Homeward Bound

Sunset on the Southern Highway, Belize

As Michelle has already said in the post before this one, we are approaching the end of our service with Peace Corps Belize.  It has been a great 2 ½ years and both Michelle and I will truly miss Belize and all of our friends and family here.   Although, with the aid of the internet, we’ll be able to stay in touch with our friends in Belize via email, Facebook, and VOIP services (i.e.- Skype) and we’ll always come back for occasional visits throughout the years.

 

What We’ll Miss about Belize

 

There are too many things about Belize that we will miss to capture in a Blog post, but to name a few:  

•  our wonderful friends and family here that welcomed us with open arms
• how people enthusiastically greet one another in a proper fashion (most of the time) when passing by on the street (Good Morning, Good Afternoon, etc., or a slightly kinder way to greet someone you would say the salutation twice:  “Good Morning Good Morning!” )
• the always warm/hot climate
• the awesomely LOUD thunderstorms that Punta Gorda gets during the rainy season. 
• the interesting wildlife here:  Geckos chirping away while running up and down your walls and ceiling, the Jesus Lizards and Iguanas that inquisitively stare at you while every morning run across our tin roof sounding like small children pouncing and sliding, the scorpions, the numerous types of large spiders, and lastly the fire ants that pack such a painful bite/sting for such a tiny creature  
• the beautiful sunrises and sunsets
• the palm trees
• all of the fresh and interesting fruits and vegetables that most people have never heard of
• the beautiful historical landmarks and sites (i.e.- the Mayan temples and villages, the ATM caves, etc.)
• all of the fruits that were growing in our own backyard  (limes, avocados, bananas, coconuts, grapefruits)
• the overall kindness that Belizeans generally give to one another

Luckily all of the positives (as mentioned above) of this experience outweigh any of the tough or negative experiences.

Interactive Language Training is Making the News

On Wednesday, May 16^th at 6:30am (8:30am East Coast U.S. time), I will be on a Belize national TV show called “Open Your Eyes” with my friend and host mother Alice Noralez, to discuss and promote the Interactive Language Training (ILT) computer programs that I created for the country of Belize:  http://edition.channel5belize.com/OYE  (watch the live streaming of the program from this link).  “Open Your Eyes” is a morning talk show that discusses Belize current events, history, people, and basically anything that is newsworthy.

Before I came to Belize in March of 2010 as a Peace Corps Volunteer, I wanted to learn how to speak the basic greetings and vocabulary words of Garifuna, Q’eqchi, Mopan, and Kriol, all of which are the spoken languages of Belize, respectfully.  By being able to communicate the basic dialect of each of these languages, I hoped it would illustrate my level of respect for the languages, as well as the many people of Belize who I came to get to know and support in development capacity.   However, I soon realized that although there was limited information about these languages, there were actually no online resources available for individuals who wanted to learn how to speak these beautiful languages.  As a Peace Corps Volunteer serving two years in Belize, I made it my goal to develop free Interactive Language Training (ILT) Programs for individuals of all ages who are interested in learning Garifuna, Q’eqchi, Mopan, and Kriol.

As I began developing the ILT programs, I was pleasantly surprised by how many of my Belizean friends and acquaintances were in support of this project.  They shared with me their hopes and their fears.  They fear their native languages may disappear if the younger generations of Belizeans don’t take interest in speaking their native language.  They shared with me their hopes that these programs would encourage the younger Belizean population to become more active in their culture and language.  They believe, as do I, that these ILTs will create a fun environment for learning and serve as an introduction to the language so the youths can converse with each other and the elders in their community.

• Free downloads of all ILT programs:  http://pcbelize.com/ilt     

• View Interactive Language Training photos, interviews, and info on our Facebook page:   http://facebook.com/iltbelize
  
  

Thankful

 

A sailboat sailing off the shores of Punta Gorda Town, Belize

Michelle and I both feel honored to have worked alongside the great people of Belize and to have served our country in the U.S. Peace Corps.  As corny or cliché as this may sound, I really have a much greater appreciation and love for my country, the United States, more so now than ever.  I realize just how lucky we are to live in the U.S. and what a great country it truly is.  This isn’t to say that Belize is not a great country in its own right; it’s simply that absence (of the U.S.) makes the heart grow fonder. 

We would like to thank all of the Peace Corps Belize Staff who helped us during training as well as during our service to make our experience here in Belize go as smooth as humanly possible.  Also, thanks go out to our fellow PCVs who helped enrich our service and helped us grow individually and professionally.  Last but not least, a BIG THANKS to all our family and friends in the U.S. who supported us throughout our Peace Corps service, we couldn’t have done it without you.  We really look forward to catching up with everyone when we come home on May 27^th! 

