Garifuna Settlement Day

So on Tuesday Kashay and I headed down to Dangriga for Garifuna settlement day to help a friend with an art show and also to meet up with my Peace Corps peeps to enjoy the festivities.

All day Wednesday we spent setting up for Nehanda's art show. She has some amazing art.


We even found a red lobster....


I was so excited to see all my people! We went back to the hostel that some of them were staying for a little pre-drinking before we headed out to go dancing. We had a really good time.



The party was supposed to be from 6pm to 6am with the re-enactment starting at 6. Unfortunately i didn't make it and went to bed and missed the reenactment. I did catch the awesome parade.. Here are some pics and a summary of what the Garifuna Settlement Day really is....

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The Garifuna are a mix of African, Arawak, and Carib ancestry. Throughout history they have been incorrectly labeled as Black Caribs. When the British took over Saint Vincent after the Treaty of Paris in 1763, they were opposed by French settlers and their Carib allies. The Caribs eventually surrendered to the British in 1796. The British separated the more African-looking Caribs from the more indigenous looking ones. 5,000 Garinagu were exiled, but only about 2,500 of them survived the voyage to Roatán, an island off the coast of Honduras. Because the island was too small and infertile to support their population, the Garinagu petitioned the Spanish authorities to be allowed to settle on the mainland. The Spanish employed them as soldiers, and they spread along the Caribbean coast of Central America. The Garinagu settled in southern Belize by way of Honduras as early as 1802. However, in Belize November 19, 1832 is the date officially recognized as "Garifuna Settlement Day"

Belizean Breakfast

Refried Beans:

3 cups of red kidney beans
salt
thyme leaves
powdered chicken bouillon

1. boil the beans in water
2. blend them
3. add oil to frying pan
4. add beans mixture to the frying pan
5. add a pinch of thyme leaves, salt, and powdered chicken bouillon
6. heat

Fry jacks

4 cups of flour
4 teaspoons of baking powder
1.5 teaspoons of salt
1.24 table spoons of shortening
2 cups of water

1. mix ingrediants
2. knead the mixture
3. roll into balls

4. let balls sit for 30 mins

5. flaten balls
6. heat oil in a frying pan

7. fry till golden brown

Wow. What a weekend. Where do I start?


So this past week all the Peace Corps trainees went to Belmopan for a couple days of training and officially swearing in. On Thursday we got all dolled up and headed to the embassy for our ceremony. All forty of us swore in to official become Peace Corps Volunteers! After the ceremony we had a awesome lunch and chatted for a bit.

We went back to the garden city hotel and got ready for the annual second year vs first year futbol game. I thought I was best served as a cheerleader. Even with my remarkable sprit and enthusiasm the first years still lost 5-1.

That night we had our fancy dinner at the ambassador’s house. It was amazing. Delicious food and the best part was there was an open bar with American beer and wine. I don’t think I’ve ever been so pleased to have a beer before. There was also a nice slide show and we gave out superlatives. I had the honor of receiving ‘Most likely to fall down while standing still’ (Sarah I’m sure you can appreciate that award).

Later that night was the big fiesta in the Garden. Belikin donated a free keg to our cause. It was a great party. Many fell victim to Belikin and Panty rippas.

Parts of the activities were a limbo contest which Stephen won

and also a buns of steel competition which Stephen also won along with a second year, Heather.

It was a blast. It was nice to become more familiar with the second years since we had we only had a few interactions with them.

I think my favorite part of the evening was when Kristen put on a classic Nsync song and we all slow danced 7th grade style.

Friday Kristen, Emily, Christine, Heather, Kevin, and I took a five hour bus ride down and a quick watertaxi to Placencia for the weekend. It was AMAZING.

