So let me first start off by thanking my wife Michelle for her dedication to keeping family and friends updated by consistently writing on our blog over the past year and a half. Without her, this blog would pretty much be blank till now if it weren’t for her. So she’s been inspiring me to start regularly writing my thoughts and experiences to our blog for the remainder of our service. So hopefully what I’m about to write (and in future blog posts) won’t be too repetitive to our millions of blog followers around the world. :)
Let’s start off at the beginning/core reason why we decided to put our careers in the U.S. on hold while they were just gaining traction… to put it simply, we both felt unfulfilled in our careers sitting in a cubicle behind a desk and we wanted to see what else life had to offer while we were still young. We wanted to actively serve our country, take all the volunteering that we’ve done over the years to the next level, and travel the world.
So why Peace Corps and not some other nonprofit group?
|
A Sunset beside St. Peter Church in
Punta Gorda Town, Belize |
Besides the respectable reputation and long track record Peace Corps has, the major selling point we both were attracted to is the sustainability in development work that Peace Corps emphasizes to us as volunteers. So instead of just going into a country to give handouts and/or simply doing the work for the community members and then just pack up and leave them, we are encouraged to become members of the community and trained in ways to help community members figure out for themselves what their needs are and then with our expertise, education, and knowledge, we train them how to maintain the project/work that they’re working on. Instead of just “giving the man a fish” like many other nonprofit organizations do, Peace Corps Volunteers “teach the man how to fish” so the work is sustainable and the host country nationals can continue the work themselves after we go back home to the U.S.. This isn’t to say that all nonprofits or even mission groups that serve abroad are ineffective in development work, I’m mainly pointing out the differences and what attracted Michelle and I to serving in Peace Corps. In a future blog entry that I’ll be posting, I will be discussing why I think various nonprofit and mission groups are so beneficial and needed in developing countries throughout the world, more so now than ever.
So what has been keeping us busy over the past year and a half?
|
Michelle with some children at her school
working on her World Map Project. |
Michelle has been working diligently with her primary project at a local school to help create a new school library and train fellow teachers how to maintain the library, develop after school programs, she started and coordinated a peer support counseling group for all the Peace Corps Volunteers in Belize (over 100 of us PCVs!), and she works with a committee called VAC that addresses the needs of Volunteers in our region of Belize. She’s also run several summer camps for children, she helped coordinate a camp GLOW (Girls Leading Our World) for girls, coordinated a World Map project at her school, and she also spends a good deal of her free time supporting the Belize Special Olympics football (soccer) team. I’m really proud of all the good work that she’s done thus far and all the children’s lives that she’s had a positive impact on!
My primary project is to work with a Co-op called TCGA (Toledo Cacao Growers Association -
http://tcgabelize.com ). Most recently, over the past month and a half, I have been working with my organization in developing and designing their website, implementing a CMS (Content Management System) and have been training my coworkers how to work with the CMS for their new website so they can maintain, change, create new content, and edit the website themselves. I found it important that TCGA have a website to promote and position themselves for other buyers if their main cacao buyer should ever pull out and cease buying from them. Not to mention, having a website is great for marketing, promoting the Cacao industry in Belize, and creating a ‘brand awareness’ of the high quality of TCGA’s cacao beans (
click here to learn more about Cacao and what it is) for the Central American region. In addition to website maintenance I’ve also been teaching our administrator how to use Photoshop (a photo editing program) for use with their website and brochures so they will be self-sufficient for when I leave. Lastly, I’ve been advising my coworkers ways to market their organization more efficiently, general business techniques, creation and maintenance of multimedia training presentations for farmers, and database creation/management so they can track all of the Cacao production for their member farmers in Belize.
|
Cacao Tree in Green Creek, Toledo, Belize |
My secondary projects over the last year and a half: P.E. teacher for one of the local schools, helping to fix computers for local schools, the creation of a website for Peace Corps Belize (
http://pcbelize.com ), the creation of a web forum for all Peace Corps Volunteers and Staff in Belize to communicate with each other more effectively, and lastly I’m currently working on developing an Interactive Language Training computer program to help current and future Peace Corps Volunteers learn the 4 main local languages in Belize (much like a Rosetta Stone Language Learning Program).
More important than the physical work is all of the interesting, beautiful, non-spoken experiences and all the bonds and friendships that we’ve made with our Belizean family and friends during these past 2 years. There’s no way to put into words using clever adjectives and poetic phrases to properly explain and communicate these beautiful experiences that will eternally live within Michelle and I. The majority of Belizeans that we’ve had the pleasure to get to know are very intelligent, warm hearted, humorous, and beautiful people who respect the United States, its many cultures, and its people. Most surprisingly is the high regard Belizeans give and how they show support for our current president Barrack Obama, whether you agree with his politics or not. I’ve heard time and again from Belizeans how inspired and proud they are that most of the U.S. can get past the race of a man and vote for him based on his character and what he/she ‘brings to the table’, and not just the color of his skin. I couldn’t even tell you how many Barrack Obama t-shirts I’ve seen Belizeans wearing while traveling throughout the country. Seeing and hearing these types of positive reflections about the United States while in another country makes me so proud to be an American, more than I’ve ever been in my life. I know not all of our family and friends who are reading this may not have voted for the man or even agree with his politics (I myself don’t agree with everything this administration is doing), but it’s amazing the 180 degree turn (or maybe only 90 degree turn? :) ) our country’s perception has positively undergone over the past 3 years. I’m not trying to push any of my political or world views on anyone with what I’m saying here, it’s just nice to hear such positive words spoken about the U.S. while you’re so far away from home.
Well that’s about it for now. My next blog post will focus on showing everyone (I’ll post with some pictures) how we live our daily lives and how most things we take for granted in the U.S. are not always so easy here in Belize. Don’t get me wrong, both of us are not suffering (except for the extreme heat here In Belize :) ) and we’re not living in mud huts and eating bugs or anything like that, our life here is just different and slightly not as easy in many ways. We’re not asking anyone back home to feel sorry for us, since this is what we signed up for and it’s all really not that bad when you look at the BIG picture. Before I keep going any further, I’ll save the rest of my spiel for a future post to our blog. :)
Lastly, Michelle and I are quickly approaching the end of our term here in Peace Corps Belize… only 8 months left until we come home to family and friends and start writing the next chapter of our life!
Stay tuned for more…
Love to all,
Nate (and Michelle)