“Pork Chop Paradise!”

I know I know, we haven't put anything new up in forever!  We have no excuse, we are just lazy.  So I will try to squeeze the rest of February into one post...sorry if this one ends up being really long....

Back in Cayo

So Maine and I had to go get our 30 day extension stamp in our passports.  We were late.  The man behind the desk scolded me.  He of course wanted to know why we were late so I tried to explain to which he said in a heavy creole accent “that's not a good excuse my dear”.  I suppose he couldn't have been that upset since he called me “my dear”...but then who knows.  Anyhow, in the morning when we were waiting for the bus to go to Belmopan (where the passport office is...it's the capital), the dog that Crystal and Safia adopted for awhile found us.  It's really funny she always follows the tourists around.  Smart dog.  The locals are all used to stray dogs so they don't have much sympathy.

Anyhow, that was on a Tuesday...Later that week we went preaching in Socutz, which is by Xunantunich.  This is a pic of a couple pioneer sisters that we went with.  Laurey is on the left, Jean is on the right.

And here's Maine, we were standing by the Mopan river.  Isn't he handsome!  :)

Wednesday we went to Benque Viejo which is a town close to the Guatemalan border.  We went in search of caves.  Sadly the caves were all much farther away then we thought.  :(  So we walked around the town for a little while and found the Culture House.  It was basically a little museum.  Here's a few pics from there.

Guatemala

The Following Tuesday we went to Guatemala.  There is a Guatemalan city called Melchor right across the border of Belize.  There are allot of deaf there.  Now in Guatemala they don't use ASL they have their own sign language.  But Melchor is closer to Belize then any other city in Guatemala, so the deaf there use ASL.  Every Tuesday a group from the ASL congregation in Cayo goes to preach there.  There are two Guatemalan sisters that are involved in sign, so we met them at the Kingdom Hall in Melchor.

Everyone that has been going there for awhile has Bible students, so Maine and I got to tag along on those.  Here's a pic of me at a study with Nelly and Ramon.

They are a couple in our congregation and the young girl is Vivian.  She is deaf.  Nelly has been visiting her since she was 5 and she is now 14.  She didn't know any sign language when Nelly started teaching her, but now she signs really well.  I also went with Nelly and Ramon to study with Vivian's Aunt and Uncle.  They are very nice, but they don't speak English.  Really made me wish that I knew Spanish.  It was kinda funny, Nelly kept signing to me to translate rather then translate to English, so they thought I was deaf.

After that we walked through the Market which was really cool.

Saw these baby shoes and found the brand name to be really amusing...they made me think of you Kyla.  :)

Then we had lunch at the little papusa/taco place.  Maine was really excited that they have Pepsi products in Guatemala.

Maine has been feeling deprived :) Belize is a “Pork Chop Paradise!” Coca Cola products only. For those of you that don't know, “Pork Chop” is a friend of ours, that for some reason loves Coca Cola. Silly Pork Chop!

After lunch we went to more studies.  Tony, Maine, Laurey, and myself went to one house.  The mom and her sister are deaf.  So Laurey and I studied with they mother, and Tony and Maine studied with the little boy.  His name is Edward.  He is so cute!

Maine saw him give the cutest ASL pray. If he needed to think about his answer he would hold up his finger to tell Tony to wait. Maine just loves him. This is his little brother.  Also adorable!

They are both hearing.

When everyone was done with all their studies we went to get ice cream!  I don't remember if we have mentioned it yet, but the ice cream here in Belize is not very good...at all.  But in Guatemala they have Sarita!  Yum!  So we got to have yummy yummy ice cream!  I got espresso fudge covered in chocolate with nuts on top.  It was delicious!  Anyways here's Maine, Laurey, and Nelly enjoying the ice cream.

Then back across the border to Belize.  When we dropped Nelly of at her house she gave us a custard apple....

Yes is was just as gross as it looks.  Later I was told that this particular one was a little over ripe, so maybe I will try one again...although that is doubtful.  We had to force Crystal to try it with us...she didn't like it either.

Interesting fact, there has been some sorta flu outbreak in Guatemala so on the way back to Belize at the border they make you walk through this disinfecting stuff...just your shoes.  You have to step on this really sopping wet rug and wipe your feet in the disinfectant.  It was weird....but I'm glad they do it.

And then....

