The inside view. living room to the left(cant really see it) my fridge, a painting ladder,the sink etc. Bedrooms are on the right and the door will be going on the front for security. Yep. Im happy with it. She aint the best lookin lassie on the block but dammit, I love her!
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
The inside view. living room to the left(cant really see it) my fridge, a painting ladder,the sink etc. Bedrooms are on the right and the door will be going on the front for security. Yep. Im happy with it. She aint the best lookin lassie on the block but dammit, I love her!
PICS!!!...
Hi!...I'm Cassie! (La Casita Verde) That guy in front of me is Jake. We live together. He has painted me since these pictures have been taken.
I have a cute lil gate that keeps other houses offa my turf. Its falling down, but that too will be fixed.
This is my front and side view. The two closest windows are the living room and the far one the bedroom. Peekin at ya from the backside is the bathroom. Ill be getting a porch in the next few days too. Don't judge me, cosmetic surgery, my siding my choice.
Yep, another view of my goods.Cassie is done talking now. Jake is back.
Dangriga. The chinese food places in this country are filled with great signs like this.
A bunch of people watching the parade.
The view of Orange Walk from the Post office steps
Meet Zipper. Shes kinda cute, even if she is a cat. Not so cute when she is running circles around the bed at 5AM. More to come!
Jake
Friday, November 21, 2008
Settlement Day and other goins ons...
Hello all! Lets just start this by saying I know I havent posted pics in a while. I promise to get some pictures together in the next few days and post em.
Spent the past few days in Dangriga for settlement day. It was pretty much wonderful. Crazy partying for a night and a day, sweet parade with tons of marching bands and BBQ chicken available 24hrs a day from streetside vendors. For those of you who may not know, Settlement Day is the national holiday that commemorates the Garifuna peoples' arrival in Belize. Suffice to say its a raucous affair. A bunch of us stayed at my friend Abby's place, super tiny and cute right by the beach. Her yard is sandy and the whole house looks like something out of "Horton Hears a Who". I pitched my tent in the back yard and spent a couple of nights blissfully lulled to sleep by waves and a seabreeze.
The past few weeks life has started to pick up. The remedial reading classes are on hold for a lee bit while the students prepare and participate in finals/exams. This upcoming week will be kinda hectic. Sunday starts Youth Week, of which I have made myself a part. Lets go over the next few days:
Sunday: Opening Ceremony in Belize City (im goin)
Monday: I will be on Fiesta Radio doing a talk show about Peace Corps, 4H, Youth For the Future (the org. coordinating all this) etc
Tuesday: Along with YFF and Humana I will be starting a gardening project working with Standard V students (middle school age) we will be spending the day setting up beds and planting cucumbers, radish, cilantro, lettuce and a few other choice morsels. The basic idea is to increase awareness of where food comes from and to give kids a hand in bringing their own hard work to the table. should be especially interesting because this will be the first time I have ever done any gardening myself.
Wed: I will be giving 3 presentations to all of Orange Walk Technical High School talking about conflict resolution, anger management, dealing with/verbalizing emotions etc. I am really excited about this part. In a way it will be getting back to the wilderness therapy aspect of dealing with issues directly instead of in such a managerial aspect. neat.
Thurs: Head to Belmopan for Thanksgiving celebration with all of Peace Corps
Friday: A few PC sessions and the dinner
Saturday: Back to Carmelita
AAAANNNNDDD
Getting stuff together to move into my HOUSE!!! (you should be saying hooray! and smiling, because thats what im doing over here. The dude in the internet cafe is looking at me weird. But for serious, I found a house! The pics to come will show you, but its super cute and I have taken to calling it La Casita Verde, or Cassie for short. Cassie is, obviously, green. Mint green in fact, with dark green trim. Her yard is decently sized, if i could judge these things at all I would tell you. But its got two small bedrooms, a decent sized main room/kitchen and a bathroom with a shower and toilet. Now you may say "duh Jake, of course it has a shower and toilet!" But remember, this is Belize, and less than half of us volunteers have indoor plumbing. Im psyched. The house is unfurnished, and in this country that means no stove, no fridge, no sink. Truly unfurnished. Ill be purchasing/renting all that stuff, which shouldnt run over my budget. The really awesome part is that the house, with fenced in yard for as yet unpurchased pooch, restroom facilities, sleeping quarters, old dilapidated outhouse (looks like something outta deliverance) will be repainted, tiled, and have a porch built onto it for the lovely price of $BZ100 a month. One Belize dollar is worth US$0.50. So I will be renting my house for fifty US dollars. :D I have started buying knives, spatulas, pots, dishtowels and a sweet piggy bank that I couldnt really turn down. Can you tell Im excited??
