Recruitment: Experiences from an Unwilling Used Car Salesman

I don’t like speaking in front of people.  I think if someone had told me when I was fourteen that it would ever be my job to go around making speeches to high school students and education professionals (let alone the fact that this would happen in a developing country, through a multi-layered language barrier), I would have laughed – and then I might have gone grey and shaky and refused to speak for a couple of hours.  I was a bit extreme about the whole nerves thing in those days.

I suppose this experience actually began quite early in the semester, just after Christmas.  It was a Friday morning, so I had gone to mass at the high school (We always have an all-school mass on Friday morning.)  I had trotted home to my tea and oatmeal, and was just sitting down to breakfast when my phone rang.  It was Mr. David.  “Where are you?”  “Um…I’m at home.”  “I didn’t see you after mass…I meant to invite you to a meeting.”  “When is the meeting?”  “At 9:30.”  I looked at the time.  It was 9:27.

“Well…I will be late, is that o.k.?”  “Yes, just come.  It’s at the school.  All the deans and principals of all the Catholic junior colleges and high schools in Belize will be there.  And the bishop.  I would really like you to come.”  “O.k., I’ll be there in a few minutes.”  Um…all the WHAT?  And the BISHOP?  “Invitation” can be said in many ways, I guess.

I shoveled down a few more spoonfuls of oatmeal, chugged as much of my scalding tea as I could stand, and then surveyed my appearance.  Wet hair, no makeup, a t-shirt and a skirt, and foam flip-flops.  Eh…It would have to do.  No one cares about me anyway.

When I got there, Mr. David was nowhere to be found, but the bishop and lots of official looking people were milling about.  After some frantic texts, I figured out where I was supposed to be, and awkwardly took a seat by the assistant principal of the high school.  At least she was a familiar face.  Eventually Mr. David showed up, looking unfairly professional, and I gave him my seat and found another amongst strangers.

The meeting commenced.  Mr. David whispered with the nun beside him, and threw a few glances my direction, laughing at my confused expression.  Eventually he rearranged things so he could sit by me.  “We are supposed to give a presentation on JPIIJC.  All the junior colleges are giving presentations.”  Ours was especially important, since JPII was the new school on the block.  As the meeting raged unproductively around us, we started looking through his PowerPoint presentation.  “Would you like to help me?”  he asked.  “Umm…sure.”  “O.k., can you give the presentation from…this slide to this slide?”  Woah woah woah, what?  Give a presentation.  I was not prepared for this.  The bishop, the deans, the principals…the whole country…  O.k., the bishop was asleep.  “Fine, I can do that.”

And that is how I ended up in front of a roomful of Belizean higher education professionals, wearing a t-shirt and foam flip-flops (Believe me, I could see those high-powered, successful woman-professionals in Belizean power suits noticing my footwear.), explaining the principles, tradition, and importance of liberal education almost entirely off the top of my head.  Good thing I had reviewed our goals over Christmas.

Oddly enough, our presentation was warmly received.  The lady next to me, who seemed to be the headmistress of one of the high schools, whispered a request for a copy of our presentation when I sat back down.  Several people thanked us for our presentation and expressed enlightenment regarding liberal education.  But never again will I walk into such a situation without changing my shoes first.

That presentation was a foreshadowing of things to come.  We began our recruitment trips last week.  We have appointments to speak to the 4th form classes at seven high schools in the area over the next few weeks.  We began with a presentation at Mount Carmel, our own high school.  I was incredibly glad to start there.  Our presentation needed polishing, and we knew some of the kids already.  As it was, the thing went over a bit…lead-ballon-ish-ly.  The presentation was long and rambling…less than riveting.  I was internally kicking and screaming for release by the end, and I’m not even in high school.

Yesterday we went to St. Ignatius, which is in Cayo.  My first forray off home turf was nerve-wracking.  As the projector and students were getting organized, I said to Mr. David, “I don’t like this.”  “Like what?”  “Speaking.  In front of people.  I don’t like it.”  And he just laughed at me.

As he opened the presentation and began to talk about the liberal arts, I started planning tactics.  They aren’t engaged.  This sounds crazy and boring.  They aren’t even listening anymore.  I need to wake them up.  They need to see that this education is something worth fighting for.  I am passionate about it…but I can never express passion.  Holy Spirit, please help me to present it the way they need to hear it.  When he handed me the microphone (Yes, microphone.  Sigh.), I switched into a bright, cheerful, awake version of myself, never seen before or since.  Well, probably seen before.  I’ve taught an awful lot of classes since I was fourteen…surely that counts for something?  I asked the students questions, made jokes, teased them.

It was better than the Mount Carmel presentation.  The reasons I know this are: 1) It was shorter.  Q.E.D. 2) Several students actually took application forms.  I think only one or two Mount Carmel students asked for them.  3) When we gave a little survey at the end of the presentation (What do you plan to do after high school?  Why?  What area of studies interests you?  How much had you heard about our school before?), more students expressed at least moderate interest in JPIIJC, and a few even put down Liberal Arts as their area of interest.  My favorite survey actually listed “Liberable Arts.”  Success.

I attribute the improvement to my footwear.  We have another presentation tomorrow, and four more in the weeks to come.  Probably by the last school, we will have a perfect presentation.  Especially if someone sends me Prada.  But seriously.  Any takers?

Who Speaks Belizean?

