Merry Christmas!

Happy holidays, everyone! Thank you for all of your prayers, letters, and blessed packages!

Love,
Molly

‘Twas the day before Christmas, when all through Belize

Not a raindrop was falling, not even a breeze;

The palm trees were decorated in yards with detail,

In hopes for a lee bit o’ shade while enjoying some ale;

The JVs were a-lounging, all sweaty and hot,

Sharing family holiday stories, which perhaps they should not;

Trey’s on the sofa, guitar in hand,

And Mon’s out on the verandah surveying the land;

Maria is sprawled, reading a book,

And Kate’s in the kitchen: the talented cook;

Molly is sipping a cup of hot tea,

While the lights shine colorfully from the fake Christmas tree;

When out on the lawn there arose such a yell,

Just Frankie, they thought, and neglected to dwell;

“Now, white people!” he exclaimed, through the burglar bars

“let me in, I bear gifts,” his eyes shown like the stars;

A broken fan in one hand, a flower pot in another,

They let dear Frankie in—after all, he’s like their brother;

After some drunken stories about France and the army,

Frankie offered a lone swimmie plastered with “Barbie”

He was thanked for his thoughtfulness, generosity, and cheer,

But was helped out the door as the night drew near.

Next up the stairs was a girl named Angie,

Silent and scornful when Molly called her “Flangie.”

She sat at the table while the volunteers reminisced,

Recalling traditions, apparel, and movies they missed.

Angie left quickly, as fast as she came,

She wouldn’t even accept the Christmas cookie they offered—boy, that was lame.

The JVs settled ‘round the table, for a game of “Oh, Heck”

When, yet again, they heard a knock from their deck.

Oh Gosh, they thought, not another passerby;

It was growing late—they were tired—and Christmas was nigh.

Through the door they heard but a chuckle,

And around a big box, they saw a white knuckle;

It was Fr. Harrison, S.J., that jolly good fellow!

He was dressed in his fake Crocs, and a t-shirt of yellow,

A box of goodies, he held in his arms—

His eyes bright with love, hospitality and charm.

He looked a lot like Santa, the volunteers thought with glee,

With his white beard, box of gifts, and round-ish belly.

A wink of his eye, and a twist of my dread,

He conjured some crackers and a vegetable spread;

Some chocolate, some ice cream, some candy canes, too,

Some apples, some cookies, some wine of fresh brew;

And giving a nod, to the shocked faces around,

He smiled and turned to leave without a sound;

And behind him he closed gently the old metal door,

Lest they could hear, “at least they’re not Peace Corps!”

And to bed the volunteers headed, to be rested and ready

For the Christmas festivities scheduled already:

To Rosie’s, to Mrs. B’s, to Dawn’s, and Ms. Jean’s;

With great joy, good company, and plenty of rice and beans.

So the parish truck was stolen ...

Fr. Dan had left it parked outside of the church's garage before the 9:00 am mass on a sunny Sunday morning, locked and pretty well hidden from the main road. But when he went to go drive it back to the Jesuit Residence after the 7:00 pm mass, it was gone.

Now, we're not talking a 2008 Dodge Ram with 5 seats, 4 wheel drive, leather interior, a CD player, and chrome rims -- no, no. The St. Martin's parish truck is a 1994 red Ford, trusty as all get out, but with few functioning parts (i.e. the radio only works sometimes, and when it does there's no volume control; the windows are, in Ellen DeGeneres' words, "churn butter-esque" and squeak terrible going up or down, which is often considering the A/C is also shot; the muffler shakes and bakes like a putting motorboat; the ignition locks so as to embarrass the driver as people stare wondering why the Gringa can't start the vehicle; and of course, as any classy truck should have, the spare tire is padlocked to the roof) -- and, to be honest, I know nothing about automobiles and the heart of the truck is undoubtedly in worse shape than the unaesthetic exterior. Needless to say, I love this vehicle and because I have yet to learn how to maneuver our motorcycle, I spend about five hours a week in it tootin' around Belize City running errands for the parish and school, rusty muffler and all.

So, I was pretty disappointed when I heard the news.

