Day 12-13, Friday, March 6, 2009: Blue Creek, Homestays

After dinner on our second day at Blue creek a local twelve-year old girl named Albeena, picked Lia, Sylvia, and I up and walked us into her house in the village. The house where her family lived was very small and consisted of bare uneven concrete floors, a thatched roof made out of palms, and no furnishing other than a freezer, a small table against the wall, and a few plastic lawn chairs. Three hammocks hung from a beam across the wall and after the three of us claimed one we sat on the floor with Albeena, her younger brother Kyle who absolutely adorable but very shy, and her older sister Maxiana. We tried to talk about the things that we had in common, but there weren’t many. Maxiana is 22 and she’s never gone further than a few miles outside of her home, she went primary school but never went to high school, she considers a big night to be borrowing a DVD from a neighbor, and she spends her days making corn tortillas with her mother. Who is a much older woman missing her two front teeth that doesn’t speak any English… She was so old that I was astonished that she had a child who was not even three.

As you can see it was hard to find common ground with Maxiana, who seemed to be like a mother to her two younger siblings, but we were able to make conversation because of the things that were different between us. We showed Albeena hand games that we played when we were younger, and music and TV from home (it was such a relief that we remembered our ipods) and they showed us their crafts which we were sure to buy during the special market the village had for us on Sunday. The three of us went to bed at about ten because we were so tired and had to wake up at five the next day. Maxiana told us to turn the light out whenever we were ready, but it wasn’t until we were tucked into the hammocks and the lights were off that we realized that we were sleeping in their beds and they were using flashlights and candles for light in the other room because we turned off their only light. We asked if they were okay with that though I know we all felt unbelievably bad, but they insisted it was fine We were so appreciative that they offered the little that they had to make everything more comfortable for us, and how genuinely nice they all were as a family.

Even though our home-stay wasn’t as glamorous as some peoples or as hardcore as others (some watched movies with the families that they were staying with, others weren’t even allowed to stay in the house) it is the thing that I’m most proud of doing on the whole trip. I feel like it’s something that made me appreciate everything I had a little more and know how blessed my life really is. We exchanged addresses with the family so I’m hoping to hear from them soon, and I’m planning to send a care package with Lia and Sylvia.

- Lucy L.

The opportunity we got on this trip to do a home-stay with a Mayan family was a life changing experience. The home-stay evening started after dinner when the children of the families came up the hill to our cabins at Blue Creek to get us. My partner was Alia so as we walked down the hill with the boy that came to get us. We started talking and learning about his life. When we got to their house, the whole family was extremely friendly. Aside from the thirteen year old boy that picked us up, there was also a seventeen year old son, an eleven year old son, a nine year old daughter, and a twenty-two year old daughter and her husband with two sons of their own that are one and nine. That whole family lived with their mother most of the time while their father works in Belize City. Something that was a huge eye-opener for me was thinking about the way I get grossed out when I have to go to the bathroom at a gross gas station, but these families don't even have bathrooms. They have outhouses that are basically a wood structure that have cockroaches and tarantulas crawling around with a hole in the ground. Even though they may not have as many things and toys as we may have at home, they find their happiness from things that are far greater than that, like their families and friends.

- Olivia C.