Wrapping Up Our Peace Corps Service - Saying Goodbye

We certainly did have the joy of getting to know and love some very special people while we were in Belize. As our time approached to go home to the States, I became a regular "leaky tear faucet," anticipating the new homesickness I would feel leaving my home of two years in Dangriga.

We let select people know about our early exit for several reasons:

1. I wanted a smooth transition for Aidra and the Garifuna GLOW Girls.
2. I hoped that someone would take over teaching the Zumba classes.
3. We wanted to make sure that there was no financial problems with our apartment rent, and that Rafi would be able to find a new tenant.
4. We wanted to find good homes for all the STUFF we were leaving behind.

And so it began. Our last weeks, and especially the last weekend in Dangriga, were spent tying up details with utilities and moving furniture and other items out of the house. Some of the things were sold at a very reasonable price, and a lot were given. Our last night in the apartment, we treated it like a hotel room, because there were no items in the kitchen in which to cook, or on which to eat! Slept in a bed that Rafi bought but left for us, and took a shower with borrowed towels.

We also tried to get around to all our friends for one last goodbye. In no particular order . . .

Pen and Ingrid Cayetano gave us some of their beautiful art as a way to remember them. We've been lucky enough to keep up with them since we returned through Facebook and Skype :-)

Rafaelita and Anthony - they were our housemates. Rafi taught me a lot about being Belizean and being generous! Anthony grew several inches in the 21 months that we lived with them. Look out young ladies! Missing from this picture is her beautiful son, Michael, born just a few days after our grandson, Burke. By the next time I see him, he'll probably be walking!!

We saw a lot (but not enough) of Norielee, Aidra, and Daytha Rodriguez during our last few days in Dangriga. Those gals, especially Aidra, were just the light of my time in Belize. I learned so much about honesty, caring, community service and thinking of "we before me." I feel so lucky to call them my friends. Norie (on the left) and Daytha made the drum. It has a picture of Steve and me (well, the Belizean version of Steve and me). They got EVERYBODY - all the Rodriguez family and all the GLOW girls - to sign it. SO special. Aidra (on the right) made the beautiful doll that I'm holding. It's sitting in a special place here in our apartment so I can enjoy it all the time. The drum is, too, and "one of these days," I will take some lessons so I can play it.

On our last night in Dangriga, Kim (in the center with black scarf), and Ava (on the right), both PCVs, made us a scrumptious dinner. Ava was our companion for many things we did in Dangriga, and was always ready to lend a hand, share a joke or a gripe, and suggest great ideas for GLOW activities. We have left her all alone in Dangriga for her last couple months there. Kim is winding up her extended duty in nearby Hopkins. She'll be coming back soon to her home in Detroit with her hunky Belizean fiance!

Many GLOW girls came by the house to say goodbye. I was so touched, because I didn't think they would be comfortable showing their feelings about me. They were very sweet and open about saying they would miss me.

The Zumba ladies threw a surprise goodbye party for me on the last night of class. I am so pleased that TWO of the women who took the class, Carla (2nd row, 4th from right next to me) and Jolene (2nd row, at the right end in white and blue), agreed to keep the class going! They are sharing duties to cover the class, sometimes teaching together. They took the big speaker and paid for my old iPod. I've heard from Jolene via email several times, and she's even added some new (!) songs. I'm thrilled to think that there might be a little "sustainability" with the class.

Well, the desktop is getting wet because my eyes are leaking again. Did I say this in the last blog entry?  My life will be forever changed by these wonderful people.

Wrapping Up Our Peace Corps Service - COS Conference

Cathy:  There has been a long time gap between now and our last blog post. Steve and I made the decision to leave three months earlier than the "assigned" June 10 exit date. We could not write about our plans because they needed to remain secret. We also wanted to be sensitive to people who might read the blog.

Because we both had been in country with (what can only be termed) bad assignments, we felt unhappy about our Peace Corps service. This was true for the majority of the time we were in Belize. My work with POWA had been terminated officially in early February 2012. I found things to do in Dangriga - taught Health and Family Life Education to kids in Standards III, IV, V, and VI at three schools, started the girls club, and led the Zumba exercise classes. Those were all good small projects (they averaged about 8 hours a week), and I derived a lot of satisfaction from them.