Belize is a funny place when it comes to language.  When I first told people where I was going, everyone asked if I spoke Spanish.  I did not, and still don’t.  It never worried me much, because Belize is the only Central American country whose official language is English.  Apparently having been a British Colony leaves an aftertaste.

In my early research (thank you, Wikipedia) I discovered that although English is the official language, quite a number of languages are actually spoken here.  Depending on where you are and whom you meet, you could hear English, Spanish, Creole, Garifuna (an African language), various Mayan dialects, Chinese, Indian, and even a special dialect belonging to the Mennonite population, to name only some.  Belizean Creole is the child of English and some African language(s?); and since it is a Creole, I believe it is just one step short of being a language itself.  It has many of its own words, as well as unique idioms and idiomatic uses of standard English words (which are never pronounced standardly anyway.)

Considering the size of the country, region has a surprisingly enormous effect on language.  If I had only come to Benque, I might easily have thought that Spanish is the first language of most Belizeans.  The western area of the country is mostly populated by Mestizos, people with a joint Spanish and Maya heritage.  It is heavily hispanic, which is not surprising in light of its proximity to Guatemala.  Yet even a short trip eastward brings you into contact with a much higher population of Creole people.  In Belize City itself (or “Belize,” as everyone calls it) people seem to speak mostly Creole or English.  Then again, in remote areas to the west and south, whole villages still speak indigenous Mayan dialects.  That’s right: you thought the Mayans were gone, “no true?”  Think again.  Of course, since these dialects are still living languages, they have changed over the past several thousand years, but they are still Mayan.  I have heard that up until twenty years ago, some form of Maya was still commonly spoken even in Succotz, the village a mile down the road from Benque.

But this is no problem, right?  Everyone speaks English, right?  Sort of right.  Most people in the more developed areas (though not the remote villages) speak English after a fashion, but it is rarely correct or formal English.  In addition to that, no one speaks it with an accent familiar to an American ear.  If they aren’t speaking with a thick Spanish accent, they are speaking with a Creole accent, and perhaps even dipping into Creole itself.  Unfortunately this means that I often have to nod and smile or ask students and other interlocutors to repeat themselves.  Even the English speakers in Belize City speak a strangely accented, African-sounding English.  Who knew?

I have gathered that the native Spanish speakers mostly speak a sort of casual, almost “slang” Spanish as well.  Most people in my area speak two languages badly, but have never learned to speak any language formally or well.  This explains a lot about their difficulty with writing and even with thinking.  I have always thought that the connection between clear, precise speech and clear, precise thought is stronger than many people believe.  Here is the evidence, fallen into my lap.

After a few months here, I have by no means learned to speak Spanish or any other new language.  Oh, I’ve picked up a few Spanish phrases here and there.  I can probably get by better now if I run into a store owner who speaks only Spanish, but that hardly qualifies as speaking a language.  My ability to hear Spanish has improved, but I still struggle to pick out individual words, let alone understand their meaning.  This problem is especially noticeable with Belizean Spanish, which is more slurred and indistinct than, for example, Mexican Spanish.  My experience here is by no means linguistic immersion, so learning Spanish would still require significant effort, even in Benque.  Similarly, I am probably a bit better at understanding Creole and Creole-accented English than I used to be, but I still struggle to identify distinct words, let alone understand them or their idiomatic usages.

As much as possible, I stick to English, but even that has its problems.  For one thing, being around English as a second language does actually affect one’s ability to speak it well.  Perhaps by the end of it I won’t be able to speak any language, since I’m not picking up any new languages as I lose my grasp on my native tongue.  No, I’m not losing my grasp, but I do get tongue-tied while teaching and speaking all the time.  Then again, I guess that has always happened.

My favorite aspect of all this is the special set of quasi-English Belizean usages with which I have become familiar.  Maybe you’d call them idiomatic.  I am not exactly sure.

Of course there are some obviously Spanish constructions, which sound hilariously awkward in English.  “The birthday of Fr. John is today.”  “I will go to the house of so-and-so.”  “You like it the chicken?”  “That is the school mi.”

However, beyond those obvious errors, there are also unique uses of normal English phrases.  “When will you get that assignment to me?”  “Right now,” they say.  Right now.  This phrase is used all the time, but doesn’t mean what you think.  As far as I can tell, it is roughly equivalent to the American uses of “in a moment,” “when I get to it,” “as soon as possible…”  It could mean anything from a few minutes to even hours.  Although it is a bit of an adjustment for the American mind, this kind of fits with the laid back Belizean attitude towards life in general.

If I ever ask you a question these days, I am likely to end it with “true?” or even “no true?”  Maybe this comes from Spanish.  I don’t exactly know.  “You didn’t assign any new reading, no true?”  “Mass is at 7 tonight, true?”  True.  True.  It’s a convenient way of getting one’s point across around here, so as usual, I have picked it up.  

I have also picked up the Belizean finger-wag, which commonly accompanies a head-shake.  It means “no” or expresses disapproval or a negative response.  It’s hard to describe its use, but once again, I use it probably more than I should.  These things are contagious.

“Miss, the reason I didn’t reach to school on time was because it was raining.”  “When will she reach?”  “When you reach to the church, turn left…”  Who knows about this one.  I think “reach” means something between “arrive” and “get there,” but it is a continual shock in the middle of an otherwise standard sentence.

