Routine

We've had a settled couple of weeks since my last update, so I thought I should let you know what our routine is like here;

Obviously most of our week revolves round the ministry. There are groups every day except Friday and we are at most of them. Tana and I take a Tuesday off to do our study, some housework and to go into town (Punta Gorda, half an hour away) to get some shopping , and on Friday we try to do something all together like visiting a town a bit further away or a beach or even both! Recreational opportunites are a bit limited. There are no cinemas in Belize and shopping is about essentials rather than leisure, so mostly it's a case of finding somewhere to get something to eat and having a walk or a swim in a river or perhaps the Caribbean. Tough life, eh? Most of the more touristy areas are further north and out of reach for a day trip. We've been invited out a few times and have had some round to ours so we are getting to know the congregation quite well.

Anyway, you want to know about the ministry, I presume. Most groups are at 8 30 which reflects the fact that everything starts early here. Only some of the villages have electricity so I suppose they make more use of daylight. Groups sizes vary from 4 or 5 to around 15 at most. Either we will all have calls and studies to do or most of us will. If we are going a little distance, we make up car parties like we would do at home to go to the same area.

First call consists of approaching a house and calling a greeting if someone hasn't seen you already (houses are half-open in construction or they keep their windows and doors open). There's no need to come up with a clever introduction or anything. People are quite happy to see Witnesses and to learn about the bible. Virtually everyone speaks English (I've only met two or three that don't), but their levels of fluency and ability to understand a Scottish accent vary! They will listen as you read scriptures and will gladly take literature. Although most of them speak Kekchi as a first language (Kriol, a corrupted English, is next most common with just a few Spanish) many can't read it since they are only taught to read at English at school. We have some literature in Kekchi, but it's a more Guatemalan style of the language so some of the locals don't like it.

So it's no problem at all spending a couple of hours talking to half a dozen people or so who will invite you sit down, some times on a plastic chair or sometimes an upturned bucket. They, especially the men it seems, will often be lying in a hammock. I haven't conducted a study while in a hammock myself yet, but Emily and Ashley have. Tough life again!

The challenge is firstly assessing and adapting to their level of English and education in general, including taking local lifestyles into account (for instance it's no use comparing the Bible to a letter since none of them will ever have received one), then persevering through the frustrations of finding them at home again and in a position to study. They have a slower pace of life and don't really seem to be that bothered about a routine. If you make an appointment quite often you will go back to find that they have gone into town or are at the river doing their washing or in the case of men are away to their farms. Because they are all religious anyway it's hard to sort out who has a real interest in learning and who just enjoy talking about it. That being said, we all have several studies who are serious and enjoy what they are learning. One of mine came to the meeting on Sunday with his wife so that was encouraging.

It's quite a thing to be spending time with people who are so positive about the Bible and who really enjoy the magazines. We're glad we are able to be here even if it's just for a little time.

I hear you've been having hot weather in Scotland, that's good. Rainy season hasn't been too much of a problem yet. We get rain almost every night and occasionally in the day, but it's still just as hot! We also get thunder and lightning almost daily, which is fun. Beasties and bites are still a part of life but they are honestly not as bad as I feared they could get, so far anyway, but writing this just makes me start to notice all my itches!

Busy Week

Sorry that it's been a while since I posted anything. We've been busy entertaining our visitors from home. I hope Mark and Sarah are back safely now. At least you'll get better quality pictures from them!

We had a busy and enjoyable week together with them and Richard. We had avoided doing some of the local touristy things until they arrived, so it was the first time doing them for us too and they managed to get out quite a bit in the ministry with us as well.

Last Monday we took a trip to a nearby cacao farm and were shown how to make our own chocolate by hand using traditional Mayan tools. There was much enthusiasm for this, especially with the female contingent of our group. It's surprising how simple chocolate is if made by hand. You just have to roast the beans, remove the husks and grind till the cocoa butter starts to melt and you get a paste. Add sugar to taste and that's it! The owner told us that the oldest types of cacao are more mild tasting than those grown commercially because the big companies want a stronger and more bitter bean so that they can add more fillers and save money. Certainly although the chocolate we ended up with was around 85% it was a lot smoother tasting than 70% stuff you buy at home. We had a meal of chocolate chicken while we were there to round things off.

