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.

So...

So, have any of you noticed how often I begin my posts or even multiple paragraphs within one post with the word "so"? I've started to notice this unacceptable abuse of an unnecessary word, and will try my best to reform.

I have 2 weeks left in Belize to finish up the projects I'm leading while helping others finish up their own projects. It is crazy to think how little time is left and yet how much we have planned to make happen in those 2 weeks! Yesterday and today have been full of lots of little details and meetings with partners to make sure all the pieces are in place for these last 2 weeks to run smoothly and sufficiently to accomplish all necessary tasks. I'll get into some more detail, but first I have to rewind a bit and go back to Friday morning BEFORE the adventure to San Pedro and share 2 more birthday details. First is the happy birthday sign over the staircase:

This poster has been through a lot of birthdays! (I resisted a serious urge to start that sentence with "So,") It was put up originally over a month before I came for a team member from last wave named Shelbi for her 20th birthday. A few weeks later it was Sarah's birthday and the sign was still hanging, so they just put another piece of paper over the "helbi" in Shelbi and wrote "arah" over it to make it say "Sarah," who was also turning 20. That's what it looked like when I got to Belize. A week or two after I arrive, if you remember from an earlier post, it was MacKenzie's 20th birthday, so they put more paper over the name "Sarah" that said "MacKenzie." Finally, as it was still hanging for my birthday, they changed the "0th" in 20th to a "3rd", as shown above, and simply covered up the "Mac" and the "zie" in MacKenzie with yet more paper to make the resultant "Ken" shown above! To my knowledge, mine is the last birthday.

I also had one present to open in the morning before we left. There is quite a story to this. The week before last Lindsay's brother Jonathan came to visit for a week. He did a lot of adventuring around Belize, including a jungle trek for which he bought the standard instrument of choice of Belizeans: the Machete! He didn't intend to bring it back to the states with him as he had no room in his luggage and we joked about him giving it to one of us. He heard it would be my birthday 5 days after his departure, so the day he left I found this package on my bed:

 In case you can't read it, the note on this conspicuously machete-shaped gift says, "To: Ken It's a surprise! Don't open until your birthday! HAPPY BIRTHDAY!"

Birthday morning came and revealed this bad boy!

Hmm. Now that I'm conscientiously trying not to start each paragraph with "So," I'm now having to resist the urge to replace every instance with "Anyway". Without using an unnecessary word, let's move on to yesterday and today!

Yesterday in the morning I finalized a street sign template for the street names in Succotz. We also went on a price hunt to different sign makers to get various quotes and find the best price on the job (as well as for printing the map brochures). It was a productive morning and really helped lay out the time frame for the rest of this project.

In the afternoon I did additional computer work, but also taught the computer class. One student, Orlando (the one I mentioned previously who only has 8 fingers) is progressing amazingly. Obviously he doesn't work much on typing, but when it comes to the other computer skills we're focusing on, he's doing really well. We learned a lot more about Excel and were able to focus on not only learning basic things it does, but especially how to apply those functions to basic problem solving in business scenarios. We made up a fictional company and entered in hypothetical transportation costs data and used functions in Excel to help us organize and use the data to make hypothetical business solutions. That way, he not only learns what a spreadsheet is and how to enter things, but thinks about ways to use its powers to solve a problem and help out a business.

After computer class, Kyle, Lindsay, and I went to Succotz to scope out every street corner to see how many already had poles infrastructure in place for the signs. We were delighted to discover that most of the street corners already have places to hang signs on the power poles (very common street sign place in Belize) and that will save us a LOT on costs! 

Rainbow: a good omen shines over the village of San Jose Succotz!

After scoping out the street intersections, we returned to San Ignacio for dinner just as the remaining vacationers from the team arrived from San Pedro. Our wonderful cook, Mama Kay, is out of town in El Salvador this week (I believe she went to go see the temple open house) so we are eating out each night, paid for by the team funds that we'd usually pay Mama Kay with. We ate last night at a really nice and fun Kriol-themed tourist restaurant in downtown San Ignacio called "Flayva's". I'd eaten there one other time. The staff knows all of us and is very friendly. After dinner we finished the night off with our usual Monday night planning meeting.