But my favorite misuse of all is the new definition of the word “next.”  It seems to be used as a synonym for “other” or “another,” and sounds extremely strange the first few times one hears it.  “I forgot my next book…”  “I wanted to talk to you about a next thing…”  “It wasn’t him, it was a next man…”  “I’m coming on the next day…”  (Oh wait, did that one sound normal?  Don’t be fooled.)  At some point even the American teacher gives in.  “Everyone get out a next folder sheet [piece of paper].”

Come to Belize!  You might not learn a new language, but your communication skills will definitely…morph.

St. Thomas’ Day! (Was yesterday.)

I know, three posts in one week.  Things are getting crazy.  Actually, I diagnose myself with procrastination disorder; but at least you all reap the dubious benefits.

Anyway, to tell this story I should back up a little bit.  On two different nights last week, Melissa and I stayed up and “partied” in our subdued, missionary way (One night we partied with ramen…the other, with rum, sitting in the living room and chatting.) after everyone else had gone to bed.  I always complain about how early my housemates go to bed (though they do have to get up earlier than I do, to be fair).  Even for Melissa, who is a night person (unlike the others), the early mornings usually demand an early bedtime.  I am often left to work or relax, read Aristotle in a hammock or read Chesterton in bed (Eric is teaching Creative Writing this semester, and keeps sending me his reading assignments – it’s like I get to take the fun part of the class, without any of the work.).  But I digress.

So Melissa and I occasionally indulge our late-night selves and “do something fun” after everyone goes to their early bed.  On Monday, she told me to plan to stay up Tuesday night.  I was confused about this “planning” thing, but not too confused, since I just figured maybe she had a light Wednesday schedule or something.  Not so: after everyone went to bed last night, she went into her room and got sprite (to go with the rum) and ramen…triumphantly reminding me that, “It’s St. Thomas Aquinas’ feast day!  I was hoping you’d forget and I could surprise you completely.”  Well, I had only just noticed because of mass in the evening, and I had been wishing I had done something to celebrate.  After all St. Thomas is the saint of my alma mater, my education, in a way the patron of my work now, and ultimately the patron of my entire mindset.  And so, we celebrated St. Thomas’ day with rum drinks and ramen, and I told Melissa about my college’s strangest tradition: the yearly commemoration of his feast with a school-wide game of “Trivial and Quadrivial Pursuit,” with all its strange pomp and sophistical, nerdy ceremony.

Happy feast of St. Thomas, a day late!  Do something to further the good of intellectual life in your fellow man, or to remind yourself of the synthesis of faith and reason.  And thank God that such a man existed, and was allowed to do so much in his life.

(Thank you, http://ethics.sandiego.edu/Books/Texts/Aquinas/JustWar.html)

3 Tidbits

I’m still avoiding a more comprehensive or serious post (Maybe you’ll never get one out of me.).  In lieu of that, please accept this small offering of minor bits and pieces from my life of late.

1) It is warm and sunny.  Actually, it was kind of hot today, which was unpleasant for most people.  Personally I was happy to take advantage of the sun in order to wash and dry a mountain of laundry, which hung cheerfully in the warm breeze.  By the time I had finished the last load (The process does take hours, even on a good day.), some of the first things were almost dry.  So nice!

2) Melissa is trying to teach me guitar again (She should get an award or something.).  This time I am going straight to learning a song, because it is much easier (and more motivating ) to practice the chords within the context of a song.  And it’s more fun.  I have always been motivated by the goal of making good music.  So anyway, after intermittently strumming through my song between loads of laundry all day, I’m basically a Beatle…because my song is “I Want to Hold Your Hand.”  I am a very halting Beatle who takes a long time to get my hand around a b minor chord, which rarely sounds good, but at least I have youth on the real Beatles…

3) Which brings me to Point The Third.  Did anyone else think the Grammys were extremely Beatles-y this year?  Maybe they have been Beatles-y every year for the last million years – this was actually the first time I ever sat down and watched them (albeit on a Canadian TV channel at Deacon Cal’s) – but that would be even more surprising.  Paul McCartney won a Grammy, and he and Ringo both performed; they also made an announcement about some 50 year tribute that’s going to happen this year.  I’m not complaining, because after all, I love the Beatles as much as  the next guy (actually, significantly more than the next guy if he is a properly up-to-date member of my generation).  I was just surprised.  In any case, what I mainly took away from it all was this: Ringo has aged roughly 70x better than Paul.  Poor Paul.

The Girls’ House: A Video Tour

Taking the video turned out to be the easy part.  With all due apologies for the bouncy camera view and unedited nature of the enterprise…I am no videographer…  This was a fun little idea I had been harboring for a while.  I know my madre always wants to see where I live, and pictures only take you so far.  So, I thought…I have a camera and I have a tablet, both of which are capable of taking videos.  What could be easier than to do a quick walk-through of my house?

That part was easy.  Then came the first problem.  How does one get a video from a tablet onto a blog?  Sign into the blog and post the video directly?  It demands a link, not just a direct file upload.  Post the video to facebook, download to laptop from facebook, and post from the computer itself?  After trying that for a while I got impatient and realized I could probably just plug the tablet into the computer and copy the file over.  So far so good. Then I watched the video on my computer, and discovered that it was sideways.  What?  Who knew that holding the tablet at a normal orientation would result in a sideways video?  In order to rotate it, I had to use windows moviemaker or something.  And I had to let it load the whole video.  And then I had to save it.  And then I had to save it again, because the video quality was poor.  And the better quality save took longer.

