Catch-up and mustard

Okay, so this post has nothing to do with mustard, but it is all about catch-up.  I am ashamed of myself.  It's been well over two months since I last updated my blog.  That's a pretty terrible track record and I'm very disappointed that I haven't posted between now and then.  I've had a blog post started for such a long time now, but somehow I just haven't gotten around to finishing it.  Somehow, running errands, making dinner, reading to the baby, hosting visitors, going adventuring, or going to bed always seemed to get in the way!

So, I decided that it is time for a major update.  I will leave some of what I had written, but I realized that if I am ever going to 'catch up,' I had better do so quickly.  Thus, I am just going to share a selection of pictures that will give you a snapshot (well, multiple snapshots, actually) and a few bullet point items of what life has looked like for us the past two months or so.  To sum it all up, though, we're doing well!  We like our house, our neighborhood, our proximity to the ocean (a few blocks!), the town, our fellow volunteers, our Belizean friends, and our life down here!  It's not without its inconveniences and frustrations, but every place has those, and overall we are enjoying life in Belize.

Anyway, it seems that I left off last blog post just as I was about to leave Kansas.  That was a wonderful trip, because it was one of the now-rare occasions when I am in the same place as my mom and both of my sisters.  And this time we got to snuggle with a tiny baby and chase after a not-so-tiny baby, too!  The visit was full of time to talk, baby snuggles, card games, and home-cooked meals.  It was also a time for Juliette to get to know (and poke) her new cousin Grant.

"Why isn't he playing with me?"

It was so nice to be together!

Leaving was a little hard because I knew it was going to be a while before I got to see any of them again, especially my little sister Kayla (the one with the curly hair holding Juliette), as Kayla is off to Madagascar to work with Mercy Ships for about 8 months.  I am so proud of her for doing such good work, but Madagascar is a long way from Belize and I miss her!  But it was definitely time to get home to the man who completes our little family and really settle into Belizean life.

This is what I came home to - our neighborhood of Hopeville, as seen from my plane's window!

Once home, my ever-enterprising husband wasted no time in digging up our next adventure; in just a few days, he managed to sniff out a MacGregor 26 sailboat and convince the owner to rent it to us for a little jaunt out to sea the next weekend.  This was no mean feat, given that there are hardly any sailboats in the area.  Southern Belize is just not a sailing hub, which is an idea reinforced by the wrecked sailboat left lying by the side of the road to rot as you enter town.  (Seriously, the boat is taking up an entire lot of prime oceanfront real estate, but no one has bothered to move it.  However, they do take the time to cut the grass around it.  Oh, Belize.)

Captain James in one of his many elements.

The coast of Belize has oodles of little cayes (if you're unfamiliar with the word, it's pronounced like "keys" and just means small islands near coral reefs) studding the waters and some of these cayes have been turned into little resort islands.  One such island is Moho Caye, where 8 or 9 palm-shaded and thatched-roof cabins overlook beautiful blue water and other mangrove-enshrined islands.  However, the thing about Moho is that the once-pretty-fancy resort is no longer operating as such, so the beautiful cabanas on stilts over the water are quasi-abandoned and slightly dilapidated.  It gives the whole place a neat aura of discovering a forgotten paradise.  We certainly felt the thrill of exploring since we had the whole island to ourselves!

By the way, "ourselves" included our friend Jacob.  James met Jacob during their classes at Harvard and Jacob has become a classmate-turned-friend-turned-visitor-turned-Hillside volunteer.  Yep, James somehow snookered Jacob (who was willingly enticed) into extending his 3-week visit to Belize into spending months down here volunteering at Hillside with him.  Jacob is in the same place as James with a gap year to fill while his application to medical school is processed, so working at a medical clinic in a developing country is a great way to spend his time.

Looking in from the dock.

Looking out from the porch of one of the cabanas.

Jacob is a very good photographer and he got a nice shot of James and Juliette while I was off snorkeling around the island.

No shirt, no shoes, no problem.