Of the two of us, Steve had the least to do. Steve was taken off his assignment at the Polyclinic in October 2011, and then reassigned to the same project about February of 2012. Unfortunately, nothing changed regarding the work partners commitment to working with a PC volunteer was practically nil. Steve spent very little time in contact with the people there, less than 3 hours a week, despite trying to "drum up" work many times with many different organizations. As he got to know the Cayetanos, he enjoyed doing the woodworking project for them. He also helped Anthony, the young boy who lived downstairs, with his homework almost every night.

Then in March of 2012, Steve was asked to participate in rewriting the Community Health Worker training manual, and he brought me on board. Writing that manual was quite a challenge, and we are both extremely proud of our work with the Ministry of Health. We completed the last of the drafts in January of 2013. Although we were challenged and happy with our work product, the work was not fulfilling in the way that working directly with Belizeans would have been. Basically, it was a sit-down job, researching, writing, and creating illustrations. Contact with the MOH was primarily through email and telephone.

Once the "book" was complete, we felt it was time to come back to the United States. Our country director was very understanding and sympathetic to our situation, and was able to obtain an exit status of "Interrupted Service" which will allow us to work with Peace Corps again if we ever wish to do so.

So . . . these last entries are a short recap of our last few weeks in Belize. We'll start with a description of our last official Peace Corps meeting - the COS Conference.

Steve:  The Close of Service Conference is a time for reflection of what our service in Belize has meant to us. It is also a get together with all the volunteers and all of the Peace Corps staff people for some “thank you” and some “good-bye” talks with each other.

It started with a cook out at the home of our country director. This was an all afternoon thing, and I think we all ate way too much delicious food. The next day we caught the bus to Cayo (San Ignacio Town) and checked in at the Cahal Pech Resort. It is right next to the Mayan archeological site with the same name. The manager of the resort smiled a special smile each time she told Cathy and me that we had the honeymoon cabana.

We had sessions to talk about our milestones as well as sessions about making the transition back to life in the US with gainful employment for some and graduate school for some. There was also a session where the top staff people went around the room and said something special about each of us in the volunteer staff.

Cathy participated in a role play as an interviewer.

We also had a surprise for the staff people. At lunch the last day we staged a flash mob. The director thought at first we had lost our minds. We used a mash-up of four songs (Hot Cheetos and Takis, Summatime, Gangnam Style, and We Are the World 25) that we could sing and dance to. We finished with “We are the World” after we went out and fetched each staff person to come and join us in a circle.

Twenty-five PCVs plus staff

Basically the entire three days were one gigantic “warm fuzzy” for everyone with lots of hugs and some tears (of happiness).

The Ambassador and his wife joined us one night for dinner.

Mrs. Thumalapally is every bit as qualified as her husband!

These are the education PCVs who worked with Mrs. T.

Our good friend, Shaz, participating in the "fun fact" exercise.

People participating in the photo scavenger hunt.

Some fun during a break

Too Tired to Write. Pictures!

Lots of GLOW Girls, traveling up and down the road to Belmopan, woodworking, Zumba, eating, and writing.

Self-esteem activity

Making puppets

More puppet making

Puppet dogs

And more puppets

Charlie in front, Pen in back

Steve is making a cabinet for Pen Cayetano with the help of his friend, Charlie. We don't have a picture of any woodworking yet, 'cause it's still in the planning stages. This is a picture of Pen showing off his guinea hen to Charlie. I took care of his 15 or so chickens for almost TWO months!

Yum! Barbecue chicken!

Rafi cooked a big spread for us! Delicious!

I know Rafaelita is going to say that's a bad picture, but I think it's really cute.

We used this picture with an ad on cablevision.

When we started Zumba classes, we were exercising inside the Town Hall in front of Pen Cayetano's mural. After three weeks, just when our number of participants had exploded, the Town Council received a huge shipment of desks, chairs and tables (for the schools, I guess). Now that stuff is stored in the room where we were exercising. The last time they got a donation like that, a huge supply of books, it took them a year to distribute them. So anyway, we're dancing on the stage at Princess Royal Park. At least it's lighted. We really liked that Town Hall venue.

One more thing. A picture I painted of Aidra.

Aidra

A Day When Everything Went Right!

A Facebook friend of mine posted an article that listed thoughts to live by. One of those ideas really struck home when I applied it to our Peace Corps work here in Belize.

Over-prepare! And then go with the flow.

