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!