From Swearing in to moving in

A lot has changed over the last 2 months, and I don't know if I can get it all across on here, so I will just start writing and we will see what happens. The most notable change of coarse is that I am now officially a Peace Corps Volunteer.
I left my wonderful host family in San Martin for a new host family in the village that will be my home for the next two years. It is a remote village about 30 miles west from Punta Gorda called Santa Elena. It is nestled in the rolling, jungle covered hills of the Maya Mountains about 11 miles from the Guatemala border. The population is somewhere between 180 and 250 people. The vast majority of the people speak the Maya Mopan language that I studied in training, but there are a few families that speak another dialect of Maya known as Q'uechi. The people are strong, hard working, determined, and intelligent, even if not well educated. At first it is easy to mistake the their weathered faces as a sign of hostile feelings toward an outsider, but nothing could be further from the truth. It is just the centuries that they show in their eyes, and the long days in the field that narrows their brows. All the people that I have meet are warm, welcoming, jovial individuals that are shy at first, but as they become comfortable they love to share their story and joke around. Most of the men farm on plots of land near the village. The land is reservation land so each village has its section for each family to select its plot from for the year. The jungle is slashed and burned to clear the land. Then crops are planted by hand using a long stick with a pointed end to make a hole in the soil for the seeds. Corn, rise, beans, and punkin are most common, but some people also plant coffee, sugar cane, cacao, mahogany trees, and ceder trees. It all depends on a families resource level whether they plant only the essential crops (corn and rice), or if they can make the investment in more complicated and time consuming crops (cacao and timber). A few of them men work as both skilled and unskilled laborers at resorts in the tourist hotspot of Placencia which is only a 2ish hour bus ride away. The women stay home and tend to the cooking, cleaning, child rearing, and other typical gender typical activities you would expect from a physical labor based cultural dynamic.
There is no electricity, running water, or paved roads in the village. Most all of the houses in the village are thatched roofed with wood sided, and nearly everything used in construction is gathered from the surrounding forest. I helped erect and thatch a house the other day, and it is a fascinating thing to be apart of, and it made me miss dearly all my friends at Lowernine.org. There is a primary school that has about 60 students. It is divided into lower, middle and upper divisions, so each of the three teachers is teaching multiple grade levels simultaneously. The principal is a wonder sweet women who I'm sure I will work with a lot in my next two years here. All of the teachers commute in from other places. The library was established a few years ago with the help of a Japanese volunteer, and it has a surprisingly wide collection, and ever more surprising following. Kids are always going to trade in their books, and often come read on the floor of my house so they can ask me what big words mean.
My host family now was really great, but because I was living the the villages previous chairmen, who lived set back from the village, there was a lag in my felling like I was apart of the village. The family was wonderful though, and I had a great time getting to know them by going to the farm, or cultural dances, or just playing with my little host brother and sister. The weight of what was going on stuck me the first night I stayed with them as we were sitting in the dark room only lit by an oil lam that cast dull yellow light across everyone faces. My host dad told me that I should not be worried because I was home now, and that I should do as I pleased. He told me about the history of the village and said that he was very happy that I had come. He said that he had heard of Peace Corps in other villages and that because I was the first one in Santa Elena it was a historical moment that he was happy to be apart of. In the dark he told me that even though we had only met a few hours before he could tell that I was “the correct man for the village” and that he was sure I would help the village get the things it needed.
I returned to Belmopan for swearing in for a great week of“Bridge to Service” and got a chance to see all the trainees again. For the trainee talent show a few of us created a completely ridiculous interpretive dance set to “Circle of Life” form the movie “The Lion King.” I never thought I would be apart of a choreographed dance number, but we all thought the talent show was mandatory so we had to do something, and it was pretty damn good if I do say so myself. As the week went on more and more volunteers showed up for the big swearing in day. They ceremony was nice, even though it did rain a little bit. It was strange to see everyone dressed in nice cloths, and I was really happy that I packed at least one good outfit (thanks mom). When they called my name to receive my certificate I thought about when I was in a van, driving across the African night, Tabitha asleep on my shoulder as I looked at all the stars spread out across the seemingly endless sky. It was that moment when I decided that I'd apply to Peace Corps when I got home. In the few seconds it took me to walk to the front all the changes of the last year and a half flashed in my consciousness. I still don't know where I'm going, but I know I don't want to be anywhere else. It was all followed up by an amazing dinner and reception at the Ambassadors house. I got a chance to speak with him awhile and he is a great, down to earth guy that had a lot of fun with all of us that night.