I blocked the drain in the boat's cockpit and we dumped in water to create a "bathtub" for Juliette...  She was much more excited than her expression shows in this shot.  :)

We participated in PG's 33rd Independence Day parade, which involved a ton of people and possibly more participants than spectators.  :)

Our Hillside Health Care group!

Juliette and her new friend Grayson.  That day happened to be Grayson's first birthday, too!  Happy birthday, little man!

Juliette wanted some privacy in the tub.  Or maybe she just wanted to quote Hyacinth and say "BucKET residence!"  ;)

Our friend and fellow volunteer Loretta gives Jacob a "just in case" tetanus shot after he had a run-in with some rusty wire.  Loretta has experience as a pediatric nurse practitioner, so not only do we really enjoy her on a personal level, we are also very grateful to have her around.

James climbed a very tall tree as part of an elaborate effort to see if he could get high-speed internet at the clinic, which had heretofore been declared "impossible" by all conventional methods.  Fortunately for Hillside, James is not limited by conventional methods and the clinic is now happily reaping the cyber benefits!

Juliette and our good friend Loretta.

Then Grampy Finney came to visit!  Yay!

Juliette wasted no time in putting him to work as her own personal entertainment-giver, book-reader, Cheerio-doler, and toy-holder.  It's tough work to be a grandfather!

We showed off some of PG's pretty little spots, such as this mini-beach...

... and this picturesque ocean-side bench.

I had to get a shot of this grass because it is mind-bogglingly tall.

We finally got our own family photo with the 'Welcome to PG' sign!

This is our good-natured neighbor Alvina at market selling her fresh and delightful produce.

There are some really neat and beautiful plants down here that thrive in the tropical heat.  I thought this one was nifty... leaf or flower?  Hard to tell!

We headed over to check out the ruins at Lubaantun and stopped for a family picture in the roots of this huge Ceiba tree.

It was a hot, hot day, but we still enjoyed the Mayan ruins, the excellent company, and the cool stream nearby.  We did not enjoy the ants that swarmed our feet if we weren't careful where we stepped.

Glad to be together!

I think the tagline for this commercial would be along the lines of: "Stay hydrated for your adventurous life with the new and improved sippy cup."  :)

As we were getting ready to leave, Juliette decided she wasn't done yet and headed back to the ruins all by herself - with her trusty sippy cup in hand, of course.

This gorgeous little jungle stream beckoned my camera lens as we were strolling out of Lubaantun.

Grampy came bearing gifts, one of which was this snazzy little pool.  Juliette loved splashing around and cooling off from the oppressive heat.

Grampy got to be present for the discovery of this little arachnid... under Juliette's high chair.  Ugh, I do NOT much care for discovering creepy, stinging buggies around things meant for my darling toddler.

Of course, before removing said little creepy-crawly, we had to thoroughly document it.  :)  It's not every day you see a scorpion, even in southern Belize.

Partway into my father-in-law's visit, James and I celebrated our wedding anniversary - 8 years on October 8th!  It started out as quite a rainy day (this is the view from our porch) but cleared up enough later on to go to the Belize Spice Farm.

Here we are standing in a grove of vanilla orchids growing on madre-de-cacao trees for shade and support.  The vanilla orchids are looped repeatedly as they grow to be within easy reach and are intensely cared for, even to the point of being hand-pollinated!

My wonderful father-in-law munching on a tender shoot of the jippi jappa, also known as the 'survival palm' due to its tasty and nutritious young shoots.

My adventurous little lass chewing on a deliciously sweet cinnamon leaf.

The fruits (or rather... spices!) of their labor!  Drying vanilla beans, cardamom, nutmeg, mace, dill, coffee, tobacco, cinnamon, black pepper, sage, etc.

Happy 8-year anniversary to us!  While Grampy babysat the wee one, we had a delightful and low-key dinner at Gomier's Restaurant in PG.  Gomier is a very interesting rasta-man who makes his own tofu and likes to experiment.  :)  It's a fun place with tasty food!