Today began with more work in Succotz on 2 different projects. I primarily went around recontacting some of the businesses we tracted out, soliciting for some of the larger businesses to advertise on the tourist brochure. The advertising is projected to be immensely effective based on the distribution plan of the brochures and comparison to the virtual lack of advertising structure currently in place. Furthermore, the funds generated from the advertising will be invested back into the village by providing the village council with more money to subsidize the cleanliness initiative, education, and public health. 

We also revisited some locations of a former project: the adobe stoves project. I haven't written much about this project as it was primarily the work of the former waves. This was a great project that gave better cooking facilities to various poor families in Succotz. They formerly would cook in enclosed buildings over little pit fires--i.e., lung cancer waiting to happen. The adobe stoves provide the user with a self-venting system which can cook much more than a pit fire at a time and more efficiently while getting the smoke completely out of the house and away from vulnerable lungs. We built 5 such stoves in Succotz this summer and some of them simply needed some revisiting to finish a few loose ends and improve their efficiency. Meanwhile, the sustainability of the project is already in full swing as various individuals in the community are teaching others how to build the stove and so now at least 2 more stoves are being built even without HELP International's involvement! I only helped a little at the end of the morning today as I was doing business contacting around the village, but I helped a little at the end.

 Here is Jake, doing some repairs on Natalie's adobe stove.

Here is an all-new adobe stove in the making, completely begun by the people of the village themselves at a new location! This is the real fruits of such a project--to know that we haven't just built 5 adobe stoves to benefit 5 families, but that we've taught members of a community something new that will spread after we leave to bless many more families than that!

My business contacting had some good results, as well as some interesting discussion in general about the Succotz Revenue Generation project and its potential effects as well as pitfalls. Considering potential weaknesses was especially important for two reasons. First of all, if we recognize weak spots, we can try to prevent some of them in advance. Second, as not all weaknesses are preventable, it gives valuable insight into the nature of development work. It can give insight into how a project might be improved upon when implemented elsewhere. Furthermore, it reminds us to be humble and remember that there is no "silver bullet" for development work. I am hardly the first person to attempt to reverse the tide of poverty in a village--even this particular village--and should not expect this project to solve every possible problem there! Knowing this helps us remember to remain specific in the goals we want to see come to pass and focus on key areas where our particular skill sets can make the greatest impact that could perhaps win a battle even if not the whole war. I would love to see poverty eradicated from San Jose Succotz, but this one project alone will not do that. However, I do expect it to make a difference. Ultimately, the results I specifically see coming from my project are as follows:

1. Increased revenue to the village council, enabling them to:

    a) Make improvements to village infrastructure and trash collection system in the short term

    b) Subsidize education and public health in the long run

2. Increase the tourist-based revenue flow to private businesses in Succotz, thus helping those willing to work who currently struggle despite their best efforts to provide for their families.

3. Create a platform for further development projects especially via the increased link to the tourist industry, relevant national government agencies, and other partner non-profit organizations.

Not everyone will see a major business increase, but some definitely will. Not every child's education will be improved or decreased in costs, but some will. The public health system will not be completely perfected, but it will be improved. Ultimately, I believe that the impact will be very real, even if there will still be more to do for a very long time. 

After the morning in Succotz and a quick bite to eat, the whole team headed to the national capital of Belmopan to spend the afternoon at an orphanage, where we dropped of a number of care packages sent from the states with supplies such as toothpaste and brushes, clothes, hygiene items, etc. This is not a long-term or continuing project, but rather something we focused on just this afternoon. There were about 30 children there, all very eager for attention and most of them extremely bright. Once again, we are not in a long-term partner arrangement with this orphanage this year but were last year and the team last year recorded that they were not a good partner organization at all. We saw that for ourselves today. Our focus is on sustainable projects with continuing impact. There are literally scores of organizations who come to countries like Belize, do some sightseeing, visit orphanages and take pictures, then go back victoriously in the name of development work. Certainly visiting orphans is nice, and today was wonderful, but to come for a day or two and then leave does not make much lasting impact on the conditions of the lives of those therein, hence why today's visit was a one-time thing since we had care packages to deliver anyway. We quite enjoyed it, but it made me want to cry to see the poor conditions that these children grow up in. To change the orphanage would come down to somehow changing the hearts, minds, and methods of the rather irresponsible caretakers there. From all our observations today and in a needs assessment visit some team members made last week, the caretakers mainly just talk in the kitchen all day while the kids run around wild all day with absolutely no structure to their lives. They desperately need parental CARE but indications reveal very little available to them. Fortunately, other organizations do exist which focus specifically and entirely on orphanage reform around the world and I hope someday they visit the orphanage we visited today and focus on making long-term lasting changes there.

