Chicken Foot
End of day one, and it already feels like I’ve been here forever. The meetings this afternoon, especially the one with Michelle Irving, the head of POWA, were really helpful. It’s just crazy, we’ve worked on these projects all semester, and they’re finally materializing— there not coming together quite as originally planned, but it’s still good, and I think our whole group is adapting and doing a really good job of being flexible.
Fun things from today:
Lunch. We went to Steadfast for orientation. I got bitten by sand fleas, but fortunately it doesn’t itch, and I wasn’t as bad off as some other people. Also, some local women cooked us lunches, rice and beans with chicken, and my lunch to go box had the chicken foot, score!
Compliments. It’s just a different culture here (obviously) and I’m just trying to take it in stride. But yeah, if your a girl in Belize your going to get a Lot of attention from men. It’s really harmless, nothing vulgar, and kind of hilarious. Most of us have found a smile or acknowledgement bodes better than ignoring people. Some of the best ones from today, “You are two beautiful roses in my garden” “You, you in the blue— you look like Belize.”
The Pelican. There’s a hotel that’s a bit of a walk from where we’re staying that we’ve gone to the past two nights to hang out. The restaurant is right on the ocean, and there’s a dock stretching out from the water with a thatched hut and hammocks at the end of it, it’s picture perfect. We’ve only gone at night, but we plan on going out during the day to swim! The owner of the hotel also told us on Thursday he’s going to bring his karaoke machine/ask local Garifuna women to come and teach us how to Punta dance!
That’s the fun stuff, tomorrow we start teaching in the schools. I’m teaching three classes, but it’s just for today. Normally I’ll be teaching around 2 classes 3 times a week. After that more POWA planning, and a meeting with a tilapia farmers co-op. It should be a good day, I’m really excited to go and meet the kids!
2 years ago