Placencia

Here is a video made by an American brother and sister (as I am sure you can tell) of their one month stay in Placencia. They have really fallen in love with the place and are making plans to return. Maybe you can see why from the location.

Placencia is the only place within reach of us that is set up to cater to western style tourists. It has a great beach and good places to eat and drink. Partly because of this it gets more witnesses coming to stay for a while so the cong. has a more lively feel. So it's been refreshing for us, especially Emily, to be able to go there sometimes. I gave the talk there a couple of weeks ago and we stayed the night before in a house literally right on the beach! And it has the best ice cream shop in Belize! I think Big Falls is a more beautiful place and the ministry is better down here, though Placencia is still great, but it has been nice to pamper ourselves sometimes.

Bush Trips

Definitely one of the highlights of our stay was going to the congregations in San Antonio and San Jose last Sunday. They are in a Mopan Maya area, but people speak enough English to allow visiting speakers to come. There are only 3 Mopan congregations in the whole world so it'll be a while before they get the Watchtower in their language. They read the paragraphs in English and answer in Mopan. 

San Antonio Kingdom Hall

Rice, beans and stew chicken for a small army

We were made to feel very welcome and had lunch with the Cho family, whose story appears in the 2010 yearbook, page 235/6, along with a group of brothers and studies that had travelled from the other Mopan cong. further north for a visit. 

Since the Chos have a lot of family in San Jose, they wanted to come to their meeting 

as did the visitors so we ended up with 23 people in two pickups driving the 45 mins

on jungle roads to the afternoon meeting. 

Talk about bringing your own audience! San Jose has no electricity and is one of the 

most unspoiled villages in Belize. After a 

while here you get used to being in a part of the world that's quite different from our own, but that trip really emphasised to us what a privilege it is to be able to experience both being here and having a brotherhood that is so welcoming to strangers from such different cultures. One moment you are in a hammock relaxing after lunch then you have to use the hole-in-the-ground toilet and you remember that this is the Jungle! 

San Jose Kingdom Hall

Standing room only

The friendly Mayans

Out of the truck and onwards on foot

 We also had a preaching trip to the village of Crique Sarco yesterday. It's a Kekchi village in a neighbouring congregation's territory so they asked for some of our local brothers to help, and our truck was required for the hour and a half of driving on very poor roads. It was uncomfortable for me driving but I can't imagine what it must have been like for those in the back. The road stops at an unfinished bridge which you walk over and then into the village itself. We had a good time in the ministry and had enough time for a quick swim in the river before the long drive home. 

Definitely wouldn't get a car across here

Trips

Our visas only allow for a stay of 30 days in Belize so we thought we'd make a couple of trips out of the country. The first was north into Mexico, just into the border city of Chetumal. It's a much more normal city by our standards, with a shopping mall, McDonalds and even a cinema! The combination of all these things brought much delight to Tana and the girls (shame both the films we saw were rubbish, but Tana insists that it's as much about the "cinema experience". She tries that at home as well).

Travelling up there ended up being a bit more complex than we expected, but several local brothers helped us out, including Reggie Trapp, who drove us over the border and came back to pick us up. Those who are in a position to help certainly go out of their way to do so.

Lunch in Livingston

Tana and I also took a boat trip south into the Guatemalan town of Livingston (some what different to its Scottish namesake) which is a mixture of Central American Spanish and Garifuna people. It's a bit more touristy than most of Belize so it's nice to just enjoy relaxing and souvenir shopping.

A Tapir - The National Animal of Belize

 Closer to home, we went to visit Belize zoo, which although small is worth a visit because it only has animals that are native here. That includes jaguar and puma, as well as tapir and several scarily large bird species.

 Between there and home is the Blue Hole National Park- not the very famous Blue Hole in the ocean but an area of natural springs and caves in the hills. More swimming and a walk to explore St. Herman's cave. What I forgot to mention is that everywhere you swim you end up being nibbled by curious little fish, which is alarming at first but quite cute when you've been reassured that there's no piranhas nearby!

From the inside of St Herman's cave