And of course. . .

Once I get to a place with constant internet connection, my computer breaks. I'm not sure what happened but my wifi just wouldn't work. No fun.

Well, I am officially back in the states now. I had a wonderful time at San Pedro on Ambergis Caye. We did quite a few things while we were there. We went diving again on a beautiful reef dive, and i saw an octopus on a night dive later that night. We did a catamaran sailing trip where were snorkeled with sharks and rays. I don't have pictures because they're on my underwater camera but the sharks were about 5-6 ft long and you could hold on to their tails and ride them! That was solid. Also on the sailing trip we stopped at Caye Caulker, so I got a round two of the Caye. (Caye is pronounced "key" btw). It was very relaxing and a fun way to wrap up Belize. Here is a little picture of the beach we were at:

To tell you the truth though, I am very much missing Belize, and will always miss it. This trip was an experience of a lifetime that I was so fortunate to have. I'm thankful for everyone that helped me go on the trip, and for everyone I met, encountered, and got to know. I'd like to think that the University of Arkansas continued to keep making a difference in the life of some Belizeans, while they completely blew my mind away with their compassion and culture.

The next time you see me please ask me about the trip and i will share with you all of my memories, experiences, and scars. Yes, scars. I went kayaking and the waves tipped me over onto some coral and destroyed my stomach (it looks like a tiger clawed it) sliced the underside of my toe and hand, and left what i like to call "sea splinters" in my hand that I now have to dig out with a safety pin. lol

Anways, I guess this will be my last post as I continue onto the real world of trying to find a job and getting ready for the next school year. Thank you to all of you who kept up with my blog! At one point I think my blog was the most viewed for the Arkansas Study Abroad blog program. I appreciate all of your support and can't wait to talk to all of you and tell you about my trip in person!

-AB

All good things come to an end. . . unfortunately!

So maybe you know, and maybe you don't, but the Belize 2012 trip officially ended yesterday on the 10th. I had such a great time and so many experiences that I would have never been able to have if it wasn't for this trip.

The culture of Belize is simply one of the most eye opening experiences i've had in my life. The love and compassion of the people of Belize speaks for itself and requires no words to explain it. I have not done it justice by the trivial blogs that i've posted, it's something i hope everyone gets to come and experience for themselves.

As for everyone on the trip, I'm so glad i met each and every one of you! So many people doing so great things. I wish I could tell a story of everyone so that way everyone can "make the blog" that I held over peoples heads in attempt to get them to do something crazy. The one that wanted it though is Mr. Ryne Pruitt. Idk if he reads this but building the tourist booth from scratch was awesome. Every single person though on the trip did awesome things. Thank you for all of you who helped out with my water survey as well.

So I'm writing this like i'm back in Tulsa but as some of you know i'm not. I'm currently hanging in a woven hammock on the beach in Amburguis Caye, and probably wont move for the next 5 days. lol just kidding.

So I guess that's it for the Belize study abroad trip. I will post more of what i'm doing while i'm here with my family, and maybe some stories of the past three weeks i wasn't able to tell. So check back in sometime tomorrow and i'll have another post!

thanks guys!
-AB

Now i know why

adults go to bed at 9 o'clock at night. Because getting up at 7am and working hard all day is exhausting! lol

Today was a great day. We got a handful of surveys done. And by handful i mean 17 1/2. And by the 1/2 i mean we got kicked off a property because she didn't want us there anymore after hearing us ask the questions. But all is well! We just left while she was yelling at us about the "filthy contaminated water" and telling us to "tell that raggoty mayor to clean it up" even though that's not what we were asking about! lol Then we went to the tourist booth and helped out. I should have before and after pictures of those tomorrow so you can see the amazing work that Ryne has done.

So i feel that i've talked about the food, the weather, the people, our projects, and our excursions here. I think i've given a pretty good description of how people react to us as students and some stories about that. Are there things i should be talking about? Maybe some things I should mention before the trip wraps up? If you have something you want to hear just email me at aburk@uark.edu and i'll talk about it.

I think something i'm going to mention today is the lengths people will go to to talk to you. Specifically, they'll sit through a 20 minute survey about water just to wait and talk to you at the end. I think it's astonishing that they have the patience to sit through a survey, and at the end they, most of the time, want to ask where we're from and what we're doing. Thats a solid 30-40 minutes out of their day they take to talk to us. Idk about you guys but i know i would slam the door shut if someone in the U.S. tried to give me a survey. Maybe we should be willing to talk to more people more often?

Let me know what you guys want to know and i'll talk about it, or at least give my experiences!

-AB

So the stanky leg looks like people are trying to get dog poop off of their shoes...

quote of the day brought to you by Miss Fallon.