I think Steve and I both are good at being over-prepared. The most important part of the advice is the second phrase, though, and it wasn't until yesterday with the GLOW Club meeting that I got to enjoy the benefits of following ALL of those words of wisdom.

I didn't have to do much preparing. Most of it had been done last Saturday for the club meeting. Except nobody came. NOBODY came, not even Aidra. Well, it was raining off and on, but because club meetings are so popular, I figured a few would trickle in. Zero, zip, nunque!

Even that wasn't TOO terrible, 'cause Steve and I got to eat all the chocolate chip cookies ourselves. Took a few days, but we enjoyed them a lot!

Anyway, this week we had a house-full of glowing girls. We had fun activities, and some of them were new and challenging!

• Role play scenarios learning how to introduce friends to each other. We will do a little of this every week with different "mannerly"aspects of life. Next week, saying "thank you" and all the times when it's appropriate to do it.
• Odyssey of the Mind challenges. We want these girls to learn to think on their feet, and to learn to work together in teams. There are some fabulous practice exercises online. We started them off with an easy one yesterday, with real loose rules. We will work up to tougher problems and stricter guidelines. 

The girls loved both of these activities, and were very enthusiastic in helping each other!

We also played the "indoor field hockey" game and made pencil toppers and ate cookies and "juice" and laughed and sang and danced . . . . Oh, no wait a minute. I'm getting carried away.

I had lots of helpers this time. Ava, the PCV who lives here in Dangriga, Steve, and Charlie, an American friend who has retired down here, AND Anthony, the boy who lives downstairs - all of them helped Aidra and me. In addition, Rafaelita and her new baby, Michael watched (and enjoyed, I hope). I guess she was curious about what goes on up here.

Well, unfortunately, except for a few, all our pictures are on video, and I don't have that yet. Will post as soon as I get it this week! For now, enjoy the pictures of our big crowd while we were doing our crafts :-)

And then go with the flow

Charlie, Malicka and Vaughnya

 

Aidra - in charge of color mixing

Cathy - pipe cleaner expert

Ava - wields a mean pair of scissors. Gets award for most patient.

Refreshments. The little girl on the right is a member's sister.

Art!

Admiring the avant-garde dragonfly.

Anthony lent his expertise by managing the drying operations.

Finally - from me, anyway.
I just had to paint another picture here in Belize. Used those same poster paints you see in the pictures above.

Malicka

From Steve:


We had a site visit by our Country Director, Nina Hernandez. We talked about progress on the training manual. She seemed very happy with our progress so far. 

We went to a close-by restaurant for lunch. One of Princess's other pups (FuWe Dog's brother!) lives there and is their watch dog. The owner warned Cathy not to go near the dog since he would bite. When he sniffed Cathy, he remembered her and seemed very happy to see her again. So much for the watch dog idea.

Top 10 Lists for 2012

Happy New Year, one and all! We brought in the new year with lots of firecrackers (the loud kind), lots of fireworks (the pretty kind), an emergency siren (I guess that's just for fun), and an all-night rock concert. Everyone was celebrating except the dogs, who were trying to get under something and away from the noise.

FuWe Dog trying to deal with the loud noises.

 It's always good to reflect on the pluses and minuses for a year, and 2012 is no different. I think we will stick with the high points, just to keep us on the bright side :-)

First we have Steve's top 10 (eleven). They are in chronological order.

Jeff, Steve, Susan & Stephanie

1. Jeff and Stephanie came for a visit.
   
2. I was able to make my iPhone work in Belize.
   
3. I went to Sagitun and helped wash hair for kids with lice.
   
4. We started on the revision of the training manual for the community health workers.
   
5. I had a spring break in the US and saw all my relatives.
   
6. I worked at Sandy Beach doing simple woodwork projects to help them get ready to re-open the restaurant.
   
7. I helped the people at the clinic make an educational DVD to play in the waiting room.
   
8. I got to introduce a speaker at the Embassy in Garifuna. Aidra helped me immensely.
   
9. We had an October trip to the US to see Burke, and I got to spend some quality time with Jeff.
   
10. We enjoyed watching the election returns, knowing that we had voted early.
    
11. Five people from the Peace Corps office came to our health fair with the NGC (National Garifuna Council).

 And here's my list (only 9 so that makes up for Steve's extra one):

1. Jeff and Stephanie came to visit!
   
2. Jeff and Stephanie announced that they were expecting a baby!
   
3. Dad and Joyce came to visit!
   
4. We got an exciting assignment - to update the training manual for the Community Health Workers.
   
5. Garifuna GLOW Girls came into existence, and I discovered that I'm really bad at knowing anything about kids, but I like it anyway, and they don't seem to mind that I'm bad at knowing about kids.
   
