where am i????

i don't think i previously mentioned it but where i am explains why i have just short of fallen off the map of the blog world... 
i'm in the fantastic, hot, delicious, green, beautiful, ancient country of 

 yayyyyyyyy


and, believe it or not, i am traveling all be my poor little lonesome....  but i have been to blessed to meet and travel, although momentarily, with some really cool people. 
i have been keeping notes on facebook so i will transfer them here in groups  of  few days at a time...


so here's day 1, may 11, through today... enjoy!

hangin out in pradise

by Julianne Smoak on Wednesday, 11 May 2011 at 18:27

well hello all you lovely peoples!

(please pardon misspellings.. there is no spell check in belize (; )

 the breeze is cool and the sun is setting it's glowy orange self down into the sea...  tomorrow morning i go to volunteer work!  

so after i parted ways with darling daddy at the airport, i proceeded o my gate and waited... sorry i couldn't call everybody before i left... katelyn rose was hogging my charger last night so my phone was dead as a dornail... so i juiced it up a bit, just enough to let it be known that i had made it through securiy and was safely waiting on the other side.  upon bording i make my way to my seat adn find that my seatmate for the next hour and a half will be my art history teacher... no joke.  she was headed to new york and then athens for the greece module.    but after the initial chatting about travel, she occupied herself with wtching the Sopranos... so didn't see her as liking that kind of show...  after (finally) getting off the ground i read about half of one of my books.. it was that interesting.  we get to the atlanta airport early i shimmye on to my next gte... getting there about 45 minutes before boarding time... 

on my flight from atlanta i got to sit by this super sweet lady who is originally from belize but has lived internationally most of  her life, only coming back occasionlly to visit the 10 of her 14 siblings that still live here.  she hasn't been back for 2 years...   we had a really nice visit and we made it throught the airport just dandy.  she was met by here sister and brother and i was met by a taximn named john... super nice guy.. comes to the states andbuys cars...  he introduced my to anther guy named jhn that works for the water taxi.. (his brother from another mother) and they got me and me luggage set up for the taxi... this nice lady named delores or something helped me get my ticket and then french braided my hair (which has stayed pretty tight all day)    

on the water taxi i got the listen to the two peple behind me talking ... it was interesting till about halfway through and they started talking politics... i'm all the way down here and i can't get away from it!

as soon as i get to the island, i meet interesting people...

first there's this youngish guy, javier(HA-ve-yer), who was cleaning a/his boat and is really ncie and helpful

then there was the check in guy at bellas... very chill guy

amidst my meandering about the island i meet randm nice people ...

afater about an hour of wandering around and finally finding the school, empty, i wander back into town and pop in at Yuma's... they only had one bunk for one night and a private room open... must be rather popular....

i had to buy some water there because i was rather parched... my mango wasn't very jiuicy, made it nice for eating     whole walkig bu not nice when all you've had to drink the whole day was a can of V8 fusion and a small cup of fresca...

any way.. i made a loop all the way around the other end of he island and on my way back through town i see  poster for the Ocean academy science fair... that was happenign right then.. (that's why nonevwas at the school) so i trotted on down to the library.. but by te time i got there the students had all cleared out.  hwever i dd get to meet Heidi!   she's is super nice and enthusistic.  so we tlked a little about whati could do with them while i was there.  i lso got to meet another one of the volunteers  who is lso staying at bella's so in the morning we'll head over to the school.  

on my wy back accross town.. again... i met  french photographer who is here on commission from the belize tourisim board.  he introduced himself as "harry" but it took him a minute to get it out..    apparently people tend to not be able to fit his real french name in their mouths but he was rather impresed with mine)

then there was this other random guy who decided to walk and talk while on his way to work... 

then here i am!!  i cam eback here to do what i do... just hangin out :)

love yall ill try to update tomorrow

first day of school

by Julianne Smoak on Thursday, 12 May 2011 at 15:53

after waking up at 5:30 this morning (i went to sleep around 8...) i just filled time untill time for school.  mostly i've done some documentation stuff.  i also sat in with the form 4 class (the seniors) while Heidi talked to them about putting together something to show appreciation to contributors.  i'm going to be helping with that, on the creativity end...   i'll also be helping a little with graduation... this is going to be their very first graduating class :)  

it is very interesting... rather like school stateside, only on a much smaller scale... there are about 60 students... 5 are graduating this year.  

for lunch i went with elysa, the other volunteer that is at the school, for lunch and then went back... didn't do much.. i was supposed to sub in a reading class but they got it switched with spansh ... sooo not gonna happen.

