Belize – Hello

2011: stealth deliverer of good things

Before I write anything, I would like to share that “ninja spanker” was my top search this week. Where do people come up with these things? And also, how did my space become relevant to ninja spankers? (As I type this, I recall mentioning Spanker Banker after Krewe du Vieux sometime in 2008, and also dressing up as a ninja for Halloween that year and fighting pirates on Jackson Square. The internet don’t forget, y’all).

That said, it’s been two years since I did a year in review, two years since I wrote some resolutions, and consequently, two years since I resolved some resolutions. In the two year gap, I got engaged, got married, moved to a new city, bought a house, started 3 new jobs, graduated, became licensed, acquired a couple more nieces- you know: Almost all of the most important things that can happen to a person besides being born. Now that I sit down to review last year, it seems like nothing happened. But alas. It did.

January Co-piloted a tiny plane from Belize City to PG. Swam in a blue creek. Climbed into a cave. Met some fun UWisc Physical Therapy peeps. Watched the Rose Bowl on a rigged up TV, under a thatch roof outside, sitting on benches removed from a mini-van. Spent nights in tiny cabins above water. Ate seafood caught on a kayak with a spear. Took a 6 hour bus to Cayo. Shed tears over this discussion with my former supervisor: “Your work is being used here, Brooke. Every day.” Discovered God doesn’t need a person to use a person. Understood that sometimes we don’t even know we’ve been used. Said goodbye to the BZ. Again.

More pics: here

February Worked a 16-hour shift during Snowpocolypse 2011 and felt like a Lamb in a Bow Tie. Discovered, via Jeff, that cross-country skiing on the Monon during an ice storm is possible, and acceptable. Went to New Orleans and spent time with my good ole friends and co-workers. Got my Haydels King Cake. Got my Abita. Got my Steins, my Surreys, my house party with a nice brownie spread, my 2 days of 65/sunny, got my washboard band, got my Kim, got my Mandy. Could not have been happier until Tator Tachos appeared. Realized (besides the availability of junk food & supportive social worker friends) why the NOLA feels like home: it’s where I fell in love! J and my’s entire do-I-like-you-do-I-love-you-I-totally-love-you-let’s-get-a-daiquiri-let’s-get-married happened here. Sigh :)

March Went to ~~Cuba~~ ~~Belize~~ ~~Mexico~~ ~~Belize~~ ~~Cuba~~ ~~Belize~~. Cuba with some good friends. (If you’re an immigration officer, I would like to state for the record I oppose the embargo.) Had many rooftop mojitos. I neither confirm nor deny the Cuban cigar or the night dancing in Old Havana. Listened to old men argue about baseball in the center of the park. Watched a Cuban baseball game. Became entranced by and forever drawn to Cuba and its music. Thanks friends!

More pics: here

April Unveiled Brooke 3.0 to the public. Not so bad, 30. Received breakfast in bed from a dude I thank God for by the minute, and a tent. Promptly camped in the backyard. Celebrated Lil’s 3rd birthday (where does time go?) Took down the Christmas tree… and put it in the Monon. Can you find it? Spent Easter with the Hartmans in WI, and got the Easter flu, which everyone mistook for morning sickness. If that had been the case, I’d be 9 months pregnant today. Told you guys.

May Started a new job! Waved goodbye to the hospital (although I still pick up ER shifts here and there when they need help) and joined a private practice in Carmel. Hosted the Kaminski Fam for Memorial Day and ran around Lucas Oil. Celebrated J’s birthday. He continues to be in his 30s. That’s all he would want you to know, I think.

June Celebrated our first anniversary with ~~a romantic evening alone~~ the Hartmans, Kaminiskis, Sellers, Sharon, Pat and 2500 others for the 18th annual Indy Nite Ride. Jeff and I enjoyed a burger at Bub’s after everyone left. The event has facilitated use of the following statement all year to justify anything we’ve wanted ever since: Well, this can be our anniversary meal/gift/trip since we didn’t really have one? Celebrated Maycie’s 2nd Birthday. Love her.

July Breckenridge! This was our anniversary trip, since we didn’t really have one. Also, it was truly the anniversary and location of our honeymoon! Hiked some hikes. Snapped some pics. Ate some good food. Drank with friends. Hot-tubbed with family. Surfed on snowfields. Biked down Vail pass. Garden of the Gods. Pike’s Peak. Celebrated a Hartman (the original Hartman- well, not the original original, but the Ron & Kathy Hartman ) Anniversary. This one gets 2 rows of pics, because I’m the boss of this space, and it’s what I want to do.

More pics: here

August Hosted the Sellers/Wilsons for Labor Day. Shucked some corn. Grilled some food. Played with some noopy nieces. Dad’s family reunion in Brown County. Spent some time in Nashville and a good night at a Brewery. Hosted Elaine & Doug, also Sprinky. Cut into a sex cake. Found out E&D are having a boy! Can’t wait to meet brand new Baby Luke.

