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Published: November 28th 2007
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Getting ready for the elections Hi From Port Angeles,
I am finally back in the states and having mixed emotions. I am glad to be here spending time with my dear friends Sarah and Robert again, and am looking forward to seeing more friends and soon my family! But it was hard leaving Central America, and it is always hard coming back to the US after being gone for a while.
I didn’t write for a while because there wasn't a whole lot worth writing about, or I should say there wasn't a whole lot going on that I thought would be worth reading about. When I last wrote, I was in Flores with Dee, a girl from the volunteer program I was in. She was sick but started feeling better so we headed back to work and to our respective host families. We got in and that very night were expected to receive the effects from Hurricane Dean. We were quite a bit inland so I was surprised to hear that we would be receiving some weather, but in the end, it was a fairly short lived storm without much permanent damage (where we were at least). By about that time, I had
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The flash took all the romantic dimness out of the picture started to really get settled into the program I was involved in and was happy I stuck it out awhile. About this time, we ran out of work in the butterfly garden so I began working on other odds and ends projects (think cutting grass with a machete, cutting down trees to use for shack posts with a machete, planting banana tress and flowers and tilling soil with a machete. I am telling you, they don’t have many tools down here, but they sure have ingenuity.) I also started to work more with the woman who runs the medicinal garden in the park. We made a variety of shampoos and creams with natural plant extracts: rose, aloe vera, arnica and escobilla (which I don’t know what that is in English).
The highlight of my last half of my home stay and volunteer work was attending the school election (beauty pageant) of the little girl in my house. She is thirteen and I was awarded the honor of being her make-up and hair designer. Soon though, all my makeup was being passed around to the dozen little girls and their families. I found out later that their mother's all have
makeup but they consider it too expensive to let their little girls wear it. ("But this stupid American doesn’t seem to mind, so we will just use hers." Ha ha. Talk about cultural exchange.)
The whole experience was wild. We arrived to get her dressed and ready but I found out there are no dressing rooms, just dark concrete stalls without lighting (and that smell like urinals because everything is used as a urinal at some point in Guatemala unless it is well lit and heavily guarded). So for lighting, we used candles, each family holding their own candle up while they dressed their little girls in flammable polyesters, cottons and Lycra. It was a beautiful moment, each child having their hair pulled tight to the point of tears, mothers yelling at sisters to hurry getting the costumes ready, all in the hazy glow of candlelight, and the pungent aroma of ammonia (not the hospital clean kind, the dirty bathroom kind). Luckily, everyone survived intact, and no one lost any significant pieces of clothing on stage. The best part was the fantasy costumes. The little girls each dress up in a different made up costume, all tight, all showing full belly, all with ornate headdresses like Tropicana girls. They each had their turn dancing on stage to some exotic rhythms shaking their hips in their chorus girl outfits. Very cute, considering the youngest girl was only six and dressed like a mermaid. My girl had a Chiquita banana kind of look with a (paper) headdress. Alas, her pink meringue of a formal gown did not bring her the title, nor did her Carmen Miranda headdress, but she seemed less interested in winning than in getting dressed up so no loss in the end.
Shortly after that I headed out of San Andres (where I had been living) to head into Belize for a few days of R&R before heading back to the states. It was a sad thing to say goodbye to this family I had been living with for almost a month. I have since begun to miss them, although I will admit that I felt suffocated at times while living there. I loved their energy and personalities, but it often felt like I was back in high school and living amongst a family again (after having lived for so long on my own without even roommates). But they were kind, generous and funny, which made for a good time every day.... even when being woken at five am by the dad's whistling as he got his car ready for the day.
I had heard horror stories about Belize and I will have to admit it severely tainted my impression of the country, despite my short stay there. I decided to head to the one small island everyone said was a must see.... Cay Caulker. It is kind of a touristy, low key, laid back, Bahaman styled island. I ended up staying there for three days until it was evacuated due to another incoming hurricane. I enjoyed myself there a lot, relaxing in the sun, laying on the beach (a concrete pier jetting out into the water because the beaches are coated in crusty seaweed), and walking around the small, beat up town. The people there were very friendly and loved to talk. The highlight was the day I spent on a snorkeling tour off of a sailboat. We went to three different locations, two of which we had a guided tour identifying the fish and coral of the area. It was amazingly diverse and shallow enough to see the intricate detail of the fish and plants without any strain. At one location there were nurse sharks and stingrays that were swimming all around us when we got in the water. I was surprised not to be scared of the sharks considering I am (unreasonably) terrified of sharks. But knowing they can’t bite you because they have no teeth probably helped ease my mind.
On Monday morning, they evacuated Cay Caulker because of an impending hurricane and I was forced to spend the day locked up in a huge hotel in the middle of nowhere (next to the airport). The day of my flight home was incredibly long. I showed up early to the airport because of anticipated passenger crowding, we were delayed and rerouted going into Houston because of a thunderstorm and couldn’t leave the plane because we were an international flight. So we had to stay in the plane for an hour until the storm ended. When we finally got in, the whole airport was a mess and all connecting flights had been changed. I missed my flight time, and because of that my connecting flight into Port Angeles so I had to spend a night in Seattle. Then, this morning, when I was supposed to fly into PA from Seattle, the fog was so thick no flights were coming in, so I ended up driving with some other girl who was stuck in Seattle too. What a long three days to get home. Something in the weather was out to play tricks on me I think.
I am glad to be back but it’s hard to leave the life of foreign travel. It was so bittersweet at the end because I was ready to get out of travel mode in a way, but also ready to keep going forever, and of course coming back to the states after being away for awhile has a few challenges.
I hope you are all well; I am looking forward to spending time with you all as I make my way down the coast. I won't be writing more emails for a while, but I may start up a travel blog soon so you can keep track of my whereabouts (not creeper stalker style, but concerned loved one style) as I flit through life for the next year. Love you all..................Sarah
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