On a positive note, not all orphanages in Belize are like that. In fact, you may have been following the orphanage construction project we are working on I've written about several times before. That orphanage, where we are building additional small single and double room housing units, is a very trusted operation which provides a much better atmosphere for the kids living there than the one we visited in Belmopan today. I've focused a lot in this post on the sustainability of the projects we are involved in as it is very important to me that non-profits focus on making real change in the communities where they work. Too many international groups promote "volun-tourism" where people just visit sights and orphans, as described earlier. To be blunt, I believe this is largely a waste of the funds of those who invest in such organizations. There is already too little by way of funding for work like this to use it ineffectively! I know that may sound somewhat harsh, but I strongly believe that significant reforms are needed in the NPO/NGO world if the goals we all desire for humanity are to become a reality.

I'll get off my soap box now and conclude with some pictures from our orphanage visit. Once again, though not a long-term focus, it was an enjoyable afternoon and eye-opening to additional problems which still plague this struggling country. The kids were all great.

Ashley and Maren (not pictured here) led this mini-project and before our visit put together a small activity to help the kids focus on life goals and plans. In this way, even though we were only able to visit this one time, our visit was able to hopefully at least do a little bit of good for the kids beyond the supply drop-off. It was a great success, as you can see here the kids eagerly participating.

Sarah gives some one-on-one attention to an adorable 3-year-old named Jamesey.

 The kid in blue is Edgar. As part of the activity, we asked the kids what they wanted to be when they grew up. After he told me he wanted to be a police officer, I told him I wanted to be a ninja when I grew up. He looked and me and said, "You're already grown up. It's too late now. You can never be a ninja!"

So, (sorry--old habits die hard!) overall yesterday and today have been particularly thought-provoking. I have been so grateful for the chance to help here, despite the limits that exist to development work. I am grateful to have been raised in a loving home and not an under-cared for orphanage. I hope with time we will someday see problems like that disappear forever as well all pool together to make one small difference at a time, specifically differences that are long-lasting and life changing!

Succotz Revenue Generation Project Phase One: DONE!

Sorry for no post yesterday. At the end of the day I just had lots and lots of little loose ends to tie up for things related to school and my business back in the states and I just never found the time to blog. However, yesterday is pretty easy to summarize. In the morning, 7 of us went to Succotz to finish up the business tracting project there, and finish we did! My companion for this third round was Maren. Overall during the three days we went to Succotz, we collectively gathered information profiling 67 businesses or notable public buildings/organizations in Succotz. That was a very exciting accomplishment! (See my previous posts on Succotz to get more information about this project if you're just joining the blog--it is my personal lead project and the flagship project of my entire experience in Belize).

However, in writing most of my day yesterday and much of today seems rather boring. Besides a break in the afternoon for computer classes at 3 (wherein the students continued to learn about Microsoft Word, specifically how to add and use objects like shapes and pictures), I spent most the time yesterday pouring through the 24 hand-written pages of collected information and entering it into an Access database with corresponding symbols of various kinds filling up a computer copy of the map I created, plotting where each business is located. Pretty boring from the outside, but as the project lead it was very exciting to see some of the fascinating discoveries and trends unfold as I sorted through all the information. This continued into today, interrupted at one point by a shorter-than-usual shift at the orphanage construction project, which I'll talk about a little later in this post. By 6:00 this evening I was finally done compiling all the information. For a taste of the madness of this project, let me show you a screen clipping of the map which has all my annotation symbols on it marking the locations of these various businesses by their types.