More pics: here

September visited some good (fun!) friends in NYC. This was our anniversary trip, since we didn’t really have one. These friends appreciate my knowledge of pop culture, which is sometimes a foreign language to J (although he is the one who first informed me of the Kim/Chris split and insisted I see Bridesmaids. He heard both on sports radio). Observed 9/11. Held the Statue of Liberty in our palms. Went to the Catskills. Ate some good food. Played with an adorable baby. Participated in the first bonfire of Fall. Played in a kickball tournament, concussed myself on the pavement. Celebrated Callie’s first birthday. Love her. Joined a small group at church. Made some friends.

More pics: here

October Destin! I know I’ve said this before, but this was our anniversary trip, since we didn’t really have one. Plus it was the location of our other honeymoon, between the ceremony and actual honeymoon in Breck. Spent some time with the Grampies. Spent some time at the Blossfolly (ceremony beachouse) beach, for nostalgia’s sake. Ate dinner at Henderson Park Inn, where God gave us the most amazing anniversary sunset ever imagined.

More pics: here and here

November Hosted the fam(s) for Thanksgiving: Hartmans, Sellers, the Grampies, Wilsons, Kaminskis, Sharon, & Grams. Got rear ended. Saw THREE rainbows in one day. Spent a noopy weekend with Callie.

December Watched the Badgers win the Big Ten Championships. For reasons unexplained, my nieces started calling me Uncle Brooklyn. Dressed up in snowflake placemats & battery operated lights for a party. Celebrated our engageaversary in Chicago on the 96th floor. Celebrated Christmas in Iowa, Wisconsin, Indy, and Sprinky (not a place, but a BFF). Celebrated the last moments of 2011 with good old friends and good new friends.

More pics: here

The End! Cheers to all for such a great year, and thanks for the friends who hosted us.

Lamb in a bow tie, here.

Here I am working in the ER during an ice storm reading fragmented writing drafts from last August about how awful my experience was here during those first six months. And about the adjustment of procuring new name: confusing. And, most recently, the evolution of this weird life we have in Indy put into perspective by a visit to Belize. So, in my 7th hour of a 16+ hour shift during snowpocolypse 2011, after having watched all the episodes of SATC I brought with me, and after eating my lunch and dinner in the first 45 minutes, I have nothing left to do but talk with myself on the internet for a while and draw some kind of insight.

August
It’s kind of a let down, working. In the ER. At night. Where I continue to be initiated, which is the worst.

I thought it would be magical. But nobody trusts you till they trust you. And just when you think you’re almost good at something, you find out a baby you believed was at the fire station (because that’s what the girl told you) is actually in a box on the side of an interstate. Or, your own department believes you conspired with the ol’ manager to resist 12-hour shifts. You didn’t. 12-hour shifts mean less work days! Or, like, due to the shift thing, a handful of well-known staff are now circulating the rumor that you’re rude, per the departmental lady with the most seniority who really wanted those blasted 12-hour shifts. Plus, you were hired before the interns, who’d provided a year of unpaid service before you so obliviously accepted the open position they now can’t accept. Everyone comes from the same school, except you. And where did you come from, anyway? Ohhhh, New Orleans? Do you think that makes you special? They hate you.

You think you’re paranoid. You ask, am I paranoid? The nice ones say, nope. This is real.

Fake complaints come in, and the nice co-workers from other units who like you say: B, just ignore it. There’s nothing you can do. The nice people invite you to lunch and movie nights and things, thank goodness. Because without them, in this new city with this new job in this new home with this new husband (who also works in this place), your little social work wings might get all crumpled up and you might always wonder if there is chocolate pudding on your face as you round the ER, because in your normal life there is always something chocolate on your face, and this is your normal life only it’s the naked-dream or chocolate-pudding face part. You don’t feel comfortable being yourself, which has always been your secret weapon: being yourself. I mean, you’re funny and likeable, right? You are. (Right?) You are.

No one here thinks I’m funny. I’m recalling that Hallmark card with the little lamb wearing a red bow tie and a thousand other lambs not wearing a bow tie looking at the one lamb like he’s an idiot. The caption: “Adding to my misery. No one here thinks I’m funny.”

That’s me. A lamb in a bow tie, here.

Oh. And then there’s the issue of my name: Amanda Brooke Wilson Hartman.

First name: Amanda, but answers to “Brooke”. At Doctor’s offices, the library, the licence branch, Grad school, etc. I almost always adhere to the following script:

What’s your name?
Brooke Wilson. I mean, Amanda. Well it might be under Amanda, but I go by Brooke, so maybe check both.

Or, waiting to get my flu shot:

Amanda?
Silence.
Amanda?
Everyone looks around.
Amanda Wilson?
Oh! Me! That’s me. I’m Amanda Wilson.

Over the years I’ve accepted that the name Amanda, although foreign, when combined with Wilson, means me: Brooke. But then I went and got married. Now my name is Brooke Hartman. At Doctor’s offices, the library, the licence branch, work, etc. the script becomes:

What’s your name?
Brooke Wilson. I mean, Hartman. Brooke Hartman. Well, it might be under Wilson. I just got married, so maybe check both.

You see where I’m going with this. I recognize Amanda Wilson. I recognize Brooke Hartman. But God help me when I am at work, on the phone with insurance agents, making a Doctor’s appointment, at the library, at the licence branch, even signing my own paperwork, and someone asks: What’s your name?

