Week Two - Community Based Training Begins

It was a very busy week that started with a wonderful trip to Hopkins on the Caribbean. It was great to travel the Hummingbird Highway, which goes southeast from Belmopan to the Southern Highway, and see some of the beautiful countryside of Belize. The Cohune palm grows wild in the rain forest and reaches amost 100 feet tall. It is used for everything from thatching with the enormous frawns - at least 20 feet in length - to making oil from the seeds, and eating the seeds, which have the same texture and taste a little like coconut, to eating the heart, which is delicious. Even the bark is used to feed their pigs.
Hopkins was beautiful and our house was not more than 50 feet from the Caribbean, with only cocounut palms between us and the turquoise water. The houses are mostly on about 5 foot stilts and are made of wood, some with thatched roofs, but mostly with metal roofs (which sounded great when it rained on Saturday night!) Our house was very simple and functional. About 20 foot square, divided in half. The front had a kitchen and living/dining area and the back half had two bedrooms. It was painted a beautiful caribbean blue and is called "Blu Hevan" by the owners, who are from Colorado, and lived there for two years with their two small sons before moving back to the states. We had a wonderful restful time, swimming in the water, lying in the hammock and, of course, LOTS of eating!
It was back to Belmopan on Monday evening and training began at 8 am on Tuesday morning with Kriol language classes. Our teacher announced that she would only be speaking Kriol, but she is speaking at about half the normal speed, so we are able to understand pretty much of what she is saying, but boy when she gets going, I can't understand a word! We also take about an hour a day to walk around town, to the open market, meetings with NGO's (non-governmental organizations) and we met with the assistant to the Prime Minister on Thursday. In the afternoons, we have technical training on building relationships, assessment tools and organizational development that we can use in the village where we are permanently placed. On Friday all 38 of us in our group came back to the Peace Corps off ice for more training. It was so good to see everyone and hear about their host families and their new villages.
Tomorrow we are going on a field trip to the Blue Hole. Nex taim den!