Belizean' A New Trail

Pre-Service Training, Belize Class of 2009-2011

noreply@blogger.com (Belizean' A New Trail) — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 18:04:00 +0000

We are posting a bit out of order, but this one wasn't ready and the vacation post was!

We hope this little overview of the two months of pre-service training will help explain why we were missing in action for blog posting. Once the trainees arrived on August 20th we dove head first into seven-day work weeks until the class swore in on October 22. What little downtime we did have, we spent away from the office so could not update the blog as we do not have other internet access.

Training was a lot of fun! Ginnie served as the technical trainer for the education group and set up sessions and training activities to help them become acquainted with Belizean education and working in Belizean primary school settings. The trainees conducted two very successful training sessions: one on classroom management at the school in Georgeville (where our trainees learning Kriol lived for training) and one on diagnostic reading assessment at my old stomping grounds at Trinity (it was a lot of fun to bring my two groups together for a great workshop!).

Our training program consists of one week spent in Belmopan during which the trainees participate in core sessions and we also went out to Benque Viejo Town for a Maya & Mestizo culture day and then to Xunantunich for a trip to the ruins site. Then all trainees are sent off to community-based training where they live with a host family and in a community similar to where they will eventually serve and where they immerse more directly in the primary language of their site. For education, we trained in Maya Mopan, a K'ekchi village just within the limits of Belmopan, and Georgeville, a Kriol village on the Western Highway between Belmopan and San Ignacio. This meant a lot of driving time for Ginnie, but she loved being back behind the wheel, and definitely had a LOT of time to improve her skills in the manual-shift Prados! During this time, every trainee came together on Fridays for more core sessions that we all on staff worked together to facilitate.

Throughout training, we took a few field trips. Our biggest was the overnight trip to tour the future sites. We headed to Stann Creek and Toledo to see the different schools where the trainees would eventually serve. Our final trip for the sites in Belize City was done toward the end of training when we had the workshop and had a delicious meal catered by our very own Belize Mom - Miss Udeen! It was so great to be back with her - it always feels like home - and to share her delicious cooking with the trainees. Bringing the trainees to Trinity was also one of my favorite experiences since I got to combine both groups of people I'd been working with here in Belize. It also was my first trip back to the school since June, so I was really excited to see the teachers and students again. I got a lot of hugs as we came in and felt right at home.

After community-based training ended, for the first time here in Belize, we sent the trainees out for two weeks on a future-site visit. The experience began with a Counterpart Day in which they met their counterparts and got to know each other and participated in sessions on various Peace Corps topics related to their work together. They then went to their new host families with their counterparts and then spent two weeks learning about their new sites and communities. Anthony joined me on my visits to the trainees to check-in with them and see how they were doing and go over a final evaluation for their progress to approve them to swear in!

They all returned for three days of Bridge to Service training, which consisted of a few administrative matters and a lot of trainee presentations about their training experiences and their project areas. We concluded with a talent show and our training staff really set a high standard for ourselves with a fun spoof movie on Belizeans going off for Peace Corps America. We can't post that here, but are willing to share it if you'd like to laugh a lot! The swearing in ceremony occurred on Octbober 22nd and 40 new volunteers began their service the following day! That night we were invited to our new Ambassador's home for a lovely dinner and reception. We are really excited about Ambassador Thummalapally's enthusiasm for working with Peace Corps in our work here in Belize.

Once the hectic schedule of training concluded, we had one week to get our annual programming report ready for Washington, DC, so all of us in programming and training were working all day compiling volunteer's reports and data to combine it into one master report. I can assure all you volunteers out there that we DO use the information in those semi-annual reports and you ARE doing a lot of great things! Keep up the good work. It was interesting to see all the project work come together and look at the impact volunteers have had on Belize in the past year. Then, we headed out to Mexico for that wonderful week of relaxation. Once we returned, we caught up on some other project work, Anthony headed out to the Toledo district for an HIV/AIDS Outreach event and Ginnie jumped right into site development and had 5 meetings with principals to talk about requesting a volunteer and the work volunteers can do for them. This week, we participated in an intense training on Designing for Behavior Change (which is going to be such a useful method for framing volunteer's work - I wish we'd had this when we started) and now are turning right around to train the volunteers in it for their in-service training this week. We'll conclude training with a Thanksgiving Feast and then some rest on Thursday and right back into the site development and other projects! There's certainly never a dull moment these days :)

Please now, sit back, relax and enjoy the show... :)

Viva Mexico!!!

noreply@blogger.com (Belizean' A New Trail) — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 21:57:00 +0000

Yeah MEXICO!!!

After a long and sometimes grueling, but very eventful three months of Pre-Service Training, we were finally able to make an escape to a well earned week in Mexico. We left for Mexico Friday morning and hoped to at least make it halfway to our final destination in Playa Del Carmen and the Maya Riviera so that it wasn’t necessary to spend an entire day traveling. We arrived to Chetumal at around 3 o’clock in the afternoon, checked into Hotel Los Cocos and made way for the Plaze de las Americas shopping mall for some dinner and purchase of provisions for the upcoming stay. We had some yummy pizza at the food court with our friends from Corozal Town, grabbed some essentials for the trip, and then made our way back into the town for the evening.

Dia De Los Muertos arrangements; a silly sign that said 'Drugs & Deli'

On Saturday morning we headed out early to a rental car agency that we had arrangements with to pick up a vehicle for the duration of our trip. After much debate with the salesman and gathering that he was a bit too adamant about selling us additional and unnecessary insurance which we already had, we decided to go search out an alternative rental agency. We rented a small car (Ford Fiesta) from the company and were soon off on a rainy and windy Saturday in Chetumal. We drove out of town and began our 240 mile trek to Playa. It was really great to actually be driving down a regular highway that was well paved, painted, and sensibly organized, ohh Belize. Anyways, as we got along down the road, approximately seventy to eighty miles or so, we started to hear a weird noise from the back of the car, no sooner did we hear the noise then that we started to feel as though the car was drifting a little bit too much to just be strong wind. We stopped once again, got out, checked things over, and all looked fine. Being that neither one of us know anything whatsoever regarding the mechanics of a automobile, we felt that if the noise stopped, we were good to go. Well, as it turned out, we were good to go, at least for another 150 miles, though the noise did grow much louder and by the time we drove through the town of Tulum, our car was blowing more smoke from its tires than an Indy car driver taking corners at 200mph.

Some typical foods found at Mexican grocery stores; Yummy donuts with a Nestle Crunch topping (Anthony almost tried these, but thought it would be best to refrain)

We stopped once again, spoke with a police officer, and we were able to determine from the conversation that we should have spent more time learning the Spanish words for different car parts…who would’ve known they would come in so handy. Well, as it turned out there was some kind of serious problem with our braking and suspension system. Long story short, the policeman assured us that as long as we drove slowly and carefully we’d make it up to Playa del Carmen without a problem. We sort of left the town with our tail between our legs and hoping beyond hopes that this guy knew of what he spoke. Well, as you may imagine, the adventure continued from there. We drove about twenty more miles, about 30 or so short of our final destination, and then, on la carretera federal, the car all our lost control of itself and we were forced to stop and come up with plan B. After a bit of debate and discussion, especially since we were basically in Mexico on a highway in the absolute middle of nowhere and the skies were quickly darkening into night-time, we decided to unload all of our bags and things and attempt to wave down a passing car for a ride. After about ten minutes or so, a vehicle heading toward the north, passed us, slowed down, and backed up to pick us up. We borrowed the driver’s cell phone and attempted to call the car rental company and pass along the necessary information so that they could have the car towed.

This was the closest landmark to where our car called it quits en route to Playa

Things were a bit crazy as we called again and again trying to get the message out and clarify things. As it turned out, we made it to the hotel an hour or so later and were able to enlist the help of the front desk clerks to get things settled. Sunday morning the car rental agency sent out a representative who went through the incident report, etc and determined that the reason the car essentially broke down was because of a repair that had recently been done (or not) on the same part that malfunctioned for us. So, long story short, we were given a new vehicle and sent on our way to enjoy the remaining adventures. What would the rest of the week hold in store for us now that we had had such a grand exciting adventure before even reaching our final destination?

More decorations and displays for Dia de Los Muertos (Day of the Dead)

We finished off the night with an incredible dinner at La Palapa. Anthony had some fabulous salsa verde enchiladas suizas and Ginnie indulged in a ginormous mozzarella and vegetable sandwich. It was definitely a sweet end to a wild day.

Anthony with his delicious enchiladas verdes

On Sunday we spent the day hanging around the pool at our hotel and shopping in town before heading out to a party with some fellow Peace Corps workers and volunteers.

The view from our room :)

We spent a wonderful evening together telling funny stories, sharing good times, and enjoying an amazingly delicious barbeque dinner of turkey dogs, shrimp and chicken kabobs, salad, chips, and drinks. It was a great night, but slightly sad at the end when we all had to bid farewell to two friends who had finished their 3 years of service and were heading back to the United States.

Rooftop BBQ at our friend's place

Monday morning was yet another exciting day in el centro. Since it was our 4th wedding anniversary, we decided to search out a new restaurant and taste some unique and delicious food that we wouldn’t typically be able to find in Belize. After talking with a couple of people to get some recommendations and looking a plethora of menus and dining options, we decided to return to one of the first places we had stopped. The restaurant specializes in Mayan cuisine and was called Yaxche (http://www.mayacuisine.com/). We sat down in a beautiful dining room decorated with all types of Maya themed art, pictures, and tapestries. The menu was pretty extensive so it made it a bit difficult to narrow down our choices. We finally decided to start with a crepe filled with chaya (a leafy green vegetable similar to spinach) and oodles of cheese, covered in a delectable cream sauce that was simply delicious. After stuffing ourselves on this we started on our second basket of fiery nachos with garlic sauce and picante salsa. By the time it came time to actually order dinner, we were both already quite full, but decided to take on for the team, and go ahead in ordering dinner as well. Hey, we were already there, may as well, right? Anthony had a wonderful plat of chicken breast marinated in a tangerine and chili adobo sauce, and topped with mashed potatoes; Ginnie dove into a veggie fajita type dinner that was also equally amazing.

Tangerine chipotle chicken; a crepe stuffed with chaya and cheese; decorations outside the restaurant for Day of the Dead

As we left stuffed from our appetizer, two baskets of hot nachos, and entrees, the next thing on both of our minds was…Dessert. Not just any dessert, but rich, chocolaty, and delicious brownies from “Ah Cacao”; a place that was visited by Rachel Ray earlier in the year and given rave reviews for the best brownies ever. Well, to be perfectly honest, we just weren’t sure they were the best brownies ever, so it was necessary to return to try them a couple of more times. Officially, Anthony called these delectable delights the best brownies he had ever laid his teeth into. All in all, it turned out to be quite a memorable day.

Anthony's yummy brownie from Ah Cacao

Over the course of the remaining days, we visited a couple more places around the area. One day was spent at Tulum. The Maya site may have been formerly also known by the name Zama, meaning city of Dawn. Tulúm is also the Yucatec Mayan word for fence or wall, and the walls surrounding the site allowed the Tulum fort to serve as a defense against invasion.

Pics from all over Tulum

From the numerous depictions in murals and other works around the site, Tulum appears to have been an important site for the worship of the Diving or Descending god. Both coastal and land routes converged at Tulum which is apparent by the number of artifacts found in or near the site that show contacts with areas all over Central Mexico and Central America. Copper artifacts from the Mexican highlands have been found near the site, as have flint artifacts, ceramics, incense burners, and gold objects from all over the Yucatan. Salt and textiles were among some of the goods brought to Tulum by sea that would then be dispersed inland. Typical exported goods included feathers and copper objects that came from inland sources. (Information gathered from http://www.tulum.com/)

Lots more Tulum photos

The next was dedicated to a complimentary entrance and day of feasting, snorkeling, and river tubing at Eco-Park called Xel-Ha (pronounced Shel-la). Check out there site for more information www.xelha.com . We also squeezed in a lot of reading and swimming at the fabulous pools and beach outside our doors.

The lagoon at Xel-Ha; Relaxing after a lot of snorkling and eating, but not necessarily in that order :)

On the last day before our return to Belize, it started raining (the start of hurricane Ida), so we decided to do a little pottery painting and decoration. The different phases are in the pictures below. We were quite impressed with our finally product, that before adding the lacquer, was polished up by the resident artist. We were really happy with the final result, and fortunately it made itself back to Belize in one piece.

The stages of our fish ceramic work

On Saturday, we began our long journey back to Belmopan at approximately 8am and finally stepped back into our house at 7pm. It was a wonderful week, filled with many memorable moments, great food, and new and exciting learning opportunities.

