the evening! :)

Meet the Team Part Seven: Ashley Gray

Two "Meet the Team" posts in one day??? Is that allowed? It is now, especially since I've fallen drastically behind on this recurring spotlight feature! Time to spotlight...

ASHLEY GRAY

If optimism was a person, it would be Ashley. She is the happiest, most positive person you'll ever meet! I remember once a few weeks ago when she had a day wherein everything seemed to go wrong and with every stroke of bad fortune she took a deep breath and said, "this is a great day. I'm so glad I'm going to have these memories to laugh at later." You simply cannot get her down and her positive attitude is absolutely contagious. Furthermore, her optimism should not be mistaken for naivete, for she is also keenly aware of obstacles and trials and is an incredible leader and hard worker when there's a job to be done. Her power of positivity lies not so much in ignoring bad things or pretending they don't exist, but rather in always choosing to make the best of them and be happy anyway. 

Ashley is a Psychology major at BYU and, like myself, she has a wide field of interests and would either major or minor in just about everything if she could. She has been a valuable asset to many projects, including key leadership in working with the Belmopan orphanage we visited a few weeks back and in organizing many of the youth programs we've held. She also has worked with me on some of the brainstorming and design for the Rainforest Haven project, acting as the interior designer for the photos we shot at the resort when we stayed there a few weeks back. She also has on occasion accompanied me to Succotz to work with various individuals there on the revenue project and always has fantastic ideas and a superior work ethic when she comes along.

Meet the Team Part Six: Rin Hardy

It's time again for another installment of that good ol' recurring blog feature: Meet the Team! Today's spotlight victim:

RIN HARDY

 Rin is the one smiling BEHIND the little boy. :)

Rin is the only team members other than the country directors and Lindsay (who is married to one of the country directors) who came for all three waves--spending 4 months in Belize total! She has thus been involved in a wide range of projects and has especially focused on the projects revolving around a lot of the camps and programs for kids we've held or participated in, including the conflict resolution-oriented "Peace Camps" at the George Price Center as well as a summer reading program for kids. She has been around longer than most of us and thus has been a great go-to source of info for new team members as they arrive. She is always very caring and tries to make sure that team members don't feel neglected or left out.

Rin has just been accepted into the Accounting program in the Marriott School at BYU, where I've just been accepted into the management program. She is very smart and excels at planning and thinking projects through. She also has a very consistent sleep schedule which she sticks to very loyally--a rare trait/ability among college students. 

Rin actually had to head out a little bit early and left this last Wednesday and her absence has definitely been noted and felt!

Bring it on, Harvey!

To Jimmy Stewart in the classic 1950 film, Harvey was a large rabbit seen only by himself. To me, Harvey is a menacing Tropical Storm expected to reach Hurricane status just in time to give Belize a thorough pummeling this weekend. Now, you loyal readers need not worry, for I am safe, sound, secure, and protected in our pink and white fortress in San Ignacio. San Ignacio is quite far inland anyway, so the storm will be greatly decreased by the time it hits us. If I were in San Pedro, Belize City, or Dangriga, or perhaps northern Honduras I'd be more alarmed, but as it is I'm not worried. If you'd like to watch Harvey's progress, click the link below for the national hurricane center. (If you don't want to watch Harvey's progress, perhaps you'd rather watch the 1950 film).

http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/ 

 Harvey's whereabouts as of this writing.