We moped around Monday and Tuesday, Fr. Dan bitter about having to go get the mail (my job) on the scooter during rush hour, Mrs. B stressed as to where we would possibly get the money to buy a new truck, Esidoro upset that he couldn't go get the supplies he needed to fix the door of the church, and Angie and I disheartened at the cancellation of our afternoon joyrides. At this point, we were certain our truck was absolutely dismembered -- probably in Guatemala -- and the parts that were of no value were probably being sold as playground toys for children. Shucks.

And then, Tuesday evening as I sat in a dreadfully boring and doodle-filled St. Vincent de Paul Meeting (another entry -- I'm not yet ready to talk about how I spend my Tuesday nights), I heard the familiar "put put put," and thought to myself, no...it can't be. With a quick sneak of a look out the upstairs parish meeting room, I saw a beautiful sight: Esidoro, Mrs. B, Fr. Dan, and Ms. Florette (the cleaning woman who is, inadvertently, hilarious) getting out of the two-person cab of OUR TRUCK!

I have since vowed that anything in my life can be solved by this unstoppable foursome. Ms. Florette, who knows not only how to get a stain out of anything but also the names of every cop in town (though she won't admit how), had mentioned to her "cop-friend" 'Coon (short for Racoon -- I'm not sure if this refers to looks, or what) that the parish truck had been stolen. 'Coon said he'd keep his eyes and ears open, and that he'd spread the word around. Mrs. B, whose husband was a BDF member (Belize Defense Force), asked around as well. And my favorite -- Esidoro called all of his friends in the "auto industry" in Belize City; he knew a guy who sold tires and whose stock, incidentally, is received anonymously ... maybe they had gotten some parts from a Ford recently? And Fr. Dan, well, he's a priest. So I'd like to think he had God on his side. In any case, these Fantastic Four had their eyes, and the eyes of all their friends, peeled like a street vendor's orange.

As it usually happens in Belize, gossip got the better of this "teef" (thief, in kriol). The truck was found less than 48 hours from when it was stolen, less than two blocks away from the church and, hilariously enough, one lane over from Mrs. B's house. The truck was missing only the grill (which was probably a blessing -- that thing was rusty!), the lightbulbs from the headlights, the back bumper, the spare tire, the two emblems that said "Ford," and as we found out later, one windshield wiper. We'd like to think that this character started to take the things that were easiest to carry first, and then halfway through his work, he/she let their conscience get the better of them: "I am stealing from a church, for God's sake! What am I thinking?" And so, as they loaded up their bag of truck accessories, they decided it would be best to leave the truck -- in tact and absolutely drivable (except in the rain and at night) -- by the good church lady's house. "She'll definitely find it."

And a good deed it was. Fr. Dan's scare with the errands has passed and I'm back behind the wheel towing Angie around town; Esidoro can again accomplish his skilled carpentry work; and Mrs. B's heart rate has finally slowed to just about a healthy rate. Although our church still has no money, at least we're not in the hole. Better yet, we all had a great laugh together -- especially at the contacts that revealed themselves through the frantic race against time and Belizean looting. When Fr. Dan called the Belize City Police Department to cancel the report he'd filled out (on the back of a receipt with a "Hello Kitty" pen -- I was there, I know) he mentioned, "I just wanted to let you know that your buddy 'Coon really helped us out."

"Who the Hell is 'Coon?"

And that, my friends, is why I love my co-workers.

perhaps

i am going blind.

my eyes exploding,
seeing more than is there
until they burst into nothing

or going deaf, these sounds
the feathered hum of silence

or going away from my self, the cool
fingers of lace on my skin
the fingers of madness

or perhaps
in the palace of time
our lives are a circular stair
and i am turning



a plain sunset over St. Martin's school, taken from my roof

Belie. Believe. Belize.

My dearest friends, familia, and pickney (children),

How yu di do? Wehdagoan?

Approaching the official three-month marker of my time in Belize in mere hours, I thought it would be appropriate to send out yet another dazzling update from what is still, according to my sources, the birthplace of the mosquito.

Life in Belize is, well, interesting to say the least. I have enjoyed getting to know my housemates as we plug along each day, struggling on our own and together with both big and small challenges, and celebrating - when we can - the small victories that life in Belize City, plagued by violence, corruption, and Carnival Cruise ships, has to offer.