Yet another delicious brownie

The road home to Belize from Mexico (a whole lot of trees, jungle, and not much else along the road for about 300 miles); Back to Belize - the border at Santa Elena

The sea breeze. Mexico. Birthday. Fun!

noreply@blogger.com (Belizean' A New Trail) — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 19:24:00 +0000

We finally took a trip up north for Ginnie's birthday. Fortunately, the trainees' visits to PCVs sites fell on her birthday weekend, so we planned a trip to Chetumal, Mexico for some shopping, as well as to get away for rest and relaxation at the mid-point of community-based training.

The trip gave us our first chance to see Corozal and finally spend some time with our good friend Mateo in his site. Corozal is absolutely beautiful - we loved being able to spend the weekend overlooking the beautiful blue-green water of the bay.

Beginning on Friday afternoon, we hopped the bus heading to Belize City to transfer to a northbound bus. After nearly 5 hours, we reached and found ourselves at The Sea Breeze Inn where we settled in and headed out for dinner and then a restful evening so we were alert and ready to go early in the AM. In the morning, we met Mateo, got our pesos, and hopped on a bus bound for Mexico! Just about 30 minutes later, we were crossing the border and into a whole new world.

The sign outside the bus station pointing us to our destination!

Our plan for the day was simple - go to the mall and shop, eat, and see a movie (if time allowed). We never made it to the movie because we just took our time enjoying browsing the stores. Strangely enough, our favorite was the ginormous Chedraui, which reminds us of a WalMart-type place. The aisles are so long and stocked full of so many choices, it was paradise. Not to mention the bakery and panaderia were filled with the most delicious-looking (and tasting, as we discovered) treats.

We were mesmerized by the bakery - look at those doughnuts and muffins, so many flavors!

There are fruit loops on these muffins - who would have thought of cooking muffins with cereal? They had zucaritas muffins and cocoa puff muffins, too.

All decked out for Mexican Independence Day

Granted they don't celebrate Thanksgiving, but isn't it still early for Christmas supplies?

They have a lot of flavors of Oreos that I've never seen, having been in Belize for so long; this one caught my eye since choco-bananas are such a staple treat around here. Considering I do not like banana flavor, I could not justify purchasing them, but the photo was a must!

I really miss Special K! Look how much cereal this store has! We're lucky to get three shelves of a half aisle (and an aisle is not very long, folks!)

Anthony wanted to share the fun flavors all the North American folks are missing out on

During all that shopping in the mall, we never stopped to eat (well, ok, Ginnie did get some gelato) so in the taxi ride back to the border, she had her birthday doughnut and coke zero {that is the best doughnut she's ever had, she thinks, but it may be perspective since it's rare to eat a doughnut these days}

The clock tower in a park in Corozal looks so pretty against that bright blue sky

Just hanging out by the bay on Ginnie's birthday

We got pizza for the birthday dinner, and this sign was in the restaurant; we found it a bit funny

I love pizza, especially on my birthday! Somehow, it had ham under the cheese even though we did ask for no meat at all. The woman said there was no meat at all (maybe she doesn't consider pork meat?). It was all good, we just picked it off and the friendly cat who hung out with us ate most of it.

We had a pretty nice view as we ate during sunset.

Even though it's blurry, I like this picture

I wonder where my next birthday will find me?

Wi mi deh rait ya!

noreply@blogger.com (Belizean' A New Trail) — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 16:18:00 +0000

So. We haven’t updated the blog in quite a while. We’ve been a bit busy since last we wrote, so here’s the quick review of the past couple months. Enjoy!

We had a few dinners at the Riverside Tavern to say farewell to COSing PCVs - it was hard to see them go, but we expect to stay in touch!

We shared a host family with Mary back in the Armenia days

We participated in the graduation ceremonies for our schools (once again on the same night so we couldn’t attend both).

We celebrated St. Luke’s graduation with another night of dinner and dancing at the Smoky Mermaid. Ginnie attended her last official meeting with the Leadership Group at YES (but she’ll be going back when she has free Saturdays again!) where she was surprised with a beautiful song sung by Menisha that brought tears to all.

We took our first trip to the United States of America in over two years and enjoyed meeting and playing with our niece Siena and our nephew Domenic. Wish we could have seen the other nephews spread out around the country. We ate a lot of our favorite dishes, cooked some of our faves for the family, celebrated the 4th of July, and quickly caught up with friends. Among it all we did some shopping and even got out to the zoo with the kids. What a trip! (Side note: what is the story with all those magazines up there – apparently we did not notice the abundance of magazines on every topic; while delayed in Miami we were stunned by the entire wall devoted entirely to magazines. Okay, enough on that. By the way, we went to the bookstore. It was awesome!). Oh, we ate a lot of good ice cream, too; how we miss good ice cream!

We returned to Belize and celebrated the wedding of our friends Melissa and Dyon – it was such a beautiful day at the House of Culture and we loved being able to be part of it.

Work began in the office and Ginnie switched out of her PCV role into her new job as a programming and training specialist while Anthony jumped right into his new role as volunteer leader. We commuted for a couple weeks and it wasn’t fun and now we live in Belmopan. It’s quite a difference from the city; while it is considered a city itself, we certainly feel we have moved to the jungle – we have creatures we did not encounter in the city and we no longer have the luxury of the many amenities available to us both in our home and in our neighborhoods. It’s good – Ginnie’s adapting well to life without a TV (actually, it’s kind of nice to not have it; I never realized how much time it sucked away and we’ve been able to stock up on some TV series on DVD, which is the best way to go since we don’t have to deal with commercials and weeks between episodes. I’ll see how long I go, I actually mostly miss the morning shows from Belize that I watched everyday) and Anthony’s gonna be a pro at choppin’ the yard with the machete in no time. We’re really getting stronger muscles with washing laundry in a bucket and Maya is helping with critter hunting on a nightly basis, so all is well. We have a great yard with a mango tree, a lime tree, a coconut tree, and a craboo tree so we are not complaining! Sadly, our mangoes are finished for the season, but we’ve still been able to get really ginormous mangoes at the market.

Zach, the best German Shepherd watchdog ever

Our old veranda - we miss that bus seat!

Anthony's new skill - choppin' the yard

Maya chasing butterflies - we wonder what she would do if she actually caught one

Finally, a place to relax after work!

This is a ginormous mango that only cost $1

This is a mango from our tree!

Maya's first weekend in Belize

Just after we started in the office Camp GLOW 2009 was held and we both took part in the week as leaders and session facilitators; Anthony was even the head chef for pizza night and taught all the girls how to make their own pizzas from scratch (41 in all). It was a really fun camp and the girls loved it! Definitely still up there as Ginnie’s favorite Peace Corps project fi true!

Belize City girls on their way to camp

Arts and crafts

Giving instruction on how to pat out the dough and make the pizza

Who doesn't love pizza?

Belize city girls with their certificates

Anthony helped Ginnie cut off 12 inches of hair to donate. She still had fairly long hair, but somehow the hairdresser took off about 2 more inches despite several comments on wanting to keep it long. Oh well, the shorter hair is a new look and Ginnie’s adapting. It’s certainly a lot cooler in this Belizean climate, that’s for sure!

Just before cutting - it was really long; I was tempted to keep growing it to see how long it could get, but finally just had to let it go!

Pre-service training began in August and we’ve both been super busy helping the new class prepare for service. Ginnie is responsible for training the education group and is loving working with them. Anthony has been a major help with much of the programming and training as well, and has already done sessions for many of the different training sectors (thanks for helping out when our guest speakers didn’t show up!). It’s got us working 7-day weeks, but it’s worth it for the experiences we get to see the trainees having – it’s really fun to see them experience Belize for the first time and think back to our own training and first year. Hard to believe it was only two years ago that we began this journey. Ginnie took the trainees on a tour of the southern placement sites and it was a ton of fun (wish Anthony could have joined us, but he was slaving away at the office in Belmopan). It was only her second trip to the Toledo district and she explored several villages and had a great time meeting principals and touring schools. Belize is an absolutely beautiful country filled with so many nice, welcoming people – it’s why we love it (and why you should visit...soon :)

The trainees just arriving

Education trainees in Santa Teresa village; look at how color-coordinated this group is :)

We’re heading for our first trip to the northern border. I know, it’s ridiculous that we haven’t been in the entire time we’ve lived here. It’ll be a great little break from training since the trainees will be off on their visits with volunteers and we have an entire free weekend – just in time for a birthday trip to Mexico for shopping, movies, and enjoying the seaside.

"This Day Ill!" (aka Club GLOW Fun Day)

noreply@blogger.com (Belizean' A New Trail) — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 04:00:00 +0000

Today 6 GLOW girls came over for our end-of-year party. It was described by Nolvia in the words of the title, "This day ILL!" I am really glad they had such a good time. I don't think Anthony or I sat down once during the 4 hour festivities, but we really enjoyed it. "Big op" to Anthony for being our pizza dough chef, our tie-dye timer and rinser, and all-around awesome support.

The day began with tie dye (thanks to Erin and Mrs. Tarzia for the dyes) since we needed time for the shirts to soak, rinse, and hang. The girls enjoyed making random knots and patterns with their elastic bands to see what surprises would be in store once the shirts were finished. We had a grand plan to mix colors to make a few more options, but the girls were most happy with red and blue.The day continued with making personal pizzas on Anthony's infamous whole wheat dough. We offered pineapple as a topping and no one took us up on it - no adventurers today. The girls loved tomatoes, onions, and cheese: lots of cheese :) We also made Ginnie's banana-oatmeal cookies. They are a modified recipe from applesauce-oatmeal cookies; since bananas are super affordable, the recipe is one the girls can bring home to make (Yolanda even wrote it today to take home). All the girls took part in the cookie making process and were eager to measure, mix, and shape the cookies; and even more eager to eat them!

While the pizza was cooking, the girls sorted through the variety of beads to select what they wanted to use to make bracelets and necklaces. We also popped in the movie "Cinderella Story," which Taniesha brought along. Once bellies were full with pizza, the girls finished the movie and an intense game of UNO began. In the meantime, shirts made their way through the tie-dye process and the cookies came out of the oven and found their way immediately to the girls' bellies. I gave the girls their gift bags filled with fun activity pads, crayons, stamps, erasers, and a personal card reminding them how special they are.

The day truly was a fun day; Anthony and I were pretty pooped after all the energy and excitement of a house filled with pre-adolescent girls, but it was worth it for the giggles and the smiles. I have really loved working with GLOW and am so proud of the girls for being leaders in their lives and communities. I have no doubt these young women will take Belize by storm and succeed in everything they do. They have made my life richer for being a part of it and I will always have a special place for them in my heart - I love you, GLOW girls: Keep GLOWing!

Trinity's Standard Six Banquet

noreply@blogger.com (Belizean' A New Trail) — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 04:00:00 +0000

Last night Trinity held its banquet for Standard VI students. Like last year, the big event took place at The Smokey Mermaid restaurant at the Radisson Fort George Hotel. It was a really fun night: the students looked amazing in their beautiful dresses and fancy suits, the meal was delish-os, and the dancing was all about the punta. Students had a great time and we enjoyed celebrating with them.

My dress was made by this teacher. We talked months ago about the design idea and she made it entirely from scratch with no pattern - just a picture I drew, my measurements, and 2 yards of fabric. I love it!

Mariesha is a GLOW girl. I am very proud of her as she heads off to high school!

The staff had just as much, if not moreso, fun as the students dancing the night away. I joined in and Anthony even showed off a move or two, helping a teacher win her bet that he would dance. I suspect he'll do far more dancing at his banquet when we switch roles and I play photographer (although, I know his teachers will not let me get away with using that as an excuse not to dance...)

The students give a big cheer of excitement for their accomplishment in finishing primary school. Congratulations, Standard VI!!

TMS Library Opening Ceremony

noreply@blogger.com (Belizean' A New Trail) — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 00:30:00 +0000

The Trinity Methodist School Library is now officially finished and ready for use by the teachers and students of the school!

On Thursday, the 18th, we held our formal opening ceremony. A couple teachers and students met early in the morning to decorate the library for our invited guests. Anthony came along as well and helped with final placement of our posters (some of which he was instrumental in designing!).

The ceremony took place in the church and involved a few speeches, items performed by students in each of the three divisions, and a very touching certificate presentation to Ginnie. Our goal was to inspire the children to enjoy reading and get excited about the books. The looks on their faces as they came into their new library showed their enthusiasm and eagerness to begin browsing the shelves and opening their minds to the wonderful world of books!

Immediately following the ceremony, the invited guests (which included our Reverend and Local Manager, Reverand Goff; the Methodist Schools' General Manager, Mrs. Bennett; our PC PTO Bryan; and Ginnie's counterpart from YES, Inda) joined some teachers and the student library monitors for a ribbon cutting. Ginnie and Mrs. Bennett were given the task of cutting the ribbon but Ginnie's scissors couldn't get through the material! Mrs. Bennett got a clean cut on her first try, but everyone insisted we get the other side cut, so with some persistence Ginnie made it happen!

