Map created by Sara Darouian
It's already been a two years since we visited Belize. This was such a great trip. Was the first time in many years we've been out of the country. It was also the first time traveling with a family with three pre-teen, teen girls. Most of all I love the reason we choose Belize.
Many months before this trip my friend Sherry came up to me after one of our Sunday meetings. No context to this conversation AT ALL. She says to me "you want to go to Belize?" In my mind I'm thinking is there a restaurant called Belize, I was hungry what can I say. I asked her "are you talking about the country or are we talking about a restaurant?" She said the country and proceed to tell me why. Belize is predominantly an English speaking country, it's not too far, and she wanted to put some goals in front of her three girls. Give them a chance to see what it would live to move to a foreign country and do our volunteer work. She said the girls wanted us to go with them. I was sold. Rob was sold. We're all about putting goals in front of young ones, let them see the possibilities in life and open their minds to other cultures and peoples.
Also it didn't hurt us that we happened to have good friends from Belize who have property down there. They have asked us many times to visit with them when they are down there. So it was in motion. All we had to do was coordinate the timing when the girls were off school. We calculated our expense, frequent flyer miles, friends to stay with, we could do this on our limited budget, or really NO budget. So about 2 months before we left, literally while I was at a conference in Salt Lake City, she texted me, told me the days the girls were off and she was booking it. I flew home, booked the tickets and well the rest is history.
We spent 2 weeks and I have to say we saw more of Belize then some native Belizian's. We went from the top to the bottom to the interior of the country. Our Belizian friends were nice enough to fly back down just before us and help Rob and I get settled before the family came down. We had 3 days to do this and then regrouped with the family.
We stayed in a little village called Carmelita, just south of Orange Walk town. We had a few days of volunteer work in the surrounding villages surrounded by malty fine powdered dirt roads, sugar cane jungles and humid hot heat. We loved it. When I asked our hosts for directions to their house, all she told me was Bus Stop #2 when you get to Carmelita, I was perplexed, what in the world does that mean. Well this image below is what that means, that's the only marker to know your in Carmelita, turn down this road go to the end and the house is right there, gated with chickens and dogs running in the yard. What an adventure.
We drove to Orange Walk town to attend the meetings and make more friends. Lots of American's have moved down there to be "need greaters" in other words they volunteer their time and completely change their lifestyle to preach about promises of a better future. These are truly self-sacrificing HAPPY people.
Walking down the roads doing our volunteer work.
Our friend Anita introduced us to this taco stand, you get six rolled up Chicken tacos for $1. You order by saying $1 tacos. I got this with Horchata and was happy as a all could be. Food was really good. Lots of stewed chicken and coconut rice and beans. YUM! And they serve it on the best disney plastic plates ever.
We came back to this taco stand many times.
Many more adventures from this trip still to come.