At the end of the week, along with Andy and Leticia Baker from the congregation, we took a boat out to Sapodilla Caye and spent a night on what can only be described as a desert island on the barrier reef. We each had a little shack looking out over the sea. Ours was in front of a shallow bay where a large ray (sting, manta or spotted, I'm not sure) would come and flap around several times a day. The water was your classic clear blue and the  snorkeling

 on the reef was excellent. And then on the way back, to top things off, we encountered a pod of dolphins that came and played with us for about 20 minutes, jumping out of the water, racing the bow of the boat and generally being charming. Quite an unforgettable experience! It shows up the weakness of digital cameras though. Because there is a delay between pressing the button and the picture actually being taken we mostly got photos of post-dolphin ripples! Andy got some video so I might ask him for a link of he puts any of it online. And you'll have to see what Mark was able to get on his camera.

So it was really enjoyable to have guests for the week, but it felt a bit strange to see them getting ready to go home and us not to be joining them. Homesickness has affected each of us at some time but we are managing. It helps when you have things you have to do here so you feel like you are needed.

Shame about Andy Murray by the way. Now we'll have to find someone else to be disappointed in! We watched most of the match on a repeat on Mexican/Guatemalan satellite TV in a sister's thatched house with chickens and various other animals wandering in and out whilst eating homemade burritos. Not quite the traditional Wimbledon experience!

Initial Evaluation and Assessment Report (cont.)

Food; There's plenty of food in Belize, no-one has a problem feeding their family, but for a person used to the choices in our supermarkets back home it can be a challenge to work with what's on offer here. Because not as much food is imported there's less of a selection of fresh fruit and veg, and the packaged food is limited, but all it takes is a little bit of planning to make good meals. Because we are only here a short while, there's no point spending money on kitchen equipment so we are just making do with basic stuff which is adequate really. We have a proper bottled gas cooker and a fridge with a small freezer so it's not too much of a hardship.

What fruit and veg is available is by nature local and in season so it's mostly excellent. We arived at the beginning of mango season so there is an abundance of that quite literally lying around in places. There can't be many things nicer than a perfectly ripe mango picked from a tree that day! And the Mennonites (of whom more later) go around selling watermelon which is a particular favourite of mine. Half of a large one in an evening is the most I've managed so far. I tell myself it's as much a drink as a food! Plantain sliced and fried in coconut oil is a really good breakfast, too. So you can see that we are hardly starving here, although Tana would like some British crisps shipped over if any of you are feeling particularly generous.

Transport; We are right on the main Southern Highway which runs almost to the border with Guatemala. So we do get traffic going past, but at the rate of about a dozen cars an hour, so it's quite a lot quieter than the Bonnygate! Fuel here is shockingly expensive by North American standards but still cheaper than home, but because our truck is older and has a bigger engine we are probably spending about the same as we do in Scotland. Add that to the fact that as in many poorer countries the cost of buying a car is much higher than in wealthier ones, and you can see that car costs are by far the biggest expense for brothers serving here. The locals mostly make do with the only slightly dangerous local buses or catching a ride on the back of a passing pickup, ours included. If they happen to do this while Ashley or Emily are driving I wonder if they regret it!

I almost forgot speed bumps! The main method of speed control is to have one or two massive speed bumps in a village. They are almost all signposted but I have been caught unawares once so far and it was quite an unpleasant encounter for all concerned, not least the truck. No real damage done, though. Once you are off the highway then you are on rough roads, which are prone to flooding and damage in stormy conditions. After last week's storm the rivers rose very quickly blocking several bridges in the rural areas but they have since settled down.
 
Mark and Sarah are arriving tomorrow for several days with us so it'll be nice not to have to speak slowly for a while. We're not sure how they'll cope with things down here but it'll be fun being the experts for a change!

Some Pictures At Last!

Hi Everyone. Thought I'd try to get some pictures online for you. Not included however, is a photo of the tarantula that crawled out in front of the platform during Emily's talk last night (I was taking the school so it would have been unseemly to get a camera out!) or the frequently-occurring topless women we encounter in the villages.

                                                                      Our House

                                                    Beth Taylor and Ashley hanging around

                                                                   Big Falls KH

                                               Emily and Ashley's first tortilla attempts

                                                          One of Ashley's studies

                                                   Family lunch by the Caribbean

                                                 Transport to the territory Belize style!

Emily says she's not in any pictures because she's the only one that bothers to take any. Maybe that's because she's stolen our camera!

Initial Evaluation and Assessment Report

So I suppose this is a good time to begin to assess how actually being here compares to our expectations before we left.

Belize itself; Certainly the south is more beautiful than I expected. We aren't as close to the mountains as I thought we would be, more in low hills on the edge of the coastal plain. As soon as you go a little away from a one of the villages to the west, you are in proper jungle that you would actually need a machete to make a path through. Despite this,  many villagers have "farms" or small cleared areas within the jungle on which they grow corn, cacao or some vegetables. Often these are an hour or more from their homes and are passed on through family succession.

