The adventure starts soon!

Two weeks from today I will be getting on a flight from Washington D.C. to Belize. I received my invitation to volunteer in Belize at the beginning of March and it has been several months of excitement, patience, no patience, and most emotions you could think of. I am excited that it is finally about to begin, and can’t wait to see what the next two years has in store with me.

I may as well start off with what I have learned from my volunteer assignment description, and the teleconference I had earlier this summer with some of the staff in Belize.

I am a Healthy Communities volunteer. This includes water and sanitation, as well as health education (and I am sure random other activities). I will be living in a K’ekchi Mayan community in the southernmost district of Belize. Like many other developing communities their places to do laundry, shower, and use the restroom are the same area in the river. So education on sanitation and the connection to health will be very important.

When I arrive in Belize on the 20^th all 40-some volunteers that are arriving this year will attend training together in Belmopan for the first week. After this we will be split into smaller groups for community based training. During this time three will be 10-12 of us in the same community, each with a different host family, and we will focus on language and hands-on training. The national language in Belize is English, but I will be learning K’ekchi since that is the language of my community. During community based training we will come back together as a large group every Friday in Belmopan to have some bigger training sessions. When training is over in October we will have a swearing in ceremony, and I will begin volunteering in my own community.

So that is a lot of what I know right now. I should add that it is what they have told me so far, but flexibility is always a good idea :). It could, and I am sure will, easily change or have things added and taken away depending on the needs of my community and resources available.

So how do you contact me over the next two years? Good question :). At some point in time I will probably have a Belizean cell phone. However, I love emails, letters and messages on here :)

My email address is:

abbott.megan@yahoo.com

My address during training will be:

Megan Abbott

Peace Corps
P.O. Box 492
Belmopan
Belize

If you want to send me letters or a package, a bit of advice:

-Put postcards in envelopes or else they might end up on the wall of the post office.
-If you want to send a package, use a padded envelope instead of a box if possible. Boxes tend to be taxed and opened more frequently.
-Be patient! It can take a while for things to get to Belize from the US (date the letters!)

That is all for now!