And now, back to battling with WordPress.  Apparently Thou Shalt Not upload a video file directly to thy blog.  Ever ever ever, end of story.  Woe is me, alas, alack.  Thou shalt only post a link.  Which is all very fine and good if thy video is online somewhere, but mine was not. This sort of thing might be less problematic for me if I had a Youtube account, but due to the restricted nature of my gmail(s)’ subservers, Youtube won’t talk to my google account.  Not to any of my google accounts…at least not the ones I am willing to use.

Ah, well, in for a penny, in for a pound.  No harm in developing a Yahoo account, says I.  It took ten minutes’ hoop-jumping, and then I had a Yahoo account.  But Youtube doesn’t talk to Yahoo at all, apparently.  Fine.  I will just make yet another gmail account.  A normal one, at gmail itself, and not some weird subhost of gmail.  Okay?  Okay.  A few minutes more, and the battle was won.  Youtube accepted my new gmail address, and all was right with the world.  Now, to upload the video to Youtube.  316 minutes remaining, you say?  What is this nonsense?  People upload videos all the time!  Fine.  Take 316 minutes.  See if I care.  I will come back later. The upshot is this: if you return to this blog in a few hours, I may or may not have a 10 minute walk-through of my house posted.  emphasis on the “may not.”  Because what else could possibly go wrong?  I don’t even want to think about it.

And that video will hopefully be available here:

“….and he just sweem and sweem and sweem…”

Since people are out of town (Deacon Juan is being ordained in TX this weekend!), I am covering extra classes, which involves teaching until 8:30 p.m. two nights a week.  Last night, as I trudged out of class after locking everything up, gloomily reflecting that this schedule is the worst thing since unsliced bread, I ran into the night guard.  There are two night guards.  I see them a lot, since I teach evening classes.  The primary night guard is named Edgar, but I don’t know the name of this other guy.  I do know from experience that he loves to talk, and have often thought that he must get very lonely during his solitary nights on duty.  I have talked to him a few times, but since the conversations tend to be long and lacking in finity, I often dodge by him with a resolution to stop another night.  Last night I decided to stop.

I’ll say this: our conversations are never boring.  He has told me more about the flora and fauna of Belize, laced with tendrils of Maya superstition and traditional farmers’ lore, than anyone else ever has.  I doubt I can do justice to the conversational tone, but as we talked last night, I thought perhaps I should try.

“Once over near Orange Walk – there are lagoon by Orange Walk – two villagers went out to feesh (fish) on Holy Thursday, you know Holy Thursday?  They went out to feesh for the next day, you know, to have their feesh.  And the one villager, he took his boat out, and he was feeshing, feeshing, feeshing and his friend, he talk to him and he say “how you doing?”  And his friend, he say “It is good, I get many good feesh.”  And the villager, he looked away, and when he looked back…he no see his friend!  He only see the red in the water!  And then he see his friend twisting around in the water, moving around, and he go back quickly.  And he only see the bottom half of his friend’s body, and he run to the village and tell them “there is a crocodile in the lagoon!”  The villagers, they go to the lagoon and they see on the bank, they see his friend’s body, but only his legs and belly, from there down.  And they say “the crocodile, he will come back for it.”  So they tie it with rope, and they wait.  Just as it is getting dark they hear a splash.  And then they hear another one.  And they say “he is coming!”  And then he come out of the water, and they all shoot him.  They shoot him in the head, five men.  They tie him to a car – he is sixteen feet long! – and take him back to the village, and they slit his belly, and inside?  Inside they find the other half of the man.  And so the villagers, they no go to that lagoon any more, because they say there are crocodiles.”

Me: “When did this happen?”

“Oh, about eight years ago…  And then an American, when he heard of it he came with all his gear [mimicking a diving backpack] and he go in the lagoon, and he just sweem and sweem and sweem, and he see a beeg cave under the water, but he, he didn’t go in, he just sweem back.  And the villagers, they say the animals live in the cave.  Crocodile, they dig and dig under the land and they make their cave under the land, higher up, but they live under the water.”

“Do they come out on the land?” says I, “Can they get you on the land?”

“Oh, yes!  And they run verrry fast like thees [demonstrates moving arms and legs quickly] like the iguana.  You see the iguana?”

“Only smalls ones…”

“They have them, thees big, down by the ferry in Succotz.  The the red one, he is the male, he is very very red.  The female, she is green with leetle bit brown.”

“Have you been to Xunantunich?” he asked, at another point in the conversation.

“Yes, it is beautiful.”

“Yes,” he said, “it is beautiful, beautiful.  And my old grandfathers, they used to say, on Holy Friday the roof caves in.”

“Every year?”

“Yes, every year.  And my old grandfathers, they say you can hear voices all around Xunantunich.  The voices of the people.  The ruins are not dead.”

Me: “No….!”

“And my old grandfathers, they say there is a tunnel under the ground, from Xunantunich to Kahal Pech, and from Kahal Pech to Tikhal, those three.”

Me: “True?”

“Yes, true!  Because the Maya, when it was hot they not want to go in the sun…”

“And people go in the tunnel?”

