“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

San Pedro- "I Like That"

So as we stated we took a mini trip within our trip. If you care this is the route we took...

Dateline Monday January 30 2012: We hop on a Water Taxi headed for San Pedro. An hour and half later we see this...

Needless to say we were excited. When we arrived we meet our gracious hosts. The Kay family. A wonderful couple. Dennis is the only Elder involved with sign. They opened their lovely upstairs apartment to us for the week.

This beautiful apartment is in the Belize Yacht Club right on the beach. We were so excited to stay there. We had hot showers, AC and yes the internet! Brother Kay and his wife were off the next day to celebrate their anniversary. So that night we got a chance to chat with them for a while. He told us the plans for the following week. He also gave us the keys and said “Welcome and have fun”. First things first, we took showers. Warm showers! Following that we went for dinner. We ate at the Blue Water Grill. The food was wonderful.

Tuesday we showed up at the Kingdom Hall for preaching. We had hoped to go out with ASL, but only English was out. So we went out with a sweet local sister and a family from Canada. The father was the speaker from the previous Sunday we were later told. One thing I should share...

This is the Kingdom Hall parking lot. Yep those are golf carts. In San Pedro most people use them as their main transportation. That’s right we went out preaching in golf Carts!

The next day Becky and Crystal were not feeling well so we took a lazy day. Most of the week was cloudy and some rain. So we didn't do a whole lot. We did do some exploring. We could have done more if we had more money. San Pedro is a vacation spot so not cheap. Thursday we all prepared to interpret the meeting that night. But when we got to meeting no deaf showed up so we had the night off. After listing to one brothers talk I was relieved. He had a heavy Creole accent. Pew!

When Friday rolled around I was a bit stir crazy. I look online for things to do in San Pedro. One thing I found recommended renting a golf cart and heading south to stand on the southernmost point of the Yucatan Peninsula. So we did.

We had so much fun. We did some golf cart 4 wheeling. The road was sand and it had rained all day, so it was cut up by big pot holes full of sandy water. We saw some incredibly beautiful spots. Pictures just don't do them justice. But if you want take a look at more photos see link below. We found a spot that said follow path to Mayan Trading spot. So we followed, and followed, and followed. We followed for a while. I ran ahead to see if I could see the end. I couldn't. We didn't have long to get the cart back, so we decided to give up on the hunt. :( But for only like $25.00 US we had a really nice adventure. Take that tour companies! We also got some huge beautiful sea shells for free.

That evening we celebrated Crystals one year anniversary in Belize. We had fresh made chicken wings and some local coconut rum drinks. I was hooked on the chicken wings! Ty, they were way better than Albertsons. :)

Oh take a look at the fearsome guards posted at the entrance to the club.

Dateline February 4-5 2012:

Finally the sun came out. The weekend was beautiful. We spent Saturday morning meeting the local deaf and inviting them to the special meeting Sunday. You see normally they just interpret the English meetings Sunday. But if they can get a speaker in sign they will hold a special sign Meeting. I digress back to Saturday, the afternoon and evening were spent swimming in the Caribbean Sea and eating an expensive dinner. I wasn't happy with the restaurant choice but of our guide, but it was nice. We spent the day with Dennis and Trent. Trent and his family are from the states. Dennis in from Belize City. They all support the ASL group. They were very hospitable and welcoming. This is having lunch after service.

Sunday we had the special meeting. I gave a talk followed by Congregation Bible Study. Later some of the deaf still wanted to go to English meeting. So the three of us were able to help translate the meeting. Becky did the talk, it was full of science facts and statistics. And the brother didn't take his time covering them. One deaf girl said Becky did awesome. I felt the same. After meeting we ate and did some more swimming. Oh it should be noted that this was after sunset. Night swimming in the Caribbean sea! It was awesome.

Monday we packed cleaned and headed for home. But as for San Pedro, I can sum it up only with the Immortal words of Tylisha “Jazz Feet” Ruffin : “I like that!”

For more photos click here.

Thank you all for your comments. Keep them coming it means allot to us. We miss you all.

The Build!

First off I would like to inform you that I am typing this blog post while sitting on our balcony/patio at the yacht club we are staying at in San Pedro. And yes it looks out over the Caribbean Sea. You'll have to wait to hear about San Pedro though. I need to catch you all up first.

Monday January 23

As afore mentioned there is going to be the first Creole Assembly in Belize on February 4^th & 5th. On Monday we were invited to go help build the Meeting Place (not a Kingdom Hall...yet) for the local Creole Congregation. Up to now they have been meeting in someones house...from what we hear it wasn't so nice.