The rest of that week was pretty “normal”.  We went to Spanish Lookout again.  I love going there!  I have my very own Bible student there.  Rosita.  I will put a pic of her up later.  And of course her niece and nephew are SO cute!  This time the neighbor kids were there too.  They spoke Spanish and creole...I felt really bad cause they were trying to talk to me and I don't speak Spanish.  Again I was wishing that I did.  But I think that we got along pretty well.  They all wanted to try on my sunglasses. 

Then after we were all done we went outside and held the puppies!  Unfortunately all but one of them are dead now.  :(  I think they were born with some problems...the mother was seriously malnourished.  That is one of the hardest things here is not being able to save all the sickly animals that are all over!

I had a part on the Meeting that week...

Went to the Market later in the week...Maine has become an expert at carrying the groceries.

We also went to the culture house in San Ignacio which was really not that exciting...and we put screens up on our bedroom window.  Finally!  Take that misquotes!

February 21, Guatemala again

This time when we went it was Carnival.  Unlike the one in Brazil, this Carnival seemed to be a kid thing.  Well kids and some young adults.  There were allot of young people parading through town in costumes. 

A Ninja saw me looking out the truck window and blew a kiss to me.  I didn't notice, but Maine did.

On their way to study with a family Tony, Diana and Maine encountered a bit of road block...

So they left the truck and proceeded on foot.

Everything else was pretty much the same as the week before.  Tony and Maine studied with Edward, the cute little hearing boy.  Lauren and I just waited in the truck cause his Mom was busy cooking that day.  While we were there the little neighbor girl came over and wanted to read Bible stories.  This of course was done in Spanish.  She was pretty cute.

After that we made our ice cream stop and headed home earlier then usual.  Earlier that day Crystal had been trying to get a hold of us, but our phone doesn't work over there.  When we arrived at the house we found out why.  Something in the toilet broke and the tank over flowed.  When Crystal woke up that morning the water had flooded the entire house!  Poor Crystal had to spend all day cleaning it up by herself.  And of course that morning Maine had left our lap-top on the floor.  He NEVER does that.  He was heartbroken.  We went to the store and bought 10lbs of rice.  Amazingly after leaving the computer in the rice for awhile it was resurrected!  The speakers don't sound as good, and the battery is shot.  We have to keep the battery out and just always have the cord plugged it.  But at least we didn't loose everything we had on it.  We haven't been doing well with our electronics down here.  Earlier we lent our hard drive to someone against our better judgment.  Maine generally has a strict no sharing policy with that kinda stuff.  Really wish we would have stuck to that cause the person we lent it to had a virus!  Maine thinks he can save it, but we'll have to wait til we get home so he can back it all up.

El Salvador?

No we didn't go, but some young brothers from there came to visit our congregation.  One of them, Jansen, is an American.  He used to live here in Belize, but moved to El Salvador awhile ago.  The other two, Alex and Nelson, are El Salvadorian and are brothers.  They're the ones on the ends. :)

The family they were staying with invited us over for homemade pizza while they were there.  The pizza was really good.  Then the Saturday they were here we went with them and Tony and Lauren to Blue Hole.  First we hiked through Crystal caves.  It was incredible!

We didn't want to pay for a guide so we couldn't go through the entire cave.  But we got to go pretty far....actually we went farther then we should have...so bad.  Anyhow, after that we drove a little ways to Blue hole to swim.  The name is pretty self-explanatory.  It's a water hole that is really blue.  We would have some pics of that, but Maine had used his phone to take those pictures.  And to go along with our streak of destroying our electronics, after taking the pictures he put his phone is his pocket...yep then he got in the water.  After he swam out about half way he realized what he'd done, but it was to late.  Not even rice could save it.  :(  … or so we thought. Maine woke up this morning and thought he would try his phone again and yes... IT'S ALIVE!!! So we have all the pictures.

Well that is it.  Sorry this was so long.  Hope it wasn't boring.  Crystal's cousins Tara and Millie are here now, so Maine is living with 4 women. :)  Can't believe we only have a couple weeks left until we are back in the states...  OK so it took us so long to post this Tara is now gone and we only have a week left here. The internet is so slow for uploading the pictures and they have had two holidays that closed every thing down. I did want to mention that Maine will be looking for part-time work when we get back so if anyone hears of anything please let us know.  Thanks!

We love and miss everyone!  Take care :)

And as always here are more pictures. Maine is picture crazy! They include pictures of almost all the Cayo congregation. Click here.

-Becky