“Oh yes, people go.  One American, he go in the tunnel and he never come out.  He and his wife, they both go in the tunnel, and they not come out again.”

Me: Shudder.

At another point my friend had embarked upon the somewhat more tame subject of the weather and the effect of hail on the crops (“What do you call?  Leetle balls of ice?  And they ruin the fruits, they make them to get worms, and they no good.  The mango, the papaya…”), and he started to tell me about his own crops.  “On my farm I grow groundfruits.  You know groundfruits?  Sweet potatoes, potatoes…”

Me: “How do you say ‘potatoes’ in Spanish?”  (I had recently been trying to remember, but couldn’t.)

“Papas.”  “Papas?”  “Yes, papas.  You want to learn Spanish?”  “Yes, eventually.”  “Ah, and my old grandfathers, they only would speak Maya.  Maya, Maya, Maya.  And they were farmers too, they were chicleros.  And when the time was right [He told me the months, but I forgot.], the chicleros would go up to the mountains.  And they would make their huts – like an eskimo house, made of ice, only theirs were made from the cohoon (no idea about the spelling) tree.  And they would have their hut and their hammock, and a place for the fire, and something to boil water for coffee…because they would drink coffee all the day, because when it rains, that is the best time for chicle.  And they would go out with their machetes, very sharp from handle to point, and they would cut the trees: chop, chop, chop (motion to show that they were making diagonal cuts up the tree.)  And they had these (I forgot the name), and they were metal that would clasp around their boot, and they were sharp (From gestures it seemed like they were long sharp spurs that fastened below the knee.), and they would dig into the tree and then they would chop.”

All this, and more, I can hear any night he is on duty.  It’s too bad I get out of class so late that I am antsy to get home before it becomes dangerous, because I think he loves to talk.

Laura Ingalls…What?

I was going to make my next post a grand update of what I’ve actually been doing since I returned.  However, that is daunting and I have more entertaining things to tell, so the update post will have to wait.  The whole semester lies before us…  (Did you feel the ominous tone of that blogging threat?  Assuming I even keep up with this thing…)

Anyway, let us get to the point.  I went home in the middle of the day today to make some thank you cookies (long story), and also to wash the towels.  Y’all have to understand something.  Laundry is my arch-nemesis, and the house towels (dishtowels, bathmats, hand-towels, and washcloths) are the deepest, darkest soul of said arch-nemesis.  That’s right.  The laundry demon has a soul, and it is far too alive for anyone’s comfort.

The laundry nemesisry all started when our first washing machine got stolen.  Back in those days, we had two Belizean washing machines, one of which had a functional washing compartment, and the other a functional spinning compartment.  After the (seemingly fortuitous) theft, we received a Real, Live American washing machine with all the functions in one compartment.  Oh, the luxury!  Laundry in that machine wasn’t so bad.  It was frustrating that clothes had to be hung on the line, and that they took a thousand years to dry due to the humidity, but at least they got more or less clean.

Then the American machine broke.  After a few weeks, the church handyman fixed our remaining Belizean washing machine so that both compartments would work.  The first time I did laundry I had to wash most of my clothes, because we had been without a washer for so long.  I washed them and then discovered that the spinner was…not working well, or at least I didn’t figure out how to operate it properly at first.  Have you ever tried to hang-dry sopping wet clothes in a humid climate?  They never dry.  By the time they are not dripping any more, the mildew has set in, and they reek of eau de mold by the time they are finished.  If they ever finish.  (As a side note, I washed clothes two or three days before Christmas break, which were still damp to the touch when I returned three weeks later.  That’s what I get for trying to wash clothes when it isn’t even hot, only rainy and cool.)  That first load I washed before I could get the spinner to work had me near angry tears for almost two full days; my hands were red and painful from hand-wringing my clothes, my floor was wet from the unavoidable dripping, and my clothes…my clothes have never smelled truly sweet since.

Then the spinner in the Belizean machine broke.  For the first couple weeks back in the country after Christmas, I just avoided laundry.  Eventually the school bought us a brand new Belizean washer.  It is small and has dual compartments, but its plastic is new and clean, and both compartments seem to do their job.  Well, actually Elisabeth and I had a minor freak-out when we first hooked it up, because the dial wouldn’t turn to drain.  (Belizean washers are mostly mechanical.  You hook them up to the hose, fill them by turning on the water at the house spigot, let them rotate – electrically! – for fifteen minutes, manually turn the dial to “drain,” and repeat the process as needed for extra wash and rinse cycles etc.  Then you move all the clothes – usually in a couple batches – to the much smaller spinner compartment, and turn the spinner on for five minutes (praying that it doesn’t die this time, please heaven, please.))

Turns out you just had to “almost break the dial” to get the new washer to drain, so now it is functional.  As I am in charge of house laundry for the month of January, I could no longer see a way around washing that archiest soul of arch-nemeses: the towels.  Why are towels worse than other laundry, you ask?  They are never clean.  No matter how many times I fill the washer, no matter how much hydrogen peroxide I add to the water (I feel like saying “boil, boil, toil and trouble…” whenever I do laundry around here.), no matter no matter no matter…at the end of it all, I can still shake visible dirt out of the “clean” towels, and they still smell like nothing I ever want to dry my hands or my dishes on.  Mind you, that is before they are hung to fester…er…dry on the line for two days.