After a lot of time in my host families hammock reading, a painfully annoying practice consolidation to Belmopan, and a rained out lobersterfest beach weekend I finally moved out on my own on the first of July. I am living in the teachers house, which is next to the school up on a hill. It is a zinc roof, with tongue in grove wood sides and floor. Its very basic but everything I need, including lots of windows that let in a wonderful mountain breeze. I have a rain water collection tank that is fed by a gutter off the roof, and there is a pipe going right into my house, so its as if I have running water (at least during the wet season). I have a table top stove, fueled by a gas tank to cook my meals. My cooking is still very much in the experimental phases, but im sure ill get the rhythm soon enough, and to be honest I eat with other families most meals anyway. Im right in the middle of the village now so It feels much more like im apart of the goings on, and people stop by and visit now so its starting to feel like real life. I now bath in the Rio Blanco river that is just behind my neighbors house. Its a beautiful, wide river and I can't think of anywhere that would be better to get clean. Who wants to be trapped inside a box of a shower anyway? It is indescribable how much better it is to just dive and soap up after a hot day. Whenever I go to bath the neighbor kids always come running after, stripping down to their underwear to come join, even the father comes sometimes for a nice chat while we are soaping up. The women are usually doing the laundry or dishes at the bank, so seems more like a day at the beach then bath time. There is a place where you can jump off the bank and fall about 10 feet before you hit the water, a big tree that has vines hanging down that you can swing off of, and a really strong current in the middle that makes a game of head tag pretty fun. To make it even better, the jungle is dense around you in every direction, I don't think there is a better place to bath anywhere in the world. You can have all the fancy hot water showers, just give me the river and a bar of soap. Here it is much more common for the children to say “Ko osh bashiel Ha” or “lets go play in the water” than “ko osh itch kill” or “lets go bath” when referring to bath time, and I feel right at home.
About a twenty minute walk from my house is the Rio Blanco National Park. It is a nature preserve the has nature trails, a cable foot bridge over the river and a massive waterfall with a twenty foot jumping cliff on the very same river that I bath in. Working with the park is one of the possible secondary projects, but what my role with it will actually be is still a mystery. There is a grant in the works right now that would get the schools of the two villages that share control of the park (Santa Cruz and Santa Elena) five computers. Then I would step in and teach basic computer literacy classes with both the school children and any interested adults. This would also make it possible that more kids went to secondary school and also the secondary school kids would have the ability to do their computer related homework.
On the work front everything is going great as well. While Peace Coprs heavily emphasizes not starting any projects for the first 3-6 months you are at your site in order to focus on building understanding and relationships, there are many good opportunities for things I will do. First and foremost would be working with the village council to lobby the Social Investment Fund for the means to instal a water system. At the moment the entire village relies on two hand pumps that occasionally get contaminated, or dry up during the dry season. Another project is to establish a heath post in the village. There is a heath worker in the village that has had the basic training of treating common illnesses, and has the power to dispense some medicines. If there was a heath post then it would be a secure place that he could keep is medicine and see sick people. Also, If there were privet rooms it would give the mobile clinics a place to privately interview the pregnant women when the come. One idea is that maybe we can convert one of the two empty churches in the community into a heath post for a fraction of the cost and labor of building a new building, and it would be easy to modify a building to meet the few needs presented by the village council. Then there is working with the school when classes start up again in the fall. Giving preventive health presentations on common diseases and whatever HIV awareness the Roman Catholic school will allow. I will also be working with the school garden to promote healthy eating and income generation through home gardens with an emphasis on composting organic waste. If the computers come like planned, I will teach computer classes. I also had the idea to implement a reading program with the local library for the school kids, and maybe setting up some sort of program through the library so the books students need for secondary school would be more affordable. In addition to all of this, there is is the chance to start an after-school program for the kids, and possibly a summer camp. The local football team has also asked me to work with them to get uniforms and boots. So I think that I will have a fairly busy, busy fun couple years of living in the village.
So, things are going pretty well, and it was on this natural high that I went to PG town to meet some other volunteers and celebrate the 4th of July. To my surprise when I checked my email I found out that I had become an uncle three times over while I ate breakfast that morning. My oldest brother, Neil, and his wife, Heather, had triplets on the 4th of July. For the first time since I have come to Peace Corps I wished that I could have gone home for just 24 hours to drink a beer with my brothers, one of whom is now a father, and my dad, who is now the worlds coolest grandfather. I was in London for his wedding and Belize for the birth of my nieces and nephew, a pattern that I have a feeling, I'm sorry to say, is going to continue throughout my life. But as I work here in this small village, and as I play with the children in the river, I will keep these newest members of my family in my mind, awaiting the day, years from now, when I will meet them for the first time. Congratulations Neil and Heather.