Finally we were able to step on a beach. What a beautiful beach it was. We got there after dark and found a small hostel which had a large room with six beds in it that we shared for 15BZ (7.50US) each. We immediately threw on our suits and headed to the beach right outside of the hostel. It was just amazing. There were about a million stars out and we all just sat on the beach for a while in our own little worlds. We went swimming for a bit but baby jellyfishes kept stinging us. After a while we got dressed and headed out to find some food. We then learned that during the off season everything is closed in Placencia after 9. We were able to find a bar that served chips and salsa. There was also and awful singer jamming out of the keyboard. Then a beautiful Belizean woman attempted to teach Kevin to punta dance. It was an interesting sight.
Saturday morning we dragged ourselves out of bed at 5:30 to watch the sunset. It was breath taking. We then went back to sleep for a couple hours and got up in search of breakfast. It was difficult but we finally found some place open and had an amazing breakfast. Kashay joined us after breakfast.

We then laid around the beach all day. (We each got sunburnt) Kristen, Kashay, and I then spent some amazing time in a hammock reading till we got kicked out by the owners of the hotel we weren’t staying at. That night we had the most amazing meal that I’ve head yet in Belize. We went to the owner of the hostel’s restaurant. I had lobster with rice and beans, garlic bread, and a plantain. It was so damn good. He said he caught the lobster that morning. It ran us 20BZ (10US). (Dad you would have LOVED it)

We then went out for drinks back at the bar. More punta dancing and then we dragged our tired butts to bed.
We got up Sunday and sat at the beach for a little while. Everyone was too burnt to hang out too long. We had a good lunch and at 2:30 we started our trip back to our respective homes. I got home at 8pm exhausted.
It was such a good weekend. It makes me excited for when my friends and family come to visit. They would have loved it.
Okay. I need sleep now.
Love you all!!
Christa
XOXO

i procrastinate.

Okay okay. I am finally writing about my placement. So where do I start? Last Friday all us trainees packed our bags and headed back to Belmopan very nervous about out possible site placements. Once we got there we of course played a game to find out our sites. It turned out to be kind of fun exept I was the last to find out my site. As you probably know I am assigned to San Ignacio working with the Cornerstone Foundation. Feel free to check out their website: cornerstonefoundationbelize.com I’m not really sure yet what exactly I’ll be doing. It is all very overwhelming. I really like that Cornerstone is so well organized. They have records of what each volunteer has done in the past which can give me lots of ideas to what I want to do. It is definitely the kind of organization that I will have to be proactive.
I’m happy to be back in San Ignacio. It is the coolest little town and I’m pleased to stay. Also, since I have spent the past seven weeks training here there is really no need to get introduced to my community since I have already lived here.
So far I have just been following people around and going to meetings. There was supposed to be a girls group meeting today but no one showed up. From what I can tell it is very hard to get a program off the ground here.
Thursday I went to mass with my host family. I have to say it was very interesting. For one thing it was in Spanish so I only knew what was going on a small part of the time. Today (Saturday) I will be hanging out with one of the other volunteers, Kashay. She’s cool and it’s nice to have an instant friend in the area.
Welp I’m not sure what else I should write about. I miss you and love you all.
Christa

xoxo

My Bad

I know I know, I have been horrible about updating. I'm been super busy... When they tell you that after training is over it slows down...they lied.. :-) Seriously I will update on Saturday. Sorry I'm such a procrastinator.

heart you all

Independence Day

So this weekend was the celebration of Belize's 28th birthday. Which also means we got another full day off of training (that makes 30)... after going to the blue hole we all went home and cleaned our selves up and then the Spanish people went to do our cooking day.. We made Salbutes and they were amazing.



Afterwards we all eventually met up at a local bar in the center of San Ignacio. Some weird fellow that looked similar to santa claus was telling us bizarre stories. We all hung out for a while and at midnight they shot off fireworks officially kicking off Belize's independence day.



Independence day was very fun plus i finally got to sleep in (all the way till 9!) There was a really cool parade which the pics are on my facebook.. sorry i'm not very detailed i have to be back in class at ten.

The Blue Hole

On Sunday the San Ignacio Youth Development group took a little field trip to Blue Hole park. It was great. We spend the day swimming and hiking in the rainforest. It was nice to have calm relaxing day. I couldn't believe how cold the water was. When we swam in the sea last week the water was pretty warm and the lagoon was HOT.




I procrastinated writing and now i'm out of time... I will add another blog over the Independence celebrations probably tomarrow..