The guests and library monitors then spent time browsing the shelves and sharing stories of their favorite books. We began to notice the students separating themselves with a selected book and getting right to reading, despite all the discussion surrounding them! It was fabulous :)

Ginnie's dear friend, Lindy, joined the gathering and sought out a Mickey Mouse book to read. As we flipped through the pages he took over the story, picture-reading a suspenseful tale involving Mickey and the Barracuda Triangle and an evil plot to destroy Mickey's planet. He's quite a story teller. After lunch, Ginnie brought each of the classes up to the library for their first official visit. Many children have been in and out to help and to take a peek, but for several this was the first time seeing their new library; the looks of excitement and wonder as they walked in made all the months of work well worth the effort. The Infant II class got so excited when I took their picture, they held up the books they had selected to browse. Teachers remarked on how quiet all the children were when they sat to look through the books; one even said she wasn't sure how this space could transform so greatly and wondered months ago if it would be finished and now she just wants to bring her class all the time. She's already asked for all of Ginnie's library activities!

Everyone at Trinity is extremely grateful to all of the family and friends who made this library possible through book donations, funding support, and conducting book collections. We can't express enough gratitude to show our appreciation!

Here are a few of Ginnie's favorite library quotes; she used them in her remarks for the ceremony.

“The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you'll go.” ~Dr. Seuss

“I've traveled the world twice over,
Met the famous; saints and sinners,
Poets and artists, kings and queens,
Old stars and hopeful beginners,
I've been where no-one's been before,
Learned secrets from writers and cooks
All with one library ticket
To the wonderful world of books.”

~ Anonymous ~

"A library is a hospital for the mind." ~ Anonymous

It's So Hard to Say Goodbye

noreply@blogger.com (Belizean' A New Trail) — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 00:29:00 +0000

Reflections by Ginnie

Two weeks. Two years has come down to two final weeks. “Where did the time go?” - I ask myself this question multiple times a day lately. There were certainly moments in the past two years when I asked, “How much longer do I have?” but those were few and now I am feeling blue that only two weeks remain.

In my true Ginnie style, I have myself pretty fully booked for these last two weeks of service – a library opening to prepare for, a final teen mom session, the Club GLOW Fun Day, a session with the leadership group, and Standard VI graduation events – so there isn’t much time to just brood, but I can’t help feel at every moment that I need to take it all in because this is the “last time I’ll see/do ... .” Fortunately, I have the solace in knowing that I am not leaving Belize, but it doesn’t make it any easier to say goodbye to my volunteer projects and all the people who have been my family, friends, support, coworkers, and so much more throughout this adventure. I am feeling very excited to continue to be a part of Peace Corps’ work in Belize and know this is the right next step and a good way to continue my service to the people who have so openly welcomed me into their lives and culture.

When Anthony and I decided several years ago that we would join the Peace Corps, I could only imagine how this experience would impact my life. I had no real expectations, just wanted to do what I could to help the community in which I was placed and to learn all I could about a new culture. This experience has been the greatest of my life so far, and I am extremely grateful to have Anthony right by my side to share it. He earns much of the credit for getting us to this moment as he has been considering Peace Corps service since at least his college days. We found the ideal time in our lives to take on this journey; it's only inspired us to continue to dedicate ourselves to work we find meaningful and valuable and which helps others develop into their best selves. Peace Corps is such an outstanding organization and I believe strongly in the three goals and the vision of the grass-roots development work we do. By living and working with the people of our communities, we truly became a real part of their way of life. The only problem: it’s temporary and eventually we have to part ways.

I often wonder why I have continually chosen positions in which I am forced to say goodbye to people annually: teaching, higher education, and now Peace Corps. I always see these times as bittersweet – we’ve reached the goal we set for ourselves and our projects and we can move on confidently to the next step, but we have to say goodbye to the people and moments that have impacted us so strongly in the course of our interactions during this time together. I am proud of the teachers, young women, and children with whom I have been so lucky to work and I hope I will find ways to stay connected. Certainly some of us will be in touch always, others may occasionally catch up, but still others will have only had these two years to be in my life (and I in theirs) and it’s hard to close out those relationships. It occurred to me today as I rode my beach cruiser through my neighborhood passing the shops who supply me with all my needs that I am saying goodbye to those relationships as well: my friend at the grocery shop who always gives me random discounts, the ladies at Chef who sell me my tofu, the family at the corner shop who provide our water, cokes, and brief chats... I will always have Belize in my heart and know this will be a home for me forever. I have an understanding of Belize that I will try to share with my friends and family; I sincerely hope I will be able to do justice to the beauty of the people and cultures of this lee, young nation. The most difficult goodbyes, however, are the ones I have to make to the children. Somehow, despite my numerous attempts at preparing them for my departure, they still register looks of utter shock when they ask “Miss, will you be here when school starts?” and I remind them that my service is finished when the school year ends. They are breaking my heart slowly each day. For some children, I may be the only person who pays close attention to them and shows them love, so it makes it that much harder for me to know I will not be there when they look for me in September. I still remember my second day at the school (which was also my birthday) when a young boy came right up to me as I walked onto the compound and just gave me a big hug; I have grown used to this daily ritual from various pikni and will greatly miss their love, too. I was overwhelmed with the scope of my role at that time and the one lee hug was enough to remind me why I came.

For all the sadness of saying goodbye, this experience was well worth every moment, and I am so thankful to now be a little Belizean. Belize gets in your blood (it may be partly due to the copious amounts of Marie Sharps and beans and rice, but primarily to the wonderful people). I am also grateful for all of my family and friends in the US who have supported both Anthony and me through this journey and have even helped our projects – thanks for everything. And to my Belizean family – you are an amazing group of people with so much potential, you will achieve your goals with persistence and determination and your undying faith and I will always be enamored with you and your incredible country.

In the words of that wise philosopher, Dr. Seuss: “How did it get so late so soon? Its night before its afternoon. December is here before its June. My goodness how the time has flewn. How did it get so late so soon?”; “Don’t cry because it’s over. Smile because it happened.”

... and I’ll take with me the memories ...

New Mailing Address

noreply@blogger.com (Belizean' A New Trail) — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 22:41:00 +0000

With school coming to a close on June 26th and our new roles with Peace Corps we have a new mailing address (it'll remain listed under the mailing information tab to the right).

Virginia Gordon/Anthony Tarzia

Peace Corps Belize

PO Box 492

Belmopan, Belize

Central America

Anything mailed to the school at this point will not make it to us before the 26th, so please begin using the new address.

As always, please let us know if you send something so we can look out for it.

We'll have some new posts about our end-of-school activities and the official opening ceremony for the Trinity Library soon! Take care of you in the meantime :)

Outreach Activities in Orange Walk District

noreply@blogger.com (Belizean' A New Trail) — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 20:55:00 +0000

Over the last week we were out and about at different training and outreach events for the HIV/AIDS Committee. On Tuesday Anthony participated in a training event in Belmopan that was run by PASMO (Pan American Social Marketing Organization). The training discussed different methods and ideas for organizing and running successful community outreach events. The day concluded with a short stint at the Belmopan Market where committee members and their counterparts ran a satellite table to distribute materials and educate people on the HIV/AIDS.

On Thursday, we both headed up north to Orange Walk town where we met and worked with a few other volunteers, The Women’s Department, and the Belize Family Life Association. The festivities began early on Friday morning when we all piled into a truck and drove out to the villages on the outskirts of town. The first stop was a small rural agricultural high school. While at the high school, we set up a tent and a couple of tables to meet with students, play games, and share information about HIV/AIDS and other STIs. The students were very eager to join in the fun and really seemed to take away a lot of important health information. The main purpose of our visit, however, was to visit each of the classrooms and facilitate four 45 minute sessions with the students. We began with brief, but thorough, discussions on specifics related to HIV and AIDS and then entered into a couple of games, which really helped the students get moving up and about the class. One of the games we played was focused on Healthy and Risky choices. Students were read a statement and asked to travel around the classroom to the spot that they most agreed on (Safe, Low Risk, and High Risk). After they reached their spots, we questioned them as to their choices and asked them to also tell the rest of the class why they believed what they did. We did this for around 125 students aged 13-17. It was a lot of fun, and the students really seemed to enjoy having some new faces in their classroom.

Anthony working around the satellite table; Ginnie back in her element as she teaches high school students about HIV/AIDS

Anthony questions students about their choices as they play through a risk game

After leaving the high school, we headed out to August Pine Ridge, a village of about 2500 people. In August Pine Ridge we met up at the primary school with a fellow volunteer and spent the afternoon first presenting to students different lessons on health and well-being and then utilized the remainder of the day as an opportunity to reach out to the remaining children and young adults through some games and other related activities.

When we first arrived in town, the school was closed early for the day. We waited for a student to run and grab a key, and in the meantime a few kids thought it easier to just open the door by twisting their hand through an opening in one of the classrooms. It was pretty hilarious as the first boy's hand was too big and they had to send for one smaller boy whose hand would easily fit to open the door. They are quite resourceful, we'll give 'em that.

Anthony throws out some tough questions at the students of August Pine Ridge Primary School

The children not answering questions, or just waiting their turn, took time to play

It was a really long day, but definitely filled with lots of fun. The kids all played around the tables as their friends participated in different games. As we drove off, we all felt that it had been a great success and were already planning and looking forward to setting up more events just like it. We returned to town and reached with just barely enough time to grab a snack before heading back out to the BFLA office to help the youth group make posters for their Saturday March in town.

More kids being entertained by a spare truck tire; a few boys try their hand at some of our table games

Even as we packed up and took down the tent, many students would not stop helping us out and thanking us for the visit

The 5 PCVs who helped out with this event, pose for a brief photo op at the end of a long day (Anthony, Olivia, Jackie, Ms. Jemma from BFLA, Matt, and Ginnie)

A cow looks on as we pass; one of the many sugar cane trucks that pass along the road from the fields to a processing plant closer to Orange Walk town

On Saturday, Anthony assisted a couple of other volunteers with organizing the different groups to march through town in their mini rally. We had about 60-70 young people come out with signs and chants who marched for 45 minutes promoting healthy lifestyles, good choices, and self esteem.

Some of the different youth groups prepping for the march on Saturday morning

The young Belize cadets hold their signs as they wait patiently for the march to begin

The rally was quite a success and was well organized. After the rally, we returned to the market area where the remainder of the day was spent running an informational table, doing rapid HIV testing, and providing materials to the many people who came through the market that day. It was a tiring, but exciting, few days; by the time things were over, we were all ready for a long rest.

Our March from the tail end as we wind back toward the center of town

The kids taking a well deserved break after the long and quite toasty morning march

COS & Futbol

noreply@blogger.com (Belizean' A New Trail) — Mon, 25 May 2009 19:14:00 +0000

In the middle of May our PCV cohort (commonly called Omnibus ’09 or BZ 45) came together for our COS (Close/Continuation of Service) Conference in beautiful San Ignacio at the Cahal Pech resort. The resort is atop a hill right next to the Maya ruins of Cahal Pech and overlooks the town of San Ignacio and the beautiful hilly countryside that is western Belize.

The conference provided all of we COSing volunteers one last opportunity to spend time together as a group as we reviewed all the many things we need to do before we can be cleared out of the government system (medical, paperwork, closing out Belizean accounts, etc). Cahal Pech was a perfect spot, they provided us with wonderful accommodations, the luxury of two swimming pools, and some of the best meals we’ve had!

While it’s a bittersweet time, it was great to be able to see our PCV family together to say our farewells and share memories of the past two years. With the official COS date of August 21^st rapidly approaching we will all be on our separate ways before we know it (anytime between July 22nd and September 21^st). We received our “diplomas” and the COS committee members also shared special certificates with everyone stating what makes each such an important part of our group. We both truly feel that BZ 45 is an amazing group of people – we came together as strangers in Miami nearly two years ago and each of us has built strong connections and relationships with one another. It’s a great group of people to share this experience with and to know will always be important parts of our lives. Our PC family is a strong one – we went through a lot of challenges as a group and that certainly served an important role in making us so tight. It also suddenly hit us that most of these people will no longer be here in Belize as Anthony and I continue our work with Peace Corps for the coming year; that's sad.

Look at us - from swearing in to COS; 2 incredible years!