Brooke Wilson.
I mean, Hartman. Brooke Hartman.
I mean, Amanda.
Amanda Brooke Wilson.
Wait, Amanda Brooke Hartman.
Okay. Can you just look all these up: Amanda Brooke Wilson Hartman?
I smile, they look at me like I’m an identity thief

So. Here’s the kicker. Post-marriage, my work email is Amanda Hartman 1. Whaaaa? Who the H is Amanda Hartman?

There’s something unnerving about not being able to be yourself at a place you don’t even recognize your own name, am I right?

I’ve come to the following conclusion: Amanda Hartman must be that pudding-face ER social worker who is incompetent and hates those stupid 12-hour shifts.

Me? I’m Brooke. I’m a good social worker, and everyone likes me.

Moving on.
In January, I went to Belize. Big surprise. It had been a year since I was last there doing my professional project. I worked with the only social worker in BZE employed by the Ministry of Education, and provided a compilation manual of coping exercises to be facilitated with kids who had witnessed or experienced violence. I trained a lot of staff, worked with a lot of sad kids, and the project was amazing. The resources transferred perfectly, the improvements were documented on paper, I made great friends and colleagues, and I walked away feeling like I could do that type of work for the rest of my life. Unfortunately, God didn’t get my order right, and I ended up working in a hospital, providing bus tickets and violent crime compensation applications to people who are dealing with things like: gunshot wound to penis.

As expected, the adjustment to my job at the hospital was hard, and the learning curve was steep, and while the work here is equally as important, there are moments I find myself staring at the lady in the waiting room who is demanding an apple and a cab ride, dreaming about this oh-so-meaningful life I once had of facilitating coping-skills groups at schools and providing 1:1 counseling with kids who really show progress and growth, whose grief and trauma indicators decline, like, on paper, where co-workers are encouraging, and my actual developed God-given skills are put to use. Do you know how many times I’ve had to say to people here at the hospital: I’m good at things. Maybe not this, but other things. For example, counseling a 10-year-old whose dad has just committed suicide. Her grades went from Ds to Bs. Or a 5-year-oldo who saw his mom murdered. Or a 14-year-old who is real scared of hurricanes. True, though, I don’t know how to get a nebulizer at 2am on Thanksgiving night.

(Don’t worry, I’m going somewhere with this)

So I go to Belize, and I sit down in my old supervisor’s office, and she asks me about work. I say all the good and exciting stuff first. You know, all that crazy ER stuff. Then there’s a lull. Then I explain how lucky I am to have a job at all. Then I slump a little lower. Then I get all teary-eyed for no reason. Then I admit: nothing I’ve learned or done or created is being used at home. My binders and manuals and therapeutic games are in a tub in my garage. My best skills are untapped. This treasure of a manual I really believe in is going unused when there are a million kids in this city who could benefit. For example: the kid of gunshot-wound-to-penis guy. Or the brother of 12-year-old sudden death girl. I don’t know why I’m here. I don’t know how to not be. This is where God put us. This is where I have to be.

So she gets up and opens the file cabinet. She pulls out like 158 files and spreads them out on the desk. I start opening them one by one. They’re drawings and colorings and narratives and “about me” pages full of all the tools and resources I left there in Belize filled out and helping 158+ kids. She says, “Your work is being used here, Brooke. Every day.”

(Full-fledged tears, you can imagine.)

It appears that God doesn’t need a person in order to use a person. It also appears that sometimes we don’t know we’ve been used, and many times we don’t get to see the outcome. Except me. For an hour and a half, I got to see those files. I don’t even know those kids. I guess my role in the plan was never to be the hands and feet. Maybe I was just the transporter.

I can feel okay about that. I’ll just make J play all my therapeutic games. And I’ll trust that God knows my heart, and knows our needs, and will provide for all accordingly.

(I mean, but could He hurry?)

Stories & Evals from Belize

It took me forever to be able to post this stuff, because I had to get permission from kids, parents, supervisors, etc… identifying information has been changed, details have been switched around, but you’ll get the idea.

Most of the kids we worked with were survivors of some kind of violent crime, usually within the household. Beginning in the second month, I spent half my time training shelter staff, teachers, and my supervisor how to facilitate coping exercises with these kids, and the other half of my time doing actual clinical work with them.

Like mentioned in previous posts, my supervisor was welcoming and eager to learn from me as much as I was hoping to learn from her. We were able to trade knowledge and skills—she taught me about family therapy and cultural differences in Belize, autism, schizophrenia and behavioral issues, and I taught her everything I knew about PTSD and short-term grief and trauma programming.

About a month ago, the kids really started to open up and grasp the skills we were trying to teach them, and it was encouraging to see them progress. But at the same time it was sad to know that termination (for me, at least) was just around the corner, and that A would take over from there. We worked hard at making the transition to A seamless and positive, so I’m sure the kids will continue to grow, and A is happy to implement this specific model. A has had a hard time, though, convincing the Ministry of Ed that it’s important to address the trauma as a precursor to fixing the behavior issues. (Duh, Ministry.)

