I woke up this morning at 3:30am to get ready for my flight. Mike, Sergio, Luis, and Chicho all woke up in the middle of the night to take me to the airport. What great guys and great hospitality. It was very very sad to say goodbye and I really couldn't imagine what Belize was going to be like so it felt like I left my heart in Nicaragua and was now on some strange plane. To ease the pain, the TACA Airlines representative accidentally checked me in to seat 1D first class. The first person to exit the plane. Wow. That has absolutely never happened to me before! I slept the entire first flight and then arrived in San Salvador for an hour layover. Remember yesterday when I was so excited about Subway and my hallucination of Starbucks. Well, in Nicaragua and San Salvador airports there was Subways and gourmet coffee/tea shops. I was so excited for some "normal" food yesterday and and craving my favorite green mint tea and then when I was back in the world where there was an abundance of it around me, I felt an odd sensation of... meh, whats all the fuss about... and was actually a bit overwhelmed by the abundance of everything. I putzed around looking into different stores and then I heard them announce my flight and didn't see anyone in the gate move. It took a second and then I asked the flight attendant. La puerta de Belice fue cambiado? She then said yes, it's a get 11 now! So I sprinted my butt from one side of the airport to the other to make my flight to Belize. (Another first class ticket by the way).
When I spoke to the Lydia, the volunteer coordinator at the school, she told me to just meet someone at the airport and take the taxi to the ferry with them. I thought, "this is shockingly similar to the plot of taken." So I talked to Lydia and she arranged a driver to come pick me. 30 bucks for a 9 mile ride to the ferry- what a jip... and to top it off it was SUPER safe at the airport and all the taxis were legit! Better safe than sorry I guess.
So I got to the ferry about 15 min before the next ferry- perfect! The ferry was packed tight but I didn't notice much because I made a new friend, Joe! Little did I know that this would be the first of many friends that I made in Belize on my first day. Joe and I talked continuously for about an hour and a half on the ferry ride! He lives in Caye Caulker, one island over, for the winter time. It seems like a lot of people who come down here to vacation end up here permamently from what I can tell.
Once the ferry arrived I walked off the dock and was greeted by a jovial man named Caesar! He directed me to a taxi and sent me on my way to the Hotel Del Rio. Once I checked in and dropped my bags off I looked up and saw a beautifully tiled and more importantly heated shower. I could not resist. I'm sorry to say but after 7 days of cold showers, Holy Cross School could wait 20 minutes. We're on island time anyways. The shower felt surprisingly uncomfortable. The heat was too much. I guess my body had adjusted to the cold showers... but it only took one to break the ice. My hot shower tonight was lovely.
Once I got to the school I met Lydia and she toured me around introducing me most importantly to Mr. Corba, the sports coordinator and Mr. Fritty, an assistant soccer coach. We created a schedule for the week coming up where we play soccer with the kids from 1:00-5:00 each week day and a couple mornings with the preschool and kindergardeners. Tomorrow morning Mr. Corba's team has a practice that I'm going to go help with. They say the biggest problem on the team is that the kids don't like to run or work hard! Uh oh, this is most definitely my pet peave. Time to whip these boys in shape. The daytime with the younger kids is, of course, all fun.
After we got our plan set for the week I went to Reef Adventures, a dive center here in Belize and made friends with Keedall and Chucky and they set us up with 2 really cool scuba dives- a shark dive and a reef dive for Sunday!Then I walked into town only to find Caesar again. I said, "Caesar, I haven't eaten all day and I'm starving, where should I go?" Caesar, with his jamaican sounding accent and huge smile, told me to check out Caramba's so I did. It was awesome! I had a whole red snapper fish that was ridiculous. I think we'll be eating a lot of seafood this week! At Caramba's I made friends with "Spongebob" who directed me to the best ice cream on earth where I met Ilene and Dan, two Pennsylvanians who started a custard shop down here! Ilene and I talked for a good half an hour and then I walked down the beach street and there were all of these little stands. At one stand I met Andres who didn't try and sell me anything, just a nice guy.
Then I met Paulina. Paulina is really into symbology and the Mayan Calendar so she hooked me up with an awesome necklace and explained to me why all the end of the world stuff is probably not true according to the Mayans. Her son walked up and I asked him where he went to school and he said "Holy Cross" and I said "Well you know what I'm in town for right? A soccer camp for your school!" His face lit up and he said it was really cool. Paulina was really happy and seemed a little emotional. She said there is nothing for the children on the island and this will be a really fun thing for them! When I said that I brought down backpacks she got excited, patted her son on the back, and said, "You need a backpack!" It was a real wake up call. Paulina was selling her jewelery at a stand on the street to support her family and she could not get a backpack for her son. It was my first personal encounter with a family from the school and it was really touching. They told me that often times the kids will follow you back to your hotel because they just want to hang out.
It's amazing that on this island of tourism that is an absolute paradise all you need to do is cross a very small bridge and you are back in extreme poverty in the San Mateo community. Lydia said it is some of the worst poverty in all of Belize.
Finally, I met Blackee, "the blackest man on the island" who was trying to recruit me to the local bar, but of course I declined.
The people seem so nice and this is a beautiful island. There are cocunut trees everywhere. I wonder if anyone ever gets hit- you know you can buy life insurance for getting hit by a cocunut. That more people die of getting hit in the head by cocunuts than by plane crashes.
The stars are BEAUTIFUL. It's like you can see every one in the sky.
Looking forward to my first practice in the morning and then Justin, Kathy, and Liza, my 3 new travel mates arrive late afternoon!
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