The Independence Parade was a blast. The whole school met at the river in Sylvester Village, where 90% of the students live. We all grabbed our maracas, flags, banners, bicycles, and got in formation. We marched through the village. People poked their heads out of their casitas. Independence Day doesn’t really ring true to many folks in Sylvester Village because many of them don’t have original roots in Belize. Most of our families have roots in Guatemala and El Salvador, however with 26 years of independence, folks are beginning to feel a stronger sense of nationalism.
The parade stopped in front of the one store in town, where the girls performed their little dance routine. In addition to some pretty basic reggaeton dance steps, Zoia added some sort of modern dance summersault that had never been seen before in these parts. After the dance, and summersault, the parade regrouped and headed through the second half of the village. We continued to march until we ended up on the futbol field. By this time, most of the village had gathered on the futbol field where we sang the national anthem. All of the futbol players continued their game as if it were any other day, except for one dude who stopped in the middle of the field and paid tribute to the national anthem.
Though we wanted to make it into some of the towns and cities to take part in some carnival/independence day activities, we are carless. I did take a ride with our principal to Blue Creek. Blue Creek is a Mennonite village about 45 minutes outside of Gallon Jug. Pretty Wild. The Mennonites are essentially an autonomous community that is entirely self-sufficient. They are mostly Canadian trained in some sort of trade. There is very little mixing that goes on in the Mennonite community, thus making their genetics pretty untainted. They all kind of look alike, and Im not sure if that is necessarily a good thing. In any event, we were able to get our groceries, get our car fixed, and buy some chicken feed for our principals chicken coup.
We headed back to Gallon Jug for a short week of school. Zoia and I are attempting to negotiate our jobs as teachers, and our jobs as parents. I think that Siboney is just now realizing the change that we have imposed on her. For the first couple of weeks, she was going with the flow, but now she is realizing that it is back-to-school season, and not necessarily at Hope Day Care anymore. She will inevitably catch on.
We continue to learn more about the ecosystem that we live in. We have a pretty consistent jogging schedule that forces us to be aware of the different types of trees and animals that live around here. Some of the animals live a little too close for comfort. Since our arrival, Zoia has spotted a scorpion in our bathroom, crocodiles in the lagoon that we swim in, a tarantula on our jog, and there is word of a boa constrictor who comes to visit the loft area at certain times of the year. Sweet! (No worries though. The scorpions and tarantulas are not deadly in Belize, and the boa constrictor takes care of any rodents in the loft). The crocodile is a different story. We saw one swim away as we approached the lagoon to go swimming. We proceeded to go swimming and canoeing in Laguna Verde as reassured by our principal and his wife who have been swimming in Verde for the last 8 years, and never had any problems. Keep your fingers crossed on that one.
Storms have been coming thru pretty frequently, which are most certainly related to the hurricanes that you all are experiencing in the states. In fact, a tree was struck with lightening about 200 yards away from the school on Wednesday night. The thunder that accompanied that lightening was the most intense thunder that I have ever heard in my life. The shrapnel from that tree exploded about 300 feet away from the actual tree. Wild!
I have been playing futbol with the village team pretty consistently. They are part of a tournament, which will take them to the Trinidad region of Belize for a game next Sunday. From my busted interpretation of Spanish, we will all jump in one of the jugadores trucks and go represent in Trinidad next Sunday. The village team practices every Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday from 5:30-6:30 in the village. I have been playing well, except for the fact that I can’t see anything after the sun goes down. These dudes play better futbol in pitch black then most Americans play in broad daylight. Around 6pm I am totally worthless, and they are playing at full speed. All I can do is squint my eyes, run around and circles, and say “cruza la!”
PS: I will be stepping up my photo game momentarily.
PPS: Thanks for the comments.
Monday, September 29, 2008
Thursday, September 18, 2008
Settling In
We woke up Tuesday morning to something out of a dream. The “loft” area that is our new home sits above the stables in the middle of the Gallon Jug Farm. From what I have gathered, Gallon Jug was named as a result of some Mahogany loggers who used to set their gallon jugs of water under a tree in the area. The area eventually adopted the name “Gallon Jug”. In any event, our loft sits in the middle of a dream-like pasture filled with horses, cows, and one donkey appropriately named Burrito.