This is it!!!!! We see the finish line....

Strange to think about it right?!   This is probably our last blog post in Belize.  I hope I can try to fill you in on the last few weeks here in Belize, as well as future endeavors.   First, Nate and I really must thank everyone who has been following our blogs for the last 27months.  Many of you sent emails and letters, even care packages.  Heck, some of you even visited.  Thank you for your love and support. 

What a journey!  The last few weeks have been crazy and chaotic….as you can imagine.  Nate and I got to do some last minute traveling in Belize.  We went to a Maya Temple that was beautiful and the Belize Zoo.  For such a small country, the sites and landmarks are incredible.  The Zoo is such an incredible story, with tons of amazing Belize animals.  Nate loved the gigantic eagle, I loved the puma.  But probably the most exciting thing that we were able to do was to go to the ATM caves.  They are Mayan Caves that you crawl and swim through.  You climb all through this underground cave and see ancient artifacts like bowl, tools, and a few skeletons.  Very cool!  

Besides our little adventure, Nate and I have been spending a great deal of time with our Belizean friends and family.  As you can imagine, it is pretty difficult to say good-bye to all of these amazing people.  We have been finding ways to honor them and our time together.  They made this experience for us.  They impacted our lives.  Changed our hearts.  We are different people now because of them.  It’s hard to honor them with small tokens of appreciation, but we are trying.  In the last two weeks, we have had tons of dinners together, pizza parties (with specialty pizzas!), and more recently, handing out cookies to everyone we know.  If anyone knows me, you must know that I do not bake.  Making chocolate chip cookies and oatmeal cookies have been interesting….haha!

Last week I finished my last week of school.  It was bitter sweet.  I finished all of my projects last week that were at the school.  The last minute painting and touch-ups of the school library walls are finished.  Electricity and the set-up of computers are officially done.  It was great to see the final product.  It was difficult however, to say good-bye to the children and teachers at the school.  They will be missed immensely.  Nate is on his last week of TCGA.  He is trying to finish last minute marketing tools for the organization.  We just had an amazing pizza party with the guys (and girls!) They were more than co-workers to both Nate and I.  They were our friends and our family.  They are a great bunch of people. Besides wrapping up work, Nate is still spending his last remaining weeks marketing his ILT.  It has been a big success here.  Nate was on the national radio station talking about it.  He has it on Facebook, given it out to the Embassy, Belizean organizations, school computer labs, community libraries, and pretty much any other person/organization who are interested in it.  Peace Corps staff are planning to use it for their upcoming trainings of new Peace Corps Volunteers and the ILT program was so successful that Nate and his initiative will be written about in Peace Corps World-Wide magazine.  We are very proud of him!

Speaking of how amazing Nate is, he was officially offered a job when we return!  The next few weeks consist of wrapping up and packing up our house.  We will be spending all of our time with the friends and family in our lives here.  We will be returning to the states at the end of the month!   Nate was offered a job as a Senior Web Designer for an online university in Northern Virginia.  We are extremely blessed to have this wonderful opportunity.  He starts work shortly after his return from Peace Corps.

We plan to visit our families as soon as we return.  We also plan to visit everyone along the way!  In the short time we return, we will also be looking for apartments too.  I have best friends who already live in the area that we are moving to, so Nate and I are relieve and happy to have a support community already established for us.  Now that we know where we are moving to, I have begun looking for Private and Government jobs related to counseling.  I will keep you all updated!  We will have a prepaid phone when we return and try to get a phone plan when we get settled in.  Please email us if you need to get a hold of us.  

Nate and I are looking forward to returning.  We appreciated the totality of this experience.  We had an incredible experience here.  When people ask…”would you do it again”, the answer is always yes, we would definitely do it again and we are already planning to return to Belize to visit everyone in the next few years.  We also have an appreciation for our friends, family, and our support system in the states.

We look forward to fun things again like washers and dryers and wi-fi everywhere.  We will miss so much here:  The people, PG town, the market, the culture, the beauty that is Belize and so much more.  We don’t really know what is ahead for us.  We have hopes and we have dreams.  We have our future.  We know we will have to readjust to living in the states, but we also know that as long as we have each other and our family/friends, then we will be straight!

Until the next time,

Michelle (and Nate)

The visitors came and they left

Hello everyone,

So you must be wondering….what ever happened to Nate and Michelle? Are they ever coming home?! Well the answer is NO, we decided to stay and live in Belize. Nah, I am just kidding. We are scheduled to head home at the end of the May! Hope I didn’t give anyone a heart attack! Haha.

