Nature Has Blessed Thee

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.