The way I see it, there are two distinct aspects to my life here. One: all that is internal to me and my crazy mind. And two: all that is external, which I see, smell (unfortunately), and hear everyday. Perhaps this is the way that all people's lives are, and it's just a conclusion that's taken me a little longer to come to; in any case, the divide is glaring me in the face - from the inside looking out and from the outside looking in. It has launched me into a never-ending orbit of questions, affirming, disproving and then reaffirming my initial motivations for a program like this, an experience like this, and struggles like this. And, of course, it has not yet ceased to constantly readjust my expectations for what's to come...

What's going on inside? I think about my family and how much I miss them, the newly acclaimed World Series Champions, the undefeated BC football team, the undefeated Patriots, the undefeated Acton-Boxborough Girls' soccer team (GO MARTHA!), whether or not I like my job, what I'm going to wear tomorrow, which book I'm going to read next....things of that nature. I have spent a lot of time curled up the hammock I have hung in my bedroom, escaping to read and write, and reading and writing to escape. I like to think about what I'll cook for dinner next week and what I'll need to buy at the cut-throat outdoor city market (picture Wall Street, except with fruits and vegetables instead of multi-billion dollar funds), and I like to plan different activities that I'd like to do in and around Belize throughout the remainder of my time in this beautiful country. All of these things are nice, and they present themselves with their own challenges and struggles, but they are isolated from - and yet strangely a part of - the rest of my experience.

I was told by a few people before I arrived that the poverty in Belize was of "a different kind." What the heck did that mean? Frankly, I didn't care. With my gung-ho, save-the-day, liberation attitude, it was easy to brush off such comments with some ignorant retort like, "poverty is poverty." I should have listened; the suffering in Belize is, in fact, of a different kind.

As my roommate Trey has said, it would take about 4 years totally "to turn this place around." They have found oil - lots of it. They have jungles, mountains, Mayan ruins, ocean, pristine beaches, islands, rivers, wildlife, four different national languages, countless racial mixtures leaving the people exotic looking and for the most part, stunning. The fruit harvest is plentiful for most of the year, and the fishing industry - along with the SCUBA industry - is thriving. Why, then, is this country swirling down the toilet of incredible national deficit, and tumbling down the international lists ranking safety, living conditions, and education?

Sparing you the history lesson, a political diatribe, and the many examples of suffering families and children I have gotten to know in my brief three months here, I will tell you this: the struggles I have within, including my first-ever experience of homesickness as well as a generally difficult transition from graduating college to entering the "real world," are made more complicated by those structural injustices I witness everyday. Who am I to be worrying about my future when the attendance rates at schools are plummeting all over the city and funding for the public schools is less than the finances our volunteer program provides our five-person volunteer community? Who am I to be feeling sorry for myself when my homesickness pales in comparison to the loneliness that Mr. Lopez, a disabled elderly man who lives by himself at the end of my street and who has absolutely not a cent to his name, must feel every day. These contrasts between the familiar routes of my mind and the utterly unfamiliar route of my reality here have left me, so far, struggling to navigate my way towards some distant oasis of balance.

That said, I am having a blast with the kids I am surrounded by everyday. During their recesses at school (which are approximately every hour!), tons of the infant students - equivalent of first and second graders - come over to the parish office, climbing over me and my desk chair, wanting to play on the computer, and if they're feeling especially needy for attention, they'll line up and say, in unison, "please miss, for some wataaaa!" (please miss for some water). It's pretty adorable. I have to say that I gained myself a good reputation when I dished out the Roche Brothers Supermarket Halloween posters that my mom had sent me last week - a few of the students spent over an hour coloring in every last detail of the poster. Maybe I'm not that different than those little girls coloring; maybe we all need those escapes into our internal lives every once in a while - not to forget the reality around us, but to momentarily negotiate with its immensity and pretend, even if it's just for a minute, that we don't have to look in or out. Maybe we just have to look up.