This is the kitchen and main living area of a house belonging to a man named Mr. Eugene Edwards.  We met Mr. Eugene through some Hillside activities, as he is severely crippled due to an accident that happened five or so years ago, but we quickly became friends with him on our own.  We visit him regularly to both enjoy his company and try to help him out in whatever way we can, such as bringing some food or purchasing filtered and bottled water so that he doesn't have to try to stomach the heavily chlorinated tap water that comes out of his faucet.  He used to pour a cup of water and let it sit for a while in hopes that the chlorine would settle out so he could stand to drink it.  

This is Mr. Eugene's shower; (the toilet and sink are behind the door).  As you can see, there are gaping crevices where the wall meets the roof and this allows all sorts of unwelcome wildlife to enter at will.  Not only do mice, rats, spiders/tarantulas, lizards, centipedes, and any other creepy-crawlies have open access to his house, Mr. Eugene has had to call people to come into his house to kill venomous coral snakes that had wandered inside.  This is one of the things we're trying to help him fix by putting up some screen so the local fauna can't come party at his house.

Here's a picture of Mr. Eugene and Juliette having some sort of mostly one-sided conversation.  :)  Mr. Eugene used to own a plant nursery and fell from a tree, which resulted in traumatic injury all over.  He was bedridden for a year and a half, so he is definitely better than he was, but he still has great difficulty walking.  One of his hands is completely useless and in constant pain and the other is only partially usable.  He still has a lot of spine and neck trouble as well as multiple other health problems.  However, despite all this, he is a kind and generous man who is trying to rebuild a small plant nursery with the help of some local children.  It's impressive and encouraging to talk to him and his example is a strong motivator to James in his desire to practice medicine in a place like this.

Here's a great shot of Grampy with his treasured Juliette.  So cute!  He was so sad to leave her (and maybe James and I a little bit, too ;)), but we're looking forward to both of my in-laws visiting over Christmas, so another reunion is impending!

My father-in-law got to ride up front with the pilot for his flight from Punta Gorda up to Belize City.  How wild!  Some things here are similar to the U.S., but plenty is not, and I'd say that riding shotgun in an airplane as "copilot" is a definite anomaly for any commercial flight in the states.

A golden sunset over the nearby jungle, taken from the end of my street.

I got to spend a day volunteering with TIDE, which is the local conservation and research organization, at their Fish Festival.  And yes, as you can see, we were cooking and distributing samples of fried chocolate-beer-battered lionfish in an effort to raise awareness that people can and should eat lionfish as one of the most ocean-friendly seafood options out there and hopefully help in creating a demand for lionfish so that fisherman will go out of their way to catch them.  If you're not aware of the lionfish invasion of the Caribbean Sea, lionfish were accidentally introduced from the Pacific and have no natural predators here.  They are gulping down all the baby fish on the reefs that they can get their greedy fins on, which is decimating fish populations, so the fewer lionfish in this area, the better.  So, if you get the chance, eat lionfish!  Despite falling into the vegetarian camp now, I still decided to taste it - it's very good!

Juliette has been learning how to kiss lately.  This extreme fishy-lips pucker (kiss2.0) is replacing an earlier version (kiss1.0) in which she came at you with mouth wide open, teeth bared, and drool pooling.  My little girl's kisses are growing up.  ;)

I am guessing that a few people might regret me posting this picture, but I had to share the size of the creepy spider that I had to deal with when I was home by myself with the baby, at night, alone, in the dark, without electricity, by the single beam of a flashlight.  I don't know where he came from, but the first evening that I spent alone at home while James went to Honduras for 10 days to volunteer at a charitable surgery center there, this spider decided to come out of nowhere while I was cleaning up a few of Juliette's toys.  Like, literally, I turned around and he was there on top of the toys staring at me where he hadn't been a second before.  His eyes actually glinted in the flashlight beam.  Don't get me wrong, I'm a huge proponent of spiders and the good work they do - in fact, even this intruder lived to tell the tale (I didn't have the heart or the cleaning supplies to do otherwise) - but I don't like to be taken by surprise by giant spiders... in the dark... alone... you get the picture.  Anyway, this spider only had 5 legs.  He had obviously been through some trauma, too (though he could still jump as good as anything - eek!).  He just wanted to give me my own brief personal arachnophobia-horror-movie moment.  And he did.