Besides the orphanage trip, the other trip I made beyond my computer today was to do some brief research on street sign prices. Rin and I went out to get some price quotes and although we managed to get information from the San Ignacio mayor's office about where they had the nice signs like the one below made for the streets of San Ignacio, we were unsuccessful at contacting the man they referred.

A loverly street sign in San Ignacio. Not sure what the origin of this street's name is, but it sounds awfully familiar...

Speaking of street signs and names, allow me to address that topic once more in relation to Succotz. As you may remember, I worked with the village council to come up with names for the streets in Succotz. The street names in the map I showed you above are mostly accurate, but a couple have changed and a handful have just been traded around. A final map will definitely be given later and tomorrow morning all street names should be final and we will send in our order for the street signs. If you examine the names on the map above closely, you'll find a blend of names with local significance (like Jose Luis St) or traditional association (like "Good Shepherd lane, which leads to the Good Shepherd clinic or Church St. which runs by the large Catholic Church at the center of the village); you'll find names from Mayan mythology (like Itzamna and Kukulkan); you'll find names of native Belizean animals (like Jaguar and Tapir); you'll find Belizean national figures and leaders (like George Price, Manuel Esquivel, and even Queen Elizabeth). You'll also find a couple surprises. I will not comment on or explain these surprises at present, but will showcase them in a later post. 

Now, as I mentioned, we worked a little bit today at the orphanage we are building as well (you may want to see previous posts for a description of this construction project). We had to start late due to rain and finish early because we all still had other afternoon projects to attend to. However, it is coming along nicely and hopefully should be done just in time before we leave Belize! Because it has been raining so much the last couple days, everything was super muddy today and we all came back pretty caked. The muddiest, of course, was our increasingly dwindling dirt pile, where our dirt crater became a lake we had to work around as we shoveled out the number of buckets of dirt we needed for another row of bags:

In the background you see Sarah and MacKenzie leaning over some worms that were found, as we are also still trying to acquire more worms for the soilet project.

Anyway, that's all I've got for today. Tomorrow should bring the beginning of Phase Two of the Succotz project, more computer classes, and an overnight visit to the Resort with the entire team for the Rainforest Haven project! That reminds me--I'm forewarning you that there will most likely not be a post tomorrow night because I won't have internet access. If I DO post, it will be because the weather is still too bad to make the resort trip worth it and I am thus still at home in San Ignacio. So, let's cross our fingers for good weather and I'll write again on Thursday! :)

Hard Times

So, today I've been here now 2 weeks. In a way, they've absolutely blown by, while in another I've been surprised that it's only been 2 weeks. I almost feel like I've been here forever and am a part of Belize now. I no longer walk around with that tourist look in my eyes, but rather see the tourists come through and feel like they're visiting my home town. This is just such a welcoming place and I absolutely love it here.

I've been introduced to something fantastic: Hard Times. Hard times are the unofficial national cookie of Belize. They are, as their name suggests, rather hard (perfect milk cookies) like an extra-hard cross-breed of shortbread and sugar cookie. They are perfectly medium in their sweetness level and deliciously addicting. The best part of the story: You can get an enormous bag of 50, like the one pictured below, for $1.50 Belize (that's just 75 cents US!)

Giant bag of hard times!

So, this morning we made lots more progress on the orphanage. The walls are about 9 ft high now, and the windows have their places held by some tires that we put some dirt-brick-bags around in keystone arch fashion today. (For a description of the unique construction process for these buildings, search under the click on the "orphanage" tag at the bottom of this post and it will show you all my posts describing the orphanage project).

 The walls are getting higher!

Building keystone arches around the windows

So, the architect of these unique buildings, Jaime, told us we should finish the bagging part of the construction this Friday, though I'm a little skeptical of that claim. My own estimate is Monday, but Friday would be cool. I'm excited to see the next step of this process. Besides, we're all getting REALLY tired of this phase. It was cool at first, but now it's just tiring hard labor out in the sun with no shade getting dirt all over ourselves. At least it's a worthwhile cause!

