Confirmation!

Confirmation was in Santa Teresa this year. We had 15 confirmants so I knew it would be worse than Christmas, me having too much food to eat that is. I wasn't invited to all the houses even though I most likely could have gone. I won't tell you how many bowls of caldo I was served or how much meat I brought home, but I do remember each time I left one house I thought to myself while walking to the next, 'I'll just tell them I already ate, they won't be offended, for sure they'll understand..." Didn't happen, instead one time I must have been actually forming the words with my lips for a practice because as my mouth was open, a bug flew in. That shut me up, not because it grossed me out to swallow a bug, but I coughed it up to spit it out as there was absolutely no room for him in my stomach. My favorite part was witnessing the godmother/godfather treatment and the exchange of thank yous when they left. I was a little nervous to go to the first house since I didn't want to intrude. My only reason for choosing what house to be first was location, wanting to go from one side of the village to the other. Luckily, I knew the godfather a little bit and he welcomed me inside, "Ok'an comad" (short for comadre, what the parents call their child's godmother) was what he said, asking me to join him, so I guess I was a step-in godmother for a day. If anything, it made me feel more comfortable. Even after being here a year and a half, there are still times I'm reminded I don't belong completely. It's at these times I really miss my family. Anyways, back to "comad...compad..." I love how they add that to every sentence when speaking with each other and how godparents are treated with high respect here. The relationship is beautiful.

Keep GLOWing

Wow! Time is really getting away from me. Only seven months left in Belize! Ay yi yi! So much has been happening, I don't know where to begin catching you up on life in Santa Teresa. One thing I'm most excited about is the GLOW Club. I had four girls go to camp last year so I was a little discouraged when we weren't meeting regularly once the school year started again. We had a hard time organizing ourselves for the first meeting, but once together, found a focus. The girls were interested in visiting a neighboring village so I told them in order to go they must raise money. I knew I would not be in the village the following weekend but told the girls I knew they could sell cakes by themselves. Which they did!! I was so proud of them. Every Saturday of February we sold cakes and let me tell you, there girls are entrepreneurs, coming up with ideas of other things to sell since the people might get tired of cake. They even had the idea of asking for donations from the tourists that come on Wednesdays (sadly,this was vetoed by the Chairman of the Village Council) and brought up to me wanting to fund raise at the football marathon that happened this past Tuesday. Go girls! We have decided though that every Saturday is quite much, so instead we'll fund raise every other week, but will still meet the other Saturdays for activities such as playing at the field, picking up trash, and assisting elders. Oh, and thy are pretty much planning their own trip to San Benito Poite, things they want to do, what they want to learn, transportation, food, lodging, etc. The expense won't be too great so we might be able to send a couple girls to Camp GLOW again in Cayo (this year each girl needs to raise $100) and or course in my mind we'll make enough money to start a scholarship fund for girls going to high school. Talk about empowerment! But of course, our first purchase, other than ingredients to make the cakes we well, will be a football for the club to have as their own. I hope the girls know how proud I am of them.