There are about 50 unbelievable stories I could tell, but they involve things like stabbings and decapitations and really sad kids. So I’ll just give you one really positive one. There were two little boys I was seeing separately, but they were in the same class. Both had been through the program about a year apart, but didn’t know it. They were in trouble for fighting in class. What I didn’t know was that they were fighting with each other, and worse—for talking about each other’s mothers! When the teacher told me this, I asked the boys if they wanted to have a session together (which wasn’t unusual—sometimes I saw the kids in groups—and they agreed). When we started playing the thoughts and feelings game, they found out they had a lot in common. Every time one of the kids answered a questions, the other would say: Hey, I’m the oldest too… I have sisters too… my dad was like that too… me too! Me too! Me too! Playing dumb, I said, “Wow. You guys seem like you could be really good friends! You really have a lot in common…” Throughout the session, they physically got closer and closer together, and by the end of the group, they had their arms around each other. Before they left, I said, “I really want you two to look out for each other. If you see someone trying to fight with your friend, stand up for him—okay?” They nodded and walked off side-by-side. Every week thereafter they asked if they could have their sessions together, and the teacher told me they have been inseparable every since. I asked if I could share their picture as new friends, and they happily agreed:

Teacher workshop in Santa Elena

Just to keep things real, when I was trying to write this last post, I’d already left the village (I’m in Dallas now, after spending a week in San Pedro with my Dad & Kathy), and I just felt like I had nothing to report. I had read everyone’s international posts and felt like my cultural experiences, organizational challenges, work-related activities, new skills and lessons learned were just less impactful and shiny as everyone else’s. I actually said, the other night, when Jeff asked what was wrong: “Kim’s cooler”.

He asked if it was because of her gold medal, but I told him it was because she was doing AIDS stuff in Kenya, and Karen was interviewing child heads of households in Rwanda, and everyone’s work was just so international, really important and meaningful in the big picture. My niche was small, and the impact was limited to this little village in this tiny country. (But I actually re-read Karen’s post and caught the part about her feeling lackluster and tedius…)

I think I’m just emotional about leaving and evaluating. Its hard when things end, even if good things are coming.

At the very least, I finally developed a macro interest when I realized you can address issues forever at the individual level or you could go after the origin on a community level. I think I’ve walked away with a new (renewed) interest in public health and development, which I came to Tulane with but hadn’t really understood. We’ll see what happens.

For more pics on life and work in San Ignacio, click here

For pics of goodbye parties & time in San Pedro, click here

Grapefruit-o-lanterns. They Exist.

Well, there I was feeling all homesick for some fall in the Midwest—pumpkins, leaves, jackets, football—or at least a little Halloween fun in New Orleans, when lo and behold, I walk into the kitchen and they’re all carving grapefruits. They did it just like a pumpkin: cut a little hold in top, reached in and pulled out the insides, then very carefully, using gigantic knives with no handles and teeny little fingers and grapefruits, carved out spooky little faces. Then they put a candle inside, tied some ribbon to either end, and hung them on the doorknobs to greet trick-or-treaters, who don’t come on October 31^st. They come on November 1^st and 2^nd for All Saints and All Souls days. They even have a creepy little version of trick-or-treat: Eshpasha pa la calabera, si no me das te da cagalera.

Translation: Special porridge for the skull, but if you don’t give me, it will give you loose stools. Usually, then, the villagers give the kids some porridge and sweets, realllly wanting to avoid those loose stools.

grapefruit pumpkin 1

carving

grapefruit 4

grapefruit 5

On All Saints Day, they light little candles for the kids and babies who have died, and place the first plate of food they cook on the table next to the candles and wait for the steam of the food to go to the souls of the babies. After about half an hour, they say, “Okay. The souls are finished eating. Now it’s time to eat!”

They also place one plate of food and one little black candle on a chair for the anima soula: the lonely soul. Each person gets a plate of food, including kids who come to the door, and a special plate is always set aside for the lonely soul. The very next day, on All Souls Day, they do the same thing for adults who have died.

Also, we’re out of water again. The water went out Friday night, and by Sunday night—with no clean dishes, no reserve water in the drum and nothing to bathe with, people started asking around. Apparently a pipe broke. I suggested we try to wash some dishes with the maybe 5 liters of water we had left in the drum, but Antonia said it wasn’t clean. She said we have to be careful because these are the times when people, especially ones with babies, are desperate to use any water they can find to wash and cook and bathe, and people start getting sick from the unclean water. Point taken. Taking a shower now costs $2.50 in 1.5L of Crystal water:

water

Update: it poured all day. Everyone ran outside with soap and shampoo and bathed, right there in the front lawn. I really wanted to lay all the dishes out on the grass, too, but I didn’t think of it in time.

Being a tourist in my own city…

So. Things have been kind of busy and spectacular lately. Last last week, Dr. G came from the States to meet my supervisor and do a site visit. She was able to sit down with A and the Mary Open Doors founders, a couple of volunteers, Antonia and the fam, and visit both Faith Nazarene and Santa Familia schools. She also went to PG for a day to find out about possible internship possibilities in the south. Everything went really well, and I think both sides (Tulane & Belize) are excited about the potential internship placements here in the future, which I will henceforth refer to as My Legacy.

