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

R.I.P. Little guy. . .

Dad, I know you read this so i'm sorry to inform you that i have temporarily misplaced the watch you so generously donated for my trip. It may or may not have fallen off when i was jumping into the waterfall pool, or it may or may not bu under a pile of gravel 20 minutes into the forest. I'm not sure. . . but either way I guess I owe you a watch!

Now that I've got the bad news out of the way i figure i'll share some good news! Belize is amazing. Today we went out a village called Steadfast, where the Engineering team a couple years back did the water filtration system. We went up there to see the system, and we're going to be doing some improvements on it. Basically it was 4 gravel filters leading to 4 sand filters leading to the village, but the gravel never really worked so we're going to replace the gravel with sand and make 8 sand filters. So as you can see from the picture below, we did some shoveling today! We used the gravel to make a more defined and less slippery pathway to the filtration system. So it worked out nicely because we didn't waste it!

Then after that we went to this beautiful waterfall! It had cliffs you can jump off of that were about 10-20 feet high. I'll put the videos on facebook when i get home so i don't terrify my mom! But it was gorgeous, and definitely a nice refresher from the pools of sweat we were making from working.

This is an opportunity of a lifetime and thank you to everyone that helped make it happen for me. No complaints here, other than the fact that we skipped lunch so i'm a little hungry. But no big deal because i'm off to get some now!

I feel like i should have a funny story for ya'll so you could laugh or have something interesting to read other than my witty/suspensful titles . . . ah oh well. I really hope noone thought something actually died from this posts title. . .lol

Alright we'll I'll post again soon!

-AB

When in Belize....

So I'm already using up the "When in Rome" quote, but that's alright. I'll have to come up with more titles later.

Anyways! I'm here in Belize! It's absolutely gorgeous, as you guys can tell. The top picture is of the beach that's about 2 minutes away from our hotel. The second picture is of the coast from the roof of the Chaleanor hotel. It's an amazing country.

Today we recieved a tour as well as some awesome breakfast. Some bread cakes with beans and fruit. Our tour was around the city led by some Peacework helpers. We were shown the markets and the good restaurants, rivers, and of course the beach. lol Then after some lunch of sweet and sour chicken with the engineering team, we went to the market and looked around. For the afternoon we have some meetings and then dinner. Not too shabby if you ask me.

But the town is wonderful and everyone here is super nice. I've thoroughly enjoyed everything here so far. I'm super excited to work with our teams and the Dangrigans. Yeah, it's a little hot... but i wouldn't consider us to be "roughing it." We're very blessed with some well-known comforts like a hotel and a sea breeze.

Well more to come, as always. I just want to say thanks for everyone keeping up with this blog! It really means a lot to me. Talk to ya'll soon!

-AB

Wonderful!

So I'm sitting here (on my couch) (correction: on a friends couch) (cuz we had to stay in Fayetteville for class) (but i dont live in Fayetteville) (so i had to stay on a friends couch) writing my pre-departure paper for the Belize trip over the readings off of blackboard and wouldn't you know.... blackboard goes down!! I seriously hope that that is not an indicator for the trip. . .

Anyways! I'm still stoked for the trip. We've been doing alot of planning and coordinating for the trip the past three days, and learned quite a bit about how Belize works and how to have the best impact we can while we're down there. I'm just super excited we get to work with everyone down there. I know, at least for me, that it's going to be an experience. I'm going to have to embrace it and learn from it, so that it will have the biggest impact on me as it can!

We leave on Monday, so not too long from now. I'm not even going to lie. . . I'm totally not packed. Since i've been in Fayetteville, and my life's worth of clothes are in Tulsa, I haven't even considered what i'm going to bring yet. luckily, i'm not too worried about it.

Well i should be updating you guys from Belize next time I post! I promise i'll have more regular posts from now on, seeing as how i'm leaving in 5 days.

Ya'll are awesome,
Adam