 so now i'm back at the hostel... probably make it another early night... 

tomorrow is teacher's day... where you lovely people are that usually means that the teachers will take the day off and go fishin shopping, or get a massage... here it means they are all ging down to Heidi's and having a party on the roof and going swimming in the split :)  

oh i ran into that french photographer today... his name is something more like  Ieurant... i made him spell it and everthing but i still forgot... ah well

mm k that's all for today... boring i know... sooo 

laters! love yall lots!

how to get there from here

by Julianne Smoak on Sunday, 15 May 2011 at 01:19

today was yet another early (6:15ish) morning... blasted sunshine...   i stayed in bed till almost 7 but didn't really go back to sleep.  after i finally got up i got ready to go to Guinea Grass to see the Joiners.  i had taken my luggage over to Heidi's place till i got back so i just had my backpack.  i dropped ff the bike i borrowed from the school at Heidi's and moseyed on down towards the docks.  on the way i passed a fruit stand that supposedly has orange juice that is practically addictive it's so amazing, but they didn't have any yet.  so i went to see what time the water taxi was supposed to leave.   well i wasnt going anywhere for another 45 minutes so i sauntered back to the fruit stand to get something for breakfast.  the lady told me that she had other fruit juices (i didn't think to ask about other juices...) so i had watermelon juice (basically preed watermelon) for breakfast.... soooo fantastic!  perfectly cold, slightly icy, totally amazing :)

on my water taxi ride i was also traveling with Heidi and her family (husband and two darling daughters, 2&5) and the math tacher from school.  he has an eyebrow ring... welcome to the island :)  (however none of the guys, teacher and students, are allowed to wear piercings at school)   after a lovely water taxi ride i caught a taxi to the bus station... after i got in the car the taxi driver went back inside the wter taxi station and found someone else going to the bus station... becuse they are just that way... howeveri rather thankful because i didn't have enough small belize money and the driver couldn't break a us20.. or so h said... so he stood  there complaining about that the other guy and i were wasting his time and gas trying t figure out what we owed the driver...  finally the nice man pid my fare and when we gpt inside i changed my 20 with a vendor and bought him  sandwhich and we called it even.  

so i go sit down and wait for my bus... when it finally comes i meet this guy from spain that is also headed to orange walk so we sit together on the bus and have a nice chat... then he fell asleep and i read.

when we go to Orange Walk he waited with me untill just before haley picked me up.  he was headed to som eruins that were just up the river.  nice guy.

when haley pickes me up she has with her Josie, her daughter and one of the girls from here who is like 23 or something but looks younger.  we stopped at this little place and got this amazing shrimp, bell pepper, cilntro salsa stuff that you spoon onto a chip and then eat it... so good.  then i pickd up some of those mini bananas (apparently called apple bananas) those were good too.  after we got on their rad this interesting animal crossed in front of us... looked  bit like a lemur... whatever it is they call it a "squash"...  

after i got here i kinda crashed... then got up, met sis joiner, took a shower and then went to sleeep again untill time for church (they do saturday and sunday night because a lot of people work sunday)

church was good... they had a guest preacher... he preached in spanish.. it's strange getting the message through the interpreter :)  i got tons of hugs and cheek kisses... mostly from the little kids, they love me... their boy/girl ratio is like 1:6... lucky guys.   

after church we picked up these great little chicken boat things... great little things :)

anyway, i had a entertaining visit with sis joiner and the other girls staying here :)

well bon nuit!

by Julianne Smoak on Sunday, 15 May 2011 at 13:45

here the sun comes up at like 5...  this totally inhibits any morning leisure time :/

so Ayani and i head off to catch the bus into town to meet her contacts for interviews.   but first things first... for breakfast we had "tacos" which were basically chicken and cabage toquitos that havn't been fried... they were really good

the first guy workes a radio station and we had a good talk (he did most of the talking) about the challenges that local bands face and the role of radio in belize.... that's the jist of it anywy :)  from there we walked  little ways accross town to the house of Lucio Alcosar, the man who wrote the national Independence song of Belize.  i got to vist with him for a while. he's very nice and enthusiastic and talented.  he can really tear it up on the guitar   :) the title of this post comes from the lyrics to one of his songs that coined the proverb "don't wait untill a man's dead to say that he was good"

from there we walked, bused, and hitch hiked back home.  

we have service at 6 tonight so i'll go take a nap i a little bit and then start getting ready :) 

sorry i know it's short but i didn't do much today...

tata