Oh yeah, subject change, I got a cat. Her name is Zipper and she was a gift. She doesn't like it when I read without petting her. She also doesn't like me sleeping past 6AM. But she is adorable. I never thought I would have a cat but here I am!
Life is good here people. I cant wait to show you all.
love
jake
Spent the past few days in Dangriga for settlement day. It was pretty much wonderful. Crazy partying for a night and a day, sweet parade with tons of marching bands and BBQ chicken available 24hrs a day from streetside vendors. For those of you who may not know, Settlement Day is the national holiday that commemorates the Garifuna peoples' arrival in Belize. Suffice to say its a raucous affair. A bunch of us stayed at my friend Abby's place, super tiny and cute right by the beach. Her yard is sandy and the whole house looks like something out of "Horton Hears a Who". I pitched my tent in the back yard and spent a couple of nights blissfully lulled to sleep by waves and a seabreeze.
The past few weeks life has started to pick up. The remedial reading classes are on hold for a lee bit while the students prepare and participate in finals/exams. This upcoming week will be kinda hectic. Sunday starts Youth Week, of which I have made myself a part. Lets go over the next few days:
Sunday: Opening Ceremony in Belize City (im goin)
Monday: I will be on Fiesta Radio doing a talk show about Peace Corps, 4H, Youth For the Future (the org. coordinating all this) etc
Tuesday: Along with YFF and Humana I will be starting a gardening project working with Standard V students (middle school age) we will be spending the day setting up beds and planting cucumbers, radish, cilantro, lettuce and a few other choice morsels. The basic idea is to increase awareness of where food comes from and to give kids a hand in bringing their own hard work to the table. should be especially interesting because this will be the first time I have ever done any gardening myself.
Wed: I will be giving 3 presentations to all of Orange Walk Technical High School talking about conflict resolution, anger management, dealing with/verbalizing emotions etc. I am really excited about this part. In a way it will be getting back to the wilderness therapy aspect of dealing with issues directly instead of in such a managerial aspect. neat.
Thurs: Head to Belmopan for Thanksgiving celebration with all of Peace Corps
Friday: A few PC sessions and the dinner
Saturday: Back to Carmelita
AAAANNNNDDD
Getting stuff together to move into my HOUSE!!! (you should be saying hooray! and smiling, because thats what im doing over here. The dude in the internet cafe is looking at me weird. But for serious, I found a house! The pics to come will show you, but its super cute and I have taken to calling it La Casita Verde, or Cassie for short. Cassie is, obviously, green. Mint green in fact, with dark green trim. Her yard is decently sized, if i could judge these things at all I would tell you. But its got two small bedrooms, a decent sized main room/kitchen and a bathroom with a shower and toilet. Now you may say "duh Jake, of course it has a shower and toilet!" But remember, this is Belize, and less than half of us volunteers have indoor plumbing. Im psyched. The house is unfurnished, and in this country that means no stove, no fridge, no sink. Truly unfurnished. Ill be purchasing/renting all that stuff, which shouldnt run over my budget. The really awesome part is that the house, with fenced in yard for as yet unpurchased pooch, restroom facilities, sleeping quarters, old dilapidated outhouse (looks like something outta deliverance) will be repainted, tiled, and have a porch built onto it for the lovely price of $BZ100 a month. One Belize dollar is worth US$0.50. So I will be renting my house for fifty US dollars. :D I have started buying knives, spatulas, pots, dishtowels and a sweet piggy bank that I couldnt really turn down. Can you tell Im excited??
Oh yeah, subject change, I got a cat. Her name is Zipper and she was a gift. She doesn't like it when I read without petting her. She also doesn't like me sleeping past 6AM. But she is adorable. I never thought I would have a cat but here I am!
Life is good here people. I cant wait to show you all.
love
jake
Thursday, November 6, 2008
Lets get random...
Helloooo! Good mood today. I joined a gym. Yes there is a gym here. Its about a six mile ride from my village by bike. (lets just say i probably wont jump on the treadmill after i get there.) In terms of size its probably half or 1/3 a normal american style fitness first/24hr fitness/golds gym. Pretty nice though, newer "Hammer Strength" equiptment, free weights up to 70 lbs, elipticals etc. Im psyched. And on a mission.