We have a good-sized room with a bathroom, and an open kitchen area that sits at the end of the loft. Between our loft and the kitchen sits 3 little rooms designed for guests of the farm. About 100 yards from the loft is Gallon Jug Community School. We scale the barbed wire fence and head through the cow and horse pasture, dodge the doo-doo on the way down the hill, scale another barbed wire fence, and head into the school.
Our students are about 80 k-8 students. Almost all of them would consider themselves Mestizo, with exception of a few Creole students, but all are proud Belizian. We line up every morning and raise the Belizian flag. Every Monday and Friday we sing the National Anthem, which is more like a trilogy. Zoia and I are obviously going to take a little time to learn that one. I do know that the end of the chorus is “land of the free by the Carib Sea”, thus the name of the blog.
Siboney hangs with a woman from the Village, and her daughter Grissy, who is about exactly Siboney’s age. Soon our principal’s wife and daughter will arrive, and Siboney will be hanging with Mikayla, who is about a year and a half. The girls spend their days walking around the farm, hanging out with the women in the salsa factory, petting the horses, imitating the cows, and eating rice and beans. Does not sound half bad to me.
Zoia and I are trying to catch up with our weekly lesson plans and yearly plans, which is always a hustle. There are extremely high expectations for the students and for the school. The community is extremely gracious for our services as educators as they realize the opportunity that their children have. Unfortunately high school is not a guarantee in Belize, so academics are competitive in order to be able to be eligible for a scholarship to high school. Many of the students will achieve scholarships. Many will head to the sugar cane fields, logging teams, or house cleaning after 8th grade. The children are all beautiful and brilliant.
I already have a full sign up sheet of futboleros who are ready to start practicing for the season. Zoia has a full sign up sheet of young ladies who want to be in the after school dance class. In fact, Zoia has already helped choreograph a dance for the upcoming Independence Day Parade this evening. Exciting! The whole school will march around the village, and end up on the futbol field for the big dance exposition to some reggaeton song.
I went and played futbol with the village team last night. They were tough. Bunch of young cats with some serious skill. Afterwards they told me in a thick Spanish/Creole accent “the guys would like to have you on the team”. I made the cut!
We have a good-sized room with a bathroom, and an open kitchen area that sits at the end of the loft. Between our loft and the kitchen sits 3 little rooms designed for guests of the farm. About 100 yards from the loft is Gallon Jug Community School. We scale the barbed wire fence and head through the cow and horse pasture, dodge the doo-doo on the way down the hill, scale another barbed wire fence, and head into the school.
Our students are about 80 k-8 students. Almost all of them would consider themselves Mestizo, with exception of a few Creole students, but all are proud Belizian. We line up every morning and raise the Belizian flag. Every Monday and Friday we sing the National Anthem, which is more like a trilogy. Zoia and I are obviously going to take a little time to learn that one. I do know that the end of the chorus is “land of the free by the Carib Sea”, thus the name of the blog.
Siboney hangs with a woman from the Village, and her daughter Grissy, who is about exactly Siboney’s age. Soon our principal’s wife and daughter will arrive, and Siboney will be hanging with Mikayla, who is about a year and a half. The girls spend their days walking around the farm, hanging out with the women in the salsa factory, petting the horses, imitating the cows, and eating rice and beans. Does not sound half bad to me.
Zoia and I are trying to catch up with our weekly lesson plans and yearly plans, which is always a hustle. There are extremely high expectations for the students and for the school. The community is extremely gracious for our services as educators as they realize the opportunity that their children have. Unfortunately high school is not a guarantee in Belize, so academics are competitive in order to be able to be eligible for a scholarship to high school. Many of the students will achieve scholarships. Many will head to the sugar cane fields, logging teams, or house cleaning after 8th grade. The children are all beautiful and brilliant.
I already have a full sign up sheet of futboleros who are ready to start practicing for the season. Zoia has a full sign up sheet of young ladies who want to be in the after school dance class. In fact, Zoia has already helped choreograph a dance for the upcoming Independence Day Parade this evening. Exciting! The whole school will march around the village, and end up on the futbol field for the big dance exposition to some reggaeton song.
I went and played futbol with the village team last night. They were tough. Bunch of young cats with some serious skill. Afterwards they told me in a thick Spanish/Creole accent “the guys would like to have you on the team”. I made the cut!
