Lights Out

On Sunday, I found out what happens when a whole country forgets to pay the electric bill. But really though, the power in all of Belize was out from 3:00 p.m. until 9:00 p.m. For the first few hours, none of us were worried about it, especially since it was still light outside. Actually, it was really fun because Anna, Natalie, Keri, and I hung out, acted very silly, and made up a song about the fertilization of plants. Since we didn’t have Internet, I went to Master Jeans to ask her what I should teach my students tomorrow about the fertilization of plants. Master Jeans is a scientist, so she taught me all about the topic. We were supposed to go to a jam sesh on the beach, but it turned into a bummer sesh because the power was

out. Anyway, the five of us got hungry for dinner, so we decided to go for a short walk and get some food. It was cloudy and windy outside, and it looked like a storm was brewing. It was strange to walk through town, everything was dark and closed, but no one appeared to be scared about the situation. We searched for food, and finally found this place where a Belizean woman was cooking up a storm. She made the girls some pancake creation. While we were waiting for the food, we talked to some guy that was vacationing on the island. He gave us some advice and told us to be careful of certain parts of the island tonight. When the food was done, we began our adventure to the market to get some water and then back to Pedro’s. The walk quickly became scary. A few of us had small flashlights, and the light from the golf carts helped a little (oh yeah, basically people only drive golf carts, and there are hardly any cars h

ere). Our walk turned into a jog and when we reached the market we saw a few guys arguing. My body felt so weird, and I felt like I was in a horror movie. One of the guys that worked at the market told us that it was extremely dangerous to be out right now, and when he said that I looked at Natalie and told her I was so scared. Natalie said “God, please bring comfort upon us.” About one minute after Natalie said that, two guys that were staying at our hostel came out of the market and said they would walk us back. We made it back to Pedro’s, and found some girls in Brittany’s room. Courtney texted her mom and asked her if she could try and find out what was going on and why there was no power in Belize. Her mom looked on the Internet and found out that people were messing with the power lines and cutting off the electricity to increase crime. We woke up Dr. C and she comforted us. Dr. C is such a wonderful p

erson and we are so lucky to have her with us on this trip. Around 9:00 p.m. the power turned back on and I felt so relieved. I was exhausted from being so scared for those couple of hours, so I listened to music and talked to Natalie before falling asleep.

Sunday morning before all of the power went out, Anna, Natalie, Keri, and I went to church at Living Word Church. Church was definitely in Belize time because it lasted for 2 hours and 15 minutes. The whole first hour w

as singing, and the second hour a pastor talked about spousal abuse. At home, every once and a while I go to Port City Community Church and the church here played a lot of the same songs. The music was similar because it was very lively and fun. My favorite part of church was when everyone sang happy birthday to one of the young girls that sings in the front of church every Sunday. Also, Port City had a dating series during overflow, and it was interesting how both churches were talking about relationships.

The pastor went into depth about spousal abuse, and I felt like I was sitting in a class, rather than in a church. He used a power-point while discussing the topic and after 20 slides I was done with church time. I already knew a lot of the information that was on the slides, but people that have a less formal education in Belize, probably don’t know a lot about the subject, or what to do if they are in an abusive relationship. Even though church was long, I enjoyed the experience and it was cool to see how similar it was to Port City.