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!

Futbol!

Today was great but largely another computer day. Today's post will be especially brief.

I worked a lot on the Succotz tourist map and have a preliminary draft done that I'm very pleased with. It reflects a lot of the data gathered in our recent "business tracting" venture in Succotz, organized and filtered for the most relevant entries and information. Take a look:

Can you find Iguana Rd?

We also had computer class and it went great! We started teaching about the internet today and how it can be used as a tool. Most of our students are adults who sell various things, often to tourists, and already are seeing the benefits of selling online. As they've done so well on everything so far, we decided that next Wednesday we are going to devote the entire class time to how to start a small online sales presence via eBay, Amazon, and social networking. This is all very exciting as it shows how our efforts at teaching these computer classes will not just give our students a mediocre introduction to computers in general, but real skills for application that will allow them to raise their standard of living.

In the evening, Katie had 7 more miles to run for the day to keep up with her Olympic-prep training schedule. I was her escort to the park and while there I ran into Pres. Lemos from the San Ignacio Branch of the LDS Church and his wife. It is fall futbol (soccer) season and he plays for San Ignacio United, one of the regional teams. These are very intense leagues, somewhere between intramurals and minor leagues in the U.S. From all of my observations, these leagues are a great blessing to Belize. Generally, the men who play on them tend to learn rigorous work ethics that translate into career habits since the leagues themselves don't pay so they have to make their living in other ways. It is a positive outlet for the men that can keep many of them from getting involved in gangs or drug rings. President Lemos is a really amazing man (and not too many years older than myself) and from what I can tell, the futbol leagues tend to be full of men of similar caliber. Tonight he and the others on their team began practice for the fall season and were setting up a bunch of cones and stakes to run maneuvers. So, I helped them set things up while chatting with Pres. Lemos and his wife as Katie ran her 7 miles (which only takes her 45 mintues--a consistent 6 & 1/2 minute mile pace and she never runs her fastest while just doing training runs). Anyway, it was great to chat with Pres. and Sis. Lemos, as they are both wonderful people. The evening made me wonder if Succotz has a team in the league and what a blessing that could be to their community.

These are the cones and pegs we set up.

Here are the players for San Ignacio United Futbol team, practicing their drills. Pres. Lemos is #4 in Blue.

I told you it would be short!

San Pedro

So, this last weekend was one of the coolest weekends and birthdays of my life! Long before I was born my mother used to live in the Cayman Islands, and frankly I can't understand why she ever left! The Caribbean is a particularly addicting type of heaven on earth and I loved every minute I spent on the Belizean island of San Pedro. The trip was part of a birthday getaway that the team here planned for me since Friday was my birthday. During our 6 weeks in country, we get weekends off from our work as well as two additional vacation days to be used whenever we'd like and as projects permit. Friday was the first (and perhaps only) of those extra vacation days for me. Frankly, I love the projects I'm working on so if I don't have another extra vacation day, I'm totally cool with that. Besides, we have tons of fun on Saturdays anyway, so I already feel like I've had a lot of vacation here in Belize! Nonetheless, whether or not I take another vacation day, I'm glad I took one on Friday for my birthday in San Pedro.

Let me begin by giving you a little bit of background information. Belize as a country is a unique crossroads between the Caribbean and Central America. When looking at a map, the mainland area in Central America is immediately apparent. If you look closer, however, you'll notice that there are lots of little islands coming off the coast connecting Belize with the Caribbean. As a result, these 2 distinct cultures are blended throughout the whole nation, though the Caribbean side of that culture is particularly emphasized on the islands, just as the Central American/Latino culture sees more emphasis on the mainland. Nonetheless, both are pretty prevalent all over along with some other ethnic groups including the sizable Dutch Mennonite population, the Mayan native tribal population, and even a smattering of European holdovers from the British colonial period. Of the islands that are part of Belize, known as Cayes (pronounced "keys" like the similar islands off of Florida's coast), two in particular have noteworthy populations: Caye Caulker and Ambergris Caye. San Pedro is one of the largest towns in Belize and is located on Ambergris Caye. It is a major tourist location and a completely different side of Belize. While I wouldn't say that everyone in San Pedro is rolling in cash, there is definitely much less poverty than out here in the Cayo district where I live and work. The tourism industry is thriving in San Pedro and bringing in lots of revenue for those living there and it's not hard to see why: Ambergris Caye is one of the most gorgeous places I've ever been and there's lots to do! I'm not going to be able to detail everything, but I'll try to give you the best highlights of my weekend there:

Our journey to San Pedro began...