Following the conference, the Gibnuts (PC Belize’s own football {soccer} team) played an afternoon game. This was followed immediately by the first ever PC Belize women’s team game! Way back at AVC in February the idea was presented to put together a female team. Ginnie supported it, but didn’t intend to play – just cheer them on. Anthony felt it important to share with the team coordinator, Rachel, that Ginnie played sweeper on the club field hockey team at Stonehill – so then Rachels’ charm and persuasion could not be overcome and Ginnie found herself ordering a uniform. As the game approached, I grew more and more apprehensive and did not want to be running around in the hot hot sun of the stadium (where I nearly passed out of heat exhaustion back at the Bandfest in April). Nevertheless, my sense of commitment and responsibility was too strong and I couldn’t let the team down. Fortunately, Nicole was happy to play in the second half, so I played photographer! I had a lot of fun playing in the game and while it’s quite evident I am not good at football, I did my best! The high school team we played was really good – they worried me when I saw them coming to the field. The majority of the game took place on our defensive side, so I definitely got a workout. I was often paired with Mini G from the other team – great name, wish I’d thought of it for my jersey J

The team really came together more in the second half as everyone got to know each other’s strengths but we still never did manage to make it to the other goal. Nonetheless, it was a lot of fun and I am glad I played. Our goalie, the fabulous Miss Mica, was named Player of the Game because she worked her butt off in the goal and kept the game from being a total massacre. Everyone on the field did awesome and it was a true WID/GAD experience when the husbands and boyfriends and other males in attendance came over at halftime to give the girls water and encouragement. It was a great afternoon which ended in a trip to Cayo Twist where I finally splurged and got the banana split (it was my reward for following through with playing in the game and was definitely worth it!).

That night many of us stayed in Cayo for one final night. We filled up the lee movie theatre with PCVs to watch The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Some of us fell asleep during the show, but it was fun anyway J

TMS Library Update

noreply@blogger.com (Belizean' A New Trail) — Sat, 23 May 2009 11:05:00 +0000

The library is finally looking like a library! One day I returned to school after being away for Peace Corps meetings and the principal surprised me by telling me she ordered a bookcase. We were worried when we got an initial quote for $500 BZD for ONE case. We would not have been able to set up the library at that rate. Fortunately, she found a Mennonite carpenter (most carpentry is their work, but we’d started with connections we thought would give good deals) who made the case for $160BZD! It looked good, so we ordered 3 more, plus two tables and ten chairs (all with the grant money many of you so kindly provided) – they arrived today! Anthony and I (and a group of students) spent the afternoon re-organizing books one final time! Since we have nearly 4300 books we were unable to finish shelving all of them, but we did get all the children’s books and board books on the shelves; just have the chapter books, special category books, subject books, teacher resource books, and reference books to finish. Yes, that sounds like quite a lot but I will spend every minute in there next week until it is finished so we can get those Library Tours going and have an opening at the start of June!!

A few weeks ago, when we weren’t sure what would happen furniture-wise, I spent a day moving books and then Anthony joined me the following day for an afternoon of cleaning out the room and setting up baskets of pre-selected books which we would have the children borrow from since the stacks on the shelves are not conducive to browsing. Now that the bookcases are here, those baskets found a new use for the hundreds of board books and for class sets of borrowed books for the lower division.

Prior to setting up the browsing baskets, I visited every class and gave a Book Tour Lesson in which students learned about the features of books, discussed appropriate treatment of books (they did great at coming up with all the rules on their own – such as not throwing them on the floor or “whopping” other kids with them), how to find appropriately leveled books in our cataloging system, and the types of books we have for borrowing. I wondered if I would need to cover all the features, but it was definitely helpful since many of the students had never been specifically taught this information before – including the upper division classes. Once the shelves are set and the library is ready, I will be taking each class for a tour and then the borrowing will begin!

YES: Leadership Group and Parenting Classes

noreply@blogger.com (Belizean' A New Trail) — Sat, 23 May 2009 01:11:00 +0000

Things at YES are going well. Ginnie planned an assertive communication session for the April Leadership Group meeting and the girls were excellent participants in the many activities planned to practice passive, assertive, and aggressive communication styles. The aggressive scenarios always ended up with laughs because when the girls rail up on each other in Kriol it is something – you do not want to get into a confrontation with a strong Kriol woman! I forgot the camera that day, but Ms. Inda took some photos with the office camera. I will get some from her and post when I can.

The most recent activity has been a three week parenting class. I took on the topic of nutrition and spent weeks researching everything about nutrition for pregnancy, infancy, and toddler years. I even spent countless hours calculating the nutrition facts of commonly used foods here in Belize (there is a great site http://www.nutritiondata.com/ in which you can input nearly any food and find out its values). I focused on the ingredients so the information can then be used to create a nutrition fact sheet for an entire meal once broken down – a lot of work, but quite a valuable tool! The session went really well – the moms participated in all the activities of identifying the categories on the new USDA food guide pyramid and then taking common Belizean foods and putting them into the different categories. They also played the Most Nutritious/Least Nutritious food choice game and did a good job of identifying the better choices. They closed by creating a weekly menu based on a balance of the foods we need each day. It was a lot of fun and I hope they will try to make some small changes to increase the nutritional content of their meals. Just using brown rice for white rice will be a huge step and a big health boost.

Graduation for the parenting class was held yesterday and the moms looked great. Their closing session was all about taking care of themselves and finding ways to make time for themselves every day. It was fun to spend these sessions with them and I am looking forward to our next support group/information session on June 5^th. I’ve been asked to facilitate on the topic of post-natal depression... back to the research!

Our next leadership group meeting is on May 30^th and we planned a really great discussion session on teen pregnancy because both Ms. Inda and I are concerned about the fact that we still have so many new mothers (even some from leadership group). We want to try and learn why girls still engage in risky behaviors when they are informed about protection and consequences associated with unprotected sex. It could be a very good discussion and eye-opening for us.

In other YES projects, work on the “My Future is Not For Sale” campaign has been going for months. The campaign targets intergenerational transactional sex and human trafficking. Peer educators have visited several schools to talk with upper division students about these topics and do activities with them. I was able to sit in on the presentation at Trinity and offer support. We hope that by educating young people they will be able to identify ITS and get information on who to contact if they realize they or someone they know is in this situation.

I really enjoy my work with YES and plan to continue working with the leadership group since we meet on Saturdays and I will be around.

GLOWin' Girls

noreply@blogger.com (Belizean' A New Trail) — Fri, 22 May 2009 02:14:00 +0000

The Club is going strong. We’ve had some really great sessions over the last several weeks. We’ve been making crafts, discussing issues of body image and wellness, and even began making jewelry.

During the body image session, the girls looked through magazines for images of beauty and we discussed how they made their selections and why we think certain woman are considered beautiful. The girls had strong opinions about too much makeup, tattoos, and revealing clothing. They got into arguments over some of the pictures selected when they thought the woman had too much makeup (in fact it was a Cover Girl ad) or a tattoo or showed too much skin. They then selected their favorite features of their own bodies as well as their least favorite. We talked about loving ourselves as we are and finding the beauty that each of us has. It was a great conversation and nice to see the girls really express themselves and their opinions.

This week, PCV Olivia came down from her village up north to teach the girls (and me) about beading. I purchased supplies and beads in Orange Walk town several weeks ago in preparation for the session and then received two packages full of beads (thank you to Mrs. Tarzia and Nikita’s 6^th grade class!).

I didn’t tell the girls what we would be doing; just that a friend was coming and it would be fun.

They were so excited when they saw the beads and really enjoyed picking through them to come up with a bracelet design. We had a few spills, but everyone was happy with their projects. The heat and sweaty hands did not help as we tried to tie off the bracelets so we sent some of the girls home with their string and beads. I made a pair of earrings earlier as Olivia taught me how to use the tools and I am pretty happy with them – one of the girls (who is not in the club because she is still too young, but happened to be in the library browsing through books) wanted to know why I didn’t have my new earrings on yesterday already!

The planning for Camp 2009 has begun and the committee and campers are in the midst of fundraising. Olivia and I traveled all over the city this week dropping off sponsor letters and talking about the camp. We already raised $720BZD and will be following up with everyone in a week. Other districts have also been busy fundraising and we are making progress toward our goal of raising $6000BZD so we can hold a four-day leadership camp for 30 girls from all over the country. We don’t want the girls to have to pay for the experience so the sponsorship we have received will cover all expenses. If all goes well, camp will be held from July 21^st – 25^th in Camalote and will be my final activity as a PCV. I’m getting excited to hold some bake sales at school to continue to raise funds so the Belize City girls will be covered for their camp experience. GLOW continues to be one of my favorite activities and I am glad it will bring my service to a close.

Good Eats, or Tertiary Project Gone Wild!

noreply@blogger.com (Belizean' A New Trail) — Sun, 10 May 2009 16:35:00 +0000

So, you may recall we've been doing a lot of experimenting in the kitchen and Ginnie's actually become quite enamored with cooking in general, baking in particular. This is a highly unexpected development in her abilities, but she has taken it on full force. Ok, let me just finish this one off myself – I love it, who would have predicted that?

Well, it’s really become a huge habit that involves losing myself for hours searching for and reading through recipes to come up with ideas and adaptations using available produce and such here in Belize. Having been working at it for over a year now, I’ve really learned a lot of cool techniques and now come up with my own recipes much more frequently. We have both also learned the importance of good seasonings and spices and have of course found my favorites – we have gone through ridiculous amounts of chili powder, cumin, and cinnamon (that’s for the baking my friends, but I do toss it in a few other dishes to give them that little something special!). We also find it quite interesting that we are on our third one of those Morton’s Salt things – all our lives we never saw any of those finished. I thought they just sat on shelves, but we use them. Because we are very health-conscious cooks, it’s not used exorbitantly, but you can finish those things with regular use (especially baking). We also have gone through a few things of unsweetened cocoa powder – it’s so perfect for Anthony's no-bake cookies and I love to make brownies and have discovered a pretty fantastic devil’s food cake recipe that involves a good deal of the precious powder.

I’m not a huge chocolate- lover, but that cake is pretty awesome and Ant has been asking me to make more ever since he indulged on the ginormous one made for his birthday. Our other major staples are fresh onions, fresh garlic (which I often wonder if my hands will permanently smell like since I chop so much of it!), and fresh tomatoes – nearly every meal begins with a sauté of onion and garlic to get things going. Depending on the cuisine, it will then be accompanied by any number of spices, seasonings, and other fresh produce. And, of course, no Belizean kitchen would be complete without a bottle of pepper sauce – our top choice is good ‘ole Marie Sharp’s (we will be placing online orders if we have to when no longer in Belize – this stuff is addicting and just gives that little kick to EVERYTHING we eat – seriously, well not the baked goods, but you know dinners. and lunches. and sometimes popcorn.)

Well, anyway, back to the point. We have primary and secondary projects in Peace Corps (we’ve described those before, but in brief they are our assigned projects and our independent projects). I have been calling all this cooking my tertiary project since it developed out of a desire to eat healthily among some poor eating habits and cooking techniques in Belize as well as to find new ways to use limited produce options (and in all honesty, because I don’t commute for hours a day and I have much more time to devote to cooking, I was curious to see if I might actually enjoy it and be good at it). Since nearly every recipe I make is adapted from somewhere, I’ve been writing them all down and had the idea early on to make them all into a cookbook – so I take pictures of everything and have been compiling it all. Anthony's still a pretty fantastic cook himself and he's been adding some really delicious dinners and things to his own faves, too. Over time, we’ve hosted Belizean friends for meals, baked them treats, and brought leftovers in for lunch; subsequently, they have asked for our recipes. We have friends getting married in July and I decided I would give a copy of the final cookbook as a gift; then when they were over for a games night the bride-to-be mentioned she would love it if we could give her our recipes for her wedding... At any rate, we now have a few requests for the cookbook and will be including sections on nutrition and healthy substitutions for high-fat or high-sugar (there is a diabetes concern for many and a lot of people use hydrogenated oils in their cooking not realizing the negative impacts it has on health and connection to diabetes, in fact). I’m starting some classes on nutrition for the teen moms and sharing recipes to help them in meal planning.

