In The Beginning

The idea of moving to Belize didn’t feel like a reality until I finally booked my plane tickets, and even then it felt surreal up until the moment I had to make my way from the Tim Horton’s to the security gate in Saskatoon’s tiny airport. Thankfully flights went well and, as scheduled, I hop off the plane at 11:40, January 15, in my jeans and hoodie into a humid twenty some degrees. (Yes, that’s positive!) James Brown, the pastor of the church attended by, and mostly composed of, the King’s Children’s Home members, is waiting outside Belize City’s even tinier airport to drive me back to Belmopan, where I’ll be living for the next couple months.

The countryside here is fabulous; kind of a small town feel, but with flourishing foliage and lush green mountains off in the horizon. About an hour later we pull into Belmopan. At a population of only around seven thousand people, it feels a little more like Hepburn than an independent country’s capital city. There is one road, ring road, that forms a loop around the town and accesses pretty much anywhere you’d need to go. It’s like our own mini Circle Drive ha! We pull into the Kid’s Home and after a few quick introductions I’m left to find my way around and meet some of the kids. I feel somewhat scattered and out of place, but soon some of the little ones have coerced me into giving multiple piggybacks and building cakes out of gravel on the seesaw (Edgar looks at me like I’m a little crazy when I refer to it as a teeter-totter). Dj, one of the preschool-aged boys clambers up into my arms, pops his thumb into his mouth and begins to order me around. He’s so cute that I simply comply. It feels like a slow process, but I’m beginning to connect names to the faces and plant the first seeds of the relationships I’ll be forming with these kids.

In the evening I head home to the volunteer house a few minutes away, unaware of the roommates I share living space with. There is a family of seven staying until Saturday, but more so I mean my new friends: cockroaches, spiders, one scorpion (previously dealt with, no worries) and newly discovered, gecko’s! (or some type of small lizard anyway. They are on my team though-they eat cockroaches). Aside from the roomies, I haven’t got anything to complain about. The house has much more space than I’ll ever need, cable TV, locked gate, giant backyard, most appliances, etc. After a long day of flights, new sights, new names and faces, playtime, supper (I’ve decided, once and for all, to officially declare Rice and Beans as Belize’s national food item,) and energetic devotions, I hit the hay at 8pm. I’ve found Belize to be the cure for my previously nocturnal lifestyle.