Anyway, since I was home in the middle of the day today, and since it is not as chilly and overcast as it has been most days lately (that is part of the forthcoming daunting post), I decided to wage war on my arch-nemesis.  I collected all his foul minions and brought them outside to the washing machine.  I did a normal cycle with the new soap I had bought (liquid soap that includes bleach!  Power detergent is one reason the towels have been dirty for months.  I am convinced of that.) and hydrogen peroxide.  They didn’t seem especially clean after round one, so I took to more drastic tactics.  I set the hot-pot going, and then got smart and put a pot of water on the stove.  I added more soap and more hydrogen peroxide to my innocent, plastic cauldron, and then when the water was hot…well, I effectively cooked the towels.

And here is where Laura Ingalls Wilder comes in.  When was the last time you heard of someone boiling their laundry water on the stove?  It is all very Little House on the Prairie-esque.  I have taken to boiling water for my cleaning more and more often.  I boiled it to wash dishes that had held raw meat this weekend.  I boiled it to soak my cookie pans.  I boiled it to pour down the sink in hopes of killing whatever was festering in the pipes.

The resemblance doesn’t stop there, either.  Since the cooler months have set in, Kelley has often boiled water for her showers.  I would probably do the same, if I wouldn’t have to carry it upstairs.  As it is, I shower about twice a week…I know, contain your horror.  Have you ever taken a cold shower when the air temperature is in the 60’s and the house is not heated?  There is no way to warm up!  I plan my showers around sunny mid-days and physical activity.

Once my laundry kick had begun, I let it continue for a couple hours.  I get into these moods rarely enough.  Besides, it takes a couple hours to get through the whole process.  When I go home, I will spin out and hang up the sheets, pillowcase and bedskirt from the living room bed, er, couch.  I will also broom beat the front door mat (Remember the whole Laura Ingalls Wilder thing?), which I took outside when I was sweeping today; the mat was hiding wet muddy water.  Sigh.  And then, perhaps I will be hot enough again so that a shower will not summarily end my life.  Ok, that may be a little dramatic, but it does knock the breath out of one…

In other – and far more sober – news, (This is the only piece of real news I will attempt to relay today.) we wished Kelley farewell this weekend, when she boarded a plane back to the U.S.  She discovered health issues over Christmas break that could not be ignored, and spent the past couple of weeks after break frantically rearranging her class schedule and making sure her kids were taken care of in true Kelley fashion.  She had been pioneering the Special Ed program at the high school, and was for that reason more irreplaceable than most of us.  She is also dearly beloved by students, Belizean co-workers, and volunteers alike.  The house is not the same without her.  Please keep her in your prayers, and if you could spare a prayer for her Belizean babies bereft of their favorite teacher, I’m sure she would appreciate that as well.

As for those towels…they are hanging neatly on the line, and they only smell slightly strange.  I will give you the final verdict in six months, when they are dry.

…And a Happy New Year!

Okay.  Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa (or as we would say here, “por mi culpa, por mi culpa, por mi gran culpa).  I will admit I was daunted by the idea of writing my first blog post in over a month.  And daunted by the fact that it simply must include pictures.  Then again, most of that month was spent in the states, and y’all don’t follow me for my fascinating movements in the motherland…or on the mothership (which is a more fitting title)…do you?

The break was good.  I saw as many people as one could reasonably expect to see in three weeks: all of my immediate family, two sets of aunts and uncles and another aunt, the people at O’Brien Jones (who had lunch for me!), the choir and choir director, and various friends and acquaintances.  I baked bread, cake, three kinds of pie and three kinds of cookie.  I made soup and my dad made sauce and meatballs (the real reason I go home).  I ate Taco Bell and American junk food, pizza and pasta.  Probably I could stop talking right now, since food is all that really matters…

I also love Christmassy houses.  We even snuck a real tree into the house while my dad was out…foiling his plans to use the artificial tree for another year.  Not that he objected, since we had done the work by the time he found out about it.

Aaaaand I suppose it was good to see la mia famiglia.

That one doesn’t like pictures.

Anyway.  I had comments for many of these pictures, but wordpress is being a brat about letting me put the comments between the pictures, and I don’t feel like fighting with it.  Therefore, you probably just need to take away a few main points:

1) I love pie Oh, So Much.  Fo’ real, folks.

2) And meatballs.

7) Don’t worry, we had a funny hat party for New Year’s Eve.  That is not quite the ordinary type of headdress in my house…though I wouldn’t be all that surprised.

4) Don’t worry about sorting through my aunts, uncles, cousins, and random Helena, if you don’t already know the difference.  It would be too much sorting.

4) I like pie.

27) Did I mention that I like food?

2) And pie.

8) And meatballs.  Did I mention the sauce?  And the meatballs.

9) Sometimes when Aunt Cindy and Monica stay up late on New Year’s Eve, great art results…in the medium of “fruit and trash.”  It’s a thing.

Tune in sometime next millenium for “Breakfast in Belize: Reentry Edition.”

Belize Navidad

Not a new joke, but one just begging to be made.  Actually, I don’t know if I’ll post again before Christmas; it’s quite possible…but such a post would come from the U.S.!  Perhaps I’ll find some time over the break to upload some new pictures.  I hate to say it, but there will be none for you all today.