We also finally managed to pull off my first training with the staff and volunteers at Mary Open Doors last Tuesday. We’ve been trying to arrange this for 5 weeks, and even though it was an hour late, it happened. Even a client from Mary Open doors sat in on the training and asked if she could come back next week to participate in the therapeutic activities, which I had just thrown in for good measure. I was trying to demonstrate how the program feels to the kids, but everyone accidentally got a lot out of it.

Also, I had a beautiful moment with an 8 year old who hadn’t wanted to participate in the program at all to begin with—she has been very depressed and withdrawn—but she agreed to one session, which I disguised as “art activities” and “games” and “little stories”. At the end of the session, she said she would come to one more session, but no more. At the end of that session, she agreed to one more session, but that’s all. At some point, she started asking which day I was coming back, and would I bring play-dough next time, and can she use the orange pencil case next time instead of the pink one, and can she bring a picture of her dad to show me how their teeth are alike, and could I bring gummy bears instead of chips, and do I want to come to her cousin’s party this weekend? It’s been fun to watch her grow and smile and play and open up a little, and I already feel anxious about starting the termination process. Lucky for all of us, my supervisor A has been involved in these cases from the beginning and will be taking them over after I leave. She’s incredibly competent and caring and I trust that the kids are in good hands entirely. Con permission:

Also… smile… J came to visit. Inez gave up her room for a couple of nights, Antonia and Ricardo and Antonia’s parents welcomed him and then grilled him do death for incriminating information about me, the Chinchilla family took him canoeing and then drove us all to Spanish Lookout in the back of the pick-up truck for ice cream. We also walked up to Mr. Neil’s house, the tallest hill in the village, and Mr. Neil invited us in for a coke on his deck, which has the most spectacular views of San Ignacio.

After a weekend in the village we went to Cahal Pech (a village resort in San Ignacio) and spent a couple of days in town, and also lots of time on the cabana hammock. I introduced him to one of the founders at Mary Open Doors and went on a little walking tour of my day-to-day routine between the office and the school and the Ministry and the French Bakery and the juice guy and the bus stop, and all the other little places I like to eat and shop and check e-mail and sit. We also got to join a trip to Tikal, this old Mayan city outside of Flores, Guatemala. It has over 4,000 structures, including the tallest one in the Mayan world, and more are still being excavated. We saw howler monkeys (which sound like a horrifying combination of chainsaws and dinosaurs) and spider monkeys and toucans and one snake, all in the wild. We had our own private tour of the grounds by a really interesting guide, and I’m still not sure how that happened, but it was great. Mayan Ruins aren’t even my most exciting to-do list items, but I’ve always wanted to see Tikal, and the views and history were amazing.

After a few days in Cayo, we headed to Caye Caulker and, thanks to Hugo, got a free stop at the zoo and lunch at Old Belize. The important thing to know here is we saw jaguars and ate Pirate nachos.

We arrived at Caye Caulker via water taxi just in time for a panoramic view of the island at sunset, from the very top of our discounted low-season gorgeous hotel/condo, which was still being renovated since it just opened in July and tourist season doesn’t start until November. In all the times I’ve been to Belize, I’ve never gone on vacation. But THIS was one of the most spectacular places I’ve ever stayed, and we found it on accident! Two days before we arrived! And it was cheaper than the cheapest Holiday Inn Express! We had the building to ourselves, a sea-facing balcony with a hammock at sunrise, a sunset-facing bedroom over the other side of the island, and a rooftop Jacuzzi with a panoramic view of everything. Also, because it’s still slow season, the island was quiet and calm and sleepy and peaceful. Only a handful of places were open for business and the only sound we heard was an occasional golf cart, water lapping and some island music. It was a perfect recharge. With perfect company. And good food. (Except the cereal we bought from 2007. That was gross).

This week I’m back to the real world. Trying to finish papers, find a job, counsel kids, train volunteers, and begin the process of leaving… one month and I’m home to graduate. Weird.

More pics of San Ignacio: here

More pics of Caye Caulker: here

More pics of Tikal: here

Hillside, PG and Snake Caye

So. After a 7-and-a-half hour ride on the non-express bus from Cayo, across the Western Highway, down the Hummingbird Highway, through the Maya Mountains and down the Southern Highway, through Belmopan and Dangriga and a bunch of little villages like Roaring Creek and Teakettle and Independence, I spent a surprise weekend with Jeff at the Hillside clinic in Punta Gorda.

Thanks to careful and sneaky coordination with the Brinkmans and Dan (one of the nurse practitioners) I got a pick-up from the bus terminal, homemade chocolate-chip cookies, an afternoon with Dan’s family, an introduction to the Jesuit volunteers, dinner with the doctors and a tour of Abby’s house.

Jeff and I got to stay in the Treehouse, and we lucked out on a little excursion with TIDE (Toledo Institute for Development and Environment). The TIDE trip was supposed to be a community event, but no one else showed up, so we had our own personal boat tour of the Rio Grande river, the mangrove Cayes, the TIDE lookout tower, and a burrito-pineapple-chips lunch with snorkeling at Snake Caye. It was beautiful and fun, and totally unexpected.

I may have spent more time on the bus than actually in PG—I haven’t added it all up—but it was a fun and sweet weekend. Thanks for all who helped!

Here are some pics of the weekend, and pics of Independence Day, because I forgot to post a link.

