So much to do...revisited!

The above is a picture of a piece of the mural on the wall of Dorothy Menzies Child Care Centre. Thank you to Jacque Woods for creating the most amazing mural across the front of the Centre!

I cannot believe that life has been so busy that I have not blogged for two months!  Shame, shame!  If I had not taken pictures of events, I would not be able to re-create many of the activities.  Fortunately, I can give a rough summary of all that has gone on.

September marked our second Carnival Parade!  This year we watched with a man from Phoenix, Arizona, a pastor who comes frequently to Belize to do missionary work.  He lived as a child in Belize, but had not been in town for the Carnival Parade.  I warned him what a wild event it could be! Here Dave and Pastor Thompson are talking along the parade route not far from our house.

And here are a few pictures of the parade!  Let's just say that it is a pretty much a beer-fest!

A tiny newborn baby watched the parade beside me.  I was a little concerned as she was dressed for cold weather, with hat and fuzzy booties, and I thought it was hot outside!  I was worried that she never cried and must be dehydrated!  But she was very cute!

September is a month of celebrations for the Independence of Belize!  One morning I heard drums and ran to the window with my camera to capture the parade of children marching by!  This parade was just one of many!

On the second of October, I had a fun outing with two favorite people, Yvette Burks and Marta Woods.  Yvette and I had to go to Belmopan to submit our information to receive an expedited police clearance.  Marta came along, and we took the opportunity to visit Kings Children's Home.  Kings is a privately run center with about 80 children in residence.  They moved into their new facility on 40 acres last Christmas Day!  What a beautiful place!  We were given a tour, and saw in the first building a well-equipped computer center for the children, a recreation room where a group of preschoolers were listening to a story read to them, and an amazing, huge, stainless steel kitchen with a large dining room!  Across the yard was another building with chapel and a room that was currently being used to make school uniforms and to embroider names on the underwear of the children!  Very clever and pretty!  Side buildings were dorms for the children.  And in the back is a building that will house 50 volunteers when missionary groups come to help out.  Quite an amazing facility!  The mural below, which is by a person from New Mexico (!), was astounding:  Hear no evil, speak no evil and see no evil!

After visiting Kings and dropping off our information
with the police, we drove on to San Ignacio where Yvette,  Marta, and I had a wonderful lunch on a veranda overlooking a park at
Guava Limb Cafe.

After lunch, we had some time before being due back to pick up our police clearances.  We stopped at the home of people whom Marta and Yvette knew and who own a wood furniture-making operation.
They gave us a tour of the shop, which smells so good with all of the fine and varied woods!  Then we had coffee and pastries in their beautiful home!  Here are a couple of pictures of some of the wood

 features in their home:  a carved door to the
bathroom and a spiral staircase!

The three of us then went to Santa Elena to visit a primary school that is using the Kagan Learning system.  The school, which has 950 students, was remarkably different from any school that I've seen in Belize!  The positive messages, the small group learning, the peers working together, the respect for the environment and the other people at the school were all impressive!  The school leadership made a commitment to adopt this new method of teaching, and the forty teachers agreed to remain there for 3 years to allow sufficient time to develop the program.  12 teaching coaches are at the school to help teachers with the methods.  They adopted this program 5 years ago, and the vandalism has decreased (the campus was neat as a pin) and behavior problems have decreased.  How I wish that our children's center could do a complete reformation such as they did at the school!  The commitment of time and money was great, but the outcomes are amazing--and this is a school that serves a very diverse and poor area.

Yvette and I returned for our clear police reports (we've been very good citizens!), and the three of us returned to Belize City after a wonderful time together!

On October 6, I flew to Houston to attend the Association for Play Therapy conference.  I met Candace McKenzie there, and we had both a wonderful time learning and a wonderful time playing! I had little time to shop, but managed to get in the necessities, largely because the conference was held at the Galleria Westin and I had the second largest shopping mall at my fingertips!  Candace and I ate wonderful dinners.

At the end of the week, I skipped out on one workshop so that she and I could drive to the Johnson Space Center,  The traffic, because of road construction, delayed our arrival, but we were still able to
take the tram to visit Mission Control and the Saturn V exhibit.
After our tour, we went to Kemah Boardwalk where we had dinner on the deck, watching boats come in and out!  Beautiful!

As soon as I arrived back in Belize, Dave took off!  He flew the Cessna back to St. Louis.
Here Dave is getting some help, moving the airplane out of the hangar for the last time, and then

he takes off!

