Placencia Mental Health Weekend!!!

June 18th:

So luckily for me, my football team was traveling to Placencia for a game!Saturday morning, I set out and headed up to Placencia for my first time! I met up with KC, a PCV in Independence, and we took the water taxi over. Beautiful!! Molly was also coming down for the game, and she brought Kim from Hopkins--our own little party. To top it off, Owen, Zander, and Cassidy were in town for Owen's b'day....so we had a whole little crew! We met up at the beach and KC paid for a night in a lovely hotel for us....she's so nice! Our mother hen!

We spent the morning swimming and relaxing by the sea, getting some sun.... probably the worst thing to do before a football match! hahaha. But it was much needed after the stress of last week and just being busy and overwhelmed. (It's amazing that it's a $9 bus trip here.... to paradise!)

Finally, around 3:30 Molly and I headed to the field for our game. Typical Americans, we were about an hour early... the team didn't even arrive in Placencia til about 4:15! (Our game was supposed to start at 3:30).

Our team barely warmed up and we got out there and looked like crap!! We were passing to nobody and missing stupid shots--it was terrible! We were down 2-nil by halftime. In the 2nd half we finally got our act together. Around 70 min into the game or so, I hit a through ball to Naki and she had a perfect finish! The momentum of the game instantly changed. We pounded in 2 more goals, to finish with a 3-2 win! (It was like the US World Cup game.... but our goal counted!) haha It was really great!! The team was pumped after the game! One of our fans came with a cooler full of Mexican beers-- non Belikin! woohoo! We drank beer and rum and had a little tailgate dance party! It was so much fun! And I felt like I was integrating in the best possible way! The girls were teaching me Kriol and it was just really, really fun! I learned "wah don kill ya, fattn ya!" Which basically means, what doesn't kill you, makes you stronger (fattens you).

Finally, they all had to pile into the bus to get back to Cayo. I got a ride back to our hotel and hung out with my friends. We ate and chatted and finally Cassidy and I decided to go out dancing. We headed to the Tipsy Tuna, which actually one of our fans was playing the drums at that night. So we said hi to him and he bought us a drink and then we ran into random people we knew! Cassidy saw a guy from her village, and then another guy who she hitched in with once. It was such a random night, but we danced and met people and just had so much fun! It was fantastic; really a hilarious night!

We headed home after we were beat from dancing and enjoyed our nice air conditioned hotel room....ahhhhh. The next morning I woke up late and relaxed for awhile. We all left the hotel to check into a cheaper place for the next night, because KC was leaving and we are poor! hahaha. So we moved our stuff and were heading to the beach when Ian, the guy we hung out with from Cass's village, called to invite us out on his boat for the day!! Twist my arm, we all agreed to go.

Ian was able to call in a favor and get us some snorkeling gear, so we got a free snorkeling trip! My first time snorkeling, too! It was beautiful!! We went out around the different cayes of Placencia... we snorkeled in the clear, blue water. I swam around coral, so beautiful. And we saw a LOT of fish and creatures! We saw stingrays, barracudas, giant starfish (that we picked up), sanddollars, and I even picked up a HUGE conch shell and Ian gutted it and we ate it! I never had conch before!!! It was a little bit weird to just eat right there, but not bad! hahaha. It was such an amazing day! Oh, lovin Belize!

We got home that afternoon and were pooped! We all kinda crashed and laid around lazily. Once we got the motivation, we got up and made garnaches with the stuff we bought on the way home. As we started to use the stove, we realized it wasn't working, so Cass went upstairs to make friends with our neighbor and borrow his stove.... turns out he's a former Peace Corps volunteer!! He was an older man, named Time, and he served about 30 years ago! He was such a cool guy, a real hippie from Cali who had just left everything to come travel down here and ended up falling in love with Placencia. He's been here for over a year now. We brought him up some dinner and hung out on his porch that night, just talking about PC and all kinds of random stuff. It's so great having random encounters with people like that!What a great night!

The following morning was the end of our trip....sad. Mental health weekend was over. Molly and Kim headed out on the bus early, while Cass and I had a little bit of time to kill before heading back on the water taxi. It worked out that I caught an express bus home from Independence, so I got home quick and had AC! woohoo!

Almost as soon as I walked in the door of my host family's house, I found out that we were going to be having a practice hurricane consolidation in a day or two and that I would be leaving for Belmopan. Ah! I just got home! I tried to explain what would be happening to my host mom, to no avail, and went out to make sure I had hurricane supplies.

That night, Mrs Assi decided to make homemade bread. Apparently, she wanted to teach me how...but she just started making it and never said anything to me! It was like 9:30 at night and I was tired and I started to head in to bed and that's when I found out she was making bread for me! I went in to read for a little and told her I would be out soon, but I was so tired, I just passed right out with the light on. The next morning, she told me she tried banging on my door at 1:30 am to tell me it was ready.... I sleep like a log, so I never even stirred. But why the heck would she make bread so late!!! Crazy lady, hahaha. Also, why would she try to wake me up! I was so happy that it's impossible to wake me out of my coma of a sleep because I had to get to work early the next day.... I would have been very cranky!

All in all, Placencia weekend was amazing!... But I could barely get back into the work routine because I awaited to hear further instructions for our practice hurricane event soon to follow...