Tuesday, June 15, 2010

Good Marning Visitars....















Day Two: LAMANAI (or so we thought until we found out the correct pronunciation is Lama'nayeen)

Monday morning began early with a short morning prayer and then boarding the boat headed straight to Bomba (our first stop, a wood carving village.) Within twenty minutes of our 3 hour journey, rain began to fall. At first it was quite refreshing, but then as it increased intensity it hurt more and more. We were forced to hide under a very large blue tarp. Once we got to Bomba we had breakfast and took a bus to another leg of our trip. We finally made it to Lamanai after yet another boat ride through the mangroves and rain. After lunch, we explored the museum and took a hike through the jungle with our ever so knowledgeable guide, Eddie. We tasted allspice, which has natural Novocaine in it. The first temple was the jaguar temple and that was breath-taking. We were able to climb that one and then we moved on to more impressive sights. The next temple was the Stela 9 temple. There, Eddie gave us some natural bug repellent from a berry. The next temple was the BIG one. It looked tall from the bottom, but from the top it felt like you were on top of the world. It was a very spiritual experience and even though there were many people around you felt like you were the only one there. We could see for miles and the people below looked like little ants. Our tour guide put it best, "Climbing up is physical, but climbing down is psychological." The final temple we went to was the mask temple. This temple has a sealed grave on the inside and the mask, which were two faces, on the outside represented immortality.


Day Three: THE SCHOOL

This was our first day to see the school and it was exciting to see what we had heard about for so long. It was also nice for some of our veterans in the group to see familiar faces at the school. Jan Lamb gave us a tour through the school, where we stopped in a few classrooms. We were greeted very warmly with all the students standing up and saying, "Good marning visitars! Welcome to Standard V." After our tour through the school, Jan took us through the nearby under privileged neighborhood, San Mateo. To see this neighborhood was very humbling. Due to light rain, the outside work was limited. Some of us got to work with the kids either playing games or administering exams. Others were able to put the prizes together for the top three of every class. Others were able to go food shopping with Mr. Kenny, a professional chef who cooked for us that night. After lunch some of us scrubbed the outside walls of the office to prepare for painting. Some of us graded exams and organized the library. Finally our first day at Holy Cross came to an end. We retired back to our house and practiced a bit of relaxation (playing cards, exploring the town, and swimming in the pool and ocean.) We found a baby sting ray and a cool conch shell. Mr. Kenny proved to be an amazing chef and mango smoothie maker. Some of us helped with the smoothie making. For dinner we had snapper, sautèed vegetables, and rice and beans. We had a worship service that night and then we went to bed soon after that.

This morning on our way to school we stopped by the REALLY good bakery called Casa Pan Dulce. There was a multitude of pastries all for a reasonably low price. We also included pictures of this morning's sunrise. You should also note that the pictures are in reverse order. We had some trouble uploading this morning...

Until next time, forever yours,
-Maggie and Elizabeth

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Love the pictures! Get some recipes from Mr. Kenny

Jan said...

It's so great having the team at Holy Cross. They really are working hard -- and smiling the whole time!
Jan

Clnh4405 said...

The pictures are great and the sunrises are beautiful!

linda b. said...

I am very happy you're experience has been so positive. I would love to see those Mayan ruins myself. Thanks for sharing with us back home. Love you Joe
Your Mom