We almost died last night! The storms here were absolutely insane. Myself and Brendan were out on the balcony at 3:30am because we were woken up by the storms and lightning. So a lightning bolt stuck about 200 yards from us, and we thought to ourselves that we better be careful. So a couple minutes later one strikes between us and the cost:

Which you can see from this picture is less than 100yards away and we went running back to our room "like little girls" according to Brendan. It was crazy though. The storms here the past week are nothing like i've ever experienced. They're loud and right on top of us. Pouring down rain and thunder as loud as dynamite. It's awesome.

Also thanks for bearing with me on the pictures! I feel as if i use unrelated pictures (like above) to describe the actual stories. But thanks for understanding.

This trip is coming to an end though, and I've enjoyed every minute i've spent here. The people here are an awesome people and i've loved talking to them. Myself and a team of about 10-12 have been working hard on the surveys and talking to these Dangrigans has been an experience in and of itself. They are so warm and welcoming. I know i've mentioned this all before but it just amazes me everytime I experience it.

-AB

So the internet has not been too good here!

5/30/2012

We had a full day at work! And i'm super excited! Basically we put these:

 Into these:

 And filled it up with gravel until it looked like this:

Then started to pour sand on it as seen on the bottom right of the picture until the tank was full and that's the water filter! We had a long, physical day at work but it was very cool. We're going back out tomorrow and it will be another full day hauling sand, but I'm very excited about it!

5/31/2012
Well, I started blogging yesterday and then the internet cut out on me so i wasn't able to post it so i just gave up and hung out with people. But like i said yesterday we had another full day! We ended up finishing filling the 4th tank with sand, backflushed the system to clean it out and are done with that part of the project. Now all we have to do is make the system into parallel and then we're good to go!

But the story of the day! Myself, Colby, Anna, and Caitlan, go to the store right around the corner because the girls wanted some water. So myself and Colby are hanging outside while the Anna and Caitlan are getting water and this dude goes up to the girls and says something along the lines of "I dont mean to disrespect you ladies but you guys are queens. You guys are pretty!" So they say thanks and start walking out of the store and we think that's going to be the end of it. So then he comes out and starts telling us about the Garifuna culture and how he's Garifuna. Halfway through though he's all "you guys got some water, well i got something i'm sipping on" and holds up his water bottle and it's half full of alcohol. So he shows us these earrings and necklaces that he's made and essentially gives them to us after trying to convince me I should take the earrings. This dude is a little intoxicated, not too much but a little. Then this guy that's in uniform from a telephone company comes up and starts talking to us and is all "This guy worked for us, he's a real nice guy!" essentially backing up this tipsy dude. So then the original guys is all "I'm cones, like ice cream." lol Then we said goodbye and left. Moral of the story: if a guy named Cones introduces himself to you, talk to him. He's hilarious, will give you stuff, tell you about his culture, and say some inappropriate things I can't quite mention on the blog. lol

In other news I got word from Dr. Soerens today that the water survey that I was heading up is now officially back on. So now we're going to have a week to do this instead of 3 weeks! lol But I'm very excited. I'm hoping that we'll able to get the best numbers we can within the time frame we have. I know alot of people that are willing to help out so I'm pretty confident we can get some done.

So my culture insight of the week that that Belizeans are proud of Belize and you better not talk bad about it. I'm very confident in saying that I haven't heard a true Belizean talk bad about Belize the entire time I've been here. On the contrary, I've heard only pride in Belize. I'm not talking about the Texas cocky pride, but true pride that comes from the heart. Specifically a gentleman named Tony. Tony runs Billy Barquedier National Park, where our water filter system is. We've been talking quite a bit since i'm out there most days, and I can just tell that he loves where he is from and loves Belize. He takes pride in his career for caring for the jungle and the park, and he puts it's needs before his own. I'm simply blown away by this because if you talk to me I will talk trash about Texas and Oklahoma and anywhere I've been. Tony, however, is proud of Belize and can sit and talk for hours about it and you can tell that it is his home and that he feels very comfortable here. I just thought that it was something worth mentioning that Tony is a prime example of a true Belizean. Prideful in his heart, caring and hospitable by nature, and loving in his soul. I recommend anyone wanting a true experience to come to Belize, I promise you won't be disappointed.

Anyways, I hate to make it such a short week with the blogs, but we're off on another excursion to San Ignacio this weekend. Again, I won't be taking my computer so I will have to tell you guys about it when I get back!

Thanks again for keeping up with these! I don't know exactly who does but I know how many people come to my page and I really appreciate ya'll keeping up with it so thank you!

-AB

6/4/2012
 Wow guys i'm so sorry! I haven't been able to get on the internet since wednesday. Hopefully ya'll kept reading until this point.

