San Antonio host site for five weeks

Hi All,

I arrived on Thursday and have been with my host family for three days. They are a wonderful Mayan family named Canto which is one of four family names that populates the village. San Antonio is located about an hour south of Belmopan in a valley surrounded by mountains and rain forest. The place is lush and green and the landscape is grand! But...hot, hot, hot because of the humidity. It does cool down in the evening and I have a fan in my bedroom.

The village is remote and somewhat isolated - there's about 2,000 residents, mostly farmers - they plant peanuts, okra, plantains, sweet potatoes, pumpkins, bananas, oranges, avocados, and casavas (potato-like root vegetable).

Five volunteers came to this village, and I was very lucky to have my own house, bed, indoor toilet, and shower(of course, no hot water) - all the others have outside toilets, share the house with the family, and one volunteer has no light in her bedroom. I also live closest to the training center while the others have to walk about a quarter of a mile which includes going back forth for lunch. I think I have the best because I am OLD!! Sometimes, there is that advantage.

The village has a main road that's paved but all the side streets are dirt roads and when it rains the roads become slippery and muddy. My family has eleven children ranging from five to 31 years old. My buddy, Esli, age 12, is sitting next to me while I'm writing my blog. She is a first year student in secondary school and speaks and reads English very well. The family speaks Spanish and English but also speaks Mayan and is related to everyone in the village from the El Cadre (Village chairman) to almost everyone I've encountered so far.

My Spanish is horrible!!! But according to Esli, she says it's increasing. Jerry, I can now say more than "Hola" - I've learned "buenos dias, buenos tardes, and buenos noches, Donia Lucina (my family mother) and Don Ramon ( my family father)." The training is very intense - Peace Corps wants to make sure you succeed - they have us in language training in the morning and technical training in the afternoon. We are assigned one village project to work within the five weeks we are here - I and two other volunteers are assigned to work with the local village women's group that makes pottery, sewing, and other things - we haven't met them yet but it sounds like fun. Although English is the national language, we will conduct our project in Spanish (I know, I know, Kimbrough-Lil...I should have been more serious about using the Rosetta Stone which you gave me this summer.

Food: it's been interesting - simple, not elaborate, but tasty -tortillas every meal with rice - my kind of diet, yeah?! Chicken, shrimp, beans, plantains round out the meals. Donia Lucina makes the best tamales, and it's a special treat when she makes it. Today's Sunday meal is supposed be the big family meal with baked chicken with rice and beans. One of the older sons, Misael,works at a resort close by and is a wonderful cook, believe it or not, especially in this culture where men do not cook. He plans to make a special cake, tresleches, which is a cake that is soaked in a cream sauce that creates a spongy texture.

Oh, by the way, Francis de Coppola has three resorts in Central America and one of them is close by, Blacaneaux (Mountain Pine Ridge) - the others are in Placencia (Turtle Inn) and Guatamala (La Lancha-Flores Peten). Misael works as a guest coordinator and describes the resort as a paradise in the jungle and attracts mostly wealthy and famous Americans.

Today was my first free day and I spent it washing my clothes in a bucket with a wash board that brought back memories of my childhood in Colorado. We spinned the clothes in their small portable washer/dryer. Esli helped me hang the clothes. The water situation is very serious here in the village - piped water is sparse, sporadic, and not reliable - the family must also depend on rain water caught in a huge tank. The rain water is soft so trying to rinse the soap is a challenge.

I'll come back tonight to download some pictures - you will really love the sight.

As my final word, it's sweat, sweat, sweat, and sweat - forget about wearing glasses because it fogs up all the time and no one wears glasses anyway; putting any makeup on, using the hair dryer and curling iron because the hair ends up wet with sweat I am au naturel!!!