Fri, 11 Mar. - Flowers Bay Job Site

Fri, 11 Mar. - Flowers Bay Job Site on the way to the job site, we heard about the Earthquake and Tsunami in Japan ... horrible! and alerts that the Tsunami may reach mainland Honduras on the Pacific side ... but not here in the Caribbean. it was still raining when we arrived back at our project in Flowers Bay. after all that rain we were able to see that our efforts at digging the trench paid off. the trench was flooded with water, but there was little standing water in the high areas. yeahhhhhhhhh ! lots of wet slipped mud, however, as i predicted. we ate lunch, then got started in the very slippery mud. the students made the best of it, and eventually were covered in mud, writing on each other and putting war paint on their faces. they continued digging the trench and spreading the piles of mud. i tried to stay dry and relatively clean. did a little bit of shoveling. when one of the girls noticed this poor tiny wet scared kitten that came leaping through the tall wet grass to the group looking for food, warmth, comfort, and a home. ... and of course he found one. he's pretty cold and scared here. knowing that Tony already had adopted 2 cats, i knew this little kitten would have a good home. we wrapped him in my shirt, dried him off, gave him some food and water, picked fleas off him, and then i 'babysat' with little one most of the rest of the afternoon, tucked inside my jacket. he was all warm, dry, and happy. Tony was making progress on the floor. the girls continued filling bottles with sand, and became experts at mixing cement. as Tony finished the floor. as the end approached, the girls helped do a little yard clean-up, which involved team work. and by the end of the day, Tony had finished the floor in the bamboo structure, .... amazing .... i was impressed. we said goodbye to Veronica for the last time. it was really a great experience for us, and they were grateful for all our help and the work we got accomplished. our parting shot of Tony with the kitten. back home, shower, change, back to the Sundowner to meet Marti. no sunset tonight, and it poured rain again, then stopped long enough for us to leave. we stopped at my place to pick up my leftover chicken, and she invited me to her place where she assembled a wonderful dinner for us, a little of this and a little of that: chicken, rice, mango papaya salsa, fresh green beans, and a hyponically grown lettuce salad. then we headed for Ronnie's Barefoot Bar to listen to Bobby and 'my' Blues Band. but by the time we got there, they had quit. but we visited with some folks who bought us 2 more drinks, ..... that i didn't need.

11 Mar, Fri. - Punta Gorda & Garifuna

Fri, 11 Mar - Punta Gorda & Garifuna it started raining sometime during the early morning ... hard. the roof over my room makes it sound really loud. i rolled over and tried to convince myself that i wouldn't have to get up and work today. but knowing the groups committed dedication to 'service', i knew they'd probably go even if it was raining. i imagined what it will be like working in all that wet slippery clay. by 6am it had stopped raining, so i got ready and headed for town. i found them, and Heather said the group was going to Punta Gorda and then to a Garifuna Village first, before heading for the job site. it was an hour drive to the other end of the island so i got to see some pretty views of forests, the villages, and the reef from higher elevations. Punta Gorda is a small quiet village with unusual traditions. this structure made out of clay. and this decorated lot with Conch shells on PVC pipe, hummmmmmmmm ? the Village is on a beautiful long stretch of beaches, ... well, they would appear more beautiful if it were sunny, instead of cloudy. we stopped in between rain showers and took some photos. i watched this little girl taking care of this little boy and washing his pants, ... cute little tush. our group photo, with our Taxi Driver. and me. this local pup had a back like a camel .. he ran a little funny, but seemed ok. the dog situation, here, as in other locations, makes me sad. i love colorful old boats, .. reminds me of Greece. then headed to the Garifuna Village. the Garifuna have a long rather complicated history that i still don't have completely sorted out yet. in short, they were originally African slaves who were freed, shipped to the Island of St Vincent and then made their way to Honduras. i learned about them last year as well, because they have also settled in Belize and Guatemala. at the Village they made music for us and did a dancing demonstration for us, including the Punta. remember me and the Punta dance last year? ..it wasn't pretty! this year i declined their invitation to try it! and also had some markets selling their handicrafts; ... or dead dried SeaHorses !!!!!!!!!!! this makes me sad. i bought some Guava Jam, since someone stole the jam i had out of the 'shared kitchen' refrigerator. then back in the van and on the road again.