Overall the towns are smaller than I expected with a looser layout to shops and businesses. Big Falls is just a spread out village really, with several small shops built into peoples' homes. There's a petrol station, a school, a clinic and at least 5 churches in addition to the Kingdom Hall that I've found so far. Punta Gorda, the main town in the South, is smaller than Cupar I think, but it has a mixture of casual touristy places and shops and businesses that serve the local area. It's on the coast (but no sandy beach, I'm afraid) and has a nice feel to it.

We only travelled through to two "cities" on the bus on the way down so I'll have to report about them another time.

Living Standards; You know before you come that things will be different, but it's always a bit of an adjustment when you get here. I think because Belize is relatively undeveloped and has a much lower population density than the rest of Central America, there's much more of a feel of being out in the wilds even in a village. The options of what to buy and what to do are more limited than I thought, but with the novelty factor still there that hasn't been a problem yet.

Air conditioning is a rarity here. No-one in Big Falls has it and only two banks and a couple of internet cafes have it in PG. Somehow you can always find an excuse to do something in the bank for a while! So you just have to use fans to try to cool down, with limited success.

Access to the internet is limited and slow we can share with our landlady next door but it's painful sometimes just to download a page. The internet cafes in PG are better but less convenient. That's the main reason I haven't attached any pictures yet, but I will do as soon as I can. 

Between writing this and getting to an internet cafe to publish it it has actually rained for two days, some of it VERY heavy so it has been much cooler. Today is more sunny again, which makes me happy but Tana less so!

Nature: Coming from Scotland, nothing can prepare you for just how much life there is here and how much you have to share your personal space with it! Some is delightful while others not so much. I plan to give you a zoological tour sometime so that can wait.....

Congregation; We are very touched with how hard the brothers have worked to look after us and include us. It has been much more than we expected. There are only about 30 publishers and we've met all of them already. Ashley is now assistant for Literature and Emily for Accounts! The pioneers and two special pioneers are willing to work with us and take us on their studies. Now we have a vehicle, we can start helping them out, too.

Now I've started I can see that there will need to be several more installments to this surprisingly in-depth assessment. More to follow...

40 Degrees and Counting...

As the title suggests, it's HOT. Even the Belizeans are commenting on how hot it is. Apparently this has been an unusually dry and warm year so far, so everyone is looking forward to the rains coming to cool things down, but that's a relative term here! When you're in the house it feels like someone's left the heating on all day on the hottest of our summer days. We only have fans in the house, a/c is very rare in Belize, but we are getting used to the sound all the time. Tomorrow we move upstairs to the proper apartment which is a bit larger, cooler and nicer so we are looking forward to that. In fact over the next couple of days we should be a lot better set up, since we will hopefully have a car (or more specifically a pickup truck) by the middle of the week. Then we'll have some independence and will get into a routine.

We were out in the ministry for the first time on Saturday in a village about 20 minutes away. Most of the houses are palm-thatched and yes the people are consistently friendly and receptive. Almost everyone speaks English so there is no real problem getting involved straight away, although I was a bit taken aback when the older brother I was working with started reorganising his bag immediately after we said hello to the first person we met and told me to take over!

The brothers and sisters here have been very welcoming, particularly Bill and Beth Taylor, Canadians who've been here for 9 years now. It was their thatched house we were at for the last entry. It's a large thatched canopy with open sides and just a wooden bedroom underneath. All the rest is open to the fresh air so you just swing on a hammock, listen to the noises of the bush and watch hummingbirds come by!

The local brothers are quite quiet by nature but are making a real effort to be friendly. I think they understand most of what we are saying! Ironically it was a Texan brother who seemed most confused. First of all he thought we sounded German then asked if people in Scotland spoke English as their first language! The only Scottish person he knows is Sean Connery so I don't think he's that well informed. Don't ask me too much about Texas though!

We've made it!

I'm writing this while sitting under a thatched roof surrounded by swaying palms, listening to the birds in the jungle around us. Pretty much what you expected, I suppose! Actually we're at a brother's house stealing his internet so we can let you know we're here safe and sound. 
Our house is a bit basic but adequate. We'll let you see some pictures later. Today and tomorrow are really about sorting out equipment and supplies and generally finding our way around. We've met several of the brothers and sisters already and they're all really friendly.
And yes it's hot and humid. No rain yet except on the journey down on the bus but we're told to expect some most days.
Belize is definitely a melting-pot of cultures. It looks more like Thailand with the tropical plants but the people remind us more of Africa. I don't know if that helps or not!
Hopefully more information will follow soon....