Tracy in San Miguel

Friday started out great when the U.S. Ambassador to Belize, Vinai Thummalapally, came to the Peace Corps office to talk to us. He was a fascinating man, who came from the private sector as a developer of CD's in the early 80's in California. He inspired all of us.

Then, after a full day of training, all 38 of us Peace Corps trainees fanned out around the country to visit current volunteers to learn about how they live and work in their villages. Since my training is in the rather large city of Belmopan, I went to a small village to visit a volunteer who I have been communicating with since Christmas. Her name is Tracy Hodson and when I sent out a note with my Christmas card telling everyone that I was going to Belize, a friend of mine who had moved to Jupiter last year, called me to say that her next door neighbor was in the Peace Corps in Belize. Tracy and I began emailing and she helped me so much in preparing to come here, so I was so excited to meet her and spend time with her.
We all left after training and went to the bus terminal where everyone got into different lines of people pushing to get a seat depending on what bus we would be taking. About 10 of us headed to Punta Gorda, a southern town on the coast. It took almost 5 hours to travel the 80 miles because the bus stops frequently along the way to pick up people who flag it down along the road and drop off others who are just going from one village to another. Tracy and the other volunteers were waiting for us when the bus arrived and we all went to dinner to get acquainted. Since Tracy lives in the very small village of San Miguel, we were not able to get a bus that late, so we stayed in Punta Gorda. The next morning, we had breakfast with the other volunteers, walked around Punta Gorda and went to the market to get food for dinner before taking the bus to San Miguel. Another hours' bus ride found us arriving in Tracy's village and we walked the short path to her house with another PC volunteer couple and their trainee.
After re-hydrating, we all headed off to the Myan ruins in Lubaantun. I'm ashamed to say that many years ago an American came here and blew up all the ruins trying to find treasure. You can see the pile of rubble that was left and archeologists are currently working at the site to put the village back together. You can see at the bottom of the pile where the stones are meticulously being replaced. Several of the mounds like the one on the left have been reconstructed. An open market has also been reconstructed, and a field that was used to play an ancient type of basketball has been unearthed. The big difference being that the winner was honored by being sacrificed! It is a huge job and as the dig continues more pieces of pottery and artifacts are being found like the ones on the right.

On Sunday, Tracy and I met with her community counterpart who is the Principal of the school (and her landlord.) We talked with him for several hours about the village, the school, his concerns and the progress he and Tracy have made in getting a speed bump put in in front of the school, re-opening the internet lab and they just broke ground for a playground.

Tracy and I went to dinner at her host family's home that evening and had a wonderful Myan experience. The dinner was wonderful - completely made from food that they grow and chickens that they raise. They are incredible people. They live in three seperate buildings - a thatched hut for cooking and eating, a grain and food storage building and a thatched hut for sleeping. They both work so hard, Mr. Pops raises chickens, ducks and pigs and has a huge farm where everyone works to grow and harvest all their own food. Mrs Pops takes care of the four children who still live at home, makes all their clothes and washes them in the river. Cooking involves a lot more than taking something out of the refrigerator (for one thing, they don't have one!) she grinds the maise and makes tortillas, kills the chicken and cuts the vegetables for the stews. She even collects tamarind pods from their trees to make the juice that they drink. It was a great evening!

Tracy is absolutely amazing herself! She had to dig a 4 foot deep hole, pour a concrete slab over the hole and build a shed around it to make her latrine. There was a spicket outside her house, so she bought PVC pipe and ran it into the house to bring running water to her kitchen and then make a shower. She took the bus into town, bought 42 concrete blocks, loaded them one at a time into the bus, unloaded them - one at a time - and carried them down the hill to her house to built the shower. You know how I love to build, so I instantly loved her when I saw what she had done. However, let me say this without further delay, it was a great place to visit, but I don't think I could live in such a rural community. Heck, I get panicked when my internet goes out! When Tracy moved into her house, Blackie came with it. She maintains that he's not her dog, but he absolutely is, not to mention, he's the only dog in town who's allowed in a home and all the other villagers think she's nuts! He's the neatest mangy dog I've ever seen and he would absolutely defend Tracy to the death. He never leaves her side and followed us the entire 7 mile walk back to the bus on Monday, defending us against the other dogs all along the way. They make a pretty neat team and I had a wonderful time visitng both of them!

Tracy and Blackie