Well, yesterday and today have been filled with lots of work! Yesterday I worked a lot on redesigning the non-map side of the brochure for Succotz, and I'm really pleased with the outcome. It is a much more simple, yet much more striking design and I finally feel satisfied with it. I'll give you all a slight preview taste by revealing the all new redesigned cover:

While the old design with the collage of pictures was kind of fun, it ultimately looked too messy and busy once you printed it, so I started from square one again and recast the whole thing with this new theme and look. Isn't little Cathy just adorable? I figure tourists will be helpless to resist that cute little face! :)

Besides redesigning the pamphlet, yesterday, like usual, I went to Succotz to run more errands and put more pieces in place. My primary focus at this point has been solidifying the advertising blocks and locking them in with contract between each business and the village council. Similarly, we've been drafting a contract of usage for the revenue funds generated so that future village council members will be locked into using the funds for specific causes in the areas of village cleanliness/upkeep, subsidizing education, and improving public health. In the evening Katie went running and on the way back we saw a good omen, though I failed to obtain a very good photograph:

You probably can't tell from this rotten picture, but this is a lucky Nissan Altima! I had not seen one in Belize up until this point so I had to take a picture. (Some of you may know that I consider Altimas to be particularly lucky if spotted, so I was quite excited to find one here!)

As for today, we began the day by doing our very last work at the Barzakh Fallah Orphanage, where we've been helping to construct one of the live-in administrator housing units. Our original pledge was to provide materials and labor to finish the first construction phase of one of these unique buildings--that is, the stacking of bags filled with a dirt and concrete blend to create the shape of the building (see former posts for a more detailed description). We got that done early enough that we even began helping this week with the plastering phase, which will be completed by the owner of the orphanage and other volunteers and contracted workers helping him. Today we did more plastering and now the lower 2/3 of the building have their first outside coat of plaster. It is kind of sad that we won't get to see the completely finished building, but we did get to see more than we expected in the first place! Here's some pictures from today's orphanage work:

Any trip to the orphanage or to Succotz (unless we have the team van, which is usually doing other things) begins here in downtown San Ignacio, just a few blocks from our home at the main bus stop. The buses are a very unique experience and waiting here has become a very standard part of my daily routine. The orphanage is in Georgeville, about 15 minutes east of where we live, and we take the eastward-traveling Belize City-bound buses to get there. Those buses usually come about every 15-20 minutes, but today we had to wait nearly 50! First a westward-bound Benque-destined bus showed up; next, a bus to Belize City pulled in, but it was an express bus that doesn't make stops in little places like Georgeville; then ANOTHER Benque bus came before finally a normal Belize City bus arrived. At least we had the company of...

...our loyal dog Shadow! So, Shadow is one of the many strays in Belize, but she took a liking for the team before I got here (which couldn't POSSIBLY be the result of certain team members taking pity and giving her food...) and though we don't let her inside or try to entice her to stay, we don't mind her either. In fact, she basically lives outside our main door and guards us. She'll growl at other dogs who may not be as nice and even people if they seem menacing. We figure she makes us a little more secure down here. We TRY to refrain from feeding her (she probably mostly eats garbage from dumpsters like most of the dogs), not because we have no hearts, but because we don't want her to develop a dependency on us when we are only here temporarily to begin with. She usually follows us down to the bus station every day and then walks back to the house to take a nap on the porch after we get on the bus. Heaven knows we never touch her since she is still a wild dog and thus has lots of fleas and who-knows-what-else. This is hard because she is very likable and loyal and so sometimes we find sticks to scratch her back with or use our feet. But, you were expecting more on the orphanage, so let me move on...

Can you find the baby iguana?

We did more plastering, but first, we needed to add a few more edges to the foundation for landscaping purposes. You may have noticed in previous posts that the foundation of the building is made of tires. These tires are stuffed completely full of dirt and rocks. They were laid before I got here, but I'm glad we added more today so I could document the process as follows:

A number of large rocks are put in the tire.

A wheelbarrow is filled with dirt.

The dirt is poured into the tires and pounded in very tightly. In fact, this way astound you (it did for me!) but each tire, besides the rock already put in it, is additionally filled with THREE wheelbarrows full of dirt each! You simply compact it more and more and squeeze it all in! Those tires ultimately are super solid, and you additionally pour dirt around each one and fill in all the cracks just as tight. After filling 5 of these tires, we moved on to more plastering work, as described in my last post.