Congratulations to all my fellow Red Sox fans out there! Oh, and the picture is to show my Belizean-Boston pride - yes, people thought my ridiculous celebrations were rather obnoxious. But they don't get it; in Boston, pride is of "a different kind."

Much love to all,
Molly

time stands still best in moments that look suspiciously like ordinary life

Great Expectations

I remember sitting in the dark room, on the floor, cross-legged, watching the slide show: white necks wrapped with the arms of black children, classrooms, soccer games, smiles, community, cooking, candles, and clothes hanging on the clothesline ... in the rain.

The discernment process for JVI seems so distant to me now - and I regret to admit that the image of wet clothes, slanted in the rainstorm's winds, was something that attracted me - even more - to the experience. Except I forgot to imagine what it what it would be like when it was my clothes. Until this morning, that is. And it was just as symbolic: gloom, discouragement, struggle, helplessness - all of it is captured by my sopping clothes.

So...

Recently, I have been thinking a lot about expectations. Remembering what I used to expect, oh-so-naively, from this experience in Belize seems, well, rather hilarious. Gosh, what could be so difficult, so overwhelming, when you reduce your state of being to living simply, being spiritual, living in an intentional community of others with the same goals/expectations/approaches to life as yourself, and working for justice?! Actually, a lot. (More than just wet underwear!)

In some ways, I was silly to assume that moving to Belize would ward off any lurking post-graduation transition. I mean, when it comes down to it, I am dealing with a lot of the same struggles I would have encountered if I were working at 99 High Street in downtown Boston (ahem) - I believe I have finally articulated a fearful question: What am I when I am no longer a student?

My job here at St. Martin's Parish is, to be honest, pretty boring. I don't have very many responsibilities, and unfortunately, the ones I do have, I dread. I am finding myself in some kind of unnamed limbo, floundering between idealistic ideas of the perfect job, anxieties towards reaching out for something new, and immense frustration in sitting behind a computer all day, running out of things to look up on Wikipedia. I know that what I'm craving is activity, interpersonal connection, even struggle and challenge - but I also know that I am here for a reason, and that there are no perfect jobs, especially when you're doing them for free ... and moreover, I know myself and I know that there is something inside of me that always expects the most, the best, the extreme.

I'm not worried that I won't find my niche here - I'm just discouraged by my own impatience, to a certain extent, which is precisely where my previously held expectations come in: did I really expect to waltz into some perfectly mapped blueprints with "MOLLY DANE - JESUIT VOLUNTEER" written along the top? Maybe I did, I don't really know.

A distinction I have made between me being a student and me not being a student is the source of my direction. So much of my life has been spent in a classroom or on a soccer field receiving information, absorbing words, taking note of ideas, rules, guidelines, proofs - understanding everything as either truth, or contrary to truth. Everything was linear: you get this grade, you make this level; you play well enough, you make this team. Awards, recognition, work hard, achieve. I had people giving me homework, demanding my attention, telling me to be places, making me run around a track, for God's sake - when I look back on the amount of "independence" I have had until this point, I laugh. I didn't do a damn thing for myself.

Until this.

And, in some way, I did take direction, though it came from something much, much greater. I followed an interest, a curiosity, an inner itch, a calling - if you dare go that far - to be a part of this program, to live for two years in Belize, to find out more about life and what it means to be a citizen of planet Earth. But now, I am lost. My emotions are volatile and are slipping from my control, my schedule is seemingly unfulfilled, my thirst for excitement and adventure remains unsettled and unsatisfied. One roommate just left, three more have already been here for over a year - I am discouraged, confused. I feel alone ...

... which, ironically, is necessary to be independent ...

But still, there is nowhere - besides maybe my mom's couch in Acton, Massachusetts with a cup of hot tea, a bowl of ice cream, and a Red Sox game - I'd rather be right now. And despite the difficult questions it has extracted from the depths of my student-minded brain, I know that I am lucky to have the job that I do. I'm not sure it's the right one for me, but I'm willing to try. And, with even more effort, I'm willing to bide the journey of my patience as it gets to know itself.

Someone asked me recently if this experience is what I expected. Hell, no! But, in a way, that's great! If I had expected it all - the good, the bad, the worst, the strife, the disappointment, the love - then it wouldn't be necessary to actually be here, to go through these daunting processes that only time directs, teaches, coaches. Ultimately, I will find a way to be excited, to be fulfilled, and to feel productive. And I'm not expecting anything less.

