swim

here's a good way to understand the pace of life down in Belize.  A couple of Saturdays ago a bunch of us volunteers went to float the river.  This is how one does it.  You tie some cash into a little plastic bag on the your clothes and head to the riverside bar.  Drink a beer or two, try to talk over the blasting Mexican music.  Then clamber down to the river and start floating.  You literally just flow with it, making only the effort to keept afloat.  You hold your breath for "the flush,"  a stretch of rapids that will hold you under.  "Just don't worry about breathing," counsels Mr. Mail, the teacher who hosts the event.  After about a mile of so of float, you climb onto the shore and head up the bank,  to another bar.  That's where the plastic bag with money comes in. Enjoy the cold beer and warm sun.  Jumb off a tree back into the river and keep going.  The rope swing is the best part, launching you ten feet up and twenty feet out over the water.  (I did not attempt the back-flip)  This itinarary can only be complete with an open fire barbecue and another... coke, which is the national drink of Belize

funeral

Went to my first Belizean funeral today.  It was an odd experience.  Some the of the relatives were crying very loudly in the church and afterword.  Such a demonstration would never be seen in Caucasian communities,  reall/ it was more a shrill scream than crying.  Afterword, the casket was simply placed in the back of a pickup and driven slowly to the cemetery.  Everyone followed on foot.  The caskets are usually placed in cement reliquaries rather than buried.  Some family reliquaries are twelve feet high.  As previously noted, there is a lack of funeral services here, so the family pretty much takes care of everything.

Yesterday I went out for a long trail ride on "my" horse, Consentido, meaning "the spoiled one."  Have you every galloped to the top of hill overlooking a river valley at sundown?  That's what we did yesterday.  Spectacular.  Of course,  riding until sundown meant that I had to walk home two miles in the dark, but it was worth it.  I hope you guys and come down and experience it down here.

all the best

Jonathan

run

I have mixed feelings about tooting my own horn, but I will tell you all about this.  Today we had our annual "Race for the Border"  run from the school to the Gautemalan border and back.  I finished 7th in a field of 53, and first among all the teachers!  I was pumped!  But now I'm kind of tired and sore.  The two-mile race wasn't exactly a marathon, but I will rest on any laurels available, or any available couch  for that matter.

What I wasn't as much help with was the tug-o-war for our house vs. the green house.  Fortunately, we had Joel.  Joel is a six-foot, 260-pound freshmen with a talent for pulling.  Green had us almost on our knees, and was about win, when Joel gritted his teeth.  He sank low and started moving backwards, six inches at a time.  Green raised a desperate war cry, Joel stared ahead and gripped the rope tighter. Our house recovered their feet.  Slowly, everybody started pulling again.  But Joel led way unitl green was vanquished.  We were ecstatic!  We would have lifted him on our shoulders, but he had all of us by at least 80 pounds.

Jonathan

wakes

Wakes are the oddest tradition I have seen here.  Benque really doesn't have funeral homes as such, so the deceased are laid out in their own homes.  But the family rents out a tent and sets it up on the road that runs past their house.  They put rocks in the road to block traffic and benches under the tent.  The whole setup might be there for two days.  No one seems to mind though, and cars just find a different route to their destination.
This is a funny place sometimes.

there's a....

After having tarantulas in my house, lizards in my printer (see previous post) ants in my toothbrush (going after the trace amounts of toothpaste that may not get rinsed out,) red ants in my bag (they bite and sting) and ticks in my skin,  I'd thought I had come to terms with Belizean wildlife.  Not so.

This morning our breakfast regulars were chatting over oatmeal when my friend Molly says, "What's that?" while pouring sugar on her oats.  We all looked up and saw a strange dark blob in the sugar.  Nick, a second-year volunteer, grabbed the sugar and scooped the something into the garbage,  "Just a piece of sugar-cane," he said, "just a unprocessed piece of sugar cane."  Needless to say, I was dubious.

It took me a while and considerable effort,  but I finally dragged the true story from a recalcitrant Nick.  "It was a beetle," he said, "but not large one."  I guess this was supposed to be comforting.  I guess I might just eat a small beetle and not notice right? "Golly, this sugar is crunchy today."  At least beetles aren't considered part of the daily diet right?  "And for lunch, we are having carmelized Hercules beetles! Yum!"

Apparently, you can take the sugar out the jungle, but you can't take the jungle out of the sugar.  I want to go home.