Super Girl was given the opportunity to travel to Belize with her church youth group in July. After she returned, I wanted to draw her out (She's normally not a big communicator.), so I decided to 'interview' her. I hoped that approaching her with this type of format and plenty of forwarning would help her to communicate some of her experiences. Additionally, I wanted a way to thank our friends and family for giving her prayer and financial support. This way you can share in a little of her story as well.
I would also like to thank the adult leaders who guided, cared for and loved our kids enough to spend quality time with them in Belize. You know who you are, and you're awesome!!
Honestly, the audio file I recorded of us talking together is absolutely precious to me. I wish I could post it, but I've never worked on a podcast before. This will have to do, and I've tried to let her voice shine through in the transciption.
The mood music is 'Awake and Alive' by Skillet.
Here is a link to Blue Thumb Mission's blog: http://www.bluethumbmissionsbelize.com
My one comment is shaded in green, and I've abbreviated the teenagers' names for confidentiality.
Here it is:
How did you feel the morning you left for the trip? Did it make you feel nervous when we had difficulty finding the terminal? I was kinda a little nervous and, yeah, just really nervous about going to a new country. And then a little frustrated because we passed the terminal; then I was excited by the time I got on the plane.
Was the airport in Belize City a typical western-style airport or was there anything different about it? What did the city look like as you were flying in? It was a typical airport but it was a whole lot smaller, and it generally looked different. And when we got off the plane, we didn’t go through a tunnel thing but walked down on a ladder. It was really cool. It (Belize City) looked a whole lot different than Houston or any other city in the U.S. And you could just see the trees and the rivers and the swamps and stuff coming in, and it was really cool. In the bigger, populated areas, I could see the houses.
What type of money do they use in Belize? Can I see it? I have some I can show you. They have paper money and coin money. The one dollar is a goldish coin. They have a $2 bill. I think they also have a $5 bill, and a $10, and a $20. It’s different colors. The $2 dollar is blue. Either the ten or the twenty is red.
What were your impressions of the city and the countryside as you were riding to Blue Thumb? It’s very wild. I don’t think I’ve seen that many undisturbed trees in one place at one time. The cities—you can really tell the difference right away—a lot of the houses you saw were not in the greatest condition. I saw a lot of houses that didn’t have full roofs or even full walls. You would see walls and then columns holding up a roof on top. And it wasn’t really a roof like we have roofs but a thatched roof. A lot of them, I’m guessing, didn’t have electricity or power cause it certainly didn’t look like it.
Tell me about the wild life? What is the area around Blue Thumb like? Blue thumb is in a village in the jungle. They have cleared most of the land for buildings and stuff for the camp, but there was still a fair amount of jungle around the edges. I saw a lot of palm, mango and coconut trees. The fruit was too high off the ground for us to pick. I think some of the guys climbed to get some. And there were also orange trees, and I think there were banana trees.
As far as the wild life, someone saw a tarantula one night, but I didn’t see it…only a picture of it. Joe and Piper’s son had a parrot named Chloe. She was super cute. Our last night there, someone found three baby squirrels. I got to hold one of them for a little bit. It was a little, black squirrel, and it was adorable. I think it was getting traumatized by being passed around so much. The fireflies are everywhere at night. There are monkeys, but I didn’t see any of them.
How did you help with the construction projects? I really didn’t do much the first two days. On the third day, I started drawing out plans for the bunk bed with AW. I drew it, and she wrote out the instructions. It turned out the first one we wrote wouldn’t work, and so I had to redo them because she was project manager and had to do other things. So I had to write and draw the second set of instructions. I based them on the different stages of construction and drew them out. They gave me dimensions of course.
Did anyone play practical jokes? Describe please. Apparently, the guys were always playing jokes on each other, and I heard about a couple of them. For instance, somebody put insect repellent on the fan in one of the boys’ dorms and turned it on; then there were dead bugs everywhere on the floor. I heard most of the bugs were by the leaders’ beds. I think someone put Gold Bond Lotion in the fan. They pointed it at S’s bed, and it got all over his sleeping bag. I think it was S, but I’m not sure. On the subject of fans, in the girl’s room, AW and I were in the room by ourselves and we heard a klunk, klunk, klunk in the fan. I thought she had somehow gotten caught in the fan. But then I looked and there’s a gecko tail squirming on the floor. Then there’s just a gecko body in the fan (Poor little gecko!). And on the subject of gecko’s, I was taking a shower, and all of the sudden, there was a gecko in there with me. I spent half the shower just staring at it not knowing what to do. I eventually was able to rinse my hair, and I caught it in a plastic bag, and An let it out for me.
Were you relieved to find out your cabin was air-conditioned? Yes, but I woke up twice the first night because I was too cold.
What were the children like at the soccer camp? How did the group interact with them? Did you have one or two in particular that you played with the most? They kicked our butts at soccer. I didn’t get to know any of them too closely, but on the second day I talked to some of the girls, and we played soccer. The second half of that day, me and AF took a group of girls over to the swings, and we pushed the younger ones. They were super cute. There was a two and a three-year-old named T and I. The national language is English, but a lot of kids also speak just Spanish. A lot of them speak Creole, too, which is a dialect, but with the accent it’s hard to understand what they’re saying. So you had to ask them questions, and they could understand you, but you really couldn’t understand them. So it worked out somehow.