Making Cents

There are a few things I have learned about myself since arriving in Belize almost seven short - or long, depending on the mood I'm in - weeks ago. For instance, given the right weather conditions (rain) and presented with self-deprecating, but hysterical nonfiction - Anne Lamott, David Sedaris, Jeanette Walls - I love to read. Also, I really love bananas. I knew that I liked bananas before, but I usually found them a tricky fruit to buy: they go bad easily, and I never figured out the right number to get. Looking back on it, I feel as though they are a fruit taken for granted, force fed to sweaty kids after a soccer game, dried and put as headliners for trail mixes, and not to mention anchoring the responsibility of the the mix-in ingredient for fabulous berry smoothies everywhere. Whatever happened to enjoying just a plain banana? Luckily, in Belize bananas are so cheap even volunteers can afford them! And even though I usually have one for breakfast, one for a mid-morning nosh, at least one for lunch, and perhaps one for dessert after dinner, I still really love them. Oh, and lastly, in light of the humidity here in Belize I have also learned that against previous beliefs, using deodorant actually does make a difference.

Despite all of these profound insights, there are many lingering questions I have from what I have witnessed of life in Belize. You can ride with your newborn child in the back of a pickup truck, but you can't ride your bike the wrong way down a vacant one-way street (the police man made me turn around!); it costs $.60 BZ for a stamp that will send a letter to the US, but if you come in with an unstamped letter addressed to the States with only one piece of paper in it, they will claim they have to weigh it and it may end up costing upwards of $3.00; and most notably for our neighborhood, it seems that the "rivalry of the Jones'" is made manifest in sound systems and karaoke machines - how loud they can be played and who can play them later into the night. Such competing clubbish noise usually comes in the form of Caribbean reggae-rock, but if we're lucky, they'll throw on the "kid's songs" titling "B-I-N-G-O" and "the Happy Birthday song" or such classics as Celine Dion's "My Heart Will Go On." Upon looking out my window at midnight last week during a sing a-long rendition of "Oh What a Night" expecting to find other disgruntled neighbors switching on lights and peering out windows, all I saw was a young woman, baby on her hip, swinging and stepping to the beat in the middle of the dark street.

Beyond the virtually unpredictable patterns of weather here (even weather.com has given up and just resorted to predicting thunderstorms here for the next eternity - I mean, come on, give us some credit!), there are a few more serious, even daunting aspects of Belize as I am experiencing it which are proving to exhaust my over-analytical, figure-it-all-out, make-things-efficient (right, Mo?) kind of mind.

First off, the violence. The gang activity seems to be at some kind of a high; we hear gunshots on a fairly regular basis and just in the last two weeks, there have been six reported murders. While the violence hasn't yet extended beyond the realm of those involved with the gangs (to the best of my knowledge), the vulnerability of the young boys in our neighborhood to join such groups is scary. As Americans, it is certainly not our place to be organizing or advocating for peace here, but we have been looking for groups to be on-board with who are in similar pursuits. And then - SMACK - we run right into what is perhaps the root of the problem: there are none.

We know many, many, many passionate, inspiring, capable, and influential people here in the city who also want an end to the violence, but who, deservedly so, also don't want to invest their already stretched resources to what seems to be a lost cause. All of this leads me to the next set of paradoxical, philosophical, rhetorical questions and concerns brewing within me...

What the heck am I doing here?

Recently, as I have finally started to feel the weight of my immersion in this culture bear down, I have had the wild sensation of simultaneous contradiction: every day that I spend here getting to know people, places, foods, and work, I feel more and more foreign - not just my skin color, or my clothes, or my language - but my reality. I could have left everything buy my passport at home and still, I would be an American volunteer. Solidarity, and even "accompaniment" as JVI likes to call it, seem light years away when I hear of a shooting that happened last night in front of the city's only post office or when someone at work knows the brother of the nephew of the cousin of the guy who was killed in some random bike drive-by. For now, this is a part of my life here as it is affecting me and my surroundings, but as for growing up afraid to walk the streets of my neighborhood or trying to resist the lure of joining a gang, I just can't relate. And because of this and so many other invisible barriers, I can't imagine myself as a part of any solutions in this problematic world. And so, I beg the question: What the heck am I doing here?

