A Meaningful Passage

It's been a while since my last posting. Feeling a bit guilty, I will give an update on my life here in Belize. As I get into the rhythm of life, I become complacent to write anything interesting and find that I live similar to how I lived in the States. I work a full week and spend the weekends cleaning, washing, and staying indoors to avoid the sun and heat. The only difference is not having a car and the excitement of American urban living. Unlike the other volunteers, I choose not to travel to see the country and play tourist. I know I'll travel to other villages, towns, and cities through my work at NAVCO. Towards the end of my stay here, I might venture out, but I don't have that urgent need to see and do everything.

The Peace Corps emphasizes integration, exposure to American culture and returning to the States to relate my experience with Belizean people and culture. I think I'm getting it - I've developed a good relationship with the people at work, have continued a close tie with my San Antonio family, and have reached out to a couple of other areas in Belmopan.

To catch up on what's happening:

The village councils election ended first week in June - now, the villages will swear-in the new leaders, then the Districts (DAVCO) will have the annual general meetings to select the district boards. This will happen in the next couple of months. Attending these meetings will give me a good insight to the rural leaders and the dynamics of the process. The biggest obstacle for rural Belize includes several issues: most leaders have only primary school education which makes it difficult for them to read and write as the positions require; most are farmers or have full time jobs which makes it difficult to administer village operations; communication is a problem because most have no computer skills, have no computer access, telephone access is poor especially in remote villages, and the postal system is almost non-existent. My board members have to hand deliver notices of meetings which means driving to the districts and villages.

I continue to work on the NAVCO website - learning the editing Adobe software and working with our media service - it's been interesting to get anything done in a timely manner. I keep reminding myself that time is much slower than in the U.S. Working with the website is good for me since I'm working on my own website - it's a personal project with a wonderful Buddhist minister and my website guru cousin - Buddhist Women Today. There is so much information on the internet but most are articles, papers, dissertations, and blurbs. This will be a fun project for me to work on my off time.

As secondary projects, I have two so far and both are very exciting:

Belmopan has one public library, conveniently situated down the street from me. The condition is poor and has a lot of potential to be a viable center for students, children and adults. I was invited to be on the library committee and will help them with the project to expand and develop the building and the books.

The other project - I am helping with the George Price Center, an organization focused on strengthening peace in Belize. The director wants to develop a conflict resolution summer workshop for students. I volunteered to develop the curriculum for the high school students and, so far, I think it'll be a great learning experience for the kids.

A side bar project that I have to mention: my daughter and her friend, Bob, spearheaded a book donation project for a rural village - the chairwoman wanted a library in her community center for children and adults. After some logistical steps, Bob and Kim gathered donated books from friends and co-workers. Bob gathered the books and arranged for a Belizean truck shipper to drive the books down to Belize. We got the books just before I left for the States - Hummingbird Village in the Stann Creek District now has a good start on a library - THANKS TO BOB AND KIM!! Hopefully, I'll have pictures soon. According to Bob, we have another shipment coming, YAHOO! I told my Belmopan librarian about the project, and she was excited about getting books for the library too.

Spanish: I took a great beginners class provided free by the Venezuelan Embassy. Naturally, I'm still struggling and will take another class this fall. Peace Corps gives refresher courses too, actually, tomorrow and Tuesday, I'll be in the class.

I just returned from my first trip back to the States to see my new grand baby - she was born April 16. I immediately fell in love with her - it was hard to leave her and the rest of the family. Just a quick notable impression about coming back to the States: I was so excited about going back to hot water, concrete sidewalks, paved roads, and movie theaters. Yes, I missed living in America but as I spent my time in Denver, I began to feel quite different. It was like being in the suburbs was an illusion, utopia, and that Belize was the "real" world. Walking through Walmart, Costco, Target, Park Meadows Mall, I cringed at the excess. I had a list of things to bring back to my Belizean mates and family and it didn't take me long to try to bring everything that Belizeans don't have - sooo much. I bought new luggage since my big one broke and filled it to the max - at the airport I had to shift things between the two to keep my required weight.

Life here is so different from American life - I can understand why immigrants believe that America is paved with gold and that to live here is the ultimate of wealth, success, and happiness guaranteed. Little do they know that's not true because excess, entitlement, and greed are just part of the package.