8 a.m. Maine was picked up by a brother to go pick up gravel...which of course involved shoveling it. :) Meanwhile Crystal and I waited at the house for our ride.

After Maine arrived at the build site he got to help move all the scrap wood from inside the building. It should be noted that this wood is called Bullet Tree because it can literally deflect a bullet. It's strong and heavy. We were told Belize has 3 types of heavy wood and they are like no other in the world. One is called Iron wood...I don't know what the third is called...Meanwhile Crystal and I waited for our ride to pick us up.

Eventually we were picked up around 10...while we were driving the brothers gave Maine a pick and a shovel and said “we need a 25 ft ditch from there to there and an 8 ft ditch from there to there. Someone will be here soon to help you.” So he got to work. Thankfully we showed up soon after with the promised reinforcements.

I may not have mentioned before, but it is really hot here. REALLY hot! Like dripping with sweat by 9 a.m. hot. So now imagine my poor hubby digging a ditch in direct sunlight at about 10 a.m. Do you feel bad for him yet? He of course was very happy to be there helping out, but he did say it was one of the hardest days of work he has ever had. Though he now knows how to install a septic tank since he did allot of the pluming. Well...he knows how to do it in Belize. I'm sure it wouldn't be up to code in the States.

Things here are done differently....Especially since this wasn't a Kingdom Hall build which meant no RBC (Regional Building Committee, they oversee Kingdom Hall building projects). It was all local brothers and sisters helping this congregation of 13.

While Maine was outside in the sun. Crystal and I were inside. The sisters that were there before us had already swept twice, but it was still dusty. So we dusted and swept again. Then we mopped. This all took a couple hours. Then we helped with the lunch that some had brought for everyone.

And this is our little friend that comes around the build whenever there are ppl there. She was sooo sweet.

After lunch we needed to paint the ceiling. So we did...

And that was about it for that day. They were hoping to have the first meeting there on the upcoming Thursday. We haven't heard yet if it had been ready in time.

The Rest of the Week...

After the build it was back to our “routine”. I use that word loosly. We went out in the ministry. On Thursday Maine had an good conversation with a young man sitting in the park. It should be noted that even if people down here say they are busy they will still take time to listen to a scripture. So conversations are easy to come by. For example, Maine talked with one man for a little while the man said 'I'm busy now, but can you come back later'. That pretty much never happens in the States. Down here people really have a deep respect for God and the Bible. It's so refreshing.

Meet Diana and Melissa. They live in Guatemala. But are in Cayo ASL.

So Maine approached this young man in the park and he told Maine he was really depressed. So Maine shared a comforting scripture. Eventually he told Maine that he had been sitting there contemplating suicide. The young man explained that he was depressed because he is homosexual and has been treated badly and looked down on by many people. Maine never having come across this type of situation before was a bit at a loss for words at first. But then he remember a past AWAKE! magazine that had discussed this topic, and was able to share some comforting thoughts with the young man. To make a long story short they had a nice open conversation for about 45 minutes, and it seemed that they young man was feeling a little better when they parted ways. We hope so anyways.

Oh yeah. So Thursday while out in the Ministry we saw a group gathered around people in a hole in the street.

Turns out a road crew found some Mayan artifacts while digging. Some archealagist came and excavated them. They said it was an exciting find, first evidence they lived in that area. They found some bones and dishes.

This is a picture of a playground for Sheep:

Too bad all the play structures were made for bipedal creatures. :)

The Weekend

Friday we got up and packed for our little trip around Belize. At the Bus station Crystal and I were signing to one another and the woman sitting next to me asked me how I learned Sign Language. Then she told me that her Aunt is deaf, but doesn't know any sign at all. I explained to her that we are in Belize to help the deaf and we can teach Sign Language to her and aunt, and of course teach the Bible in Sign Language. So we swapped phone numbers and I will be calling her when we get back to Cayo. Looking forward to it! All of the deaf we have met so far have already been found by others in the congregation so it's exciting to know maybe we have reached a new person.

The bus we were supposed to take that went more directly to Orange Walk was broken down, so we had to take a bus to Belize City, then from there catch the bus to OW. Almost doubling the length of our trip. Oh well. We arrived late in OW, but were met at the bus station by the oldest son of the Family we were staying with. Meet the Hernandez Family!