After getting back from the orphanage project (and showering to get the sweat and dirt off) and eating lunch it was time for computer class again! Maren was still in Belmopan on another project, so I took Katie with me instead to teach. We had another 2 new students including a nice older man who is missing 2 fingers on his left hand. Katie was showing him how to place your hands on the keyboard and he held up his hand and showed her the missing index and middle fingers. She was stunned for a second and then said, "Well, you can just type however you want to!" I don't think we'll be using Mavis Beacon for him. However, he did make good progress on the skills we learned today. The class is formatted so that the first half they practice their typing and then the second half we learn a new computer skill. Today we began teaching about Microsoft Word. It was very fun to watch them learn about the amazing world of word processing for the first time ever. After explaining the purpose and navigation of the program and the page we started showing them how to do basic formatting changes. At first they nodded their heads as we showed them how to make words bold. Eagerness grew as we showed them italics. Downright excitement emerged with underlining. Before long they could change color, size, font, and alignment and make both numbered or bullet-point lists. Watching their eyes get wider and wider was so fulfilling as a whole new world of possibilities opened up to them! We had so much fun and look forward to picking things up again on Monday. 

After computer class I did some Succotz stuff on my computer for the rest of the working day. At five I went with Katie to the track so she could run her 5 miles for the day while I read a book. We came back for dinner and then all did our own thing throughout the evening. It's been a pretty good and fulfilling day. Tomorrow is looking to be exciting and full as well, like usual. Tune in then, same Ken-time, same Ken-channel!

P.S. I'll bet you all thought this would be a depressing post based on the title. Ha! Fooled you! Hard times are just tasty cookies! :)

Just around the river bend

Okay, I've officially decided that taking a night off from the blog is an absolutely retarded idea because it's hard enough to try and describe just one day here in Belize in a blog post let alone two! But, here goes:

Yesterday began with the skit I mentioned on Thursday. In case you missed that post, three of our team members (Katie, Jake, and I) helped give a skit on Self-Esteem to a bunch of kids at a summer camp, in connection with the Cornerstone foundation--another organization we often team with for various projects. Here's the audience for which we gave the performance of our lives:

Unfortunately, I don't have a picture of us actually performing the skit (which was REALLY cheesy--but don't blame us; we didn't write it), but I do have this picture of Katie hold the "Self Esteem Shield" (Exciting, huh?)

My part was easy. Mostly, I just pointed and laughed at Katie while throwing things at her.

Afterwards, we met up with the others at the orphanage we're building. For a very detailed description of our construction methods, see Monday's post. Meanwhile, in that post I promised to give you a better picture of the buildings the next time we're there. Well, I've kept my promise and have both inside and outside pictures for you. Now you'll know what I meant when I said they remind me of the Flintstones:

The one on the right will house 3-4 teenage girls. The bathroom & shower facilities are in the one on the left, which is designed to catch and recycle rain water (it's like a giant bowl).

The buildings in the first picture are a vast improvement over these flimsy and rotting buildings currently being used. Can you imagine having to live in a building like that? We are currently using this one to store our shovels and other tools when we aren't there, and that's about all it's good for. The new living arrangements should be quite a lot more comfortable! Here's a look at the interior of the new buildings:

 Going through the doors...

 ...you are immediately greeted by a living room area with some comfortable couches and a staircase which leads to...

...a little bedroom upstairs!

So, this is the building we're currently working on. The guy to the right with the backwards hat is Yan. He's from Holland and came out on Thursday with a British non-profit and heard about the orphanage project so he came to help us out that day. He's a pretty cool guy who has done humanitarian work in at least 3 other 3rd-world countries. He's octo-lingual (he speaks 8 languages, all fluently)!!!

 Katie, Pete, and Emily take a moment to smile for the camera.

 When completed, this smaller building will house the caretaker who lives on sight.

Sarah and Jake pack a bag with our special moist dirt concoction. Once again, for a more detailed explanation of the crazy construction process used to make these buildings, see my Monday post.