Meanwhile, that little baby iguana continued to make cameo appearances on both the outside of the building...

...and the inside!

Mixing the plaster. For whatever reason, most of our shovels were missing today and we only had 2! Luckily we are done with the bagging stage or that would have been really inconvenient. Speaking of the bagging phase, we actually still needed to put one last bag on top and we waited until today, knowing it would be our last on this project, to do so. Before filling it...

...we all signed it! :)

Emily and Mackenzie (the project leads for this project) precariously climbed atop the building to fill the bag as I shoveled buckets and sent them down the assembly line, up the ladder, and to the filling point up top. It was a fulfilling and memorable moment. :) Of course, it still needed to be pounded as well, so...

...Sarah, who has been a very significant contributor to this project, also made the climb and did the pounding job. Yay!

Here's the welcome sign to orphanage at Barzakh Falah, that will soon be able to drop the word "future." Writing about "lasts" is kind of sad. The orphanage project has resulted in my dirtiest, sweatiest, most exhausting hours in Belize, but it has been fun to build it alongside great team members and worth every sweaty minute invested. 

After the orphanage we hoped to have the street signs done for Succotz and begin installation, but the sign maker didn't have them ready and told us Monday afternoon!!! This is rather alarming and means we'll have to work very quickly on Monday and Tuesday to get all of them hung. At least we all had lots of great backup plans. Some people started packing, others wrote year-end reports. As for me--yup, you guessed it: I headed to Succotz, as usual, to do more errands etc, just like yesterday. It was a particularly productive run to Succotz and besides the street signs, everything is just about done and ready to go!

Upon returning from Succotz I had 15 minutes to catch my breath before an evening meeting with Jorge and Shamira about the Rainforest Haven resort consulting project. I had done a lot of work on the website during my down time recently and it was exciting to show it to them and really hammer out business plan details. Additionally, they treated us (Kyle, Lindsay, and myself) kindly to dinner at their favorite restaurant and I had one of the most delicious meals I've had here--fish and chips with curry mustard (the fish and chips are a traditional hold-over from the British occupation period). 

I think that's all I have for today. It's been crazy busy, and will continue to be until I'm back in the states! Meanwhile, help pray that the Hurricane Harvey will be short so as to not linger and hinder our project efforts on Monday!

Getting Plastered

Sorry, but I've got to keep the post short tonight. This morning we worked at the orphanage. As you know if you've been following, the bags stage of the construction was finished last week and we began wrapping it in chicken wire. On Monday a lot of the other team members began plastering the outside while I was doing some other things. I helped today with the plastering process, which is kind of fun. You flick the plaster onto the building from your trowel with your wrist, then smooth it out. Here's some pictures:

The lighter layer was done on Monday. The darker layer is from today.

That building sure is getting plastered, isn't it? ;)

So, mud-flinging and smoothing was fun. Later we had computer classes. We taught them about online business skills, such as how to sell on eBay, etc. We are going to hold one last class with them on Monday to review all the skills we've talked about and implement self-learning techniques so they can continue to learn after we leave. They've been so much fun and the class has really grown in popularity. I plan the curriculum for each class, but we like to give one-on-one instruction, and today we needed four teachers, most with 2 students each to cover all our bases! 

Kyle gives some individual attention to Lancelot.

Besides all of that, my other work for the day was all more boring computer stuff again, like usual--just trying to get everything done for my main projects. 

Well, I told you it would be short today, but hopefully you enjoyed the update, especially on the orphanage construction process.

Crunch Time!

This picture of flowers is a happy way to start my blog. This is necessary because the paragraph you are about to read is full of a fair deal of vented frustration (albeit with a happy, resolved ending).