They were SO sweet and hospitable. Crystal stayed in another house with a girl from California that is here supporting the OW ASL congregation til May. The next day Maine gave the talk. This is the congregation.

After meeting we went back to the Hernandez's house and had the biggest tomales we have ever seen! Seriously they were huge! Also we had Mango wine, mmmm! Another couple came over too, they are from Colorado. Meet Ben and Sherry.

They are staying in Orange Walk for 7 months. This is their second time to Belize. And they plan to come back.

After we ate we piled into the truck and went to get ice cream. The ride was fun, the ice cream was so so. It's just not as good as back home.

Sunday we left on the bus for Belize City. It's scary there! Thankfully we were met at the station by a couple brothers who took us to the little apt they were letting us stay in. Everyone here is so hospitable. We hurried to change for meeting. Maine road in the back of the truck. He thinks it's pretty awesome that it is legal to do that here.

He gave the talk there too. Meet the Belize City ASL congregation.

After meeting we got to eat and hang out with a really nice young couple. Henry and Tatiana. We didn't get there pic :( But they were lots of fun. They live upstairs from where we were staying.

Next day, Monday we woke up and took the water taxi to San Pedro. It was quite an experience getting there. See Belize City is the most dangerous town in Belize... and we had been totally freaked out by the kind warnings the brothers and sisters gave us. Example: Maine walked across from the KH to talk a picture and the sister was really concerned someone would steal his camera...So when we had to walk to the water taxi carrying all our bags looking like total tourists... let's just say it was like wearing a sign that says “rob us”... it may have been exaggerated in our minds, cause we made without any problems.

And that brings us to San Pedro. We have been here for 2 ½ days and it's awesome! But more on that later. For more pics click here.

Love to all, thanks for the comments. We love to hear from everyone!

-Becky

Xunantunich

Pronunciation: Zuh-nan-too-nich.

We woke up Monday morning, and it had been raining. We were disappointed cause when it rains they sometimes close the ruins cause they are dangerous when wet...thankfully it stopped raining and the sun came out. So off we went! We walked into San Ignacio to catch the bus that takes you near Xunantunich. It wasn't a very long ride. When you get there you take a ferry across the river. After that you walk. Maine decided to go the hard way...

Crystal and I went the easy way.

It was probably about a mile up the hill to where you by the tickets to get in......

After getting tickets, $5.00 US, you walk further up the hill to the actual ruins. Everything was so beautiful and green.

There are 3 large structures. The first one is the Kings old house, then there is some sort of temple (I really think everything was a temple to them), then the 3^rd and largest is the King's new house.

We climbed to the top! The views were AWESOME! These pics don't do them justice.

You could see into the jungles of Belize and Guatemala. In fact the palace actually sits on the border so we were kinda in two places at once. :) We ate lunch at the top. Which was pretty cool. To think that we were eating lunch on top a palace that most ancient Mayans weren't allowed to enter.

After lunch we hurried down the hill because the last ferry across was at 4 and we were cutting it close...turned out we had plenty of time. Maine got to crank the ferry though.

We were disappointed not to see any monkeys, though we think we might have heard a howler monkey. Maybe it was just wishful thinking. Maine is convinced it was a monkey though. We did see a couple of other animals.

For more pictures of Xunantunich click HERE.

The rest of the week was just a normal week. Service everyday in the morning. It is getting hotter and hotter so afternoons are kinda hard. We were able to go to Spanish Lookout again on Friday. So we got a nice long day then. Maine went on a study with a young man who not long ago couldn't sign well. Now he is doing awesome. Maine got to draw some of the pictures for the study. He said Maine's pictures were OK. :) Pictures are so important as everyone in sign knows. They are even more so here where many don't know sign or only know home sign. We have visited some deaf here that we used pictures and lots of acting out to make our points. While in Spanish Lookout we went to the Mennonite version of Walmart... it seemed more expensive. :/ Had lunch at the restaurant with WIFI!

Met a brother from the Creole congregation. FYI they are having there first Creole assembly Feb 4^th and 5^th! I got to go on the study with the deaf family again. Meet Elizabeth. She likes my glasses.

As we drove home we saw a beautiful sunset.

That's pretty much it. We are looking forward to Tara and Millie getting here. We are planning a trip into Guatemala with them to see Tikal! The center of the Mayan empire.

Coming soon to the blog:

Building a meeting place for the Creole congregation. Maine's awkward preaching experience. Our trip to Orange Walk, Belize City and San Pedro for talks and preaching!

Bye for now!

-Becky