Somehow, this cooking thing became a major secondary project and is now involving a lot of work; all of which will be well-worth it since it will provide some Belizeans with a tool for healthy cooking based on the ingredients they have access to in their backyards. We're both pretty excited about it and looking forward to the final product. It would be awesome if we could print it in color, but I don’t think that will be affordable. Some people will receive it in an electronic format, so it will work well that way. I certainly never thought when I came to Peace Corps I would leave with a homemade cookbook! I’m sort of excited about how all these recipes can then be adapted to all the produce we’ll have wherever we live after Belize – I can’t imagine too many places where there will be fewer options J. I’m most excited about the baking section because I receive a lot of requests for my baked goods, all of which have reduced fat and sugar from their original recipes (the people eating them don’t know that and if they enjoy it as is, then we know it’s good – the highest compliment is when a Belizean tells me “Ms. Ginnie, your cake/cookie is nice.”) I’ll include information on how to substitute fats and reduce sugar so they can adapt

other recipes I have yet to try. It’s very difficult to find a little baked snack here that isn’t loaded with trans fats, expensive, or made with lard so I had to start baking and I just fell in love. The bread thing keeps getting better, too. My cooking habit involves subscriptions to several food blogs and I have gathered some great recipes on a special bread making technique whereby I can use all whole-wheat flour and still create moist delicious bread! It’s been one of the projects I do for fun and relaxation – my perfect Saturday or Sunday activityJ. After making bread, cakes, bagels, English muffins, doughnuts, brownies and many, many different cookies and learning how easy it is to bake from scratch I can’t imagine why either of us ever used those box mixes (fyi – most contain partially hydrogenated oils)! I thought I didn’t like cookies until I started making them myself – now I make the best moist cake-like cookies that are a perfect mid-morning snack (because they are not loaded with sugar and fat) or great for dessert! Anthony laughed when I recently said “I can’t wait to visit friends and family and cook for them!” because that is not something he’d have ever expected to hear from me in a lifetime. What can I say, I pick up a hobby and I commit to it – I really want to stick with this one, I’ve already looked into baking classes I can take. I want to get better and learn the technique from professional bakers so it’s not just me interpreting from a recipe (though, I had a batter epiphany recently when I was making Ant’s cake and it resulted in a brownie-like batter – I knew exactly how the cake would turn out in consistency; I’m working on getting there with my yeast doughs, but that will involve more practice). Anthony is really good at a lot of the yeast and bread-type things - he is the master flour tortilla maker and makes them perfectly and super-thin. He has also mastered naan(see first picture) and pita bread and of course his pizza dough and pasta dough are both fantabulous.

Recently, we decided to start a new date-night activity to come up with

a more involved recipe or idea or to splurge on an expensive (for us) ingredient every couple weeks and so far that has resulted in two new dinners: spinach-artichoke lasagna rolls with homemade tomato sauce and brown rice risotto with zucchini. I really like this new plan – so any ideas, pass them on. We want to try paella, but finding a good vegetarian version that does not have every kind of bell pepper is hard (that would break our budget because red and yellow peppers are up to $12/lb so just one can cost $4-$5!).

Check out some of the results of our research.

Baking Fun:

Ginnie's version of Powda Bon - made with some variations, but still delish-os

Pumpkin Oat Muffins

Wheat Italian Bread

Cinnamon-Sugar Doughnuts

Orange Drop Cookies with Orange Glaze

Anthony's birthday cake - all from scratch, even the frosting! There is so much cocoa in there it is a chocolate-lover's delight

Pumpkin Pie Cookies - tastes like a little bite of pumpkin pie, fabuloso

Homemade Oreos

Honey Wheat Rolls

Cinnamon Raisin Bagels

Other Random Things:

Soy Ice Cream - that's a long process and it didn't turn out so great, considering I make the soy milk too, it's all pretty much a water-based thing. I have to work on this one if I have the patience again

Anthony's Black Bean Soft Tacos on homemade wheat tortillas

Spinach-Artichoke Lasagna Rolls in homemade tomato sauce

Anthony's Pupusas con frijoles y queso

Deep Dish Mexican Pizza with a cornmeal dough and topped with homemade taco sauce

Lentil Loaf - the whole thing and some slices

Chana Masala

Buffalo-Style Chili - this is the best chili ever, made with soy meat, black-eyed peas, lots of veggies and Marie Sharp's. Served with mashed potatoes made with blue cheese dressing and extra blue cheese for topping, it is a really spicy flavorful chili

Salsa Verde Black Bean Burgers with oven roasted potatoes made with a spicy chili powder mixture

Brown Rice Risotto with zucchini and mozzarella cheese

Happy Earth Day - Go Green!

noreply@blogger.com (Belizean' A New Trail) — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 07:00:00 +0000

In honor of Earth Day, we each presented lessons at our schools. Ginnie did a session with Club GLOW where we discussed ways each of us can make a difference in saving the planet. All the girls made one promise for an action they will take to help Earth. I am proud to say that half of them made the promise to stop littering. Tossing trash on the ground is a common occurrence and one we cringe at every time we see it; each of us always addresses students we work with when they litter but can't always stop those who throw it out the bus window or the people who just drop their trash as they walk down the street. We're hopeful to steadily change this behavior by continuing to talk about it and model appropriate trash disposal and by establishing a sense of pride in the environment. One step at a time, let's all hope these girls keep their promises. Other promises involve shutting off the faucet while brushing teeth and using their own containers when they get burgers (instead of the styrofoam that is so common for all take-out).

The girls enjoyed doing mazes to help find the recycling bin for bottles and newspapers, coloring Happy Earth Day pictures and searching for words related to conservation in a fun Earth Day word search. It was really helpful to speak with the girls about saving the planet and hopefully, like me when I was their age, they will realize how important it is to make simple behavior changes to save the planet. Next goal - recycling at school, let's see if we can encourage the students and teachers to get excited about that! :)

So, have you made your Earth Day promise yet?

Here are some links to help you consider the things you can do right now!

EPA's Earth Day Website

Earth Day Network

EarthDay.gov

Calculate your carbon footprint here

"We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children." ~ Native American Proverb

"Only when the last tree has died and the last river been poisoned and the last fish been caught will we realise we cannot eat money." ~ Cree Indian Proverb

TMS Library Project Update

noreply@blogger.com (Belizean' A New Trail) — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 02:45:00 +0000

We are very excited to announce that the library grant has been fully funded and Peace Corps transferred the money last week prior to the break. We, along with the staff and students at Trinity, are extremely grateful to all of you who made a donation to support the completion of this library. We are now able to cover the shipping costs and use the remaining funds for purchase of supplies to build more shelves and furniture to make the library functional for students.

In other news, the labeling and cataloguing of the books was finally completed in mid-March and now Ginnie is preparing library lessons and activities which will begin when school reopens on April 20^th. After working in libraries for so many years, I finally get to return to those roots and act as a librarian for 6 of the 8 weeks I have left at the school. (Yes, I said 8 – how did time fly so quickly? It actually panics me because there is still so much to do to get the library open and the students and teachers trained to use it on their own next year.) The next step involves getting supplies and spending time in each class to teach them about the library, how to treat and respect the books, how to find a good book, and procedures for checking out and in books borrowed.

It’s a lot of work, but it’s definitely worth it to have a functioning library for the children and the staff of Trinity. They are so excited to start borrowing books, in fact, some of the students who help me in the library have picked out their first choices and are ready to read. I even heard from a few students that they want to read all the books in the library! Great goal – I support them fully J

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Happy Easter from Belize

noreply@blogger.com (Belizean' A New Trail) — Sun, 12 Apr 2009 12:00:00 +0000

HOPPY EASTER!!!

April Updates - Sport's Day and Band Fest '09

noreply@blogger.com (Belizean' A New Trail) — Sun, 12 Apr 2009 01:53:00 +0000

Sports Daze

Just before the start of the two week Easter holiday each of our schools held their annual Sports Days. St. Luke on Wednesday and Trinity on Thursday.

Anthony snapped this photo and officially dubbed it, "The Thrill of Victory, and the Agony of Defeat!"

Our schools were seas of green, red, blue, and yellow with the children in their house shirts. Competition was high as the houses sought victory in the many battles that included sprints, sack races, lime and spoon races, three-legged races, and team spirit.

The popular sack race, this guy leaves the competition in the dust

Lower division students compete in the lime and spoon race

There was a lot of cheering and chanting for houses and students and teachers alike were engaged in the spirit of the day.

The green house at Trinity tries to charm the competition

While a tad chaotic, it was a lot of fun to cheer on the teams. We each had to decline the role of judge because we saw the fierce competitiveness among our teachers and did not want to end up in any heated arguments – we left that to the parent volunteers! Overall, both days were fun and we enjoyed being part of the excitement.

Students in the lime and spoon at Trinity; Taking a break from the action with a yummy orange

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Waiting to start the games at Trinity

Band Fest 2009

Our break began with a trip to Cayo for the Fourth Annual Love FM Band Fest. St. Luke’s marching band was competing and we went to support them in their return to the competition. The Band Fest was one of the coolest events we've attended in Belize. It’s like a really long halftime routine with marching bands performing 10-15 minute routines.

St. Luke's taking the field at Band Fest '09

The bands from Belize City were the first to compete and when we saw Holy Redeemer put up a pyramid, we both thought Ginnie should have come over and taught stunting to the St. Luke team! At any rate, the Belize City teams were overshadowed by the bands from the west. Not to mention their fans – the teams from the west had whole sections in the stands cheering for them.

Performing dance moves for the crowd

We were loud for St. Luke's, but with a smaller crowd it just didn’t have the same effect. We pretty much knew who the winner would be when the Succotz Festival Drum Corps came out and started playing marching band classics combined with a few modern songs. They really busted out with high energy dancing and marching! All of the bands did a fantastic job and we really loved the positive message of the event – to bring music to the schools and engage youth in a meaningful and positive activity. After the day’s events ended and we were relaxing in our room, we started hearing the bands starting up again, so we headed out to the park where Succotz came out with their first place trophy and marched down the streets playing. Seeing the kids with their families and friends so proud was such a great evening!

More marching and drumming

Sisters Exploring Belize

noreply@blogger.com (Belizean' A New Trail) — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 19:07:00 +0000

Erin came to Belize! We had a whirlwind adventure while she was here for a very short, but very busy, five days. She came in on Friday the 20th in the afternoon and we spent the evening hanging out and catching up on two years of Maya’s crazy antics. Maya has lived with Erin longer than she lived with us, so I kind of wonder whose dog she is at this point!

Our first excursion was to get Erin out to the beautiful island of Caye Caulker for a day of relaxing by the Caribe Sea and enjoying some tropical sun. We took the girl who really doesn’t like the heat right into the hot hot sun that day, but we found a wonderful palm tree under which to lay and read and relax; it was perfect. We walked around and ate delicious cinnamon buns from the bakery and later had a nice, long lunch at The Sandbox. The rest of the day involved more relaxing in the shade of the palm trees before returning to the city and resting for our next day of exploring Belize on the fast track.

The palm tree that provided us a nice, cool place to relax by the sea

Erin spotted this starfish as we walked along the pier to catch the ferry home

So, day two involved a long day on the bus, but Erin had to see her first Maya ruin site. We got up early and the rain was pouring down...figures. We waited it out as long as we could and finally just headed to the bus terminal to make our way to San Ignacio and the ruins of Xunantunich. Erin enjoyed her bus experience (I think, at least it gave her some time to read) and after 3 hours, we reached Xunantunich and it was just slightly cloudy. The mile long trek up to the site was not her favorite, but she handled it well and we enjoyed a simple lunch of bananas and peanut butter and crackers as we sat beneath the temples. We toured the site and I even got Erin to climb El Castillo (she was hesitant, but how could she come all that way and not see the amazing views of the site, Cayo, and Guatemala?). When we visited before, we spotted and heard Howler monkeys, but they were not out on this trip. That turned out alright because Erin got a pretty interesting Howler monkey experience later in the trip. We finally walked ourselves back to the ferry and then waited for our bus back to the city. I wanted to stop in San Ignacio town to walk around, but being that it was Sunday, everything was closed and by this time it was after 4 and we were ready to make our way back home.

The view from atop El Castillo

Standing in the plaza with El Castillo behind

We found it quite fascinating that the ancient Maya liked Pringles.... hmm

When Monday came it was Erin’s birthday and time to visit my school. She joined me for the morning where we spent some time in the library and she got a glimpse of the plans for setting up the space. We also visited every class where she got a warm welcome greeting from everyone. We enjoyed a fabulous read-aloud from Fudge-a-mania in Standard 3 as well as some group reading time in Infant 2. Then came the Club GLOW Birthday party! The girls have been so excited to meet my sister for months and we planned a lee party to wish her a happy day and thank her for joining us. The girls started off so shy and quiet – I’d never seen them like this at all! Then, we got some cake into them and their personalities came right out. Suddenly, they were out on the veranda preparing a song and then it became a little singing and dancing party! They sang special items to Erin and then we all danced to “We Are Family” and “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun!” What a treat for all of us. It was a pretty great day, if you ask me! That afternoon was spent taking Erin to some of our regular shops and all to get things we needed for her requested birthday dinner of homemade macaroni and cheese.

Singing to Erin; All ah we

Jahel couldn't help joining in the dancing when he heard all the noise

Tuesday was another fun-filled day with a trip to the Belize Zoo! I knew Erin had to see the zoo because it’s so fabulous and she works with animals. We really took our time to see all the animals and as we were walking we began to hear the Howler Monkeys. Erin’s face was priceless when she first heard the sounds and looked at me like imminent doom was ahead of us. I said “That’s the Howler monkeys!” I’d been trying to explain their sound to her when we were at Xunantunich, but saying it sounds like something from Jurassic Park just doesn’t do justice to the reality of their monstrous bellows. We had to go right back to the Howler Monkey area to see what brought about this midday howling fiesta. We found two pair of monkeys on opposing areas in the trees just howling and making this barking noise back and forth. It was so interesting and went on for quite a while. This is the first time we were close enough to get good video of it so you can hear them, too (see the video at the end of the post). Isn’t it crazy?!?