Okay, so when I left off, we just finished celebrating New Years and we were getting ready to have Mama Michelle come and visit us in Belize. As some of you already know, 2012 started with a bang! The PC doctor thought I had Dengue due to severe headaches for a week and not being able to eat, plus the whole high temperature and getting sick. But guess what…it wasn’t! Nate and I (thanks of the help of my sister Janice) are pretty sure it was either Malaria or a really weird virus. Luckily we had medicine and we both took it. All in all it was a Peace Corps experience!

Well besides that cool experience, we got our first family visitor. (Michele and Karen were our first friends!) Mama Michelle came in January and we spent several days on a little island on vacation. Needless to say, we had a great time with Mama Michelle. The days were spent relaxing by a pool or the sea. Michelle even got a massage and I rescued a dog from a rip current. Haha. Oh the memories! I wouldn’t forget the time Michelle and I hung out in the clear ocean laughing hysterically from the events from that day, while Nate relaxed on the beach eating a meat pie. Man that lobster pie was good too. It was probably one of my favorite days in Belize. We took her to our house in PG for a few days and she had the chance to meet the students and teachers at my school, as well as Nate’s coworkers, and our host family. We went shopping and had dinner with one of our close friend, Dorris and her family. It was great. It was also hard to see her leave.

A few weeks after that, Mel and Janice came to visit. It’s been ages since I saw my sisters. They looked great. I was so happy to them here. Of course after having Mama Michelle here, we knew all the ropes to making sure they had a great time. Melissa never went snorkeling before, so we took her to an island for three days. During that time, we went snorkeling with nurse sharks and sting rays. Melissa and Janice took advantage of the beautiful weather by sun bathing. Nate got burned from snorkeling. We enjoyed the Jacuzzi and the pool. We made delicious breakfast and lunches together. And Janice’s assorted drinks were great touch. Mel and Janice got to meet a couple of our Peace Corps friends, as well as our host family too. Unfortunately they didn’t get the chance to take the express down to PG so they ended up traveling on a bus for 7 hours. They didn’t do so bad considering it was their first time. It was so hard to see them leave. The only reassurance I had was that I knew I would see them in a few months.

Shortly after they left, Nate and I had our big COS (Close of Service) Conference with the rest of swearing in class. We started out with 38 and were blessed to have 22 people to COS with. We were delighted that two of our friends were able to return to Belize for the conference. They had made our service special for us for the last 2 years and they made it even more special for us when they were back. The COS conference was held at a classy resort/hotel in the Cayo District. I was actually really nervous to see everyone. I don’t think we were ready for the amount of information the staff prepared for us. We reviewed countless things related to the close of our PC service here (documents we needed to fill out, things to sign, etc.,) as well ways to get us prepared to for the next journey in our lives, including job interviews and updating resumes. We weren’t also prepared to say good bye to our friends either. Granted we would see one or two before we leave, but most likely, we wouldn’t see most of the group again. So here it is….the beginning to the end of this chapter in our lives.

We will have time to start the process of closure here in Belize. I don’t think we have started it yet, well at least not consciously. We talk about leaving in May, but ultimately, I don’t it has hit us yet. So many experiences. Some real amazing, life altering experiences. Some high highs, and some low lows. I don’t think we would change it for a second. I think it will take us some time to process what we will take from this as a couple and individually.

But as I mentioned, we aren’t ready to wrap up our service yet. Nate did an amazing job as a part of the COS committee. If anyone is interested in seeing the slideshow (of pictures of us and other people from our group), please email one of us and we will send you the link. He is gifted. Everyone was in awe of Nate and Nate’s talented work. Since the COS conference (well to be fair, for the last 7 months) Nate has been working on the Interactive Language Training (ILT) for the Belize Languages. He is hoping to finish it in the next two weeks. I cannot wait for everyone to see it. It’s like the Rosetta Stone for Belizean languages. It is going to change language barriers in Belize. He is also helping his organization to prepare for the annual Cocoa Festival held in PG. He will be starting the process of wrapping up services in the next month and applying for jobs.

Me on the other hand, have not even thought about jobs. Okay, that’s not true. It is definitely in the back of my mind, but really, who has time to apply for jobs? I am in the middle of planning a Toledo District wide Women’s Health Fair, in celebration of March 8^th, the International Women’s Day. Honoring women across the world. Well this fair is to honor the women in Belize, especially Toledo. The goal of the fair is to provide awareness and information about a number of health issues affecting Toledo female (youth and adults). So I have been working with another Belizean to get every organization in town (that works with these issues) together to provide resources. Holy Cow it’s a lot of work. So far about 15 (and most of the orgs) and about 30 different topics will be presented. I will let you know how it goes. I am busy at school with the afterschool programs and fundraising to get 5 girls to go to a free summer camp. But, what I am most excited about right now is that I am training to run a 5 mile race. Okay, who am I kidding! It is more like a 5 mile run or jog! Haha. April 21^st baby! Stay tune to find out how it goes!