Snacks Facilitate Anything and Everything

I’m kind of embarrassed to admit this, but I guess its part of the process, so I’ll disclose. Honesty and growth, make way. I’m coming.

I spent all morning looking at my classmates’ pictures from India feeling jealous and regretful. There are mountains there, and silk, and friends. Now most of them are back in New Orleans finishing out an easy last semester at places like The Rue and Superior Grill, which sound like heaven to me right now… and I’m still here. In Belize. Again. Still. (I know, I know—Belize? You feel real sorry for me. You know I’m not on the coast, right? I’m in the jungle.)

While familiarity makes things easy and comfortable here, it also takes the new and exciting back to ordinary and routine. The exotic fruits aren’t so exotic—although, coincidentally, I did just eat a guava for the first time today. Rice and beans are just rice and beans, not: Rice and Beans! Cattle stop and stare at me when I hang my laundry. I walk past iguanas and step over roosters and make tortillas and wait for electricity and stockpile water, and never ever wash my underwear with my socks, and brush ants off my bed and eat mangoes and catch parasites and hail bus drivers and sit on stoops and walk up and down giant hills from school to school for work like its nothing. Like those things are normal. If you know me, this isn’t me! My specialty is finding extraordinary things in every day life—unless you’re that crazy life-changing story lady. If you’re her, then, no, you’re right, I suck.

Anyway. India would have been new and exciting. And besides that, I don’t think I was ready to be done with New Orleans yet. When I return, graduation will happen and this part of my life will be over. Why did I decide to spend the last half of it in another country? The work I was doing in New Orleans was good and meaningful, and Belize is always gonna be Belize. Here my work seems like a drop in the bucket. Then I started wondering: why did I think these kids deserved this program more than the kids in New Orleans in the first place? Is it just because they live here and not there? Kids are kids. Need is need. Was I being selfish in wanting to do this? I could have stayed in New Orleans, gone to India for a month, learned a bunch of new things about a new culture, and then continued to help kids in the exact same way I had been, right there. Did I waste this whole semester on something I’ve already done, that doesn’t even really matter in the big picture, when my heart really was in New Orleans all along?

I don’t know. But because I am a social worker, I have been knocked over the head with a variety of coping skills. I told myself there has to be a reason I’m here, and that I just have to trust God is doing something, somewhere, outside my view—that I may never even get to see. Maybe it’s the family I’m paying $100 per week to stay with. Maybe they were having a desperate time with finances, and I was their secret answer to prayer or something. Or maybe there is one specific kid who really needed something this program offers, and for that one kid, all of this will be worth it. Maybe Mary Open Doors or my supervisor were overwhelmed and overworked and kind of just wanted a person to have a Sprite with at lunch to recharge. Who knows, but I decided to be okay with everything because a bad attitude would be like poison, and deciding that there is still purpose for me here even if there’s not makes me feel better. Plus, there was that really undeniable string of events that happened in November… Everyone said: write this down, Brooke. There will be a time in Belize when you say: What am I doing here? and this story will be your proof. Hmm.

BUT.

Then I met the actual kids. Real-life little kids, shy and hyper and adorable and desperate: an 8-year-old whose dad committed suicide last year, four elementary kids whose dad tattooed his own birthmark on their faces, a 7-year-old who saw a knife fight between his mom and grandpa, a 15-year-old who dropped out of school after his friend committed suicide.

It’s like my heart recognized something my brain couldn’t catch up to. In New Orleans, there is a waiting list, a protocol, a budget and a set number of counselors. The same number of kids would have been seen with or without me in 3 months. But in Belize, there is only one school counselor. One school counselor for the entire country. The 7 kids I saw today and yesterday wouldn’t have even been on the radar had Mary Open Doors not said- Brooke, these kids really need help, and had I not said- A, these kids really need help, and had there not been this ready-made program for their exact need. The school system has to focus primarily on behavioral problems in the classroom. There’s no time or manpower to waste on things like grief or trauma—even though the result of those things is behavioral problems in the classroom… but social work isn’t even a legitimate field yet. There are no standards, no associations, no practices, no codes, nothing. My supervisor keeps records for the Ministry of Education only because she wants to and because that’s how she was trained in the States. She has to constantly fight for confidentiality. She makes however many appointments per day she thinks she can fit in, and transportation is always an issue. No one has cars. The Ministry does not reimburse. She covers a hundred square miles, and we walk or take the bus or taxi on our dime. I see kids at 3 schools, and spend half my day walking up and down hills to get there. If she does home visits, she stays for a couple of hours because she knows it could be a couple of weeks before she gets there again. Her caseload is about 50 students. Every time she goes to a new school, she gets another list of 10-15 students she knows she may not even be able to see. Sigh. And yet she gives her absolute best to each family I’ve seen her with…

One thing I feel good about in this realm is that we’ll use the coping skills program I brought to train a team of 6 teachers in Santa Elena to respond to their kids, in addition to training the shelter workers. Maybe those 6 can feed 5,000…

Anyway. Some funny similarities between the kids in NOLA and the kids here—

No kid wants to miss computer lab

Every kid asks for a quarter

Schools never have space, and finding space with privacy is next to impossible

The schedule changes every day

Other kids walk by, stop, and ask if they can come too

Snacks facilitate anything and everything

In short long: I still really want to go to India. And I still miss my friends. And I still miss my little apartment and margaritas in New Orleans. But I trust that something here is happening outside my control, and I’ll gladly pour as many drops as I can into this bucket in the tiny amount of time I have here. Thank you for contributing to this trip if you did, and for believing in the project. I spent all these months convincing you guys this was important and almost completely lost sight of it myself. It turns out grass is everywhere, greener than ever…

So there you have it. The good, the bad and the ugly.