How are our lives different from the majority of Belizeans? The majority of the country seemed a whole lot poorer than the U.S. They don’t have many of the things we don’t give a second thought to like running water or electricity. If you look at a house, it’s just a house. I’m not sure if they were even properly insulated or not 'cause you can’t tell by just looking at it. But in the bigger cities, they look on par to our houses. Although in Belize, their houses are very colorful. They like their bold colors. And I think there are strict laws about cars, and gas is really expensive too. I think it’s rare for a family to own a car.
Tell me about the Mayan ruins? Did you make it to the top? It was really cool but really high. So yeah, I did. You take a little crank ferry to get across to them. The Mayan ruins were really cool. I was a little awestruck by it. There’s just something about it…there’s just a really cool feeling about it. And there were lots of different ones. From the biggest one, if you went to the top, you could see a view of the city behind it, and that city was on a hill. So it made you think about those hill cities in Mexico.
What was the funniest thing that happened on the trip to you? To someone else? At meals, it seemed to be that it was usually me, AF, and An sitting with D, J, M and C sometimes. D is just very easy to get along with. He makes a lot of jokes. J’s just nice in general, and I already knew C.
Okay, so the guys started making up weird words. One of them was boingo which is basically something you say when someone says or does something stupid. Somebody (I’m guessing it was JJ) got the stewardess on the plane home to make an announcement. She said, “Welcome home to Cypress Bible Church and Boingo.” We all burst out laughing. It was hilarious. And one of the ladies sitting by us was telling us that we needed to tell her what it meant. I don’t think she ever found out because it’s an inside joke.
The second to last large group, they were talking about how the day went, and Mr. Trent said bongo instead of boingo, and St was laughing so hard he fell off his chair.
I have to admit that I fell asleep twice during small group.
Do you feel as if you made lasting friendships with the other people in the group? Yes, I think I did. I think I got a lot closer to the other freshman girls, and also the other girls on the trip like An and AF—we’re all Facebook friends now. And they were all really nice. I sat next to them (An and AF) on the plane on the way there and on the way back. And we just got close because we ended up playing with the kids together or sitting eating a meal together. An and AF are super nice and outgoing—An is especially outgoing. It was easy to get along with them. They’ve got an easygoing sense of humor which is good because I always enjoy a good laugh.
Which of the other students did you admire the most and why? How about the adults? S and R ministered to a kid named J who was the son of the lady who cooked with Piper in the kitchen. And they led him to Christ which I admire because I’m not sure if I could do that. They really stepped up to the task. We were there to disciple kids not necessarily evangelize. But they did something that was out of the criteria, and I think that’s great. As far as the adults, definitely Ms. Avalyn and Ms. Connie. Ms. Avalyn was like a second mom. She was the one in charge of first aide, so she was always taking care of everyone and always nice. She made our beds the first day. Ms. Connie was making sure we were drinking water, and she often filled our water bottles before the soccer camp.
What do you think God taught you while on this trip? I guess just the whole experience in general. At some point, on the way back from fireworks on Thursday, I kinda of had this surreal moment. I actually realized I’m here in Belize doing God’s work to help Joe and Piper. And I’m thinking this is freakin' awesome! I’m listening to Skillet in Belize doing God’s work and it’s freakin’ awesome (Skillet is a screamo, Christian band.). I think I’ll remember that moment for awhile.
I bet the snorkeling was super cool. Describe what you saw. We had fins on and a snorkel. Everyone had life vests, but not everyone used them--I didn’t use mine. The first place we stopped, there were a lot of stingrays, and I also got to see one feeding. There was a huge one almost as wide as my bed. An said she saw a big nurse shark. I only saw a little one, but I got to touch it because the guide caught it by its dorsal fin and tail, and he let us pet it. I think it was thoroughly freaked out. I saw two sea turtles right next to each other, and they were just feeding on the grass. But it was right at the end, so we had to leave, but I could’ve watched them for twenty more minutes. And when we were going around the reef, I saw something that looked like a rainbow fish, but I never found out the name because the guide never saw it. A lot of the fish were shades of gray or silver. The coral was shades of brown. We saw sea anemones, brain coral, fin coral, and other kinds I’ve forgotten.
What color were the beaches, the water and the countryside? The water was beautiful—it was so clear. It was a really pretty shade of green blue. And it was super clear by the beach on Ambergris Caye especially. The sand was a pretty pale, white yellow.
Why do you think you felt as if you wanted to go to Belize? They asked us this on the last night of the trip. I didn’t really have a motivation per se to go. I didn’t think I wanted to go on the trip at first. But, I don’t know, the more I thought about it the more I thought it was a possibility. Eventually I decided I did want to go.
How did it feel to be home? It was great. I was tired of all these people. Yes, they were great people, but I was tired of people. Too many people.