So I am sure you guys are wondering where are we going to live or when will you be seeing us? That’s a great question. I will fill you in hopefully next time. Definitely before we leave Belize. I hope! Oh and remind me to tell you about the national and town elections!

We love you all and miss you. Oh boy…less than 3 months! Email us and let us know how you are doing too. Okay?

Love,

Michelle (and Nate)

Holidays

Hello everyone!

Well, boy, it has been a few months from our last blog. What can I say....it must be the holidays. So, where to begin. First, Thanksgiving was as blast. On the actual day of Thanksgiving, Nate and I stayed home and made a real Belizean dinner. I made split peas, rice, and pig tail. That's right, pig tail. It is a delicacy here and well, everyone loves it. Its like ham, but saltier and needs to be boiled 4 times so that it can be edible. It was great! But then that Saturday, we had our traditional Peace Corps dinner. I made a big old turkey for Thanksgiving. Plus, I made my mom's famous broccoli salad. Nate made his famous Goss brownies, a recipe created from scratch! The dinner was wonderful. It was a time to give thanks and reflect on how much we missed being surrounded by family and friends.

December went by in a blur. We had tons of Christmas parties and Christmas concerts. We only had a few weeks of school but they were crazy. I loved watching the Christmas parade with the children from my school dancing and singing. During the Christmas break I also had the change to visit another Peace Corps friend in her Village called Peublo Viejo. It is one of the furthest villages in Belize. It was a 3 hour bus ride through the jungle and the Mayan mountains. The village has no water or electricity. In the two days that I was there, I watched the villagers kill a pig. The pig fed over 100 people and for 3 meals. We had pork caldo (a traditional Mayan soup) as well as pork and rice/beans. It was delicious. My favorite part of the whole visit was going over to someone's home and baking with a family. During that time, we helped to make homemade corn tortillas for the caldo.

Besides cooking, we bathed and washed clothes in the river. We also helped to wash dishes in the river as well. Boy what an experience.

After the trip to the village, Nate and I made a large Christmas dinner for all of our Belizean friends and family at our house. It was a day long event. Nate and I made 2 turkeys and a traditional Christmas dinner including green bean casserole and stuffing. In addition to our traditional food, we also added foods that are traditional for Christmas dinner in Belize that included rice/beans and potato salad. It was a wonderful time to honor our time here in Belize. Oh, a side note. Guess what?! I made my first ever pies (FROM SCRATCH). I made a homemade apple pie and pumpkin pie. They turned out wonderfully. Who knew you come to Belize to learn how to cook?

During this time, we were also babysitting a friend's dog while she was in the states. Nate and I were surprised on Christmas day, when the dog somehow opened the refrigerator and ate another pumpkin pie. Boy, it was something else. We spent Christmas with our Belizean host family and friends, minus one pie!

Belize basically shuts down during the holidays. The school is closed for 3 weeks and most businesses closes for two weeks. Nate had two weeks off and I was off for 3 weeks. Its sounds all fun and relaxing. And honestly, it was for the most part. Nate and I both kept busy doing Peace Corps initiatives. He is in the process of working on a language program, teaching others the languages of Belize. I know I brag about him all the time, but seriously, he is a brilliant man and this program will change the lives of so many people in and out of Belize. I will let him describe it, as I know that he will describe it better than I could.

The new year has started with a bang. Nate is working hard at work, helping his organization get ready for an annual general meeting. He is still working hard on his language initiative. School started for me and the after school programs are going well. We are getting really excited to have Nate's mom come into country in a few days! We plan on visiting one of the cayes (island) in Belize. We cannot wait to see her. In February my sisters, Melissa and Janice are coming. Nate and I are excited to have family come and visit. We cannot wait to show them the sites of Belize, as well as our home and things that we have learned. We also cannot wait for them to meet the people we love and try some of the food here in Belize too.

I think Nate and I are starting to grasp that we only have a few months left in this journey. We have a large conference (COS-Close of Service Conference) in February. Nate was selected to be on the COS committee. I think he will offer his computer talents, sense of humor, and creativity to the conference.

We are in the process of getting our resumes updated, so we can start applying for jobs.

I am not sure when we will blog again, but know that we miss you all. There are so many funny stories that we encounter here and so many learning lessons as well. Too many to blog about, so we will share them when we get back. Think June!

We hope you enjoyed your holiday time. We can't wait to see you soon! Email us and let us know how you are doing too!

Love,
Michelle (and Nate)