Brooke vs. Flu (vs. color wheel)

I got the flu. (Not the stomach flu—the coughing, fever, swine-ish flu.) I went to the doctor and discovered there is also a bacterial infection in my stomach. Perhaps a visit from my old friends Samantha and Jon? I spent a week in bed eating toast and rice and Dayquil and Nyquil and Cipro. Caye Caulker is closed, schools in Cayo and Belize City are closed and half the schools in PG are closed, because of flu. I had to go to town on Tuesday to see the doctor, and buy some meds and phone credit, ran into my supervisor for 10 minutes, and by Thursday, she had the flu. Everyone has flu. Everything is closed.

In the meantime, rainy season came! It started raining the day after Independence Day and hasn’t stopped. We welcomed the change for a few days, and then got stir crazy, and now can’t do laundry because nothing ever dries. I am still enjoying the cooler temps though…

Laundry is still the exact same.

On Monday, providing flu has passed and schools are reopened and supervisor is healed, I’ll have my first four clients. On Tuesday and Wednesday, hopefully the next 8. The majority are kids who have been through Mary Open Doors and are now in area schools trying to adjust. We’ll see them on an individual basis during the school day—once a week for the next 8 weeks, Children’s Bureau style. No one had really considered seeing the child during the school day, during art or some other enrichment hour, instead of at the end of the day. As noted from years of programming at the Boys & Girls Club, after school is a frustrating time to get kids to sit down and do some more work, even if you throw in a game and a pencil case. My supervisor got permission from the school system and principals, and we’re all excited to see how this goes. She’s anxious to learn from the ideas and resources I’ve brought, and I’m excited to learn from her expertise with families. A volunteer from Mary Open Doors will accompany us to co-facilitate the sessions and learn how to work through the manual for use within the shelter. She’ll take over facilitating halfway through, and my supervisor will continue with the school kids after I leave.

In the village schools my only task is to do a lesson with the Standard 4, 5 & 6 classes on how to write an autobiography. This is so they can enter CFI’s writing contest this fall and be awarded when the CFI comes this spring. No biggie. I thought it would be easy, and I reserved Thursdays exclusively for this purpose. But, as you might have guessed knowing Antonia and/or BZ in general, nothing of the sort has happened. The first Thursday Antonia whisked me off to take pictures of each class and of each building to send to the Ministry of Education for a report. No problem. I insisted on coming back Friday to at least award last year’s winners to generate some momentum toward the project. Somehow I ended up in Standard 3 doing a color wheel with Richard. Not only that, actual color wheels were never even created, because as an art teacher, I suck. They were pages of smeared red or blue paint. In some cases a long brown streak with a splash of yellow. I think the kids missed the point. Antonia came in, looked at me and Richard, who were covered in red paint, looked at the kids who had obviously not learned how to mix colors properly, and laughed about how she sent two perfectly capable people into teach the kids 6 colors, and we couldn’t pull it off. The following Thursday I showed up, and they sent me to build a float for the parade. The following Thursday- flu. Everyone. No autobiography.

Next Thursday: Autobiography, come hell or high water or color wheels or parades or flu.

Fresh

I had some hilarious and insightful ways of recounting the consistent inconsistency of water and electricity in the village, but after 2 days of temps in the lower thousands and no electricity or water, I am fresh out of jokes. And by fresh, I mean not fresh at all. Hot and sweaty and miserable. The water is on for a couple of hours in the morning, and a couple of hours at night. But the night water is a crap shoot, because when it comes on, every one in the village rushes to shower or cook dinner or wash dishes, which leaves one drop per 25 minutes in our little faucet. We walk around all night asking each other, “Is there water yet?” and when the water is on, “Is there pressure yet?”

You know me. I love hot weather. I love Belize. I’ve done this before, many times, and weathered fairly well. But for some reason this time I just can’t cool off. Every day they say, “Today is hot Brooke.” And I say, “Yes, and yesterday was hot.” And they say, “But today is extra hot, Brooke. It’s not usually this hot.” And I just nod, thinking every day feels the exact same hot to me, and I just have this god-given need to strip everything off and sit in front of the fan naked. But then there’s the problem of electricity. We’ve had blackouts in the evenings. Which means in addition to no water, there is also no fan. Which is why I haven’t been sleeping, which is why my immunity is down, and I guess, why I can’t keep any food in me. Or maybe it was the street tacos and papaya juice? I don’t know. I am on a solid diet of soup and oats until further notice.

