in the cave

Hey everybody!

This weekend we went up and explored an old cave system in the jungle. Though we followed a road, the jungle is thick!  There are part where it would be basically impossible to walk through; machetes are a must.  the cave itself loomed black out of a high cliff that itself just seems to appear out of the jungle.  (the thick undergrowth reduces your line of sight quite dramatically) 

At the entrance we made a torch out of rags and oil and dived in.  The good,  unbelievable rock formations that look like gargoyles, statues, and moon rocks.  The bad, bat guano that pretty much covered anything.  the bats were quite funny,  they'd peep out at you from their little crags in ceiling and then hide, peep out again, and then hide.   They can spider across the walls quite nimbly.   When we had our lights on they kept their distance, but then we turned our lights out.  At first I thought there was a draft from the outside, but then I realized the bats were flying only an inch from my face!  Scary.  Other interesting creatures were the centipedes and cave spiders.  The latter have extra long legs that they use as feelers in the dark.

Much of the cave we explored by walking, but several sections could only be traversed by crawling through tiny crevices that never looked big enough for your body.  I can't believe nobody got stuck!

I had my hero moment of the week when a caught a female volunteer who tripped while descending a steep ledge. Hold your applause, please.

We didn't bring a camera because of the really tight skin-to-rock squeezes and standing water.  We didn't want a camera to get broken or wet.

If you are interested, look up the blue morpho butterfly.  We saw several on our way to and from the  cave sight.  As you can see, they are beautiful

A day in the life

Hey everybody.

Some of you guys have been asking what my typical day looks like; so I decided to blog about it.
My typical school day begins around 4:45 or 5 am, when I roll over and decide I should try to go back to sleep for a little while.  Then I get up around 5:30, read my bible, and work out for about 45 minutes to an hour.  7 am (ideally) has me arriving at the girls' house to accompany one of the female volunteers to breakfast, since she prefers not to walk alone.  After breakers (oatmeal, every day.)  we walk over to the school and sign in.  I usually have three to six hours of class time, the rest of the time I prep for class, email, blog, grade, and other wise save the world one text document at a time.  School gets out around three and then there is tutoring and disciplinary JUGs, or Justice Under God.  It usually consists of misbehaved students performing some chore or extra work.  Then its more class prep for the next day.

Dinner is usually rice, beans and scrambled eggs.  The eggs haved usually been cooked around four, and I don't get to them until about six, so the contents of that pot are not high cuisine.  The only way to vary it is with Donya Betty's (not a brand, our cook)  secret-family-recipe hot sauce. Did I tell you I like oatmeal?

Mass in the evening.  Then I perhaps hang out at the girls' house or read at mine.  Currently I'm working on Teresa of Avila's spiritual autobiography.

9:30 its lights out, although since my roomate is a night owl, I usually just go to sleep with the light on.  I'm tired anyway.

Weekends might include a poker game, movie night, a hike, or travel for groceries, sports equipment, or just a lark.  More about that in my next.

Later,
Jonathan

Placencia again

This is me at Placencia, right before Mass.  I'm trying to figure out how to show you guys more photos of well, me.  Just kidding, although your favorite guy in Belize will always be close by, I'll try to give you a photographic sense of what its like down here.

Shopping in Belize

Yesterday I went to pick up a few things at the supermarket, which is really a large convenience store, or that's how it would appear to us.  I got a couple of yogurts and, at the last second, a gallon of milk.  Milk is pretty expensive down here, which I forgot about,  so I didn't have enough money to pay for it all. I was about to put a yogurt back when the storekeeper offered to let me take the items and come back the next day with the rest of the money.  I was speechless.  But needless to say I accepted her offer (other possibility: does she like me?)  Only in Belize.

I'm still speechless, but that's because my mouth is full of yogurt.

Jonathan

Two Months!

Today marks two months in Belize everybody!  The second months has gone so much faster!  Time always seems to to be wanting to floor it.  I wouldn't mind flooring it either, buy I don't have a car.

Jonathan

Placencia

Well, we finally made it to the beach this last weekend.  We were in Placencia, a beachfront town located on a tiny peninsula on the southern coast of Belize.  Most of Belize is protected by a large coral reef, so the waves were actually quite small.  The water was a very deep blue, not the aquamarine shade we usually associate with the tropics.  However, the comibination of  beach, water, perfect blue sky and shady palm trees blew me away.  It was so glorious!  The ocean wafted a cool breeze across the golden-white sand, and we drifted into long naps underneath nodding palms.  perfect.  I also a led a canoe/kayak expedition around the peninsula, which was a lot of fun.  For that I was glad there was such calm water, since not too many of us really knew how to handle a canoe or kayak.  The absolute highlight was dusk on the last night we were there.  A buddy and I took the kayaks out in the lagoon, or the water between the peninsula and mainland, to watch the sunset.  Just as the sun went down, a pair of dolphins swam by.  They were so graceful!  The arced their backs out of the water just enough to breath and then silently slipped back under .  I tried to follow them in the kayak, but they were quick and silent-difficult to track in the dimming light. 

Unfortunately, i got food poisoning the last day; that was a bit of a drag, especially since I had to travel five hours on a bus.  But these things happen.

Overall, a fantastic trip.  I hope all of you can experience the same someday

Jonathan

Stars

I hope you all know that many nights I look up at the sky and see the same stars that you all see.

This is a great comfort to me

tarantulas

Its about time I told you all about the tarantulas in our house.  They have started to invade it.  As you may know, the house is infested with geckos that hide in walls and wake you up at night with their cleek-cleek-cleek sounds.  We don't often think of arachnids (spiders, ticks, tarantulas, scorpions,  etc.) as things that would eat lizards, but the relative size of these tarantulas and geckos puts the eight legged freaks solidly in the "predator" category.

A couple of nights ago,  my friend and I walk into our house to find another volunteer in a standoff with a cornered tarantula.  It had hidden itself in a cupboard, and attempts to flush it out with bleach had been to no avail.  But with three of us now in the house, we figured we had it outnumbered, although it still had more legs than all of us.  Using a combination of brooms, headlamps, and loud yells(Which were a little too high pitched to be war-cries)  we drove the enemy from his position and swept him out the open door.

The next night there was another one. 

We now have a game called tarantula hockey that we play in our house.  Its really easy to play.  All you need is a live tarantula, brooms, and a bunch of guys in bare feet.  The goal is the sweep the hairy thing through the door.  I'm the current high score holder. 

After the last game one of the other volunteers told us how last year he woke up in the middle of the night to find a tarantula sitting on his chest.  He came to no harm, but he achieved his optimal heart rate in about two seconds.  Remember how I said that the geckos wake you up at night?  Well, they don't anymore, because I never fall asleep.