Week 1 of Mom's trip (by Ange)

Belize (the resort) was paradise. I thought it would be a good idea to reenergize my batteries and get me going, pumped for the next 3 3/4 months of work, 4 3/4 months of being in the Coop and 5 ½ months until I go back to Canada. If this countdown is any indication, it didn’t really achieve that. Well, I hope it did and it’ll just take a bit of time to sink in but right now I’m in “I wish I was back in Canada” mode.

The luxury of the hotel, Maruba Resort (HIGHLY recommended), and the friendliness of the people in Belize City isn’t why I’m homesick. That was wonderful, but it was the features that are similar to my life in Canada that really made my heart pull to go home. Being able to go pee in a bathroom at 1 in the morning (or 8 at night, for that matter) in a bathroom, in the same building was huge. Not even thinking about bleach. Being able to have juice in my bedroom and not being worried about the cockroaches, flies, etc that would follow. (At the resort there are a fair number of bugs and some evil fly things that don’t care about mosquito repellent and are more or less impossible to kill, but very few actually come inside.) The number one thing, though, was the language. Being able to joke and communicate at such a higher level than I’ve been able to for the last 3 months was such a relief.

Francis asked me the other day if I like speaking Spanish. And I do. Languages are so useful and I’m glad for the openings that having Spanish will give me. But fluency doesn’t come fast (unless you’re Italian learning Spanish, so I’ve heard) and I’m still only at a basic level of communication. Bastante. But enough to get by isn’t enough to live a full life and that’s been rough. I know eventually, I’ll get there, but right now, my brain still hurts and after the 3 day break from Spanish I’m reaching for proper verb usage.

I have only had one good night of sleep in the past week, so that’s not helping either.

Update on Coquette: pretty sure that she was killed by people here who like to put out food covered in poison to kill dogs because they don’t like them. It’s pretty common and quite a few people have lost dogs that way. I found this out on Friday night, the day before Mom came, so I was very happy to leave for Belize with her while I was really bummed. Still bummed and talk about her too much but it’s very hard to live with such a sweet companion and have her gone. I really miss having her and I know that will get a lot worse when Mom leaves. I’ve considered trying to get one of the stolen puppies back but now that I’m potentially only here for another 4 months, I’m just going to leave it. Goats to come soon, hopefully.

Update on the research: Got some great advice from a brilliant prof about my proposal. Ditching the social capital angle and just working the reintegration of guerrillas into society. Going to rework the proposal and work on getting a supervisor before I say more. I’m lucky to know a few professors who are going to help me out but the supervisor role is still open...

Update on work: Almost done my SWOT analysis of the credit program. Going to schedule a time with the board, hopefully this week, to present. Due to an increase in the cost of living, our pay has gone up, which is great. Inflation has been nuts, so it really makes sense. It’s not a huge increase, but nice nonetheless. Even the souvenirs we were buying went up in price since a month ago.

Mom has survived the few days using the outhouse. She washed a ton of clothes by hand and did a great job wringing them out! I'm sure she'll update you soon but wine and luck have kept the bug problems to a minimum :)

We’ll write about the rest of the trip soon! Pictures to come on Facebook. There are a lot. Tikal gave us lots of stories, so stay tuned!