Retro Travel Email

I was checking my old hotmail account and stumbled upon an email I'd written home my first week in Belize in 2003.  As many of you know Belize was really tough, and I laughed when I read how I tried to put a positive slant on everything (apologies for the spelling). I thought I'd add what I was REALLY thinking in blue italics below...

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Hello everybody!

I returned home from Ecuador last week and had a nice but busy week at home. I just arrived in Belize this past Tuesday. It is very very hot and  humid here but I think I am (slowly) adjusting. 

I'm not adjusting at all. It is so freaking hot here I think I might actually die. 

I live in a pretty nice cabana/hut in the middle of jungle. 

Oxymoron, hello! How nice can a hut be in the middle of the freakin' jungle?!?! But I am a world traveler. Maintain happy face/outlook.

It was pretty comical when the directors were showing us around. For instance, it's always a good idea to check the shower curtain before you get in just in case there isn't a tarantula or scorpian hanging out at the bottom. 

Holy s*** I almost crapped my pants, but that would've required me using the composting toilet, which is equally as scary as stinging vermin in the shower.

You also get to see a lot of "predetor/prey" relationships in action, sometimes right on your mosquito net! 

I'm seriously concerned about being on the "prey" side that equation. I'm pretty sure there are monkeys with pointy teeth like in "Outbreak" that want to kill me.

So it's a tid bit different here.

Happy face, April. Happy face.

This weekend I need to decide where I will have an internship at for the next 7 weeks here. I have some pretty exciting options. I can work from the United Nations Development Project and help with small loan programs, or this organization called Trees Belize that does reforestation/sustainable development projects, or Belize Enterprise for Sustainable Technology, an organization which provides grants and education to small, mainly women co-ops or a project with the Peace Corps volunteer here in the village of Armenia through the Armenia Development Center that will perform a census and figure out the need for toliets to improve health. I really don't know  what to choose! 

They all scare/intimidate me equally. Seriously, I have no idea what to do.

I am going around to visit them on Monday but all of them sound like really exciting opportunities.

More happy face.

The culture is pretty different here - it is so loose and laid back which is nice in comparison to the US. 

For instance, I love how those "laid back" buses sometimes leave you waiting on the side of highway for two hours.

We have a lot of interesting activites planed and myself and some other people at Jaguer Creek where we are staying may actually get to go to Guatemala to the center of the Mayan civilization in a couple weekends (although not to see Gloria!). Please send me an email and let me know how life in the US is.

Specifically elaborate on the merits of refridgeration, air conditioning, electricity in general, and cereal.

Everybody have great weekends!

Because I'm about to go spend it in the hospital due to heatstroke.

Love,

 

April