Emily has a dirt-funnel on her head. Does this make anyone else think of that song from "The Jungle Book," where the girls says, "I must go and fetch the water, til the day that I am grown..." :)

Well, after our time building the orphanage, Kyle and Megan decided to let our weekend start early in honor of the productive week we've had and even more so in honor of our team member MacKenzie's birthday! So, we headed to my favorite little village--Succotz!--and river tubed along the Mopan river! It was great fun. I don't actually have any river tubing pictures myself since I didn't really want to risk getting my camera wet, but Katie had a waterproof camera and tomorrow I'll get some pictures from her to show you all. 

After the tubing , be headed to the house of Jose Luis, one of the village council members I've been working with on the Succotz Revenue project, where we had a Belizean chicken barbecue in his backyard and played with his two adorable kids, like little Calvin here, who loved my hat:

The evening turned into a dance party, having fun dancing to the Belizean music, which is always an interesting techno-reggae driven mix of English, Spanish, and Kriol songs. As you know from yesterday's lame and short post, when we got back home I was actually tired (a rarity) and went to bed without blogging. Deepest apologies.

As for today, it started out on a somewhat frustrating note. Even though Saturday is typically our day off, this morning the Succotz village council was invited to a special meeting at the University of Belize for all village councils, but they were also going to have a special one-on-one sit down with the Belize Board of Tourism and the National Institute of Culture and History to discuss their current improvement initiatives and petition for funds with a proposal I spent hours this week writing with them and perfecting. They invited me to come along for the meeting and I was very excited to get an in-depth look into how the Belizean government works. Unfortunately, they stood us up! The big meeting for all village councils was cancelled and they forgot to contact a few of the councils to tell of the cancellation, so a small handful of councils were waiting there with nothing to do after paying to get all the way there and setting a good portion of their days aside for the event. Anyway, we were of course quite frustrated, but we used the time to have another small meeting amongst ourselves to discuss our game plan from hereon out. Then we headed west, I to San Ignacio and the council a little further to Succotz. Anyway, it was frustrating but we still feel very good about our proposal for the BTB and NICH; hopefully it will happen next week.

However, the rest of my day has been an absolute blast! After returning to San Ignacio, eight of us headed on a Saturday adventure (so, of course I wore my Orange Adventure Pants!). We went with our fun and knowledgeable guide Feliz on a jungle hike and cave tubing adventure. The jungle hike was the most gorgeous hike I've ever been on in my entire life, hands down. The rock ledges and exotic plants, the beautiful flowers, the smells--everything was amazing. Unfortunately, like yesterday, I didn't always have my camera with me since most of the hike I was in my swimsuit as we headed to the river where we would cave tube. However, once again Katie did have her camera with her and I'll get some pictures soon. I did take a few gorgeous jungle shots though, as shown below:

That braided vine actually grows that way! Crazy, huh? 

 It may look gorgeous, but it's a noxious weed.

 Not a weed, just gorgeous.

 Leaf-cutter ants! My favorites! A much better picture that I've managed to get in my previous posts on this subject. Be sure to click the picture and zoom in to get a good look at these crazy buggers!

Left to right: Katie, Jonathon, Kyle, Lindsay, Ashley, and Maren all prepare for our jungle adventure!

Okay, so tomorrow I will post a lot more about my Friday and Saturday adventures when I have more pictures to show you. It's really hard to describe how amazing the jungle and the cave tubing were. The caves are enormous. The Mayas used them anciently to send sacrificial victims to Xibalba (hell). Cheery, huh? Some of the caves still have Mayan artifacts in them you can see, though we went to a less expensive cave. :) It was still phenomenally impressive though, as you'll see tomorrow.

After the cave tubing and jungle adventure, after eating some dinner and going to the track with Katie (I'll describe that more in depth at a future date) the team got a karaoke bar almost entirely to ourselves and rocked the night away. It was such a blast with these amazing people I work hard with all week and then can have such fun times with on the weekend. I'll leave you this evening with some karaoke pictures:

Crowded into the van on the way there (you can't see the other 8 people also in the van!) Left to right: Pete, Megan, Katie, Jake, Maren