8.27.2007

Hey everyone... just real quick i wanted to send you our address and our most reachable current phone number:

Silk Grass Village
Stann Creek District
Belize, Central America

011-501-669-2929 or you can try our unreliable cell phone: 011-501-669-8059. Hope you are all doing well! We miss you all! oh, and i'm being kicked off my email, so from now on you can send emails to todds:
toadmckay@yahoo.com.

AND WE OFFICIALLY SWORE IN AS VOLUNTEERS!! at the U.S. embassy. We'll post pictures soon. LOVE YOU ALL!
Ashli ..and Todd

8.22.2007

Butte called...

So it's been a while. We have officially gone to our new site. Perhaps the title will give you an idea of what it's like. You never know what your past expierences will be leading up to..But just like Butte, it is right in the middle of a lot of sweet places. We have been in Belmopan for the past few days. We had to do a hurricane lock down of sorts, but all is well. If you youtube peace corps, you will see what it was like being stuck in a hotel with 64 volunteers. And so with that, here are some picture updates...


Well, here it is. Todd's "office" for the next 2 years. Well that was really bad humor, but you know what I'm saying.


This one is a little out of order... but we were part of a youth rally in Orange Walk. It was quite the event. Todd blended right in.


This is the road on the way to the Mayflower National Park just a coulple of miles outside our village.


And here is proof...Todd and the infamous Mr. Peck himself. Just quite literally cutting out todd's work for the next while with his machete.


This is a waterfall inside the park...


We got to go on this awesome boatride up a river to some Mayan Ruins. There is a huge lagoon when you get there. On the way up the river todd saw a fellow volunteer pop up out of the water holding a rack of fish he had just speared. Small world i guess.


The weekend before we went to our site we stayed in San Ingasio. It was awesome and we visited a meninite town while we were there. You have to cross a river on a ferry to get there.. so todd took the initive and asked if he could take over the manpowered crank and get it across. unfortunately, his arm wasn't as beefy as the workers and he is still recovering. There are only 2 guys that work there and they both do 12 hour shifts everyday... so you can imagine.


We went up to Pine Ridge while we were there and went to a cave and swam in the waterfalls. it was sweet.


Last but not least... My friend Ang was in town!(like it's normal..) and to illustrate what a small country belize is... first i met up with her in Belmopan--on purpose in the middle of country. Then we randomly ran into her a week later in Orange walk which is in the north part of the country. Then the very next day she yelled to us out the window of a bus in Cayo on her way to Guatamala located clear over on the west part of the country. So it goes. It was great.

8.04.2007

Silk Grass Here we come

Today we just got our site assignment, we are headed to a village called Silk Grass, it is just outside of Dangriga, the district town of Stann Creek, it is just off the southern highway, right in the middle of the country. I will be working with Mayflower Bociwina National Park, and ash will be working with Junior Achievements, which is a youth program working on computer, business and pretty everything a youth program would do. Im not exactly sure what i will be doing, probably just working with the park in every aspect from marketing, signs, bring people in, working with the nonprofit that supports the the park and everything i can imagine, we are really excited, to see the site and meet the people there. It is right on the edge of the maya mtns and it should be pretty nice area, we are also rather close to the jaguar preserve, it is a town of about 1000 people with about 60% mestizo, 20% and garifuna and mayan. So it should be interesting, also ash wants everyones home address, so if you could post your addresses on the comment section, we love you all, we will post pictures when we can
todd ash