6. Traveled to the village of Pueblo Viejo to work with Mallory Begley, another PCV. Found out what "real" Peace Corps life is like.
   
7. Our GLOW Girls won the national art contest sponsored by Peace Corps.
   
8. Grandson Burke was born and we got to go home to the States to visit everybody. Got to see my family and all my friends.
   
9. GLOW Girls performed at grand opening of Pen Cayetano's mural, and they had a float for Settlement Day parade.

Tummy Time

Everything is still pretty quiet here. Our next-door neighbor's house was broken into on New Year's Eve. She wasn't there that night. Guess with all the noise, and the fact that our dogs weren't outside to bark at intruders because they were cowering inside, it was pretty easy for somebody to get in. They can't figure out what was stolen, but there was definitely a break-in.

Life goes on. We still need haircuts. Notice the calendar!

Zumba starts up again next Monday. This time we will be working out at the Town Hall, in front of Pen's mural. We are hoping that the indoor, roomy venue will encourage more people to come. It is a further distance, however, so I will have to take a taxi in order to get my speaker over to the Town Hall. This time I will have a small charge ($2 per class) that will help defray that expense. I am also adding a little strength work, or toning, to the workout in an effort to draw more folks.

A lot of people have asked us about the training manual. Of course, it's several hundred pages, so far, with probably another 100 or so to go.  Here are some screen shots of the first few pages of the Women's Health Module.

Mostly Ups

The last two weeks have been mostly ups! With a serious big crasheroo right there at the end. Maybe I can write about yesterday’s unfortunate event and then do the flashback thing to complete this entry on a high note.

Yesterday, Sunday the 16th, was the day that Aidra and I and all the GLOW girls decided was a good day for our Christmas party. It looked like everything was falling together into a big beautiful bashment. Aidra and her sisters, Daytha and Norie, arranged for the place (Why Not Island), and the food (Norie does catering so she donated her time and skills), and some extra presents in case the some of the girls forgot theirs (Daytha had lots of things she had bought for her daughters that she had not given them yet) and dessert (Aidra arranged for ice cream and cones, as well as plates, cups, etc.) I was in charge of music and other entertainment – fun games! Just because I wanted to eat some, I made cupcakes with red and green sprinkles.

So I had a great time pulling together the games. We had a home-made version of Twister. Steve made the spinners and we used the rubber exercise padding for the playing area.

Twister - Peace Corps style

We also had the field hockey game (more on that in the flashback portion of this entry), a fun keep-away game that the girls had enjoyed before, and those games we used way back at Easter for the DYA fundraiser.

Bean Bag Toss - only we used the paper ball for the
field hockey game instead

All the girls remembered their Secret Santa presents (they were excited about that idea), but none had wrapped them. They all stood together at the end of the table where Aidra had brought wrapping paper and wrapped their presents in front of every other girl. Funny. 

The girls clustered around the table wrapping their
not-so-Secret Santa presents

I had four hours’ worth of Christmas and pop music, and certificates from Peace Corps congratulating them on winning the art contest.  (Yes, you remember. Waaaay back in September.) This was gonna be a killer party.

BUT . . .

We didn’t know that the Town Council had scheduled a Jankanu dance competition at Why Not Island. We thought it was supposed to be at another venue, Parrish Hall. Well, we found out on Saturday, the 15th of the changed location, but we knew it was supposed to be under a huge tent over at the basketball court – not at the shed where we planned to be. We figured there might be some noise coming over from there, but not enough to mess up our party.

Crowded under the shed at Why Not Island

There's the shed in the distance. You can also see all the boys
preparing to dance Jankanu.

When we arrived at the bridge to cross over to Why Not Island, we were met with a huge metal gate and two ferocious women who said we had no right to be there unless we paid admission for the big event. Fortunately, a police officer arrived (who I knew from the Health Fair), and she helped us straighten out the situation. We told them that a few girls would be coming in for the party and we could identify them.

