My first year in the Peace Corps has been a year of tremendous personal
growth for me. Yes, it has been a year
since I arrived in Belize. Our 2011
group of 35 Peace Corps Volunteers celebrated our one year anniversary on March
24. There were days during this past
year when I felt that time was moving so slowly, that it had almost stopped; when I felt boredom or loneliness or
homesickness that threatened to send me running back to the United States. But surviving those difficult times and
immerging on the other side has made me stronger, and as I begin my second year
here, I am beginning to feel that I am actually helping a few teachers and kids. Teachers are beginning to ask me for help and
suggestions, and principals are requesting that I facilitate workshops for
their teachers. It has taken a long time
to establish rapport in the schools and I have enjoyed getting to know the
teachers and the children in their classes.
I find myself applying ideas and methods that I learned as a young teacher
so many years ago, and adapting games and techniques that I used when teaching
homeschoolers. It feels like so many of
my previous experiences as a teacher, a mother and a human being are all coming
together for me to draw upon for my work and my life here in Belize. I sometimes consider myself the luckiest
Peace Corps Volunteer in the world.
The past two weeks have been Easter Vacation and school has been
closed. I feel refreshed and reinvigorated to begin my
work again with teachers and students here in Belize. The first week of vacation I spent with two
of my wonderful Peace Corps Volunteer friends, Kathryn O’Leary and Barbara
Levy. They traveled from their sites to
stay with me for a few days and we planned workshops together. We also took the opportunity to swim in the
Sea and hike the trails of Cockscomb Nature Preserve. It was marvelous to share ideas and inspiration
with two experienced teachers who work in the same area of literacy as I do.
During the second week of Easter Vacation my sister-in-law, Lynn Bryant,
came to enjoy her own Belize adventure here with me. As soon as she arrived, we took a water taxi
out to Caye Caulker, and spent Easter weekend there with many other Belizeans
escaping the heat and enjoying the sea breezes.
We feasted on fresh grilled fish and snorkeled in the Barrier Reef.
Lynn and I ate grilled hogfish
Lynn experienced the real Belize while bouncing along the Western and
Hummingbird Highways in the hot, crowded bus for three hours on our way from
Belize City to Dangriga. We spent a few
days in my little town and swam in the Sea at the Pelican.
Relaxing at the Pelican
Then we ventured to the Cayo District to an Eco Lodge so that Lynn
could experience the jungle of Belize.
We went on a night-time nature walk and saw scorpions, tarantulas, a
fox, opossum and a bird called the blue-crowned mot mot. We took an early morning bird-watching walk
and saw two kinds of toucans, woodpeckers, owls and many other birds indigenous to
Belize. We also visited a butterfly farm
and saw all the stages of the Blue Morpho butterfly, the national butterfly of
Belize.
The Blue Morpho butterfly
These past two weeks with my fellow Peace Corps Volunteers and my
beloved sister-in-law have renewed my energy and inspired me to continue my work here in Belize.