It was hot - these guys found some shade for a nice morning nap

The keel-billed toucan was messing with us - looked right at the camera and just as I snapped the shutter, flew off!!

A type of toucan whose name I can't recall; Panama, the Harpy Eagle

Is Erin really shorter than a Jabiru Stork???

I wanted to take Erin out to Belmopan and to visit the PC office, but Anthony had gone in for a meeting and let me know it was empty because the entire staff was at a meeting elsewhere. Instead, we decided to return to the city and spend some time downtown. We ended up on a mystery bus – I think it just stopped because two tourists were waiting, so we asked the driver if he was going to the city and he said yes. Then I needed to check on the price and he started with the actual $2 BZ and then said $2 US, but we cleared that right up and everyone was set for the $2 BZ price and we were off on a very quick ride on a school bus with redesigned tall seats (not good for trying to see and not be car sick) that randomly stopped once for 3 workers. We got off right by the terminal and helped the tourists find their way to the Caye Caulker Water Taxi and then picked up packages from the post office and got some fabric for the dress one of the teachers is making for me and for some coverings for furniture at the house. We then took a rather interesting bus ride home that involved some street racing with another city bus – I didn’t know they were in competition for fares, but evidently they are. I am pretty sure this was the highlight of the trip for Erin – she couldn’t stop talking about it!

Wednesday brought Erin’s last morning and we went over to YES so she was able to see my other project. We hung out with Vicky for a while chatting and Erin got to see where all the teen mom classes are held. We spent the rest of the morning hanging out and then made our way back up to the airport. It was sad to say goodbye, but we know we’ll see each other in a few months, so it was easier than the last time we parted for two years!

On the bus returning home from the zoo

It was so much fun to share Belize with Erin and we are thankful to her for bringing us some Easter candy and treats and for being here with us for a few days. Lucky her, the hot season decided to hit hard right after she left! It was fairly cool while she was here (by our standards, I mean she was hot, but it wasn’t unbearable and she used the high-speed ceiling fan). So, have we inspired you to come for a visit? We love visitors and you will love Belize!

Check out the Howler Monkeys howling competition! It's a bit shaky, sorry, but this is really more for the sound of the monkeys - crazy, no true?

La Ruta Maya - The Belize River Challenge

noreply@blogger.com (Belizean' A New Trail) — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 15:14:00 +0000

Over this past long weekend (Baron Bliss Day), we participated in a major HIV/AIDS related outreach project. As head of the HIV committee at Peace Corps, Anthony, along with a number of other volunteers, helped to organize our first ever outreach event taking place during La Ruta Maya Cross-Country Canoe Race (Please see previous posting for more information and details regarding the event). During the various outreach sessions we worked alongside 7 other PCVS as well as members of PASMO Belize (an International NGO out of Guatemala City that focuses efforts on education and prevention regarding HIV/AIDS, and other STIs).

Mr. Stanley from Peace Corps helps pack up one of the vehicles in Cayo

We traveled by caravan, following the race in its entirety for many days (Anthony traveled from Thursday to Monday; Ginnie traveled from Saturday to Monday). During this time we stopped along the route at various places.

Some kids hanging by the canoes after day 2 of the race

We set up shop at a couple of villages along the banks of the river, as well as more populated towns, before returning to Belize City on Monday, the final day of the race. At each of these stops, we worked in tandem with other PCVs as we all played games related to HIV, distributed pamphlets and condoms, and talked with huge numbers of Belizeans from all parts of the country.

The two of us in action

Our first event took place on Friday in San Ignacio at the starting line (Anthony was up at 4:45am and out at the riverbank by 5:15...Yikes!!! For those of you who know him well, you’ll certainly agree that this was quite a feat).

The starting line in San Ignacio was pretty hectic as all the paddlers attempted to pass the bridge and win the first of the prize money

From there we headed out to Spanish Lookout to do our outreach as well as watch our 8 Peace Corps teams pass by. Next it was on to Banana Bank (where the race ended for the day). In Banana Bank many of the paddlers camped out for the evening, cooking food and just chilling out as they prepared for Day 2 of racing.

Two of the 8 Peace Corps teams as they passed by the Spanish Lookout Bridge

On Saturday we headed out for a few hours to St. Paul’s Bank, a small Creole village along the banks of the Belize River. We jammed our vehicles down the tightening road and eventually made it close enough to the bank to unload our things and set up.

These are some shots of our tent as we did outreach in Burrell Boom. The T-Shirts hanging along the sides were created by all different people and each was personally inscribed with a message about domestic violence and/or HIV/AIDS

St. Paul’s Bank was a great place to watch the paddlers as they passed, although there were a couple of rough spots with some minor rapids that quickly threw people overboard and sunk boats.

The campsite at Banana Bank - Day One

Next we headed further east toward Bermudian Landing. When we reached this area, there were people everywhere. There was loud music, BBQ, and vendors selling everything from choco-bananas to fried plantain to hamburgers and hotdogs to Beans and Rice and Rice and Beans.

Bermudian Landing - Day Two

Kids playing games and learning about HIV/AIDS at the village of St. Paul's Bank

We spent a few hours here working the crowd and playing games with people who came by the table. Around four o’clock or so, the first of now only six remaining PC teams began arriving. Some of us assisted the paddlers as they arrived on land while others went off to help set up tents for camp that evening, and then ended at Bermudian Landing.

On Sunday we began the day’s activities with a short stop at Grace Bank before heading out to Burrell Boom (the ending spot for the day). Burrell Boom was a lot like the crazy atmosphere we all witnessed at Bermudian Landing. At Boom we had the biggest success so far, in terms of our outreach activities. We reached approximately 200 people in just over four hours (quite a feat by Belize standards).

The craziness of Day 3 - Burrell Boom; Lots of boats, food, people, and loud music

During our time in Burrell Boom, we were graced with the presence of not only our Programming and Training Officer, but our Administrative Officer, Training Director, and Country Director. It was really great to see all of these senior staff members out in the field supporting and encouraging all of us (paddlers, support teams, and outreach workers). The country director also brought by a visitor from Washington D.C. (current head of Obama's Whitehouse transition team) who happened to be in Belize learning more about different Peace Corps countries. While they were all in Burrell Boom, the country director and his wife invited both of us for lunch, which we have to admit, was pretty awesome.

Back in Belize City: A view of the peolple on the BELCAN Bridge as they awaited racers

Monday was the final day of the race and it was sort of bittersweet as we packed our things and headed toward the finish line in Belize City. The carnival atmosphere returned as we arrived at the river to await rowers on their final leg of the race. This spot turned out to be the busiest of all and after only a few hours we had provided outreach to almost 200 people.

Two girls just hanging out by our table

It was a great experience and we all felt fortunate to have had the wonderful opportunity to be involved in such an event.

Anthony and Hope display the latest in condoms (both for males and females)

The whole goup of us (PASMO and PC) pose for a photo at the end of a long week; Anthony finds yet another reason to go climbing

noreply@blogger.com (Belizean' A New Trail) — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 22:10:00 +0000

Some of the students at Anthony's school patiently await the arrival of the Governor General

Greetings, everyone! It's been a few weeks since our last posting and we'll be up and around the country over the next few, so we thought that a brief update was in order for all of you loyal readers out there.

Before we get to the latest happenings, we would really appreciate it if when you're finished reading, or right now, you take a visit to this website and view the video. We think that it really helps put world development in a perspective that everyone can understand and relate to. For those of you who are teaching, this is a great opportunity to provide your students a unique perspective of the world we all share. The video was shown to us during our conference this past week and I think it really helped to drive home the reason that all of us are here in Belize doing the work that we do.

January and February have been a whirlwind combination of workshops, presentations, Peace Corps conferences, meetings, and quite a few exciting community events. We have continued to work with the District Education Officers from the Ministry and our schools in developing a sensible and user-friendly process of moving teachers toward the implementation and utilization of a balanced literacy approach. The process has involved many workshops where we've worked with teachers from all over Belize District on a newly published national curriculum. Some days the work seems long, frustrating, and grueling, but we think, in the end, all will work out. Many teachers at Anthony's school have already focused their energies on writing integrated lesson plans and teaching according to a finely tuned Language Arts block schedule (Anthony is really excited about this and hopefully the changes will help lead to an increased literacy rate among children in Belize). Ginnie's teachers are working on developing their lessons and will implement the new plan soon, we hope.

Teachers hard at work planning their language arts with a new curriculum

A meeting of the education volunteers in Belize City

In other news, Ginnie's Club GLOW has continued having meetings each week at Trinity School (She'll tell you all about it here :)

Making Valentine's! We invited the one boy who wanted to make one for his mom that day - we were sharing the love

The GLOW Girls always bring joy! Their laughter and enthusiasm and curiosity make every session a lot of fun. This year, we've practiced yoga in the park during the wonderful cold fronts, discussed ways to serve as leaders at school (such as reading to the infant students and helping in the library), hold some general "girl talk" sessions and of course do arts and crafts. This week, with the start of Women's Month, we had a session on female role models and all the girls drew and colored pictures of inspirational women. I enjoyed hearing the things the girls find inspirational; including such things as being an athlete, being a mom, caring for others, working hard, and the one that made me feel special when a girl said her picture was of me helping a woman cross the street and saying that she wants to be like me because I help others. If I ever have a day when I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed I just have to think of the moments like this that remind me why I'm here - I love these girls. They inspire me!

The other inspirational ladies I continue to work with are both the teen moms and the young women's leadership group at YES. The leadership series we've been facilitating with the teen moms is going really well. So far we have determined our leadership styles in a True Colors activity, designed Super-MOM Mascots (one is named Splendishous 3D Mom - how fun is that?), and participated in successful communication activities. We have a managing stress and yoga session this week that everyone is looking forward to since we will leave feeling relaxed and refreshed (I hope, anyway!).

The leadership group has elected their co-leaders and I'm now supporting them as an advisor to help them to plan the group meetings. This is just what I love to do - helping young leaders find their voice and succeed. We have a campaign now with YES on ITS (intergenerational transactional sex, which is very similar to the commercial sexual exploitation of children campaign only not limited to those under 18 years of age) and will be working with the leadership group on some really impressive ad campaigns. I'll tell about them when they are ready to air!

Alright, back to Anthony with news from his Games Club...

My after school Game's Club has continued to be a hit with many students. Thanks to a grant I received from KIDS to KIDS last Fall, the school was able to purchase a bunch of fun board games for the new club. Students in Standard 2, 3, 4, and 5, all participate on alternating days. We play games such as Uno, Memory, Mancala, Guess Who, and PayDay (the silly dances the students do when they win lots of money or get their paycheck in PAYDAY are especially hilarious).

Kids enjoying a little friendly competition

Students have really enjoyed these games and we're all looking forward to many more meetings before the end of the year.

In Peace Corps news, each of us has been working to organize the committees we chair (Ginnie - WID/GAD; Anthony - HIV/AIDS). We have many busy months ahead with various side projects, but we're both quite excited about some of the great plans we've organized with other volunteers. Ginnie is working with the committee to continue the development and sustainability of Club GLOWs throughout the country, as well as planning a second Camp GLOW for this summer. Anthony is hard at work with other PCVs finalizing plans for HIV/AIDS education and outreach events that will be held during La Ruta Maya. La Ruta Maya, the Belize River Challenge, is a grueling multi-day canoe race traveling a perilous river route across the country of Belize. The route runs West to East along the Macal and Belize Rivers, once the only link between beautiful San Ignacio, in the foothills of the Maya Mountains, and the bustling port of Belize City. This is a race for everyone and occurs each year in March, coinciding with Baron Bliss Day. This year the canoes will leave San Ignacio on March 6 and arrive in Belize City on March 9. The teams, which race for station prizes along the way, battle for the major cash prizes awarded at the end of the race. Anthony has helped in the coordination and mobilization of a team of 12 PCVs that will be on the ground throughout the route for 5 days running various HIV/AIDS-related outreach activities. We will also have seven Peace Corps' teams to cheer on while we work and watch the race. We'll definitely post pictures when we return during the second week of March. In preparing for the event, Anthony helped to organize an outreach in San Ignacio this past Saturday (see the pictures below).