I had alot of fun in San Ignacio because we did the ATM cave tour and it was awesome! We went about 600 meters into an old Mayan cave and saw where they did Mayan rituals. We had to travel in, going around rocks and stalactites and stalagmites that were gorgeous because they were crystalized and shiny. We had to go through really tight spaces, and swim at some points. And the water was freezing! It was probably in the 60's but it was beautiful. Then we had to climb up these rocks to get to this room where they think the Mayans worshiped, did rituals, and made sacrifices. It. Was. Sweet. There were pots everywhere, and even bones! There was one that they think it was a girl, but her hand clearly had been cut off before she was sacrificed because it was a clean cut in her bones. Oh man, it was awesome. Unfortunately a tourist dropped a camera on a skull three weeks ago so they dont allow camers in so i have no pictures. But in all seriousness, you haven't lived until you've done the ATM tour in Belize. It's amazing.

Well i'm sure it's long enough so i'll post more later to give you a break from reading. Sorry it's been a while since I posted last. Hopefully this week will be better!

-AB

Weekend Excursions:

Hi!
Thank you guys for holding out for the weekend while we were having fun at Caye Caulker. Man it was a blast! I went scuba diving, then hanging out and getting some good food and some shopping. It was a nice and relaxing weekend. Here's a pic of me right before we took off to dive:

"Hey Adam, what is life like in Belize?" you may ask. Well let me tell you. It's different. I think one of the biggest differences is the confidence that Belizeans have about things gettting done, and not worrying about a time period. That's something that i've felt is that they get alot of bad rep about is being late for stuff and not showing up, But I think it's a very neat thing to not be stressed and enjoy the things that come up throughout the day rather than getting stressed about one specific thing.

I also wish we (myself included) relaxed more like Belizeans do. My experience here has been one of enjoying the simply things like doing absolutely nothing but sitting on a balcony and enjoying the breeze. I feel that i don't do that as much because i'm always worring about one thing or another. And sunscreen and bug spray are the perfumes, at least for us visitors. lol But seriously, i've really enjoyed everything here. The people are so inviting and random people will say hi to you on the street and ask about your day. Also bicycles are a big thing here.

The story for the weekend though: So we're on our way back from Caye Caulker, and all 56 of us are piled in this ferry that takes us to Belize city. So we're crusing along and all of a sudden we just stop. One of the captians comes down and tells us that an engine broke down! However, there are three engines so we still had two working ones but it wasn't enough power to haul everyone back. Luckily, another one of the ferrys departed at the same time as us, so some people went back on that one. I, of course, wanted to ride on the broken one so i could stretch out, which led to me sleeping. But it took an extra 45 minutes to get back. It was crazy.

One more and then i'm done. So i'm scuba diving, cuz that's the cool thing to do, and i bring along my underwater camera. So after the hour long boat ride to an atol (little island thingy) by the reef, we jump in and get about our scuba diving business. So i'm chilling at about 80 feet and all of a sudden i hear a loud pop. I thought someone hit my tank or something but noone did so i didn't think anything of it. So I go to take a picture of some cool sea stuff and realize that my camera has caved in on the backside. So i start wondering, how deep can my camera go? Well, the answer is it's good to a depth of 35 feet; not 80. lol So then it didn't work for a while until we got back up to 60 feet and was sketchy about working the rest of the 3 dives. So i'm hoping all of my pictures develop because I got some cool pictures! We saw an Eagle Ray, barracudas, lobsters, starfish. It was insane.

Alright i'm finally done. Here's a picture of the coast to lead ya'll out. I'll post again soon!

-AB

Don't touch it!!

Hey guys!

So today was a pretty slow day. Basically all of the projects were getting all of the final plans together and ordering stuff. I ended ordering stuff with Brendan for bleachers for a basketball court. Then I went and helped out the business team to build a park.

So the title of this blog is from the park. The business team are building a playground so they were mixing concrete and setting posts to build a fort. So, of course, all the children came out and hung out with us, which was adorable. But, all the kids wanted to hang on the polls, but the concrete wasn't set so we had to keep telling this kids that they couldn't touch the polls, and then we guilt tripped them by saying that if they touched the polls and they fell over they wouldn't get a park. I left a dude name Irick in charge of making sure the rest of the kids didn't touch it. So i guess the business team will see if they set right on Monday.

Like I said, unfortunately this week has been slow with work on getting everything together. I don't think the water survey is going to happen. Dr. Soerens said it was "on it's last breath." Which is okay. Yeah I would have liked to head that up, however it gives me an opportunity to help any project that needs help which is also valuable. But there's a plan for everything so we'll just let it ride!

Still no funny stories. I guess I'm boring?? lol Anyways we're going to Caye Caulker tomorrow until Sunday and I am not taking my computer, so unless i hijack someone else's I won't be blogging until Sunday, but I will give you all a wonderful overview of everything then! and maybe some pictures, if you're nice to me.

Hey guys feel free to comment and stuff like my awesome sister Amanda did! don't be shy. Liz: how's my grammer? I'm trying to be proper. lol to a certain someone with the initials RP: i'm calling you out. This weekend at Caye Caulker could be your chance to make it in my blog! (sorry to everyone who doesn't understand that. it will be explained later)

Alright this is long enough. I'm off to bed. Goodnight, and as always: ya'll are awesome.

-AB