...on this 2-hour express bus from San Ignacio to Belize City. From the bus terminal...

...we all crowded into a couple of taxis that took us to...

 ...the seaport! We bought our water taxi tickets and...

...loaded on the boat for a 90-minute ride to Ambergris Caye! On the boat...

...Pete sat next to his clone! Unfortunately, the clone never looked this way when I tried to get a picture, but they he, like Pete, was wearing very similar shades and had the exact same amount of facial stubbery, besides the white shirt, shorts, and hair apparent in this picture. Megan and I dubbed them "Pete and RePete." :) Anyway, we finally arrived in San Pedro and peered across the piers:

Then, we walked down the boat dock to the shore, where the first building we saw was...

...The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints! Like the Santa Elena Branch, the San Pedro Branch has converted another building into a chapel until they can get a real chapel some day. More about this building and some experiences had there later on in this post. :) For now, let's continue our journey. After walking ashore...

...we began the gorgeous 15-minute walk down the beach to the Corona Del Mar Hotel where we had a reservation. By the way, can you find the iguana?

We had selected the Corona Del Mar hotel because it was an affordable choice that didn't seem like a grungy hole in the wall. We expected some standard run-of-the mill medium-low-end hotel accommodations. Sure enough, the hotel was pretty standard--a lot like a Motel 6 in the U.S., just on a beautiful beach! However, we were in for the biggest surprise of the entire trip when we went to check in and the staff told us that due to the size of our group, it was easiest just to put us up in the hotel's Penthouse at the very top without charging us the usual additional costs of that upgrade. So, let me introduce you in picture format to the amazing Corona Del Mar Penthouse:

Here is the Penthouse, sitting at the very top of the hotel. I was the last of the 11 members of our team who went to enter it and consequently got to feel my anticipation rise as I heard 10 consecutive exclamations of "Oh my Gosh!" before entering for myself and saying the same thing.

Here is the main living area, bar, and kitchen. 

Same, viewed from the other direction. 

Bedroom #1 had this cute little towel puppy.

Meanwhile, the other had these swans. Here's Megan Swan with swans!

 Nice kitchen

Nice Bathrooms (including toilet paper folded into roses)

 Towel ducks in the bathtubs

Decorative pottery on the coffee table

View of the pool and the beach from the living room window

Anyway, I could go on but you get the point. We paid US$25 per night per person to stay there, as that was the original price of the rooms we thought we'd be getting, but got much better! Now, I've stayed in some fancy Marriott suites in my day, and this was very similar to those, but how many of those have you seen with a price point like that? (Of course, as mentioned earlier, I actually didn't pay at all since my amazing team members paid for me as a birthday gift!) Needless to say, we were all super excited about our hotel arrangement. I should actually note that we did also still require one smaller room and we 3 men stayed in that smaller normal room at night, but we spent any other time at the hotel with the girls of the group in the Penthouse! :) So, now that I've detailed the journey to San Pedro and our fantastic hotel arrangement, let me introduce you to some of the rest of my San Pedro adventure. I note here that although up to this point I was taking pictures like a fiend, the rest of the weekend I took far fewer pictures than I usually do. I did take a few, but many more are on other people's cameras and I'll have to get them later. Anyway, I'm going to break with the narrative style now and just put pictures up with captions to finish detailing Friday:

 The docks are so photogenic! You practically can't go wrong taking pictures at the beach. Amazing!

 Pete and Jake just chillin'.

 The team, taking a swim in the Atlantic! (Don't worry, I joined them too!)

 Sarah and Emily in the pool.

 Jake and I with a palm tree.

 Emily, Rin, and MacKenzie work on cooking up...