At sunrise last Saturday morning, I had my monthly "one-on-one" check-in with my roommate Maria (what an American thing to do, by the way - who else in the world makes a rotating schedule of reflection times with your roommates?). As she spoke with the wisdom of a more experienced second year, I gobbled up every last one of Maria's words explaining things about her experiences thus far that I never could have imagined, in ways I never could have considered. Like me, she is frustrated by the limits on each of us in acting for change here, but geez, she had a refreshing attitude, professing something along the lines of: "I truly believe in the greatness of humanity." Now, that seems far-fetched when crime is rampant, and a city of under 200,000 people is recording six plus murders in two weeks; but yikes, what an outlook. By the end of our conversation, the two of us baking in the mid-morning sun, Maria said something I never would have agreed with until, of course, she said it: "Life here just makes sense."

I suppose I'm still working on understanding that, what with the poverty, the violence, and the Ace Hardware store down the street (same orange lettering on the sign and everything!), but I have adopted it as, if nothing else, a hopeful mantra. Sure, there's a lizard that lives in my shower and a Japanese photocopier at work that doesn't print double-sided and jams if there are more than two pieces of paper in the MP Tray, whatever that is (ya, and try running off 200 copies of the Church's weekly bulletin! You will want to kick something, I guarantee it. Or you may start crying...Don't judge me.) And then there's the fact that Belize celebrates two independence days in September - one for the day they were almost liberated and one for the day they were actually liberated; same difference. And here I am, a sense-less volunteer, counting how many plain bananas she has already eaten today. But somehow, things are starting to add up.

When It Rains, It Pours: a few thoughts on natural disasters

The fact that it's raining doesn't bother me. Actually, I have found the rainstorms here to be quite peaceful, a break from the sounding car alarms, the honking street vendors, the gunshots, and the oppressive heat. When it starts to rain, people retreat to the covered caves of the city: tarps are drawn over street-side shops, neighbors welcome in strangers, and at the corner of Ebony and Santa Barbara streets, the JVs are drinking hot tea (it's much cheaper than beer) and playing cards. There are no dogs barking, no babies crying - just the soothing sound of pelting rain on calm with a side of splash.

It also hasn't bothered me that the roads are flooded and that we are stranded in our house, without power. In fact, it has made this whole "battling the elements" adventure that much more exciting. I haven't even been frightened by the sharp cracks of thunder, chasing the perpetual flashes of lightning - even when I was sure the Earth had split in two below my very feet.

At one point this afternoon, when the downpour took a brief hiatus and the thunder had softened to a growling lull of background elevator music, Trey and I set out to investigate firsthand the damage of the storm. Since we had all been sent home from work early, we had watched curiously out our front window as our corner of Belize City transformed into a Venetian landscape with canals carrying driftwood, Styrofoam, and plastic bottles ebbing and flowing in clumpy currents. We noticed immediately that the lake our front yard had become was missing something vital: the wooden footbridge we use to cross what we call during dry times our "moat" - basically, the two-foot deep ditch that separates our lawn from the street for runoff drainage. This quagmire, always filled with stagnant water, garbage, and God knows what else, was now uncrossable - what were we to do? Trey and I rigged the front gate so that we could ride - a loose term, really - the hinged chain-link fence until we could feel solid ground beneath us. Think rope swing, but sideways on a swinging fence.

Once we were both standing knee-deep in water in the middle of our street, I looked at Trey through raindrops (it had started raining again) and watched him peel a plastic bag full of garbage off of his leg. We laughed.

People were coping with the elements in different ways. The first group we came across was a bunch of guys playing American football in a vacant lot turned kiddie pool. They were running, throwing, tackling, and sliding through the muddy water, laughing and slamming the ball down in screams of, "Touchdown! Boo-Yah!" They looked like they were having a blast - I was tempted to see if they needed to even out the teams, but then remembered that I had maybe seen shards of glass on that very ground, not to mention grasses that probably bred snakes and vermin of every type. As if they would have let a "white gal" play with them anyways.