So I have started teaching in the school. I am doing basic reading classes for a group of about 10 younger kids. Standards 1 and 2, which is probably about 1st/2nd grade. Ill tell you though, some of these kids it just breaks your heart to see them. Some don't know how to form their letters, some barely speak english (the only language they teach in here in Belize) Some obviously have severe learning disabilities. Tbere is one child in particular that has stood out to me. In my class of ten children struggling with reading, he is the most severely behind. His name is Osmani, and he has these huge brown eyes, pays such good attention and obviously wants to do well, but has no idea what he is doing. Now I have never worked with LD's, but it seems like he might be dyslexic. When I watch him write he sometimes writes the second letter in a word before the first. I'm thinking about trying to talk to his family and maybe do some one on one tutoring with him. After this I plan to head to the library and try to find something about teaching beginning reading classes, cause I'll tell ya, its like the blind leading the blind right now!
I have also been asked if I would like to work as a counselor in the school. Really exciting and also really intimidating. I dont know if I have the training for this, but then again, some of the counselors here have associates degrees, and the school doesnt have a counselor at all. I could possibly do alot of good and also have the opportunity to seriously improve my therapeutic skills and get some amazing practice/life experience.
We are also going to be starting a school garden soon. Probably working with one class, seeing how it goes and if we can turnh it into a larger enterprise. I haven't really done much garden work, and frankly its not my favorite thing to do, but hey...lets give it a shot. Try anything once.
Im starting to get all kinds of stuff going on, or at least the thought processes about what I can do are beginning to flow. Its really exciting. For example, a National organization, Youth For The Future is organizing Natl Youth Week. They have asked me if I would be willing to give a handful of presentations about mediation, conflict resolution etc. to both students and teachers. These were topics I really enjoyed focusing on when i was working in Wilderness Therapy, and I think it would be great to get back to addressing things like that in a proactive manner rather than simply being reactive, which is how alot of these situations end up being approached.
hmmm....
Yep, other than that I am looking for a place to live (more on that when I figure it all out, and yes, I promise to put up pictures). Looking for a dog. I have a couple of options, a friend said that the sibling of one of her dogs might be having puppies (cute dog) or also, hunting dogs (big ol hound with floppy ears) are fairly big here, I might try to pick up one of those. The only hazard about a dog like that is that sometimes they are stolen. Well, another hazard is if a dog had ears like that i dont think I would be able to help tying them together on top of his head. :)
oh yeah, the rash has healed. Jacob will live
that is all.
So I have started teaching in the school. I am doing basic reading classes for a group of about 10 younger kids. Standards 1 and 2, which is probably about 1st/2nd grade. Ill tell you though, some of these kids it just breaks your heart to see them. Some don't know how to form their letters, some barely speak english (the only language they teach in here in Belize) Some obviously have severe learning disabilities. Tbere is one child in particular that has stood out to me. In my class of ten children struggling with reading, he is the most severely behind. His name is Osmani, and he has these huge brown eyes, pays such good attention and obviously wants to do well, but has no idea what he is doing. Now I have never worked with LD's, but it seems like he might be dyslexic. When I watch him write he sometimes writes the second letter in a word before the first. I'm thinking about trying to talk to his family and maybe do some one on one tutoring with him. After this I plan to head to the library and try to find something about teaching beginning reading classes, cause I'll tell ya, its like the blind leading the blind right now!
I have also been asked if I would like to work as a counselor in the school. Really exciting and also really intimidating. I dont know if I have the training for this, but then again, some of the counselors here have associates degrees, and the school doesnt have a counselor at all. I could possibly do alot of good and also have the opportunity to seriously improve my therapeutic skills and get some amazing practice/life experience.
We are also going to be starting a school garden soon. Probably working with one class, seeing how it goes and if we can turnh it into a larger enterprise. I haven't really done much garden work, and frankly its not my favorite thing to do, but hey...lets give it a shot. Try anything once.
Im starting to get all kinds of stuff going on, or at least the thought processes about what I can do are beginning to flow. Its really exciting. For example, a National organization, Youth For The Future is organizing Natl Youth Week. They have asked me if I would be willing to give a handful of presentations about mediation, conflict resolution etc. to both students and teachers. These were topics I really enjoyed focusing on when i was working in Wilderness Therapy, and I think it would be great to get back to addressing things like that in a proactive manner rather than simply being reactive, which is how alot of these situations end up being approached.
hmmm....
Yep, other than that I am looking for a place to live (more on that when I figure it all out, and yes, I promise to put up pictures). Looking for a dog. I have a couple of options, a friend said that the sibling of one of her dogs might be having puppies (cute dog) or also, hunting dogs (big ol hound with floppy ears) are fairly big here, I might try to pick up one of those. The only hazard about a dog like that is that sometimes they are stolen. Well, another hazard is if a dog had ears like that i dont think I would be able to help tying them together on top of his head. :)
oh yeah, the rash has healed. Jacob will live
that is all.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