It has been a busy week again.  The weeks leading up to Christmas break are just packed for everyone, in every job, everywhere, as far as I can tell.  Last Wednesday was our Christmas concert, which doubled as the final for all of my music classes, along with Eric’s and Melissa’s.  How to grade said final when we could hardly see our own kids singing (at first I actually had my back to them, due to the direction my keyboard was facing) is a problem with which I have not yet struggled.  The concert was fun, though.  My boys did especially well, singing their own raucous, shouty versions of “Go, Tell it On the Mountain,” “We Three Kings,” “Jingle Bells,” and “Deck the Halls,” depending on the class.  I was proud of them.  The boys also behaved fairly well on the bleachers.  Not so the girls, but that did not surprise me.  Anyway, I had hoped to take pictures and maybe even record some of the singing, but it was not to be.  I was too busy scurrying around the basketball court, shushing teenagers, shepherding them on and off the stage, and trying to make enough sound come out of them so that they could be heard in that far-too-large and acoustically unhelpful space.  C’est la vie.  You can imagine.  It was 80-some-odd degrees that day, but I think we filled the school with a warm, oozy brand of Christmas spirit.

That day also marked the beginning of finals for the junior college, which is an “exciting” time for teachers and students alike.  I gave my last final Friday evening, and was promptly swept off by some of my older, women students to one of their houses.  She fed me (very good food!) until I was ready to burst, introduced me to her children, and they laughed and joked with me and made good-natured fun of me for a million things (Teaching is such a vulnerable profession.) until I said I had to leave.

As it was, I was running late for the faculty Christmas party.  A couple of the girls accompanied me home and waited in hammocks on our veranda while I got dressed for the party, because they were insistent that I shouldn’t go to the party alone (“what if you end up in the wrong place?  Are you sure that’s where the party is?”).  They dropped me off outside the restaurant, where I got to make a dauntingly solo entrance to a roomful of teachers and faculty enjoying bollos and rice and beans in holiday good spirits.  Mr. David met me at the door (thank heavens someone did), shortly followed by someone who gave me tickets for drinks – rum & coke or Belikin, of course.  This is Belize, after all.  Eventually I found a spot (Actually, I think I stole Victor’s.) with the volunteers, but I couldn’t eat another bite.  I drank my excessively strong rum & coke and visited, and eventually danced (in my own, highly inhibited fashion) until it was late enough for us to make a dignified exit.

On Saturday we attended the birthday party of the little girl of one of the high school teachers.  This essentially means that we all sat together under an awning in her yard, listening to entertainingly hispanic party music and visiting with each other, while the hostess or a member of her family showed up periodically to ply us with more food (chicken and rice & beans, prequelled by cheese dip and rum drinks…but of course!)  The little girl was turning two; I have never seen a two-year-old attack a pinata with such determination before.  These kids know what’s what, I’ll tell you that.  In the evening, we went out again for a little Christmas get-together at Brynne & Victor’s, which was pleasant (although in our game of Christmas fish-bowl, everyone resented my entry of mulled cider; that is definitely a Christmas thing, “no true?” (as my students would say)

I should mention that in and around all this I have been trying to work my way through the heaps of finals and papers I need to grade by the end of the week.  I have one set of finals done, but it doesn’t seem like a big enough dent at this point.  I am not fast at grading.  Have I ever mentioned that?  And since it looms so large in my life, of course, I react in my own way…by procrastinating.

Anyway, this week is finals week at the high school, which for me just involves proctoring a couple of exams (actually, they seemed to have forgotten I exist, because I wasn’t on the list to proctor any; but since Eric is at least as busy as I am, and was on the list to proctor 5, he is giving me a couple.)

The main point is this: by Saturday, all grading will be done (I hope!), the laundry will be finished (and perhaps slightly less moldy than usual?), the house will be ready to be left, and we will be on our way to the U.S.  I don’t really think I believe that yet, but they tell me it’s true.  It just sounds surreal.  By all accounts we will be arriving home into a cold-snap that encompasses…what, all of North America?  Of course we will.  I suspect I will spent the next three weeks enshrouded in a blanket as I shiver, but at least it will be cozy and Christmassy…the tropics just don’t feel all that seasonable.

So, I wish you at least a happy Advent, even if I write again before Christmas.  May God bless this season of waiting, and make it fruitful for all of us.

EDIT: I forgot the other major thing that happened Friday…Friday was the longest day in a long time!  The high school had “fun day” instead of classes.  This entailed splitting the entire school into “houses” (yes, I did want to be in Gryffindor, but somehow I ended up in the yellow house; could be because they used colors instead of properly Hogwartsian names.  And so many colors!  There were sky blue and royal blue, brown, “fuschia” (pink), red, purple, green, orange, yellow…) and having the houses compete in a variety of tasks.  The day began with a run to the border (with Guatemala) for anyone who wanted to compete.  The houses of the runners to take first, second, and third place received astronomical numbers of points (So of course when Eric won, the green house got a major leg up.), but a small number of points were awarded for anyone who completed the “race,” so I went.  I intended to walk the whole thing, but due to Kelley’s prodding, ended up running probably a quarter or a third of the thing, all told.  I was grumpy by the end…I had to get up at 5:45 AND I had to exercise AND it was running…grumble grumble grumble.  Cold shower no. 1 of the day dispelled some of the grumpiness, though.  The day really began with the normal school mass (a Friday occurrence), and then things got competitive.  I really enjoyed it, to be honest.  Was it exhausting?  Yes.  Was it overwhelming?  Yes.  In the past few weeks, though, my relationships with my students have really solidified.  I care about them, care if they lose the basketball championship, care if they unnecessarily fail their finals (and really, this is a whole post of its own…one which I will eventually get to).  Additionally, I always do better at hanging out with students if we have a common activity.  I yelled an screamed and cheered and pumped up my kids and hung out with the most annoying high schoolers I teach all day…and loved it.  I just wanted them to experience success to see that they could, not because I cared that much about winning.  One of my most recalcitrant students has turned into a sweet little boy in the past few weeks, and he was on my team (he’ll be in that other post, I think).  Anyway, we don’t know the point totals yet.  I don’t think we won, but I don’t think we were in last place either.  We won a few events, and took a fair number of seconds, so it was a respectable defeat.  After that day, which began with the grudging run at 6, followed by a day of running around and screaming and competing in the hot tropical sun, I went home and took cold shower no. 2, then came back to school to try to help one of my JC students (who wouldn’t be helped…he’ll be in the other post as well.).  I gave my final, went to my students’ house, and then to the faculty Christmas party…such a long day.  Yet worth it.

