I’m excited to finally
update you on this adventure! After two weeks of fruitful conversations and
wise, wonderful new friends at Orientation, I flew to my new home, Belize City.
What a warm welcome we received—-both from our community mates and the Belizean
humidity.
My three community mates and I live in a house on the south side
of Belize City about a block from our parish, St. Martin de Porres. Being a
community of four females, we have been celebrating our womanhood through a
shared affinity for the Cheetah Girls #girlpower #togetherwecan
#Cheetahsisters. We have a guard dog whom I’ve slowly become very fond of. His
name is Dukenew, after a favorite Belizean snack, but we call him Duke for
short.
The four of us Belize City Volunteers after a full day of
swimming and exploring.
Many neighbors have greeted us warmly and welcomed us into their
families and traditions. Miss Melva is a Belizean mother of four who lives on our
block. Everything about her is strong: her love, her opinions, and her laugh.
She teaches us to cook things like black dinner and fish panares. Every day
when I pass by her house, she and her children shout a hello from the shaded
porch where they sit.
The Arnolds taught us
to make Hudut, a traditional Garifuna dish comprised of mashed plantains,
coconut milk soup, and fish. We ate with our hands as we listened to their two
year old granddaughter perform “Let it Go” from Frozen. The Arnolds later
became one of my host families and insisted I call them mom and dad.
The Jesuit community
has been super welcoming too. Some of my favorite moments this first month have
been the dinners and drinks we’ve shared with the young men.
Our Belize City crew
got to travel to Punta Gorda for a week to visit the other Jesuit Volunteer
community and go on retreat. In a country as small as Massachusetts, the
express bus still takes about five hours. We got to spend more time together,
share our stories, stargaze, tube down a lazy river, and swim in the sea. Throughout
the week we did some exploring in the jungle at different rivers and waterfalls
too. One afternoon we got to visit a family in a rural Q’uechi village, Santa
Teresa, where we learned to make fresh corn tortillas and ate a soup dish called Caldo.
In Punta Gorda, the seven of us enjoyed a day at this waterfall.
Students started arriving at Saint John’s College (SJC) High School three weeks ago. There are about 700 young men at the school. Each morning I bike about 10 minutes to get to work around 7:45am. I walk into my office at the back of the chapel which I share with three Jesuits. Each day I learn more about what my role as Campus Minister includes. So far I’ve been working on coordinating the community service program and Mass schedules for the year. Soon I’ll be leading weekly retreats for each of the homerooms. Many students are in and out of my office throughout the day, especially at lunchtime when they come to eat and hang out. I love my work so far. The other faculty members and the students have been joyfully welcoming and I feel at home here.
"Turn around and believe that the good news that we are loved is better than we ever dared hope, and that to believe in that good news, to live out of it and toward it, to be in love with that good news, is of all glad things in this world the gladdest thing of all. Amen, and come Lord Jesus." -Frederick Buechner
Random Things:
*Mice and cockroaches
are super present in my life.
*I learned how to glue
in my first weave for my host sister last weekend.
*Rice and beans is
different from beans and rice.
"Happiness" by Alexis Jordan (cover by Josje en Angela)
photo cred to the lovely Hannah Christine Jones :)
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