The next group we encountered had the right idea: they were chartering a yellow blow-up raft through the streets, asking people if they needed rides places for just $2.00. Though it looked like fun, I preferred to get my aquatic workout on for free, thank you very much.

Besides these hooligans, I was surprised to see how many relentless folks were out biking in this mess! Talk about a work out. The best part: most of them were carrying umbrellas. I felt like snapping a picture of these people - pant legs pegged, pedaling up current on half-submerged bicycles into the slanted rain - to make one of those spoof posters (that usually involve college students and inappropriate activities) titled "STRUGGLE." Truly inspiring.

At that point, it was full-fledged, take your clothes off pouring again. Trey and I looked at each other as our t-shirts (his v-neck, of course) began to darken. We were about halfway between our house and the church, which is to say that we were about 50 yards from each. We drudged onward, nobly, towards the church and laughed. At least it wasn't snow, right?

When we got to the flooded church - my office building - we found Mrs. B, the secretary, parked in the parish hall snacking on some chicken wings with one inch of water creeping up under her chair. Nonchalantly, she asked us if it was still raining, without looking up from her Styrofoam plate. No help was needed here, she told us - the gracious Lord would be protecting her. But what about our computers? I was pretty sure a tsunami was boiling under the surface of St. Martin's Sea outside the church, and I'd be pissed if my "Cavalier King Charles Spaniel" calendar was ruined in its path (the calendar was a donation, by the way).

We walked through to the back of the parish where Mr. B (not related to the aforementioned Mrs.), the janitor, was frantically setting up sandbags in the door-less doorway - the seeming source of the indoor flood waters. His assistant, fearless Esidoro, was trouncing around in his goulashes, swinging a plastic bag like a little kid trying to catch raindrops. "What are you doing?" Trey and I asked in unison. "The 'roaches..." Esidoro trailed off leaping with the bag again. "They're drowning!"

Well, that was good news. Anything to get those God-forsaken pests out of my office and better yet, off the planet! But as we watched Esidoro try to collect the floating insects in amusement, we noticed how many dying cockroaches there were. One, two, three, four, six, eight, and another, and another... Where were they coming from? Trey and I followed the trail of half-dead, squirming insects to a corner of the storage room where, near the ceiling, I saw one of the more disgusting sights of my life. As the roof was leaking from the onslaught of rain from above and the water level continued to rise from below, a family of somewhere between 50 and 1,000 roaches (I couldn't really tell) gathered on a small ledge, resisting the slide down to a dismal - and wet - fate.

Upon closer inspection though, it appeared as though some of these roaches were jumping - even the ones with wings - into the water below. No little buddies, I caught myself saying in my head. Somehow knowing that Mother Nature's roar was pushing the roaches to take their own lives changed both my perspective on these creatures (they are still disgusting, but they do have a right to life) as well as my understanding of the storm.

I thought then of all the animals I have seen around the city since I have been here: the crabs that dug their homes all over our front yard, the rats that lived in our "moat," the homeless dogs whose food supply of garbage was now sufficiently soggy, the birds - where in the heck did they go? - and most importantly, the humans; their businesses that rely on good weather, their precarious living arrangements - wooden homes with no foundation, tarp roofs, and drowned vehicles. Now, I realized, I am bothered by this storm.

Because Hurrican Dean seemed to overlook our neck of the woods (luckily), I suppose I never really had the chance to consider things like this. Even in my visit to New Orleans and Gulfport, Mississippi post-Katrina, the immediate effects of the storm were not, and should not have been, so visible to me. Perhaps the impact of a natural disaster isn't the number of homes ruined or the cubic volume of water that, well, sinks everything. Maybe the true impact of a natural disaster is in the expressions of the people who are living it, while they are living it: Mrs. B relying on the "Good Lord, my Saviour," or the disappointment in the face of our neighbor when she saw that the clothes she accidentally left on the line were strewn and blown around the muddy yard, or the car engine that gurgles and smokes but just won't turn over in two feet of water, or the kids in the raft, the suicidal cockroaches, and the umbrella-carrying cyclist. Or maybe, it's just Trey and I - the token Americans - sludging back from the church through fecal canals (we were informed later that a sewer pipe a block away from us had exploded) and swinging over our "moat" into our garbage filled lagoon of a front yard.