Sorry if my blog gets more and more sporadic. Things are really picking up here in Belize as we try to tie up all lose ends and finish our projects before we leave NEXT WEEK!!! I have been running around like crazy talking to businesses and council members trying to get all the pieces in place for my project in Succotz. I didn't mention this before, but now that things have been resolved I will tell you a "fun" story that happened with the Succotz project. On Friday night, hours after we'd put in the order for street signs, we got a call from Gilly, the council chair telling us that there was a sudden voice of political dissent on the council regarding the project. Now, I don't want to publish details or names all over the internet, but suffice it to say that while most of the council was on our side, there were some who had... other ideas and they called for a re-vote on clearing the street names to stall the project. So, we called the sign printer to put the order on hold until further notice while the council met that evening. Needless to say, despite the fun I had on the weekend I was rather distracted by the thought hanging constantly over my head that nearly everything I've worked for the last 5 weeks was hanging in the balance dependent upon a few political conflicts. I was mad. I really wanted to be at the meeting on Friday night, but looking back I'm really glad I wasn't because I probably would not have been pleasant. Instead, having had time to mull things over and put myself in a diplomatic mood, I met with the council, and specifically the dissenting voices thereon (I wish to make it clear again that the majority was in our favor all along). We had a great discussion and I was able to plead my case. It worked for the most part. They became very excited about the prospects of the project, in fact. Once again, I won't go into some of the original political motives that spurred this set-back, but ultimately where they found it easy to bash the project to their fellow council members, it was not so easy for them to look the project's architect in the eyes and bring up very many legitimate objections. Ultimately, their dissent was boiled merely down to a matter of the street names--which they've had opportunity to bring up for the past 4 weeks, but were silent! Nonetheless, as one of them in particular was a very important person to have on our side, I chose the diplomatic route and explained that we needed to get the signs printed ASAP but would give him 24 hours to make any suggested changes to the street names. When I came back tonight to get his suggestions, he was just beginning to make his list for the first time. (Have you ever wanted to hit your head repeatedly against a brick wall?) So, to insure that the job got done, Kyle and I sat down and watched him until he was done. He carefully weighed the name of EVERY street on the map for about five minutes and changed 40% of them (it would have been more, but I said NO to some of his proposed changes and I think he realized that he'd already looked the gift horse in the mouth long enough). Luckily, most of his name changes weren't too bad and some were actually very good suggestions (that would have been nice 3 weeks ago when we ASKED for suggestions!). Furthermore, in a further effort to appease me, he actually proposed switching 2 names around to give the name "Steve Kenworthy St" (named after my father) to a bigger and more important road! :D An hour and a half into the process Kyle had to leave, so he left me with his phone and I spent the rest of the night in Succotz on my own to finish my tasks. The name-changing game lasted another half hour after Kyle left. Anyway, patience paid off ultimately and all is a go once again, and all of the village council member are now on our side, which is very reassuring. Political loyalties can run deep in Belize, and it is very good news to see opposite ends of the spectrum unite over ANYTHING around here; I am glad to know that my project finally has such a unanimous approval!

I am only (barely) 23 years old, and sometimes I feel very young, like I still have lots of "growing up" to do. However, there are times when I feel so very adult-like. Facing off against a council member twice my age in a foreign country to defend a project I've poured hours and hours of time, energy, and concentration into definitely ranks up there in those "adult" experiences. Once all was settled I definitely had to pause for a moment and look around to see that this is the real life--is that ME doing these things? It's a weird feeling. I wonder if one ever grows accustom to feeling like an adult or if life's adventures continue to push one to more and more new experiences that  keep one wondering if it's for real. It is a weird feeling--this "adult" feeling, that is--that blends a happy sense of accomplishment with a wary sense of ever-pressing responsibility. When we were young, nothing we did truly mattered from a long-term perspective and even though it seemed like the entire world depended on Prom, we secretly always knew that our lives were completely care-free. It was a very free feeling, and I feel it less and less frequently now, but I think I like the greater depth of adulthood anyway.

