First Christmas in Belize

Merry Christmas!

Theodore, Piglet and I wishing you a Merry Christmas!

Beautiful Christmas lights in my house. Theodore enjoying Christmas Eve!

Kristen added some holiday spirit to Piglet by dying her paws Green and Red (it's only food coloring). She enjoyed eating my Christmas Tree and then taking Theodore down.

16 volunteers in the Toledo district got together on Christmas Eve for a potluck BBQ. It was great to all be together since we are all away from family and friends. It turned out to be a feast. Everyone brought a dish and everyone overate. We had a great group here in Toledo. 

Greg and Kevina stayed the night at my house on Christmas Eve. We had a nice little sleepover. The next morning we made a lovely breakfast of french toast and eggs. Kevina and I made matching friendship bracelets (yes we are 13 again). They also watched as I opened my presents-Thanks Mom, Dad, Irene, Alex, Marlene and Allan!  

I was suppose to spend the rest of the day with my host family but that did not happen. I watched a movie and took a nap. It was a relaxing Christmas. I was able to talk to my family, Layla and Grandmother. Overall it was an okay first Christmas alone. 

Pre-Christmas Celebrations

This past week I have been fortunate enough to participate in a few Christmas events. The first one was last Friday. Alice (My Host Mom) teaches Standard 3 (ages 8-9) at the Primary School here in PG. She invited me to their Christmas Party in their class. The room was beautifully decorated with a REAL TREE! This is huge in Belize. It was such a pretty holiday sight. I was excited to see exactly how the day would play out. Alice had a volunteer, Amanda helping here for the past 8 weeks. She helped to put the party together. We had a fun time helping to sort out the secret santa presents (some children did not show up). It was so much fun to be with these children and watch them get excited about Christmas. Each child brought a dish to share with the class. It turned out to be quiet the little feast. The children exchanged gifts to one another and it was precious to see how gracious some of them were. There was this one little boy, Raul who got 3 decks of cards and had the biggest smile on his face. Seeing how happy he was to receive a gift really lifted my spirits. 

Here are the AWESOME Classroom Decorations!

Above is Me with Alice and Amanda at the Christmas Party. I love my HOST MOM-Alice!

The children are enjoying the Christmas Feast. Yummy...chicken, potato salad, mashed potatoes and ham.

On Monday night I went over to Alice's to decorate the Christmas tree. She had the one brought over from the school to have in her home. Ishmae (Host Sister) who is 14 and I decorated the tree with lights and little ball ornaments. The ornaments were the most tedious project. Each one needed a string tied to it, you had to feed the string through a tiny hole and then double knot it. I think it took me almost 2 hours to do just that! I think the tree turned out pretty nice, if I do say so myself. 

Irene this is for you! Here is my new addition to my lovely home in PG. His name is Theodore and he is my little baby Penguin. My lovely sister Irene sent him to me to bring holiday cheer! She also knows that I wanted a baby penguin, but was crushed to learn that it is illegal in America. Now I have a penguin and some winter spirit! :)

I am hoping to update with my lovely Christmas in PG. I will be spending the holiday with Alice and Ishmae, they have included me in their family activities this year, which I am very grateful since it is the first Christmas away from home. 

My House!

here is my beautiful abode!

take note of my new ride; traded Black Beauty in for something much more stylish

yeah, I live here.

yeah, I own that bike.

my living room

the peace corp wall

 

 

my mail wall

 the photo wall

my bed

i am loving my new house and am enjoing making it into comfy home!!

 

Piglet

I know many of you are shocked that I am living with an animal. I am not quiet sure I ever thought this day would come.

Let me start with what happened to me last Thursday. I was cleaning up my house, trying to make it feel more like my home. I notice some dirt and other debris under my sink, I go to lift up this piece of ply wood and discover zillions of cockroaches, I ran screaming out of my house. This is completely not normal. My landlord helps me spray and clean up the mess. It turns out the previous tenants had let the sink drip and the wood under the sink had rotted, instead of cleaning it up they just put a piece of wood over it. I was very much disturbed by this discovery, I went all around town to try and find some sort of roach killer, it does not exist in PG. I come back and decide to clean some more since I feel so dirty. While I am doing this I see something moving, thinking it is a roach I go to spray it...it is NOT a roach it is a MOUSE. At this point I run out of my house and down the street to my host family. On the way I call my Mom crying. My host family thought it was somewhat funny that I was crying over these things. Needless to say I barely slept that night thinking about all the creatures occupying my house with me.

The next day Meagan a PCV in a village was bringing a kitten for Tracy to have. Tracy was staying the weekend with me so the kitten was also going to stay. I fell in love with the precious little thing. Marlene named her Piglet. The name suites her, she constantly wants to eat. Tracy said I could watch her for the next few weeks, but I think she knows that she probably will not be getting her back.

I had a very scary experience with Piglet on Monday night. She began to stumble around and could not quiet walk straight, she was acting disoriented and could not really control her movements. I started to freak out, I put her in a box and began walking down the street to the Vet. Luckily at the same moment Cali, a PCV here in PG was riding past and went with me. As many of you know I am not very good in these sort of situations. The Vet gave Piglet a shot of Atropine, we believe she was poisoned by eating a roach. I got her home and she was dead weight, her tongue hanging out of her mouth and eyes glazed over. I ended up holding her almost the entire night. I thought she was going to die. The next morning she was up and moving, still stumbling and a little disoriented, but not comatose. Through out the day she steadily improved. She is quiet the trooper and little miracle! She is now 100% better. It will be nice to have some company during this Holiday Season.

Here are some adorable pictures of my new miracle kitten, Piglet!

PG Town Christmas Tree Lighting

Last week I was able to watch the PG Christmas Tree Lighting. It started 30 minutes late, which is completely normal. It was a nice program with children from the local schools performing holiday songs. They then had an open mic where anyone could come up and recite a poem or sing a song. That turned into quiet the entertainment. "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" was on repeat for a few minutes. Santa and Mrs. Claus arrived via Police truck. When they got off the truck to go to the stage they were mobbed by children. The lighting of the tree was cute. I thought it was funny the next day to see that the tree was actually just pieces of wood with lights...real Christmas trees are not easily found in Belize. :) So there you have the PG Town Christmas Tree Lighting 2009.

Caye Caulker

My next trip in Belize was to Caye Caulker for the weekend. I went with two other PCVs: Adam and Emily. Emily and I traveled up to Belize City and then all three of us took an hour water taxi to Caye Caulker. It is an island just north of Belize City. It is known as a backpackers caye since it is not as expensive as San Pedro. We stayed in some cute cabanas on the beach. We also went on a sailboat to snorkel. We had amazing lobster to eat also, overall it was a wonderful vacation.

Me, Emily and Adam on the water taxi to Caye Caulker. The water began to get more pretty the further out we went.

"San Ignacio" Our little cabanas on the beach. It was adorable, we had a hammock on the porch overlooking the water.

Emily and I right before getting on our Sailing/Snorkeling Adventure. There is our beautiful sail boat.

Here I am underwater (Adam had an underwater camera and I was in charge of all the pictures)

Here is a sea turtle and eel

The fish were everywhere, swimming all around me.

This is the coolest part: I touched a shark! Here are some pictures to prove it. There were multiple nurse sharks around and I caught them in action!