10 Mar, Thurs.

Thur, 10 Mar. another 6am morning, ....same work, ... but no fish. another TV crew came out today and interview a few more of the girls at the 'job site' .... they will be on TV again tonight! Tony's brother, from the mainland, called him last night and told him that he saw them on TV, ... that's pretty wide coverage! 3 of us girls got to leave early, at 1pm to go diving :) we dove the Blue Channel, which is the reef just beyond my dock. i saw a Hogfish as soon as we got down, also lots of Grouper, Parrotfish, a Lobster, and a tiny little Smooth Trunkfish. he was so cute! Many fishes are very different looking as they progress through their stages, from 'juvenile', to 'intermediate', to 'terminal', (which is horrible sounding term for an adult fish, i think). but this little fish was just a perfect miniature of an adult Smooth Trunkfish. i also saw a fish i had not seen before. i looked it up ... a Porkfish (not a nice name either!), ... the tail end is striped like a 'French Grunt', and the head looks like an Angelfish. this is what it looked like. the Blue Channel dive site has a channel that you go through which is 'blue' ... duhhhhh ... and it also has several 'pass throughs' that you can take, ...narrow canyons that cut through the coral, ...some of them covered, some open. i've never wanted to go 'under' or 'into' anything while diving ... afraid my equipment would get caught on something and i'd get stuck, drown, and die :) he told us we did have an option of going another way and meeting up at the other end. but when the time came to do the 'pass throughs', .... i went for it! it was way cool! .... you did have to change your depth to get through, over, and under some of the narrow passes. i definitely was glad the guide was leading, so i could follow, but i did it, ....and, i ain't scared no more! it was a fun dive! got cleaned up and met Marti at The Sundowner again. another beautiful sunset. we ate dinner at the Creole Rotisserie Chicken place ... and their reputation for wonderful chicken is confirmed! we both walked away full and with leftovers. we talked more about going to Cayos Cochinos and doing some diving this weekend.

9 Mar, Wed.

Wed, 9 Mar. up at 6am again .... i'm not liking this early morning duty so many days in a row! we're at the 'job site' by 7:15am and a guy was there preparing the fish; and put it in a pot with lime juice, garlic and seasoning, ymmmmmmmm ... something to look forward to ! there were 2 cruise ships in today. they only have one dock at this port. this one was a huge monster! so the other ship has to stay out and ferry people in. there is another port where 3 more ships can dock ..... this is inside the 'bamboo hut', which will someday be a marketplace for the women of the village to sell their crafts to the cruise ship people. you can see that the back half already has a concrete floor. hopefully the other half will too by the time we leave .... sounds unlikely, but we'll see. to that end .... the good news today is, ...no more beach clean-up duty ... yeahhhhhhhhh! ....... we have cement to make. Tony showed the girls how to mix cement... the manual way ! first you thoroughly mix 3 buckets of sand with 1 bucket of cement mix. then, you make a 'volcano' and pour water into the hole. then mix until you have something like the consistency of peanut butter. Tony has a big heart and has rescued 2 orange kittens: Princess and Tiger. Princess is real shy, Tiger, i met the first day i was there, very affectionate once he trusts you. he showed up today and visited me. the rest of the jobs continued as before, and we switched off, changing positions every hour or so. we worked until around 11:30 when Veronica opened her kitchen for 3 of us, and we started frying fish. they were Red Snapper (don't tell BICA!) and ranged in size from 11-16" .... we cooked them island style: dusted with flour and then deep fried! they were AWESOME ! we all left at 2pm, ... the kids had the afternoon free. some did a Zip Line, a couple went horseback riding, a few to the beach. tomorrow is another 'free' afternoon and 3 of us will go diving :) i went home, cleaned up and went to the internet cafe. for some reason, i could not get connected, grrrrrrrrrrrr :( at 7pm, i went to a little Catholic Church service and got my 'ashes' for Ash Wednesday. i had told the group about the service and 6 of them joined me there. it was a very nice service: outdoors, a few bench seats, an alter, and a large cross with small lights outlining it ... all set in the middle of large stands of bamboo. it was very peaceful. this photo is from during the day. after the servce, i went to Creole Rotisserie Chicken, a place that i've been wanting to go to, famous for it's chicken ... i was still full from the fish lunch, but needed to use the internet, so i ordered chocolate brownie w/ice cream :) i was entertained by more Leaf-Cutter Ants working away, passing 1 foot from my table. oh, they also have 3 very affectionate cats. the lady said i am welcome to come by anytime and 'love on them'. i told her i definitely would!