Juliette and I went with Loretta and her two kids, Deirdre and Brennan, to explore some nearby Mayan ruins at Nim Li Punit and we drove up this incredibly picturesque road to get there.

Here's Loretta and I standing in front of both types of rock heaps - organized and unorganized.  With a classification system like that, I think I'd make such a good archaeologist, don't you?

As nifty and ancient as all those rock heaps were, Juliette was much more excited about creating her own ruins with stones from the gravel walkway.  :)  I love that face!  She had a grand old time until she accidentally walked through an ant hill and had her feet swarmed by biting ants.  I hate that memory so, so much, but she was such a good girl about the whole thing and I fortunately had hydrocortisone cream in the car.  Bug bites are, regrettably, a part of life down here - either getting them or working hard to avoid them!

Speaking of bugs being a part of life...  This is a botfly larva.  It was living and growing in 16-year-old Deirdre's back after a regular mosquito bite transmitted a most unwelcome little egg.  Ew, ew, ew.  I won't go into the gory details, because I'm sure somebody wants to eat their next meal, but I participated in quite the dramatic saga to get it out.

These are the relieved smiles of the successful botfly removal squad - Loretta, Deirdre, Carly, Mischa, and Juliette.  Carly and Mischa are fellow volunteers who are the clinic director and medical director of Hillside, respectively.  They did a great job helping Deirdre get rid of the nasty little thing!

I encouraged Deirdre to give a properly macabre farewell to the creature that had tormented her for several weeks, so we made a funeral pyre out of a watermelon rind, set him on fire, and shoved him out to sea to meet his demise.

On a lighter, less parasitic note, this is one of the humorous dangers of going too long without a nap.  She had gotten a little loopy when she was too distracted by a visitor to nap when she normally would. She had wandered into the other room for a minute when she suddenly started squawking. She had gotten her leg stuck in the bed frame. I, of course, rushed to pull her out. When I did so, she angrily yelled at me for releasing her and proceeded to put her leg right back in and then be upset that she was stuck again. So I took a picture.  :)

Juliette was very, very happy to see her daddy when he finally got home from his trip to Honduras.  I was very glad to have him home, too!  

This was something you don't see every day.  Something had gone drastically wrong when this truck driver was backing his boat trailer into the water at the launch ramp.  I feel badly for the owner of the truck, but James and I shared some amusement over the fact that not only were the windshield wipers on under the water with just the tips splashing through to the surface, there was actually somebody *inside* the truck.  I have no idea what he thought he was going to do, but he was sitting completely submerged under water in the driver's seat and occasionally surfacing through the open window for a fresh gulp of air.  Oh, Belize...  You always have something new and interesting for us!

Well, I hope you enjoyed my series of catch-up photos.  I think it catches me up through October.  :)  It gives you at least a sampling of what life is like down here for us.  Of course, I've spent a lot more time documenting the fun stuff and haven't taken too many pictures of James working hard at the clinic or writing essays for his med school secondary applications and things like that.  (Speaking of med school applications, James got an interview at Tufts Medical School in Boston and we'll be coming home for the interview in early February!  Yay!)  But there's plenty of good work going on down here in Belize, relationships being formed, and memories being made.

My parents were just here for a visit, which was a lovely, wonderful time, so I'll fill you in on that soon.  Hehe, I know what you're probably thinking, given the timing of this post.  I suppose that last time I kept a blog during James' and my 'round the world trip (www.jimandsarahgoonatrip.blogspot.com), the timing was so regimented by our travel schedule that I had a blogging timetable already in place.  In contrast, living a "normal" life down here with meals to make, errands to run, and a toddler to care for and chase around means that one day just slips into the next without much warning.  I will have to work on my time management skills!  :)

Anyway, thanks for reading!  Despite my many failings in telling you about it, we are doing our best to savor our time abroad during this wonderful 'gap year' and I appreciate your interest in us!

Hugs from Belize!