Manual Labor by Suburban College Kids

Another Day in Paradise

Man, I like it here. Today we broke tiles off from their backing at the Adventist hospital. I was psyched to get in a full day's work, but it turns out that you can prep tiles faster than you can soak them, so we filled up two oil buckets, a trough, a garbage can, two wheelbarrows and a bassinet with tile sheets and water and we'll come back tomorrow. I am sorrowed, though, that we couldn't finish up the half-done paint job that the people from Denver left, but there was something that either their boss was coming back from America with more paint in a month, or they just needed permission from someone in America. I'm sketch on it, but it seems like this is exactly the sort of thing that our fundraised money could do. Nothing's sadder than a half-painted hospital. We did, however, get tasty Adventist vegetarian food for lunch and ride home in the back of a pickup truck, so what could be so bad with that?

Viva San Ignacio!

Day one! The crew met me at the airport and yes, it's just about as hot and humid as you would think. Then the 2 hour drive to our part of the house, which is bubble-gum pink and guarded by 2 big dogs (that are still very friendly). We immediately headed out to help at the Zumba class one of the volunteers holds for the kids. This is actually a great service project, since childhood obesity does exist here and there aren't many kid-friendly activities in the evening. Then dinner at our cook's an awesome woman called Seesta Kaye. To be honest, we have an unofficial, but tight relationship with the LDS church here. It's great, though: we get to use their building and grounds for our dance class and we hire one of their recent converts. Our place is wonderful--lots of living room and 3 bathrooms, but we do all sleep in a crowded room right now (see above--my bed's in the corner). Today we're going to help build a hospital. Wow. I know I'm in the honeymoon period right now, but this seems just about ideal. Seesta Kaya put it best, though: "What you'll love most about Belize is the way people love."