Peace Camp 2010

Beginning on July 5th and ending on July 15th, Anthony assisted two other volunteers with the first ever Peace Camp at The George Price Centre. The George Price Centre for Peace and Development is a non-profit organization established in honour of George Price and his lifelong devotion to the peaceful development of Belize and its people. The aim of the Centre is to preserve the legacy of this National Hero and to inspire individuals, regardless of race, colour, creed or political persuasion, to promote the message of peace and development for Belize, its wider Region and the World.The camp was held each morning and had over 25 kids (8-11 years old) from all over Belmopan participate in various activities and lessons that taught concepts related to developing effective conflict resolution skills and techniques.

PEACE Camp – (Preventing, Engaging and Addressing Conflict Effectively) Sessions served as a foundation to useful, practical conflict resolution skills that kids can apply to their every day lives and also hopefully take back to their schools and families to further develop the abilities and ideas of those around them in dealing with conflict in a positive and effective manner. The camp was chock full of full of fun as we had the kids doing all types of crazy icebreakers, playing silly games, and acting out an endless number of role plays. We've posted a lot of photos below from the camp and hopefully they'll speak for themselves. It was a long couple of weeks, but definitely very rewarding. By the end of camp we all really felt that things went well considering it was completely developed from the ground up by only a few of us over the course of 3 or 4 weeks. The piloting process proved to be effective in helping to work out the kinks for future session (the second camp will take place July 26th and run fopr twop weeks as well). The best part about working at summer camp is that the kids continue to keep us young. If interested you can also read more about the George Price Center for Peace at www.gpcbelize.com

It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year... it's Mango Time!

Yes, folks, it is mango season once again. It has been for about a month now and we are basking in the joy of daily mangoes with breakfast, lunch, dinner and in between. Fortunately, this is yet another abundant season and mangoes are everywhere and at a great price. We have a mango tree, so we are not lacking in mango selection and variety.

There are more than 1000 different varieties of mangoes throughout the world and we definitely have many different types in Belize. We can’t tell which is which (we kind of have the slipper mango and black mango down, but then sometimes there are black spots on slipper-looking mangoes, so who knows!), but we pretty much have not found one we didn’t like. There are certainly those we like more than others, but if you offer us a mango, we will eat it!

Anthony makes a delicious mango crisp and I’ve been researching other mango recipes so we don’t let any mangoes go to waste – that would simply be sinful!

Here are some of the mangoes we have been fortunate enough to enjoy during the past month and will enjoy for a couple more. We are quite thankful for another fruitful season since the rains of 2008 made that year a bad one for mangoes. I sometimes wonder if our decision to stay longer had something to do with the mangoes (and avocado season for that matter).

First, take a look at our tree:

Lee baby mango: 14 March 2010

They're getting bigger: 17 April 2010

Soon they will ripen: 5 May 2010

Our first mango from the tree: 24 May 2010

Daily Mangoes: 31 May 2010

In full bloom: 5 June 2010

Here are some other mangoes we've enjoyed:

Anthony couldn't resist when he saw these at the market for 75 cents a piece; our first mangoes of the season: 26 April 2010

Wasting no time cutting into those first mangoes

The remaining photos just show the many varieties of mangoes we've procured in the past two months:

That mango on the right is just gigantic - and it tasted great (actually I liked it more than Anthony did, which is rare)

The ones with the red are both of our absolute favorite (but, that tall one from above is really really nice, so I'd be fine with just those)

Just plain mango silly-ness right here

Another version of mango we picked up at the Cayo market this weekend

The juicy deliciousness of a fresh mango can't be beat on such hot, humid days! Put some in a bowl of cereal in the morning and it's the perfect hint of sweetness - move over bananas!

Belize's Annual National Agriculture and Trade Show

The annual National Agriculture and Trade Show is held in Belmopan at either the end of April or beginning of May. We visited the fairgrounds for the expo for the first time with this year’s show. Being that it is help at the hottest time of the year, we never could quite motivate ourselves to pack into a crowded bus and walk around a crowded fairground previously. Living in Belmopan we would have no excuse not to attend this year.

The agric show, as it is commonly called, reminds me of a big state fair – only smaller. It’s filled with booths devoted to farming, agriculture, Belizean products, and of course, food, beverages, and games. There is even a little carnival section complete with dollar games like balloon darts and such. The show wouldn’t be a complete Belizean affair without double and triple up deals from the two cell phone providers and deals on toilet paper (though this time around we didn’t buy the tp because we thought we were leaving in July and didn’t need that much, oh well, there’s always the expo in Belize City for September celebrations!).

We sampled some new juice flavors at the citrus products booth, met the famous Marie Sharp and sampled some of her other products (and then bought them), watched the fastest ferris wheel ever fill up with people and then spin them rapidly both forward and back for a good 15-20 minutes (see the video below), and watched the fair's first ever dog show. The dog show had to be my highlight of the day as several categories had only one entrant and oftentimes the judges did not even watch the dogs as they paraded around the ring; I picked out the Doberman Pinscher from the start to be best in show and I was correct – yay me! If I’d known, I would have entered Maya in the hound dog category and put her up against the awesome blood hound, she’s got some pretty defined musculature; she could do well. Maybe we would have won the giant bag of dog food she could not possibly finish in the time we have remaining in country!

The event was fun and definitely worth it for meeting Marie Sharp, tripling up on phone credit and being entertained by the dog show.