on a beautiful saturday afternoon

Gud Eevnin,

So I thought I would start off with a little Kreol today. In Belize, time is distinguished between morning, afternoon, evening and night. Morning (Maanin) is from 6am-11:30am. Afternoon (Aftaanoon) is from 12-3pm, Evening (Eevnin) is from 3-6 or until dark and night (nait) is from dark or 6pm-6am. You can even say Gud dae (good day) for all day long. A little different from US.

So Nate and I are loving Belize. Its been HOT HOT HOT. Like 94 degrees. We have a fan so we stay not as hot. :). We got placed in Belmopan with our host family, so technically, we are still in the city for another 4 weeks. After the 4 weeks are up, we will get a final placement, hopefully in a village or town (which is a lot smaller). Nate works/trains in Belmopan and because we wanted to live together, I commute to a village every day to work/train. The village is 30 miles away but with the bus, it takes about an hour to get there. I love the village. Its called Georgeville. We will be posting pictures soon of the village, Belmopan, and other fun things.

I also wanted to give everyone an update on the things we brought with us to Belize. It was interesting. We were told up to 80lbs total for the two bags each. Nate and I stayed up until about 10:30pm the night before the flight to get it to the weight requirements. We had to wake up at 3am for our flight! With much frustration of having to unpack half our stuff, we ended up with:

shower towel, beach towel, yellow wet towels, wash clothes, soaps, shampoo, shavers (one of the most expensive things here), female stuff (another expensive things here) hygiene stuff and medicine stuff. I took a little bit of makeup and of course a thousand hair ties.

Clothes: tank tops, shorts, a few pairs of shoes-really. Nate: running shoes, dress shoes, 2 flips and me: running shoes, 2 sandals, 1 flip. We also brought 4 pairs or dress pants each, 5-10 dress shirts, Nate brought 5 casual shirts, I brought 2 casual shirts, 6 skirts, 1 dress, and 4 running shirts. We both brought our bathing suits. We brought some technology things like a computer of course, and ipods. A few books too. Oh and underwear (tons of them), bras, boxers, that kind thing.

We find that the stores have almost everything here. More than I actually thought but the money ratio is 2:1 Belize to US dollars. So things that cost 4 dollars in the US cost us 8 dollars here (and if you only get a little bit each week/month-soon) then it adds up.

We have Janice (my older sister) sending us things that we couldnt find room to pack like more clothes or hygiene stuff. Feel free to send love this way too. It is strange, in US we always get mail (even if you dont want it like bills) but in Belize you actually miss getting something.

Anyways, Nate and I have everything we need right now. If we need medicine, the Peace Corps Nurse (Nurse Jackie who rocks) will hook us up. They take care of us here. We can buy most things here. We wash our clothes weekly and the clothes that we packed are a perfect amount.

In the end, we had 86lbs each but didnt have to pay. Whew.

We love you and miss you tons.
Michelle