Getting through Mexico is difficult, as there is only one airport from the south that he can enter the country (in their attempts to control drug and human trafficking).   It took so long to do the paperwork in Cozumel that he had to spend the night.  He then flew to Brownsville for another night, then on to St. Louis.  Dave had the opportunity to do some flying while at Wings of Hope in the "new" Cherokee that he then brought back to Belize.  He was also able to spend a weekend with his sister, Judi, and Bill. The plane was loaded with medical supplies, every niche stuffed full.  Quite a lot fell on the ground when the authorities in Veracruz had Dave start taking out boxes (and allow the drug dog into the plane) for inspection!  He finally made it home with the goods, and the new plane was put into action the following day!

While Dave was in St. Louis, Laura Connelly was here.  We had a very, very busy week!  This time we went to Belmopan to register her group home as a corporation.  Other stops were at the utility companies and the Mennonite furniture store and other errands to get ready for a home to be furnished and running in December!  We had a little time for fun, like lunch at Cafe Michelle, which was wonderful!

Laura and I also attended the art opening at Image Factory for Inga Woods.  (Her mother did the art work on the walls of Dorothy Menzies Child Care Centre.)  What amazing art and jewelry (which I want for Christmas) created by Inga, who is just 19 years old!  Yvette went with us, and the three of us had dinner overlooking the sea at Chateau Caribbean!

(There is Inga with the long hair and black heels beside her grandmother, Marta!)

My next trip to Belmopan was with Dave.  He had to get his police clearance for his work visa.  This time we arrived to find a street fair in progress.  I took a picture of Dave near at the park and a picture of the square outside the Belize legislative building.

Meanwhile, I have been busy as ever at the Child Care Centre.  I have had the opportunity to supervise two social work interns from the University of Belize.  They have been such a wonderful addition to the staff, and I will miss them as the term is nearing its end!  Here is a picture of Kharislyn as she prepares the room for the great Social Skills Group that they presented over the last month to a group of upper elementary school children!

Last week, I attended the retirement party for Hortense Augustine, officially the "Foster Mother" of Dorothy Menzies Child Care Centre, but really the director of the facility as she is responsible for a large facility and a large staff, in addition to being mother to nearly 60 children!  I don't know how someone who looks as beautiful as this can be anywhere near retirement age!

We had a wonderful time with food, drinks and music and dancing!  And here's a chance to see some of my favorite people with whom I work!

(Nicol Crawford, Tracey Ogaldez, Marcia Stephen)

A special guest of honor was Dorothy Menzies, president of the Board, with Ms. Augustine, who is beside Chris Garcia, Board Secretary for Dorothy Menzies Child Care Centre.

Not everything has been paradise in paradise.  The rains ruined our street, and one day a large truck was stuck in the ditch, blocking traffic.  The road to the airport finally was cemented and opened, but only to the corner, not down to the terminal or hangars.  Dave has to drive through an amazing "lake" to get to the runway at Muncipal Airport.  The hangar door is still broken.  Luckily, Dave and the security guard have become friends, and he watches out for trespassers at night.  We know there have been people in the hangar during the rains, though.  No damage to the airplane, though.  

The rains brought out the sandflies and the mosquitoes, so I look like one large bite.  I also fell off a moving treadmill, so I had some lovely cuts and bruises.  Dave was trying to move the new airplane by hand and fell flat on his back, so he has been nursing sore ribs.  I have a stubborn intestinal infection that abates and returns and saps my energy.

Dave had trouble filing for his work visa.  One can only do so on Wednesdays, and the last two Wednesdays, he has been flying all day.  (In fact, he flew to Guatemala City on one Wednesday.)  He and Yvette finally got the attention of someone who stretched the hours and let him submit the application.  Then my work permit came through without the word "volunteer" on it.  The Income Tax Department, therefore, wants to charge me $2000 before Immigration will give me the work visa.  And that is currently a stalemate...I refuse to pay, and the Labor Department has so far been unable to find a way to insert the word "volunteer."  

My washing machine quit working, and we're beginning to smell a bit!!  The car's air conditioning went out on the same day.  And the power steering leak has become more of a river of fluid.  None of these things seem to be able to get fixed.  

In the general scheme of things, I don't think any of these things should cause too much stress (unless I am deported, and who knows whose doorstep I'll land on in that event).  So we continue on, looking forward to Jeremy and Jonattan's Christmas visit which we have planned with great adventures!