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| Sunday Church |
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| Love his Hair |
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| Notice Little Gaga in my hands picking her nose... |
Hey all... So this past week has flown by so quick i cant even believe it! Its already Monday and i haven't even written about my amazing last week and not to mention the unforgettable weekend. So ill just write a quick catch up post. Last week Sunday was my first time to attend church in a foreign country. The building was in a small house just large enough for a chapel, kitchen( somehow every Mormon church house has a kitchen), and a few class rooms. Although this was the English branch, the speakers spoke very quietly and their words were hard to understand. Despite the difficulties, the spirit was still strong in the sacrament meeting. It amazes me that no matter where you are in the world, the gospel will be taught exactly the same way. I felt so blessed to be amongst people so poor yet so rich ion blessings and love. Anyways after church i got my hair braided by a girl, Shahita, who is raising money for her boy friend to go on a mission! Getting my hair hut bad but it is awesome not having to do my hair when i leave the house! After that i went to a baptism of a 70 year old man and that was quite awesome. Really a blessing in disguise.Monday was a medical project day. We went to the village of georgeville to finish up testing peoples BP and blood glucose levels. Basically we do these two tests to determine if they are healthy. Knocking door to door has really opened my eyes as to how poor these people are living. Some houses are one room with a bed, a TV, and a stove. But its like they have never known any better so they are fine by it. I know i admire them for their gratitude. Tuesday we went to the hospital to continue construction and manual labor! The guys who work with us are kind enough to give us Spanish and kriole language lessons. They also taught us how to drive their stick shift piece of junk cars. Fun times. But really Ignacio, Johnny, Dalhart, and Rambo are great guys to put up with us girls and our attempt at building a building haha. Bless their hearts. Wednesday was a special day because we started a new project that will really help a school and a community. We built a square foot garden. This garden will be used to grow veggies and fruits for the school children lunches! The kids will also be responsible for replanting and watering the plants! We built a 7'x3' garden and another smaller plot. The ground had to be tilled, pick axed, broken up, mixed with mulch and finally planted with seedlings. We also had to dig a 26 yd. trench around the garden so the plants wouldn't be flooded and washed out! The amount of work we accomplished was astonishing. Luckily we had a some kids from a family in the neighborhood come and he lp us out! It was so fun they were working just as hard as we were! Totally awesome. As a reward we bought them all Ideals, popsicles resembling otter pops but MUCH better. They loved working with us as we loved them for helping us! Thursday was the medical project again but in the morning i was fortunate enough to go to Octavia Weight, a old folks home, and visit with several of the ladies and gentlemen. They are seriously so sweet and funny. I love sitting and listening to their stories. I am even more about a project i will be specifically helping with. We will be going to Octavia Weight and holding a physical therapy session with those that are able to attend! This will be a great opportunity to help the old with their pain and keep them mobile for as long as possible! Ill keep you updated! Well thats all for now!
Friday::Well today had a great start with yet another bowl of delicious oatmeal. I have quickly learned to eat a large breakfast here because lunch usually comes after work at three o'clock. Today i choose to travel to belmopan to visit with the children at the orphanage. WOW. these children have absolutely nothing but by the way they greeted us i though they were soo rich in love! They ran up to us and began saying " miss miss i want to give you a hug" or " miss miss i want you to play with me." Broke my heart to know that most of their parents left them there. However, i know that just taking the time to visit and play with them made that one day that much better! All of them are fascinated by the concept of the camera and all of them want to be in pictures. So we played on the monkey bars and took pictures of us pretending to be monkeys in the jungle. Topic of conversaation with the kids here is always about american sports. They LOVE basketball. All the kids want to be Kobe Bryant. After playing at the park we took the kids to color at the facility. These kids are so easy to love it was hard to leave them. Friday night we went to the stadium where we play bball and volleyball with the locals. Most the girls here go running as well so i figured i would join. In the states i can usually run a few miles before getting too hot to quit. Here is a different story. Trust me. It is soooo HUMID. Its like your swimming while running simply because you will sweat so much. And lets just say i didnt run as far as i thought i would be able to. After running I went to join a dance party on the side lines of the bball game going on. The local kids were teaching us how to dance. They are all so good at it!! As we beging to play our current rap hip hop and other music they always have different dances to each song. Next was volleyball and other fun activities. Day well spent.
Market in downtown this morning! I saw fruits i have never seen before. Every one gathers and sells spices, fruits and vegetables, chickens, clothes, leather souvenirs and other cool gadgets. Didnt buy anything except for little bananas and papaya and pineapple. Next was our saturday vacation trip which consisted of shopping at some stands and then a tour of a myan ruin. Xunantunich is an amazing myan ruin where you can just climb and view the entire area. BEAUTIFUL. We climbed to the top and got stuck in the most amazing rain storm! I mean drenched but i didnt even care cause this was a life experience i will never be able to have again. Once it quit we went home and took naps at the house. Later that night we went to the resort at the top of the hill and went swimming in their beautiful pools. They are located on a mountain and face the city of San Ignacio. Another day well spent.
So today i worked till all the sweat came out of me. I was drenched basically! it was horrible but yet at the same time absolutely gratifying. But it was cool helping out at soo many projects. First i went to a local school Corner Stone, where we did sports and games with all these adorable little kids and then we walked about a thirty minute walk to the "local" hospital and ate lunch. It was a all vegetarian. If you know me, i come from texas where meat is the main part of each meal except breakfast maybe... so we had tofu bab-b-que meat (haha what a joke) and not bad i have to say. And i know you will be surprised but I ate all of it and liked it. Probably because i was soo hungry. After dinner we went back to work on digging holes four feet deep for a drainage system of a dialysis center. This dialysis center is the second one in Belize and it will save thousands of lives! As a team, we have helped build this small center from scratch with the help of a local contracting team and we should be finished by the end of august. I know it will be cool to see the final results of a project that hard work has gone into! So all in all, despite the tremendous amount of humidity in the air, I have enjoyed my first working day. So i must admit this trip of mine is not all work, at niht we party pretty hard. There is always something to do. Watch a movie, dance to music, play sports with the locals (my personal favorite), or read & relax. Its always fun just to explore the town and catch a whiff of the amazing food sold by street vendors. This place is just simply satisfying.