Now, as the rain subsides again, I hear voices crawling out from the darkness of the unlit homes on our block. Gaping at our Venetian landscape, people point and gasp, laugh and cry. The lone radio station of the city closed down some hours ago, and so, without a TV or power, we don't know if this is the end of it. Technically speaking, Belize City is under sea level - it may take a while for the streets, lawns, and moats (especially) to drain. But that's okay - it doesn't really bother me.

While it looks and feels like God and all of Her angels, saints, and fellow parishoners of Heaven have been bawling their eyes out all day and night, I'd like to believe that amidst this chaos, they were, in fact, crying in a fit of hysterical laughter as their game of strobe light 10 pin bowling got out of hand on the rowdy scale. If, as we were told, Trey and I were really traipsing through the "mud" of an exploded sewer pipe, I have to believe that God has a sense of humor.

update numero uno

Greetings from the birthplace of the mosquito,

I hope this tiding finds you well! I am here, in Belize City, Belize where it is hot, hot, hot...City life is not unlike my experience in Boston, however: bad drivers, strange accents, and of course, a dirty ocean. As I have attempted to navigate my way over the course of the past ten days here, I have made some keen observations, which I would like to share:

1.) In Kriol (the kriol spelling of creole), "right now" means "hold on" - for example, if you are on the phone and you need to grab a pen to write down a number, you say to the person, "right now." does this make sense? apparently, yes, it does. If you're ever in a Belizean doctor's office with a sick roommate and the nurse says "right now, right now," as if it's an emergency, you may have to wait two hours. Hmmm...I guess that's not that different than the States...

2.) People love to guess where I'm from. I'll be riding my bike down the street and people will just be shouting out states and random cities that I haven't heard of since fourth grade geography - how does someone in Belize know of Whitefish, Montana?

3.) There is one traffic light in the whole city. Enough said.

4.) Especially when they are trying to guess where I am from, the people here are very friendly. There are certainly some dicey neighborhoods around these parts (I'm sorry, mom - we live in one of them...people even steal our trees out of yard! i mean, come on! and apparently, underwear is a hot item off the laundry line), but even so, people are friendly...For example, there is a guy who lives next door to us who wakes us up every morning banging on his car - now, this man owns an old Chrysler with no wheels, with a smashed windshield, and with two and a half doors...but he still bangs away at it with an old hammer. In a passing conversation, I asked him about said car, and his smiling response: "da caa di fi mi fren, but he's shiit outta luk" ("the car was my friend's but he's S.O.L.). See, he was a friendly thief...

5.) I have had the chance to visit the homeless shelter "out of town" (which actually means "downtown" - another one that will throw you for a loop), and while it is essentially just a big park where people can come to get free food, it is a fun place to hang out. I am pleased to say that I won my first game of dominoes ever, albeit against Emilio, who is blind, and Sr. Puerco, who is 80 years old...either way, I won.

6.) Lastly, I had an interesting interaction with some Mormon volunteers yesterday...I was on a four day homestay with a family nearby and upon passing the Latter Day Saint's church, we noticed a free eye-checking clinic. The daughter of the family I was staying with thought it would be best if we went and got our eyes checked - and so we did. The over-enthusiastic volunteers there took our forms (as we tried to stuff our laughter) and after we were both diagnosed with 20/20 vision - which is weird, because I don't have 20/20 vision - they gave us a balloon (seriously) and we left. As we were leaving, I thanked the volunteer who gave me the orange poodle balloon and asked her where they were from - her response: "the United States!" with a huge grin. I was like, "duh," but didn't pursue the conversation...I guess I already fit in here?

Okay, I suppose that's all for now. After just ten days into this experience, two years seems like a long time. But as a little girl at church yelled at the end of the homily the other night, "We are too blessed to be stressed!" and I agree wholeheartedly. I am far too blessed to be stressed.

Much love and peace,
Molly