8 Mar, Tues

Tues, 8 Mar. up at 6am to meet the group at 7am to go Flowers Bay where we will be preparing an area that will some day become a 'marketplace' to sell local arts and crafts. it is a project to involve the Village Women and enable them to make some money from the cruise ship people. this is the area, .... in the back you can see (barely) a bamboo structure. we are working in the back of this home, which belongs to Veronica and her husband. the project will also include a building made out of plastic bottles!!!!!!!!!! i had not heard of this before, but you can Google it. basically they tightly pack plastic bottles with sand, cap them, and then stack them with mortar in between to make walls. but, that is a long way off. notice the 'columns' in the front yard ... made out of plastic bottles. close up view of plastic bottle columns. right now we are preparing the land. they recently had torrential rains which flooded the area. so one task is digging trenches around the perimeter and using the dirt as fill, to build up the center so when it rains again, it won't flood. and, we are NOT talking about sandy soil as i expected, it's hard dry CLAY here. it's grueling work using a pick axe and a shovel. 2 of us work on this project. it is hard work, requiring a lot of breaks and water, ...but my favorite job. ...on the ass end of a shovel ... just like being home in the garden ! trench on the left of photo, piling the soil on the right side of the trench. it will eventually be smoothed out to fill in low areas. another task requires 3-5 girls, sitting in a pile of sand, packing and capping plastic bottles. another 3-5 haul bottles, filled and unfilled, and sort bottles, and putting them in bags and piles. another 3-5 were sent to the beach for more clean-up ... a disgusting job. i had this duty for a few hours in the morning, but managed to steer clear of it the rest of the day. 4 days of beach clean up is enough for me for awhile. :( during the afternoon, a TV crew came out and interviewed the beach clean-up crew, ... they were on TV that night! in the afternoon, Veronica and Heather (the lead from the Marine Park) went to buy fish for lunch tomorrow !!!!!!!!!!!!! can't wait for that! while they were gone, Tony cut coconuts for the group. and we all had a refreshing replenishing drink. the group worked until 5pm when they went to a meeting with the Village Women to talk about the project. i begged off and left around 3pm and worked on the internet, then home to shower and back down to The Sundowner to meet Marti again. we really have been having some wonderful sunsets lately! this one is taken from in front of my room. Marti and i left Sundowner around 7pm and attended a West End Town Meeting regarding putting in a sewer system and paving the main road. town meetings are the same everywhere and reminded me of the meeting i attended trying to get sewers put in around Sherman Lake ! we finally left there around 8pm and headed for the bar that was having All-You-Can-Eat wings for US$1. needless to say, it was packed, we waited over an hour for 5 wings each, and then left. they were VERY good wings, but if we do it again we'll get there at 6pm before the rush! i told Marti about my desire/commitment to go to Cayos Cochios before i leave. she has been there before, but wants to go back. so we are planning to go together ! yeahhhhhhhh! she also knows how to sail and is going to see if she can meet up with someone who has a yacht here in the harbor that might be going to Cayos, that maybe we could catch a ride with. i have no idea how to go about doing that, but she does. :)

7 Mar, Mon.

Mon, 7 Mar. the group met me on 'my' beach at 7:30 this morning. we had our snorkel gear, and yes of course, our trash bags :) we headed down the beach picking up trash as we went. by the time we got to Luna Beach Resort, we had filled some bags and they let us put them in their trash. i've been wondering how the logistics of this were going to work. we continued, picking up trash for about 2 hrs, everyone was hot and tired and the bags were too heavy to continue carrying ... so we left them on the beach and will ask the Marine Park to stop and pick them up. when we arrived at West Bay, i was happy to see that there were no cruise ships in that day and the beach was WAY less crowded and rather pleasant. we continued way down to the snorkel end again and got in the water. it was another great day of snorkeling. i took 2 of the students out to the 'wall' again ... they loved it too. we saw more Blue Tangs today along the wall. there were a LOT of these Jelly Fish in the water today. they were about 5" long and 2" wide, ...they were easy to avoid ... thankfully. Coral. this was a VERY large Blue Parrotfish that i couldn't get close to. their squared off nose is characteristic. a Parrotfish ... but this one was showing unusual coloring ... i think it's beautiful. there is an entire sandy area that has lots and lots of large of Sea Cushion Stars. and also Sea Urchins .... i thought it was interesting how one of them has collected the skeleton of a tiny dead Sea Urchin. this is a Mutton Snapper. they have a spot on their back near the end of their dorsal fin. you can see the spot on the left side of the fish. they are big fish, about 18". this blue and yellow Wrasse kept attacking this poor tiny little Sharpnose Puffer Fish. poor him :( he as only about 1/2" long. a baracutta uncharacteristically hovering on the bottom ... they usually hang out nearer the surface of the water. an unusual view of a Needlefish near the surface. he looks huge, doesn't he? ...but was only about 15". we snorkeled around for an hour or so until we started to get cold and i got a weird cramp in the side of my ankle.... have not had that before. so i went ashore and took off my fins. about that time one of the girls yelled that there was a turtle ........ WoW ... my first turtle since i left Belize. i left my fins on shore and bolted with my camera. he was happy to let us all swim around him and enjoy his serenity. i don't know how he got that tattoo of a fish on his shell :) that was a great experience, as always ! we took a water taxi back, and they dropped me off at my place to change, and then i walked into town to meet them to do more 'clean-up'. they need to do so many hours of 'service' ... and they hadn't met their quota yet. i don't have such a quota ... at least not in my book i don't! so, when i learned that Heather and Grazzia were going to Flowers Bay to look at the place where we will be going tomorrow; i opted to go with them :) we met with Tony and Veronica who will guide us on our project. given the work (manual labor) that needed to be done, they were rather surprised when we told them the group consisted of 14 GIRLS and one boy. more on this project tomorrow. we got back to West End in time for me to walk home to the other end of the village, shower, change, and walk back to the other end of village to The Sundowner to meet Marti. had a drink there, met a few of her friends, and then we both went to Cannibal Cafe for great Mexican food. i think Marti will be a good friend to do things with. .... yeahhhhh ... a friend ! she is a Dive Master and has done a lot of travelling. she even lived on Caye Caulker ... back in the 'good ole days' ... (the 70's) .... and knows a few of the people that i know on Caye Caulker! ...and she also lived on St Johns for awhile.