So for those of you that don't know I signed up for a humanitarian service trip back in January when my cousin Trellany had suggested I go with her to Belize for 2 months through a company called HELP-International. To make that long story short... I interviewed, was accepted, started to fundraise, received unbelievable donations from the most wonderful & caring people, sold some pork to help fundraise further, bought a plane ticket, paid for the trip. and on May 15th set off for Central America with my cousin.
The plane ride is always interesting for me, especially when hearing traveling stories from others. You don't often hear about someones plane ride and for the most part it's left out completely, after all who wants to hear about a monotonous journey that's hours of redundancy? I for one like the plane rides, and feel sometimes you get the best stories from them. This trips plane rides unfortunately lie within the boring category. I will note that on my first leg to Houston from Phoenix I had quite the, shall we say, pendejo in front of me. From takeoff to landing he had his seat reclined the entire time yet chose to sit up straight and even bend forward to read his book. Thanks buddy. About mid flight he turned around with his smug face and hipster glasses and asked me to "Stop tampering and kicking" with his chair. OK pal, I'm sorry I was trying to put my tray table up. I actually was quick mouthed and told him to turn back around, when normally I would have just apologised for inconveniencing him. Proud of myself for that one.
After landing in Houston we took the fun little tram to our next terminal and waited there for our next flight. Saw some interesting very stereotypical Texans with hats and all and I felt a bit nostalgic. It's been 4 years since I was last in Texas so I tried to soak up all 2 hours we were there. We saw a Menonite family that was on our flight to Belize, never seen Menonites before so I couldn't keep myself from staring at a distance.
The next leg wasn't as bad just very boring but coming into Belize was cool. Seeing the coastline meeting the jungles was pretty neat and as we neared the airstrip you could see the smolderings of "slash n burn" fires polka-dotting the landscape. The airport itself was very 3rd world but decent. After clearing customs we met our group. The two country coordinators, Kyle and Kristina and the other two members Kim and Danielle.
Cecil, the taxi driver, came complete with dreads to midback and a look straight out of Rastafari. Ya Mon. He took us to the bus station while teaching us some Belizian Kriol. I read some, to give you an example: Tak da sop an pandy in ur hans to git da cleen felin frum da waata. Well at least I think that's Kriol, fun to speak and read and I'll try and pick some up more when I'm here.
The bus station was full of people and kids going home for the day. It was only $9 Belize to take the express bus from Belize City 2 hours away to our city of San Ignacio. I was unlucky enough to get the seat over the tire. The backseat middle feet-on-the-hump seat for buses. Each stop the bus made seats would fill up. Two to a seat and then there was me. All my American goodness filling up that seat with the stupid hump, which by the way had already been claimed by my overstuffed backpack. I dreaded the stops once the buss filled up because I knew there was going to be that one smelly dude lookin for a seat and would find me, in the back half of the bus with a nice seat all to myself. Luckily for me I didn't have to sardine myself over the hump and some smelly dude for 2 hours. I lucked out and got the seat to myself.
Once we arrived in San Ignacio we got out luggage and headed to our apartment. It was about 3 blocks from the Bus station and Welcoming Center so not that bad of a walk. Our apartment is in the back of a hotel called the Tia Maria, it's a nice enough hotel with wifi and AC for it's guests, we have no AC but we got enough fans to keep us cool. The accomodations are better than what I have imagined and to be honest so is the weather. It's mildy cooler than AZ in May which is to say about 90° during the hottest part of the day, the humidity isn't too bad either and I'm sure I'll get used to it in a few days.
So here I am in Belize with some cool people and a very beautiful atmosphere and landscape. It's a little piece of paradise that's looking for some HELP. And that's why we're here.
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