Cayo Market HIV/AIDS Outreach

This girl was just too adorable

The Belize River in San Ignacio; Baby chicks for sale at the market (ironically enough, their dead elder relatives sat in buckets on the table right next to them)

After leaving San Igancio, we headed to Belmopan for an All Volunteer Conference where we met with fellow volunteers and staff to review projects, discuss our experiences, and receive additional training on our newly revised reporting tool (essentially this tool plots all of our work and activities into a country-wide database that is sent to Washington so they can better evaluate posts). The AVC was fun and allowed for many opportunities to reconnect with people who we hadn't seen for a while. In the off times, as we all attempted to kill many hours in a hotel like responsible adults, we played a PC version of the NewleyWed Game and had Volunteer arm-wrestling competitions. It was a lot of fun mixed in with lots of work, and suffice to say, we were both quite happy to return to our sites after almost seven days away from home.

The PCV NewleyWed Game. We came in 2nd place!

Arm Wrestling Champs '09; Hanging out with other PCVs during our All Volunteer Conference

On Friday this week Sir Colville Young, the Governor General of Belize, visited Anthony's school as part of the Visiting Author's Program. Sir Colville Young's position as governor general is an office appointed by the Queen of England as a direct representative of the British Monarchy in Belize.

Kids waiting patiently for the Governor General's arrival; Sir Colville Young led into church by Standard II students; The award-winning St. Luke's Choir perform the National Anthem during opening ceremonies

Students presented some really great work to classroom visitors

Sir Young is highly talented in many areas of the arts. He has composed all manner of musical pieces from operas to cantatas to others. He published a series of books of and about Belizean literature, including "Literature and Education in Belize," "Creole Proverbs of Belize," "From One Caribbean Corner" and "Caribbean Corner Calling;" the last two containing poems in English and Belize Creole. Of these books, "Creole Proverbs" is his most recognized. In 1993, just before becoming Governor General, he published a book of short stories called "Pataki Full," earning acclaim from the local writing community. His stories have been featured in the Belizean Writers Series in "Snapshots of Belize," and a play, "Riding Haas," in the drama anthology "Ping Wing Juk Me." It was quite an honor to meet him and was especially rewarding to listen to him as he read the students a short story from his book "Pataki Full."

One of my favorite classrooms at school. The teacher in this class never ceases to amaze me with her incredible creativity. In this shot the students are playing a sight word game with a bean bag

As he read, he acted out the different voices of each character and had the students rolling around laughing in their seats.

Students listening attentively to the story as Sir Colville Young reads from one of his collections of folktales

After a presentation of different gifts from Saint Luke's, everyone walked around and visited the classrooms that were all done up and decorated for the visit.

Anansi the spider hangs in one of the Standard I classrooms. Anasi is a famous character in many African folktales that have become a huge part of the Creole culture. One of our favorite Creole sayings comes from these stories, "If the pin neva bend, the story neva ends." A cliffhanger of sorts written at the end of every tale; The second picture is of a young boy from Standard 2 that dressed up as the Governor General

These kids just love posing for the camera

Many students gave presentations and others sat and watched as their work was viewed by the Governor General and his wife. It was a lot of fun, and definitely added to our list of things that we love about Belize (I mean, how often do highly esteemed government officials and dignitaries visit schools back in the US?)

The outside of many classrooms were decorated as well. This particular setting was arranged to represent a scene from an old Creole song, "Leaky ol' Dory"

And...Don't forget to check out this site if you haven't already...

Or check it out on youtube.com at this link...

As always, thanks for reading and be sure to check back soon for further updates.

TMS Library - Take Two

noreply@blogger.com (Belizean' A New Trail) — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 00:17:00 +0000

As things continue to progress with cataloguing books, I need to make an important addendum to my previous post. I mentioned those who donated books through the coordinated school efforts and did not include our first sets of donations. These came from our friends Suzanne and Christine, Suzanne's students, and my grandmother and aunt. These books were the first to arrive and have been put to use for individual read-alouds and for one-on-one work with students. Many students request the Dr. Seuss books to re-read and we are looking forward to reading my personal favorite from fourth grade, Charlotte's Web! Since we've been using these books for nearly a year now, somehow they seem to have slipped my mind while working on the current catalog, but I assure you, we really appreciate them! All will find a permanent home in the library.

And, for all of you who want to help the library become functional, I have linked directly to the Peace Corps Partnership site on the righthand side of the page to make it easy to submit a donation (you can also click here). Our goal is to fulfill the grant request as soon as possible so we can purchase the supplies we need for shelves, chairs, and tables.

Thank you once again!

Trinity Methodist School Library Project

noreply@blogger.com (Belizean' A New Trail) — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 15:06:00 +0000

The books just arrived!

Ginnie has been working diligently (with a lot of help from Anthony and students and staff of Trinity and Wesley College) to establish a library/resource center for the children and teachers of Trinity Methodist School. During the past year, donations were collected at Mount Ida College and South Elementary School (in Massachusetts) to be sent to Trinity for the library project. In addition, a generous donation was made by Hyde Shipping Corporation and a grant was provided by Kids to Kids, an organization based in Massachusetts that supports projects in education, athletics, and the arts. It is a grand project and is moving along slowly but surely. We are grateful to everyone whose assistance supports this library.

Thanks to the children of South Elementary School in Hingham, Ginnie’s mother’s co-workers in South Carolina, and the students and staff of Mount Ida, over 4000 books were collected to start a library. As of now, we still have a lot of work to do and have established a Peace Corps Partnership Program grant application to support the cost of shipping the books and purchasing much-needed materials for shelves, fans, and supplies for the library. The students and teachers at Trinity are working hard to catalog and organize books, as well as fundraise for building shelves and other supplies.

The Mount Ida College Outing club supported the project by fronting the money to ship books to Florida where they were then taken by Hyde Shipping for transfer to Belize. As a non-profit organization, college student fees are unable to be used for this purpose, so a percentage of the grant will cover those shipping costs.

When the books arrived at school, many students were eager to get right into them. With the assistance of boys in Standards 5 and 6, all 63 boxes were moved to the library space on the second floor. Some students from Standard 6 came in to look at what we received and helped open up the boxes. When I turned to speak to a student, the others had already found a book and were perusing them.

Every day, students come to visit the library and browse through the books to read them during breaks. We will soon start our library committee to oversee the borrowing of books and establish a library club of student monitors who can help maintain the space and participate in planning library activities. We dream of a space that will be used forever at the school and will serve the community as well. The teachers and students will benefit from the direct usage of books and reference materials and parents and siblings will be able to borrow books and use the space for research on projects of their own.

Wesley College Students label and alphabetize books

This is the only shelf space we have, currently books are stacked by level; by adding shelves to the library, we will be able to shelve books in a more user-friendly way

As we continue our progress, I’ll keep you posted with pictures and stories. If you are interested in supporting the project, please visit the Peace Corps Partnership site by clicking here.

Man and Woman vs WILD

noreply@blogger.com (Belizean' A New Trail) — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 01:22:00 +0000

A Green-billed Toucan at La Paz

No trip to Costa Rica would be complete without a few wild adventures. Home to canopy tours, volcanoes, cloud forests and all sorts of poisonous creatures, creepy crawlies, and colorful birds, Nicaragua and Costa Rica offer a lot in the way of adventure. Our wild encounters took the form of a canopy tour that included a 750 m line (nearly a half-mile), a late night with a leatherback turtle, walking among the tops of the trees in the cloud forest, watching red hot magma spew from a volcano, swimming in the pool of a waterfall, getting up close with hummingbirds and all sorts of other critters, hiking through the forest at night to see the nocturnal critters in action, and driving through some of the most beautiful landscape we’d ever seen (it is so similar to New Zealand – it’s absolutely gorgeous).

Since we’ve already talked about the night watching the leatherback and the volcanic eruptions, let’s take you on a journey through the cloud forest…

For years we’ve been planning a trip to Costa Rica (in fact, we would have gone in 2007 had we not been invited to service yet) so when we got the invitation to Belize, we decided we’d get to Costa Rica for the 2008 holidays and we’d do all the things we’d previously planned. One of those was a trip to the cloud forest in the Monteverde reserve. We stayed in the neighboring village of Santa Elena, arriving on Christmas Day after a scenic drive from Playa Tamarindo. The roads were quiet and we were able to stop at every spot along the way to try to capture some of the beauty of the mountain landscape. It was one of our favorite Christmases. So, upon arriving in Santa Elena, we passed our hostel a couple times and finally saw the sign on the nondescript building, only to be welcomed to one of the best places we stayed on the entire trip – Sleepers Sleep Cheaper Hostel.

Sleeper's Hostel, it doesn't look like much from the outside, but the roooms are huge, very cheap, and quite amazing.

The owner, Ronny, and his family are super-friendly and we had a beautiful room overlooking the mountains with Volcan Arenal off in the distance. This was also the coldest place we stayed being right within the mountains just a few miles from the cloud forest - it was great. Ronny helped us plan our days in the cloud forest then we made our own dinner in the big kitchen and rested for the upcoming busy day!

The rain began to fall the night before and was strong through the night – with forceful winds that blew cold air through the windows. We awoke early wondering if the canopy tour would still go in such strong weather, and wondering if we should hook ourselves up to a cable and fly above the valleys in said elements. After a hearty breakfast with Ronny’s family and the other guests, we put on as much clothing as was reasonable to stay dry and warm and boarded the van to Extremo Canopy Tours. There were too many options for the zip lines, but we selected Extremo because it has some of the longest and highest lines and because it goes out over the valleys rather than just in the cloud forest. This way you see much more than just trees (we’d already done the zip line here in Belize among the trees and after a while, it’s just the same on a different line).

what have we gotten ourselves into with this ziplining?

We were both a bit anxious about the weather, but clearly the crew was still taking us out – Ginnie asked one of the guides about still going and he just said “yes, it’s more extreme like this.” So, that was that. We got into our gear and made our way to the lines. It was so much fun! Extremo has 14 cables (4 of which are crazy long: 1-1410 ft, 2-1275 ft, 3-1800 ft, 4-2250 ft) with heights ranging between 225 ft and 450ft above the valley floor, a Tarzan Swing, and a 90 ft Rappel.

A video of Anthony's Tarzan swing through the...err...jungle/rainforest

Flying out over the valley we could see cows grazing hundreds of feet below us and streams and fields and the secondary forest. We had a mix of lines among the trees with the longest out over the valley. On a few we were attached together making it even more extreme. The rain held off fairly well, but our first long line was one we did together when the rain and wind decided to pick up, blowing us side-to-side as we flew for 1410 ft.

Hold on tight!

Rain impacts the braking since we use our own hands (gloved, of course) and the leather soaked up the rain and reduced friction on the cable, so we did come in pretty fast when it was the two of us. We each had a couple lines where we had to be stopped by the guides as we came in and just weren’t slowing down! Not to mention, it really takes upper body strength and you have to sort of pull yourself up to then press down to stop and it’s just not as easy for females physiologically, but we are also generally lighter so don’t get as much speed, but still… On the final really long line, everyone was a bit worried about stopping somewhere in the middle – you don’t want to just have to hang there and wait for the guide to come and pull you in (or worse, have to go hand-over-hand and pull yourself in, which Ginnie had to do on a super-short line that she didn’t get much speed on), so Ginnie went first and held very loosely with the brake hand so as not to inadvertently press down and lose speed; however, this was not the best strategy either since a huge gust of wind hit her just right and spun her backwards! It wasn’t anything scary, in fact it was fun, but it caused a bit of concern as to how exactly she’d be able to brake! No matter, the guide came on out as she got close to the platform and pulled her in. Then came Anthony and he was doing great, but for whatever reason the guide said “he’s not going to make it.” They must be able to tell by the sound of the person coming on the line if he has enough speed, so the guide quickly unhooked Ginnie and headed right out to meet Anthony. Turns out, Anthony made it fine without the assistance of our guide.

One of the best sections at Extremo is the Tarzan swing. Basically, the guide drops you off a platform and the bungee cord you are attached to swings way high up to the tops of the trees while at the same time, swinging back and forth. We heard the first people go and their screams sounded intriguing, we knew we couldn’t just sit it out – so we “jumped” right in. It was so fun, you just free fall then the bungee catches and you swing ridiculously high. Some of the others in the group asked Ginnie if she was a dancer because evidently she was “graceful” as she swung – I think it has to do with loving freefall and combined body memory from cheerleading, I think I just automatically tightened up and held my legs together and just rode the fall.

Ginnie's oh-so-graceful swing on the Tarzan rope

We felt like we could end the tour with that, and we still had that crazy long line to go! We loved the canopy tour, it’s far better than the one here (when we were putting on the gear Ginnie told the guide we’d done this before in Belize and he said “Belice?” and then looked to another guide and asked him if there was a zip line in Belize, as if I were lying, and then was pretty stunned to hear there is – I assured him it was nothing like Extremo!).

This was one of the longer lines that we traveled. Watch closely as Ginnie disappears into the mist.

