1/5
Well, today was less than a
pleasant experience in my opinion. It
definitely had some good parts to it though.
But let’s start from the begging as any day should. We all got up around 8 for church at 10. I immediately had a rumbling in my belly that
I knew was not a good sign, but I went to breakfast regardless. The cooks had made something… well something
that was not what could be called a traditional Belizean breakfast. They had prepared hotdogs with mustard,
onions and mayo for us, and that was it.
This was strange because the morning before we had a wonderful breakfast
of tortillas, beans and eggs. Needless
to say, the hotdogs at 8 AM did not sit well with my stomach. After eating, I returned quickly to the
building with our beds and darted for the restroom. Let’s just say that something between the
food and the stress of travel was NOT doing me any favors on this particular
day. Before I knew it, we were off to
the church, most of us walked since it was the first day since we got to Belize
that it was not raining. The belly
rumbling was telling me that walking down in the heat and sunshine may not have
been the best idea. I was definitely
right. We made it to the church during
worship, and it was an incredible experience.
The singing between Spanish and English was very interesting, and most
people really got into it. And the music
was LOUD. I mean that we heard it up the
hill a mile or two away. The sermon,
however, was done in Spanglish, so between that and the gut wrenching pains I
was not able to pay much attention. All
I could tell was that the pastor was very very passionate and much of the
congregation was as well. After the
service was over, I knew that I could not walk back up the hill to the camp
site. It was a battle I could not
win. So I rode back up in the van with
some of the others. While going back, I
remembered and though about just how excited all of the church was to see us. It was so encouraging to be welcomed there
with such excitement, I cannot even express how great it feels to be welcomed
and whatnot when in a totally foreign land.
To save the ugly details,
we’ll just say that between returning to church and leaving at 1:30, there were
at least 3 more trips to the toilet.
None of them were pleasant. The Imodium
did not seem to help that much either, which I thought was strange. But oh well, it was time to head to Guatemala
for a while!
We all packed up into the
van again and headed for the border. It
was a super short drive. We were near
the village of San Jose Succotz, which is about 2 miles from the border. After all the hassle of leaving Belize and
entering Guatemala (which went quite well, but was slow) I really thought about
what it must be like for Qossay to travel through the checkpoints in his own
country every day. That cannot be a
pleasant experience. Then began the bus
ride, that was not fun either. The trip
to Florence took what felt like an eternity, but was likely only about 90
minutes to two hours. Still being sick
and such made it feel even longer, needless to say it was near misery. Once we got near our destination it really
started to sink in just how much of a foreigner here I really am. I do not understand much of the culture and I
do not speak the language at all. Only
two people in our group know much more than the most basic Spanish, so that has
the potential to make things quite difficult.
At dinner my stomach continued to rip in pain, but fortunately the
Imodium has plugged me up. I hope that a
warm shower and some sleep will set me right for the morning.
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