Hola!

I had been waiting to download/upload some pictures of all the different events that have happened in the past week, but at this moment I am procrastinating and need to use up a small chunk of time before I have to be somewhere; so without further ado, I give you just words (and no pictures):

I think my last post on Thanksgiving occurred before the actual festivities, so I should just mention that they actually made us a turkey dinner, which was more than I expected.  There were also a sort of spiced rice & raisin stuffing (because who could have a holiday without rice?), an attempt at bread stuffing (I was confused) and mashed potatoes.  The mashed potatoes were sweet and spiced, which greatly confused us until someone realized that they were trying to make us “sweet potatoes.”  aHA!

After dinner we played American foot…er…mudball.  There has been a lot of rain recently, and drainage around here is kind of a joke, so the field was ankle-deep in smelly, bacteria-infested mud soup.  It was tons of fun, though.  After spending the whole game wandering around the field 10 seconds behind the times (my team kept switching sides and leaving me to discover that now I was surrounded by the other team – this should not surprise anyone who has ever tried to play a sport with me!), I ran the second to last touchdown (This should surprise anyone who has ever tried to play a sport with me.).  I was quite proud of myself.  Anyway, the game devolved into a human pyramid and a mud-fight, after which we hosed our crusty, slimy selves down, went home, and showered again.  I think I used a good inch of body wash in my cold shower.  Uggh.

The rest of the weekend was a blur.  One of last year’s volunteers was visiting, so we did lots of hanging out, eating, drinking, and being merry.  On Saturday most of us piled into a rented bus and accompanied the boys’ basketball team to regionals.  After a long, grueling, gloomy, drizzly day in a cold gym (It was probably in the 60’s!  I huddled shivering in one of the guys’ jackets, wishing I had brought a coat to Belize.), the boys ended up in 2nd place.  Their first game was incredible.  They were focused and intense and they played as one tightly unified team.  I was so proud of them.  I cannot convey here the wild excitement, the screaming and jumping up and down, the overwhelming surge of affection that radiated from the little group of us in the general direction of the boys in green uniforms.  Most of the other teams brought whole bleachers-full of fans and families, but we were the only fans cheering for the Mount Carmel team, so we had to do a good job.  The Few.  The Proud.  The Female Volunteer Teachers.  

At the beginning of the second game, they missed a few shots and the ref made a few bad/biased calls, which threw our team into a nosedive.  These boys can be fantastic, but they are moody and emotional and far too easily discouraged (which, incidentally, is a large reason that this is so good for them).  Because of that, as soon as things weren’t going well, they lost heart and kind of gave up.  They pulled it together at the end, making up about 11 points in the last 7 minutes of the game, but it was too late to win.  Nevertheless, I think their turnaround made the game a sort of “moral” success, and everyone went home in high spirits.  Too high, really.  The bus trip should have come with complementary earplugs.

That evening, everyone was so exhausted that most of them took a nap…and most of them never woke up.  I had things to do, so I just scurried around while they were napping.  Eric did finally wake up (unlike the rest of them), and we stayed up late into the night, listening to Christmas music and making decorations.  I cut snowflakes out of extra copies of my course outlines until they started to look more like sea monsters, and Eric designed unique construction paper stockings for all the girls.  After I went to bed he stayed up even later, so that when we woke up there was a construction paper fireplace affixed to the side of the tile counter.

On Sunday morning I got up and made an orange chiffon cake for the baptism of Brynne & Victor’s baby, Sophia.  The cake wasn’t finished by the time mass started, so I had to run home a couple of times in the middle of mass (good thing we live across the street – although I still really didn’t like to leave mass).  In the end, the cake on the bottom rack kind of burned, but the top cake was still pretty good, and Sophia became a child of God, so all went well.  We spent Sunday afternoon in Melchor, the border city on the Guatemalan side, hanging out with our Guatemalan students and attempting some frantic, last-ditch Christmas shopping at the market.

And that is all for now.  Really, it is a lot crammed into a very short amount of time.  Add to that the 21 essays I have to grade, which will be joined by 50-something finals by the end of the week, and you may have some idea of why I have become an unreliable blogger.  But I will be in the states in a mere ten days, and see many of you then!  Get in touch if we are supposed to get together.  I really should start a list.