What we had NOT counted on was that everybody assumes the shed is as much theirs to use as the other parts of Why Not. We were literally inundated with kids getting ready to perform. At any given time, there were between 25 and 75 boys and girls, and a few adults, from different schools under the shed with us. No room for our games. And the other kids kept interrupting, wanting to play. They also wanted to buy our food. “We no di sell no-ting!” They also decided that under the shed was a good place to do some last minute rehearsal with their drums. So forget the music that I brought. In fact, I turned off my big speaker and grabbed up my iPod so it wouldn’t “get legs.”

Steve had come with me. I invited him because I thought it would be fun, and he definitely deserved a good Norie meal for all the help he gave the club. After an hour or so of “not fun,” he decided to exit. Plus he was hungry, and the food wasn’t there yet. (We found out later that the taxi driver didn’t show up for a half hour after Norie called him, and then he couldn’t get through the crowd to get near the gate to bring it in – multiple trips.)

Now earlier in my service, I would have been going nuts because of the way things were not working out. Not so this time.

I had already been through craziness for the Settlement Day Parade and survived. I learned that things usually work out OK even if not the planned way.

Aidra was there with me, and she is like a Valium. She was in control and knew how to handle the non-party people. After observing her for a while, I knew what to say and do, and, at least on the surface, appear calm and collected.

To the end of this story. We only had seven of the 12 girls who were supposed to be there. The other five missed some or all of it for various reasons. The ones who were there seemed to have a good time and definitely had plenty to eat. We told them that we were taking the rest of the year off, starting back in January. Although  disappointed, they seemed to accept it as a reasonable thing.

After 3 hours of pandemonium, Aidra and I were able to pack up and head for home. Steve made two trips on his bike so we didn’t have to try to get a taxi. By the time I walked in the door to our house, I felt like somebody had picked me up and slammed me against the wall a few times. Whew! Glad it was over. Stevie brought me a big cold Belikin!!

So let’s hop back one week to when we were planning our party at the GLOW girls meeting. It was fun, and the girls really participated and were helpful and cooperative with each other. Also, we tried out a “field hockey” game with brooms and a paper ball to see how it worked. Steve and I were planning to use it in a training on Monday and Tuesday of the coming week, so we wanted a dry run.

On the right you can see Ava Hacker and Aidra seated, and
Daytha standing just behind them. The girls are learning about
Secret Santa.

I thought we had pictures of the field hockey, but no. I thought we had pictures of them working together to make little individual pizzas (tortilla crust!), but no. Here’s a chance for you to visualize.

Here are the girls making Christmas stars again. One of the girls made one for me. How nice!

The girls worked so well together

The girls who had made stars the previous week helped the new
ones.

So all day Sunday, Steve and I worked on our presentations for the HECOPAB Educator training, slated for Monday and Tuesday. Arlette Sheppard had invited us to do two sessions. The Monday night session was “Fun in Learning,” and then Tuesday morning, we had two hours to introduce the educators to the CHW Training Manual. 

We were pumped! The event was held at the Banana Bank Lodge, a nice resort outside of Belmopan - gorgeous landscaping and a small zoo with a healthy-looking jaguar and some exotic birds. We had a beautiful cabana all to ourselves. They had a large dining hall where they served meals family style. And they were healthy meals with lots of vegetables.

The dining hall

Our “fun” session went very well. They enjoyed the field hockey. (They scored 1 point if their team made a goal, and 10 points if they answered the health-related question after it.) They liked the team-building exercise with people blindfolded and trying to find something on the wall with their team members helping them. But what they liked the best was the role play of “mom” and baby. Belizean people love stories, and this played right into their enjoyment of a story. 

A mom and her two-year-old son

Ms. Arlette, mom, and her nine-month-old daughter

On Tuesday morning, we spent some time talking about the manual, and we had one module that had been printed up so they could follow along to learn how to use the manual. Then we taught a small lesson exactly the way it was supposed to be taught according to the book. 

Arlette Sheppard and me between sessions

Action shot

The participants

Well, the topic was diabetes, so who better to explain the complexities of that disease. Steve was marvelous, and everybody absolutely LOVED the way he taught. The only thing that I did was lead a small group activity that focused on what family and friends can do to help someone with diabetes.

The MAN!

We were very pleased with how the training worked out. This was our first time to present this new tool to the HECOPAB folks. We were the only "outsiders" invited to participate, so it was an honor and acknowledgement that they felt we were a part of them.