Well, none of you came here to read rambling philosophical tangents, so I'll move on to more details from yesterday and today! But first, since I've addressed political matters in such a negative light thus far, I will balance with one happy political note: Sis. Medina won her election on Sunday to the San Ignacio/Santa Elena Town Council! She is now the first female Mormon in Belize to hold public office at so high a level! She will be an incredible member of the council.

Moving on now to other activities from yesterday and today, most of the first half yesterday was spent on the computer working on Succotz and Rainforest Haven (same today). Yesterday also had computer class and we taught them about email. Tomorrow will be our extra-long class on online business that all the students are extra-excited for. Computer class is definitely one of my favorite parts of being here. Our students are all very fun and intelligent and we've really been able to focus on useful skill in the class that will have lots of opportunity for use.

After computer classes, I headed to Succotz where I had my discussion with the dissenting council members, as mentioned earlier. We also did some final maintenance work on the adobe stoves and checked up on another stove that the village members have built all on their own at another location without any of our help! Isn't that great? They are building them for each other using the skills and design we taught them and now a healthier kitchen solution that vents harmful smoke out of the home is being employed at more and more locations in Succotz and the surrounding area without our having to supervise. I should have taken a picture of the new stove they built, because it also is very innovative and modifies the design brilliantly to accommodate specific circumstances. I'll get a pic next time I'm there.

Besides adobe stoves and my meeting with the council, I later met at the home of Jose Luis--one of the council members most supportive of our work and a good friend. (He's the one who's house is where we did Mackenzie's birthday after our tubing venture a few weeks back, and he often helps us out with anything we need when we're in Succotz). He had some additional business information for me to help the project. When I first got to his house, their adorable puppy, who was tied up, ran towards me but accidentally slipped and fell into the brand new 6-foot hole where Jose is going to install a septic tank and was essentially being hung by his own rope and collar. I jumped in the hole and saved poor little Negro (that's the puppy's name--it's Spanish, not racist). Their son Calvin wisely moved the stake where Negro was tied up to be a safer distance from the septic hole! By the way, Jose Luis has the two cutest kids in the world (at least for this paragraph). You've actually seen them before on the blog, but here's a new cute pic I got of them yesterday:

Calvin and Amy

Today, other than more computer stuff and the 2-hour street naming jamboree, Kyle and I visited some of the resorts near Succotz to solicit advertising for the brochure and had some positive responses. We also went to Benque Viejo Town to visit the print shop that is going to make the brochures for us. We go some samples printed, even though it definitely isn't done yet (after all, now I have to go back change half the street names!). The purpose of the samples was to see if the layout was correct for the folds and to see how the colors printed. Though they were only drafts, I must say I am very pleased with the quality of the print job! Take a look:

Now, the front pane on the folded pamphlet doesn't quite line up for the fold, so I need to adjust it. I also fully recognize that the front panel is as ugly as sin. Don't worry--it was a good concept gone terribly wrong and I intend to redesign it from square one (for the third time) tomorrow. However, the map looks gorgeous and We were very pleased. We are going to adjust a few colors on the map, but overall the design is just right!

After the naming meeting I attended (by myself--as you'll recall Kyle went back to San Ignacio during that meeting) I grabbed a quick bite to eat at Benny's kitchen (the best place to eat in Succotz, hands down) and then attended a meeting of the Environmental Youth Group of Succotz--a team of teenagers running an incredibly efficient and organized non-profit that is going to partner to build the up-coming Iguana Nursery for Succotz (similar to the one I toured a few weeks back). I was very impressed with how efficient they are and the initiative they show to get worthwhile projects done. If this group of young people (I was older than all 20 of them by at least 5 years--another one of those "old feeling" moments) is the future of Belize, then this nation is in good hands! After that meeting it was almost 8 (12 hour work days are exhausting!) and I took a Collective (long-distance taxi) back to San Ignacio.

The parrots who live at Benny's Kitchen in Succotz. Parrots can be either fun or annoying. These ones are domesticated, so they aren't so bad. The wild ones, you may remember from an earlier post, are the most annoying creatures known to man.