...a delicious spaghetti birthday dinner with garlic bread and watermelon!

I wish I didn't look so creepy in this picture.

By the way, aren't those enormous rum goblets awesome? Obviously, we only filled them with water! :)

So, that was my fantastic Friday birthday--travels, a sweet penthouse, swimming, chilling out, enjoying scenery, and then a birthday dinner! A major festival was going on in San Pedro this last weekend (basically like the Ms. Central America Pageant), largely sponsored by Heineken beer, so we decided it was best to stay in the penthouse and hang out together at night rather than be outside among all the drunk partiers from all over Central America. So, after dinner I taught the team one of my favorite games--the Progressive Pictionary game--and we had an absolute blast! We also ate homemade Oreo cake-batter cookies instead of a cake since I love them just as much and nobody could find any birthday candles anyway! :)

So, onto Saturday:

Most of the team went Scuba diving or snorkeling on Saturday, but Katie and I, for reasons of frugality to put it softly, refrained and stayed back on the island and hung out together all day. Rather than mere pictures, I can show you a much more vivid detailing of our day as we created a music video together (one of may favorite past-times) at each of the various locations across the island that we explored! See for yourself:

As you can probably tell, it was a particularly enjoyable day! :) Let me share a few other pictures from Saturday:

 Can you find the lion fish?

 Can you find the sea horse?

 One of the locals told us that this is the most photographed tree on the island, and I believe it! I also got to know this tree pretty well as I climbed it to the top to try picking a coconut, but there were no good or ripe ones left. I climbed it in local fashion, where you hug the tree and then push away with your feet to kind of walk-shimmy up the tree. They have absolutely no hand or footholds, so they are rather hard to climb! One local lady walked by as I was climbing and said, "that man is a true Belizean!" That was pretty awesome! :) Katie got a picture of me at the top, but I haven't gotten it from her camera yet. I'll post it once I do!

 This building was perfect for Katie as she is a dual citizen of the US and Canada and is currently in Belize--a perfect set of 3 flags, not to mention a funny looking scuba tiki!

Can you find the crab?

On Sunday we attended Church in the San Pedro branch, in the little building we saw when we first got off the dock on Friday. It was a wonderful experience! The ward is bilingual, so one of the missionaries (who is also a counselor in the branch presidency) translated all of the testimonies either from English to Spanish or vice versa depending on the speaker. It was a smaller branch than either Santa Elena or San Ignacio, but everyone there still carried that marvelous spirit of faith and conversion with them. The missionaries there are truly the glue holding things together and often run the whole show on Sunday. They didn't have a teacher for the youth Sunday School class that week so I volunteered and taught a wonderful lesson on the conversion of Paul to 4 young women and 1 young man. They were so attentive and interested and it was an absolute delight to teach them! Sunday School was followed by a wonderful Elder's Quorum discussion on one of Pres. Monson's talks from this last conference. There were 9 men there, including the missionaries, Jake, and myself, but that little quorum had one of the most relevant, on-track, uplifting discussions I've ever had in a priesthood quorum. One of the men shared how when he joined the Church he realized that his business, which sold Alcohol, needed to change. He himself had quit drinking to get baptized, but realized that if God didn't want him to drink, he shouldn't "peddle that poison to others", to use his own words. He gave up his business entirely on faith and switched to selling arts and crafts items. He hasn't necessarily done as well since, but has always gotten by and been provided for and is much happier because of the choice he made. Overall, the San Pedro Branch may have been one of the most uplifting Church experiences of my life.

The rest of my Sunday was mainly travel. Some of the team would be using one additional vacation day the next day, but some of us had projects we couldn't wait on to get back to. So, a few of us packed up a couple hours after Church and began the long journey back to San Ignacio, arriving there in the evening. It was hard to leave that paradise, despite my deep love for the Cayo district on the mainland, and I definitely could enjoy returning some day! Meanwhile, this is Kenneth Kenworthy signing off from this detailed report on my brief by fantastic visit to that wonderful piece of heaven we mortals have borrowed and named San Pedro.

P.S. I will write about my Monday work tomorrow night. Lots of great stuff with the Succotz project today!