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Touch Down
Well after trying to keep in touch with so many important people with such little computer time in the past week, I decided to try the "kill two birds" approach". This will be my attempt at keeping you all informed and in touch about our travels. If your not interested in reading, no offense taken.
We have been in Gallon Jug, Belize for exactly a week now. We arrived in Belize City last Monday only to find out that we had packed duffel bags to the brim, and forgot the most important things for our actual job--or lesson plans. With ideas of how our principal would react to our only real pre-school responsibility running through our head, we proceeded on. Upon arriving in Belize City, he seemed surprise that leaving our lesson plans in the states was the biggest of our worries. We simply had them mailed next-day delivery to the principals wife who was still in the states, and she would bring them with her in the following week.
We headed about an hour north to Orange Walk Town where we loaded up on a months supply of groceries and vegetables. As we filled the truck with groceries, our luggage, and the principals new text books, we noticed a quickly approaching rainstorm. Cono! The principal through the car in mash mode and headed another hour and a half northwest to a little village where we picked up our kindergarten teacher and took cover under a tree. Siboney, who had been sitting on a plane and in a car for the last 7 hours, finally got a chance to get out and run around with half a dozen little Belizians who were not fazed at all by the little rubia. Welcome to Belize.
We greeted the family of our Kindergarten teacher for an hour or so, loaded up her supplies, and headed back on the road. We had avoided the rainstorm! We headed on another road for about an hour through a Mennonite community and then set out on our homestretch towards Gallon Jug farm. The Gallon Jug road was about a 45 minute journey through 130,000 acres of rainforrest. We were entrenched. About half way through the journey, the principal told us to keep our eyes peeled for wild life. Not a minute after those words left his mouth, we saw two sets of eyes in the road. Two Jaguars playing with eachother. Siboney was sitting with my in the front seat, so you know what her new favorite animal is...No more dinosaurs and sharks. Our principal, who has lived in Gallon Jug for the last 8 years, has never seen two Jags. together before. Apparently quit a sighting. Welcome to Belize.
We continued on the road for another 30 minutes and finally reached our destination at about 7pm, though it felt more like midnight. We entered our room, which is in fact above the horses stables, jumped in our king sized bed, threw on "Shark Tale" and fell out. Zoia and I woke in a very "gringo fashion" at about midnight to drench ourselves in bug spray.
We have been in Gallon Jug, Belize for exactly a week now. We arrived in Belize City last Monday only to find out that we had packed duffel bags to the brim, and forgot the most important things for our actual job--or lesson plans. With ideas of how our principal would react to our only real pre-school responsibility running through our head, we proceeded on. Upon arriving in Belize City, he seemed surprise that leaving our lesson plans in the states was the biggest of our worries. We simply had them mailed next-day delivery to the principals wife who was still in the states, and she would bring them with her in the following week.
We headed about an hour north to Orange Walk Town where we loaded up on a months supply of groceries and vegetables. As we filled the truck with groceries, our luggage, and the principals new text books, we noticed a quickly approaching rainstorm. Cono! The principal through the car in mash mode and headed another hour and a half northwest to a little village where we picked up our kindergarten teacher and took cover under a tree. Siboney, who had been sitting on a plane and in a car for the last 7 hours, finally got a chance to get out and run around with half a dozen little Belizians who were not fazed at all by the little rubia. Welcome to Belize.
We greeted the family of our Kindergarten teacher for an hour or so, loaded up her supplies, and headed back on the road. We had avoided the rainstorm! We headed on another road for about an hour through a Mennonite community and then set out on our homestretch towards Gallon Jug farm. The Gallon Jug road was about a 45 minute journey through 130,000 acres of rainforrest. We were entrenched. About half way through the journey, the principal told us to keep our eyes peeled for wild life. Not a minute after those words left his mouth, we saw two sets of eyes in the road. Two Jaguars playing with eachother. Siboney was sitting with my in the front seat, so you know what her new favorite animal is...No more dinosaurs and sharks. Our principal, who has lived in Gallon Jug for the last 8 years, has never seen two Jags. together before. Apparently quit a sighting. Welcome to Belize.
We continued on the road for another 30 minutes and finally reached our destination at about 7pm, though it felt more like midnight. We entered our room, which is in fact above the horses stables, jumped in our king sized bed, threw on "Shark Tale" and fell out. Zoia and I woke in a very "gringo fashion" at about midnight to drench ourselves in bug spray.
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