As for my job, every day I learn a little more about patience, waiting and flexibility. Monday was really profitable: meetings were held, trainings were scheduled, plans came together, clients assigned, letters written, learning goals established, the right people answered the phones at the right times, and the day was full of shade and fans and productivity and calls from boyfriends and moms, and tomolitos for dinner. There was lots of smiling and motivation and hope and excitement. Tuesday, however, I stared at a wall. Then walked from empty building to empty building up and down that giant hill. It’s like everyone in the city got together and agreed to disappear. At the end of the day, 6 hours later, the only tangible thing I could recount having been accomplished was a uniform found for a girl who needed to start school Friday. I suppose for that little girl, Tuesday was a good day. For me, no. By the time I realized nothing was happening and no one would be in the office, I had missed the 1 o’clock bus. The next bus was at 4 o’clock. So I sat and walked and sat and walked for 3 hours and then caught the bus home—which, you should know, always adds 4 layers of dust to sweaty skin, which, you already know, may or may not be washed off when those 8 drops of water come at 7:30. You get the idea. They tell me every day, “Life in Belize is hard, Brooke”. Usually I reply with something like, “Yeah, but you have great social capital or Yeah, but the weather is nice, or Yeah but your limes are delicious.” Last night I nodded and said, “Yes. Life in Belize is hard.” Inside I was thinking: that stupid lime tree that gives such delicious limes pricked me and we can’t get the thorn out.

Sigh. Sorry. I guess I’m kind of complainy today. How about some pictures?

(As if on cue. No pictures on my flash drive. They’ll have to be on the next post!) Monday is Independence Day in Belize. They’ve asked me to judge the parade on Friday…

Brooke? You look like a beggar.

A. I take the 8 o’clock bus every day, and my agency doesn’t open until 9 or 10 or whenever the first person arrives. Lucky for me, an internet cafe is right down the hill, which is why I keep bothering everyone with blog posts. I can only sit on a stoop in the sun for so long before I go pay $2.50 for my hour in the shade with a computer. The same thing happens at lunch, and so I have made friends at the Ministry of Human Development, because they have fans. They are also at the bottom of the hill. The long, hot, steep hill. “You will reduce!” they say of me walking up and down that hill all day long.

B. I forgot to tell you this last time. I have been over the bus routine several times with the family I am staying with and others in the village. I know what time the buses come. I know where to stand. I know where to get off. I am all set. So Monday I felt fairly confident in my bus-catching skills. I woke up an hour early and took my time cooking oats, packing my lunch, picking out my first day outfit, loading my bag for the day, etc. and had everything ready to go by 8 o’clock for the last bus into town. I stood by the door looking far into the distance for that bus. I had seen the 7 o’clock bus pass and the 7:30 bus and both 7:45 buses. Mine would be next. Richard walked out sleepy-eyed and said: Brooke. What are you doing? It is only 7 o’clock. I looked at my watch and realized I was looking at the CST setting. I was an hour early.

(The funny thing is that when the 8 o’clock bus actually came, I was talking to Antonia and almost missed it. She saw it pass behind me a couple of minutes early, ran outside and yelled “Boyeee!” and the bus came to a halt down the road. I had to run after it.)

Also, when I take the 4 or 5 o’clock bus home, many of the high school students take the same bus, so I wasn’t surprised to hear “Brooooooky!” from down the street while I sat on a stoop by the bus lot. Shawn, who likes to think he is one of those extra-cool versions of 16, shook his head and laughed at me from way up the hill. He sat down next to me, which was nice because I had spent all day waiting for people that never came. I was tired, hot and out of water. He said, “Do you want to go on the bus, Brooke? You look like a beggar.”

And here’s the worst part. When I got on the bus, Bryon said: Brooke! A strange thing happen last night. I neva see wah tornado in all of Belize, but last night a tornado came, right here da Cayo! I froze, and vaguely remembered a sleep-talking-walking incident from the night before wherein, during a huge storm, I shook Inez awake and tried to make her get under the bed because in my sleep a tornado was coming. She laughed all morning and told everyone at school. When I got off the bus, they yelled out the window: Brooke, be careful because an earthquake will come tonight at 6 o’clock, and hail will fall from the sky!

We’ve been laughing about that for three days.

I met my supervisor this week, and she was grrrreat. She works for the Ministry of Education and is the only School Counselor in all of Cayo! She seemed worn out just talking about all the need in the district for only her to attend to. I am looking forward to learning from her and traveling to different schools and homes. One boy, she said, was selectively mute. She said no one knew how to make him talk, so people hit him over the head and yelled in his face. They wanted to put him in the special needs program. But she went to his home a few times to play simple games with him like tic-tac-toe, and then progressed to snakes and ladders with the family, and the boy was talking within weeks. She is still assessing what caused him to stop speaking in the first place, but her work seems interesting and never-ending, and she has been very welcoming.

As for the shelter, I spent 4 hours yesterday talking with 3 ladies who’d been through the shelter and are now volunteers. Their stories are hard to hear, and the more I hear, the more depressed I feel about gender roles. Even among well-respected, high-functioning families. Three times today I heard mothers telling their daughter, “No one is allowed to hit you. You have a right…” because the norm in some houses is that they don’t have a right—so much so that many girls have to be taught NOT to tolerate abuse.

In other news, I have not instituted jump rope hour at the Flowers like I promised. It’s just too hot. I really can’t waste clothes on things like exercise :)

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