Crazy October

Yeah... that says October and it is now December. I may or may not have been slacking a lot on updates. I'm sorry.

October is a bit of a blur. It was a crazy month full of hurricane consolidations, and festivities. Each time there was a tropical storm/hurricane coming I would climb the hill up by the school and wander around with my phone attempting to catch a strong enough signal to receive a text or call PC to try and find out what was up. Sometimes it worked, sometimes not so well. Then I would go back to my house to pack up everything in case it flooded (why do I live in the lowest spot in the village?) and then pack my emergency bucket. At first I kind of laughed about the idea of carrying around a five gallon bucket with my belongings in it, now though I am realizing it is just about the best way to travel. First off, you always have a seat. Hitchhiking a ride on an empty bus, sit on your bucket next to the driver for some good conversation? Stranded on the side of the road waiting for that non-existent bus? Sit on your bucket while everyone else sits in the mud and nothing will ever get wet. :)

Anyway, Tropical Storm Matthew I don't remember so much. I know there was really really hard rain for a day or so, and then nothing. When the storm was actually supposed to hit ground it just disappeared. My house a bit flooded I guess as when I returned home things were damp and drying out. Thankfully, though, nothing else was really wrong.


Anaya's Dedication

So I am now the Godmother of a 4 year old Mayan girl. Her mom asked me a few months ago if I would be willing to do it and I agreed. They were going to dedicate her on her 4th birthday at the end of October. Anaya is my little buddy, so I was happy to agree. She spends a decent portion of her day at my house or following me around and when I come home on the bus she runs out to greet me. Besides I have learned a good amount of my Q'eqchi from her and she learned a lot of English from me.

So these are apparently big celebrations. They brought in musicians from a few villages away and we were cooking for 2 days prior. We baked 20lbs of flour into bread; took 220lbs of corn to the river to wash and then to the corn mill, then we made that all into poch; the men butchered 2 pigs and we made it into caldo. There were a lot of people that were supposed to come in on Sunday for the celebration. Unfortunately this is the same day that Hurricane Richard hit Belize. We had a rushed ceremony at the church that morning and then I ran off with my bucket to PG for consolidation, while everyone else went to enjoy the caldo before making their way to the school for shelter.


A note on Hurricane Richard:
Thankfully the south didn't experience much. We did not even have rain in PG. My villagers said there was a lot of strong wind, but only a little rain. They spent 1 night in the school for shelter. However, the middle of the country did experience the brunt of the storm. There was around 100mph winds supposedly and a lot of flooding. This came shortly before harvest time for oranges, so the citrus industry was hardest hit (around $30million). Mostly down here it was power outages (which leads to no water) and no buses running due to debris on the road. Since my village doesn't have electricity, once the bus started running again and I made it home, it was back to life as normal for us.