After the zip line, our day of adventure was only 1/3 complete. We next headed out to Selvatura in the Santa Elena Cloud Forest Reserve to walk the hanging bridges among the treetops of the cloud forest. We definitely wanted to walk through the cloud forest and thought this was the best of it all - to walk along the floor and the bridges among the trees. The rains were not too bad, although at Extremo they had their moments, and when we arrived back to town the sun was out and the winds were not as strong. Well, as soon as we got up into the higher elevation to reach the cloud forest, we were back in the rains – I mean, it is a rain forest, but still. It was far rainier for this portion of the day, but we had fun as we looked at all the trees, foliage and the mountains surrounding us.

One of the eight hanging bridges at Selvatura Park along the Santa Elena Cloud Forest Reserve.

Not too many people were up on the bridges which made it nice. We took our time so we could really appreciate the forest and had several groups pass us (one family seemed to be on a speed run, I doubt they could have actually seen the forest) and we had fun getting silly pictures but also trying to get some good views to share what we saw. We joked about how there was no way we’d see any wildlife since they are all smart enough to seek shelter in the rain while we silly humans walk outside all cold and wet! Selvatura has a canopy tour as well, so we saw some of the zip-liners flying overhead as we left the forest. Selvatura felt like the Six Flags of Costa Rica since you could choose from many different adventures. Later in our trip we found the Disney of Costa Rica, we’ll tell you about it later in this posting.

Ahhhh!!! Come down from there before you hurt yourself. Ginnie wondered how I would have explained an injury from this stunt to Peace Corps.

We returned to Sleepers for another quick stop, then headed out for our third experience of the day – a night tour in the forest. We went to Sanctuario Ecologico, another recommendation by Ronny, where we were guided on a hike through the forest to observe nocturnal creatures. Our first encounter was with a Coatimundi who was hanging out in the parking lot looking for something to eat – s/he was still on the hunt when we entered into the park. Our guide was excellent and gave us a lot of great information about the forest, the trees, the flora and fauna, and the critters we encountered. We saw the largest ant colony either of us has ever seen and learned a lot about those leaf cutter ants: the females are the workers and they have three levels – the small ones who clean the leaves (which is important because the tiniest amount of fungus can kill the entire colony), the big ones who lead the way and do a lot of digging, and the middle ones who carry the leaves. It was pretty interesting. We were then contacted on the radio because a two-toed sloth was visible up in the trees – we spent some time watching it move around in the treetops high overhead then returned to our walk and saw a mot-mot bird sleeping (no camera flashes interrupted it in the slightest!), a cool large-winged bug, preying mantis’ on huge leaves, and a couple of colorful nocturnal tree frogs. We ended with a visit to a tarantula hole and learned more about the female tarantula’s territorialism and their ability to live up to 25 years if not kicked out of their hole by some other tarantula or enemy giant wasp through a fight.

The ginormous ant colony - this is only part of it!

A two-toed sloth hangs up in the trees; A spiny orange and brown tarantula defends her nest.

It was a really jam-packed day, but incredibly fun nonetheless. We found a fantastic Italian restaurant, Tramonti, the night before and had decided we’d end our day there. We picked up a most excellent dinner and returned to Sleepers to enjoy the meal together and then sleep very well after our day in the cloud forest. Since we spent the day in the cloud forest, we decided to start the next day with a tour of the Monteverde Cheese Factory.

Anthony laughed when Ginnie suggested it, but thought it would be fun to go if at least to tease Ginnie, though he enjoyed the free cheese just as much! The tour was really quite interesting, we learned all about the process of making cheese as well as some history of Monteverde. Monteverde was founded by 11 Quaker families from Alabama who left the US after 4 of the men were jailed for a year and a day after they refused to sign up for the draft since they objected to killing. The Quakers felt they could not live in a country that held beliefs against their own and they found themselves in Costa Rica (where the president at the time had just abolished the military and in fact to this day Costa Rica does not have a military). They found the beautiful Monteverde area and decided to buy it. Being business men, they came up with the idea to start the cheese factory (they needed something with an economical weight value; having to transport the product through unpaved forest was a factor and the cheese factory was born).

Outside the Monteverde Cheese Factory; Ginnie samples one of the many delicious cheeses

The tour concluded with a tasting of several of the factory’s cheeses, including Monterico, which is only made there and is so delicious. It’s a soft cheese similar to a Monterey jack. We liked all the cheeses, except for the coffee bark smoked provolone – yikes. Neither of us likes smoked foods as it is, and we both don’t like coffee, so the combination was horrible. That was the last one offered, too, but it was right before their homemade milk sweet, also known as dulce de leche. It’s a really creamy and incredibly soft caramel sweet. We were then asked to finish off the remaining cheese (otherwise it would be thrown away and no one wants to waste good cheese!) so we had more of the Monterico and some of the others.

Chocolate cheese...ewwww! Even Anthony has his limits; a view of the cheese making process

Our guide had a bit of trouble with that provolone, but eventually all the cheese was gone from the platter. The actual end to the tour was to return to the sales center to look in the viewing area where you can see into the factory from the ground floor (we’d looked in from above on the tour) and then we stayed to try the homemade ice cream. It was a healthy lunch of cheese and ice cream…what more could one ask for? Ginnie saw orange pineapple ice cream on the menu (well, technically naranja con pina) and was reminded of one of her favorites from Crescent Ridge Dairy back in Massachusetts. She got a cup of that and it was glorious! Fresh, homemade ice cream rarely disappoints. Despite the cool mountain air, the ice cream was a very welcome treat. Afterwards, we returned to the road for an afternoon of driving back through the lush landscape and eventually onto Volcan Arenal and the town of La Fortuna. We stopped several times for photos and to enjoy the views of the volcano across the lake (Lago de Arenal). There are no roads that directly connect the volcano and Monteverde despite the close distance (horseback rides make a day trip between them), but it’s worth the gorgeous drive anyway.

While we were on our final leg of the trip in Alajuela, we stayed at our favorite place of the entire trip, Paraiso Tropical, with the friendliest and kindest manager, Carlos Herrera. Carlos greeted us with a huge welcome and offered us an incredible deal since we mentioned that we’re PC volunteers. We stayed with him for four nights and got to know much more about Costa Rica through our conversations with him and his family.

One of many beautiful peacocks that roamed around our room at Paraiso Tropical

We ate a delicious and filling, traditional Costa Rican breakfast daily: gallo pinto (rice and black beans cooked together with Lizano Salsa, onions, and peppers – delicious! We have to admit, it’s quite tastier than the Caribbean rice and beans we have here; we did learn on the Caribbean coast of Costa Rica they eat rice and beans – the red bean kind, just like Belizeans), huevos revueltos (scrambled eggs), tostadita integral (wheat toast; Costa Ricans like to put an –ita/o on words, we have heard that is why they have been dubbed “Ticos” and they may typically just have white toast, but the father who owns the property is very health conscious and prefers wheat), topped off with some yummy platanos maduros (a sautéed plantain – so good).

The amazing breakfast of Gallo Pinto that we were fortunate enough to have home-cooked for us each morning while staying in Alajuela

Carlos gave us great information about the surrounding areas and helped us as we planned our volcano visits and other trips.

One place we knew we had to visit was La Paz Waterfall Gardens. We’d found out about it while searching online and came upon a PCV website with information on things to see in Costa Rica. This is what we teasingly considered the Disney of Costa Rica. La Paz is a big garden park with several areas to walk through and see the natural wildlife of Costa Rica. The trip ends with a walk to five waterfalls, the last being La Paz, the most photographed falls in Costa Rica. This was one of our final activities and we’d passed up many opportunities to see frogs, birds, and other wildlife since we knew we’d see it all here. We were not disappointed. We picked up our tickets and started on the self-tour. First stop was the aviary where all sorts of native birds fly overhead or right next to your head, as they did with each of us – they definitely shocked us as the toucans and parrots zipped right by our ears! The birds are so colorful and beautiful and vibrant. Fortunately, Ginnie didn’t wear her earrings on our visit since the African Grey Parrot likes to steal them and fly away.

A blue and gold macaw just chillin' out on his perch

One of the many colorful small birds at La Paz

This guy was just too cool to pass up a photo opportunity

A colorful little bird that looked like a Baltimore Oriole, only red instead of orange

This colorful guy is called the Toco-Toucan

After spending quite some time with the birds, and a couple really interesting mammals – two we can’t recall the names of – we went right into the butterfly garden. Here we saw many types of brilliant butterflies, including the blue morpho we have here in Belize (and have seen at a local butterfly farm), our own Monarch Butterflies from the northeast, as well as many others. Little kids on the tour got to hold some and a bit of arguing ensued among sisters, but it was cute to watch from a distance. Anthony tried to catch one, but I guess he wasn’t sweet enough, it didn’t stay!

A blue morpho butterfly and small monarch at play in the gardens

After the butterflies, we passed by some spider monkeys and capuchin monkeys. As always, they are fun to watch as they swing through the trees and frolic. We watched as one of the spider monkeys found a tomato and hid away from the others to enjoy it without any interruptions, he looked sneaky and like he had to keep his eye out for any potential thieves.

One of the many capuchin monkeys

The path then led right into the hummingbird garden where feeders were set out for the birds to come in for a treat. They are sooo fast! It’s incredible to watch them and have them so close, when they hover right by your head it’s absolutely amazing. The bigger blue ones liked to eat and then just fly up and hover for a few seconds, then go right back to eating. We figured out their pattern, but they always hovered in a new spot, so it was pretty tough to get a picture! They all just zip back and forth so fast and their wings are incredible. We tried patiently to get a good picture. Considering National Geographic had to come up with a special system to be able to get a hummingbird photo, I feel pretty good about what I did get though.

There are hummingbirds of various shapes and sizes in each of these photos. You may have to look closely, but trust us, they're there.

Once we passed through the hummingbird area, we came to the snakes. Neither of us is that into snakes, but for some reason we took a picture of nearly each one there – I think it’s because they went from mildly venomous to instant-death venomous. Maybe the pictures can be a good thing to study so we can know them on sight if we have any more encounters while in Belize.

The large oxen who pull Costas Rica's famous carts; A casita sits atop the hill

We came out of the snake area and headed to the Casita, a replica of a traditional Costa Rican home from a century ago. Then we were led right into the Ranarium (Frog Exhibit) to see some of the native Costa Rican frogs. As we learned on our night tour, all frogs are nocturnal and they eat ants and termites. The venomous ones are poisonous because of the termite-ant diet as each critter provides particular enzymes to the frog and together they create the venom. The frogs in the ranarium are only fed one half of the diet so they don’t develop the venom – interesting, no true? They range in size from the size of a pinhead to several inches. We saw some of the really tiny tiny lee poison dart frogs and a few of these bigger green ones that just sit on the underside of big green leaves. The tiny ones are hard to spot so the ranarium puts little markers near leaves where one is resting to help you find them.

A few of the many poisonous dart frogs that we observed. The two small ones, although nocturnal, were out foraging for food late in the afternoon/early evening

The final portion of our trip was a 45-minute walk along the waterfalls trail. We walked through the rain forest and viewed 5 amazing falls, each greater than the last.

A local boa constrictor, non-poisonous, but rumour has it that these guys can put the squeeze on you quite quickly (sorry, couldn't resist that one)

The fourth of the falls at La Paz

A final adventure-filled day included the 60km drive through the Valley de Orosi. We saw a number of coffee plantations, small villages and their churches, a large hydroelectric dam, human-made lake, a house made entirely of bamboo and coffee bark, and the ruins of a church wiped out when its village was hit by a flood and abandoned in the 1800s. It’s a beautiful ride, but signs and directions in our guidebooks were not entirely accurate (at one point the lonely planet guide actually gives directions as if you were traveling in the opposite direction from where they had you start). The trip is a loop, but you can easily end up in a remote area if you come off the loop, so be sure to stop and ask as you travel (or follow a tour van because it’s probably going in the same direction!).

Valley de Orosi overlook; the ruins of a church in a small village; a famous, still standing church in town that was built out of materials grown in and around Orosi; an outside shot and closeup of the famous house built of only coffee bark and bamboo; The last supper carved into the side of the house

Our encounters on the wild side of Costa Rica gave us a lot of time to enjoy the thrill of adventure and to learn about the forest and the diverse wildlife of the country (and much of the region, really). We loved our trip through both Nicaragua and Costa Rica and met so many friendly people and enjoyed the many different regions we were lucky enough to see. There is so much more to see and do in both places, but we feel we had a great introduction to each and will gladly return!

UPDATE…
*We just learned there was a devastating earthquake in Costa Rica on January 8th. We don’t get a lot of international news and since the US news we get didn’t mention it, we just found out. We are hoping our friends at Paraiso Tropical are safe and well, and we hope all the people affected are getting the assistance and support they need to rebuild and move forward.