Cayo....

I want to do a quick update on recent events. Nothing groundbreaking, but a few fun things.

The first thing is our trip to Cayo this weekend. Monica, Kate, and I will be participating in a 4 day canoe race called La Ruta Maya this weekend. It is a JV tradition that the first years participate in the race and the second years run support crew. My next blog entry will consist entirely of tales from this adventure, I'm sure.

(from the ruta maya website: The four day event is a grueling paddle down the 175 miles of the Belize Old River from the historic Hawksworth Bridge (only suspension bridge in the country) in San Ignacio, to the Belcan bridge in downtown Belize City.)

This weekend, the girls went to Cayo to 'practice' for this race. And when I say practice, I mean, to physically sit in the boat we will be using and see if we can make it down river without killing ourselves. Check. We had practiced twice in a boat from my friend Sal. She was not too keen on letting us borrow it for the race---I wonder why! Three absolutely inexperienced girls such as ourselves and one expensive and very well taken care of canoe?? There is no question she made the right decision. That said, we had to find a next boat that we could borrow and hurtle down the river in (sorry mom, ending a sentence in a preposition....). A friend of a friend said that we could borrow a boat that was sponsored by Belize Bank. Belize Bank pays its team to train. Yes, that's right. The Belize Bank team consists not of employees of Belize Bank, but of professional rowers who receive a stipend for the months they spend training for this race! WHAT!?!? This boat that we were supposed to borrow WON THE RACE a few years ago. Sounds rather exciting right!?!? It actually sounded terrifying to us. This isn't just a pokey little canoe...this was a racing canoe built to (again, sorry mom) hurtle down the river in. Needless to say, we had to go see if we could even sit in the canoe without tipping over (the racing canoes are very narrow--not like the good old one from Sal.). Our schedules are pretty busy, so we had to wait until the weekend before the race to go to Cayo, where the boat is kept. GREAT.

We called this friend of a friend who then said he would be out of town and he, in turn, put us in touch with another friend! Great. We arrive, all geared up and ready to go, with a phone number of a friend of a friend of a friend and a hand drawn map to the house where the boat resides. Jerry, the friend, picks us up and brings us to the house. There we see two canoes--the winning canoe, and a 'touring' canoe which is as large and as heavy as a very sturdy kitchen table. We say a silent prayer of thanks! Well, Jerry asks us how we plan to get the canoe down to the water. Plan!?!? Does anyone plan in this country!? Yeah, well we sure didn't have a plan, so Jerry calls his aunt's husband (follow me here) who comes and picks us up and drops us in the river. He then instructs us where to leave the canoe so he can pick it up after we're done. Seriously. I'm writing all this because people do things like that here. All the time. People are so generous of themselves and their time. It really puts us to shame a lot.

The generosity doesn't stop there. The man who owns these canoes was supposed to be back in San Ignacio on Sunday, but of course, wasn't. We were staying at a guest house and the man who runs it could have been our grandfather. He offers to take us BACK up to the house to pick up the canoe where the previous guy had dropped it off for us! Again, WHAT!?!? We load up the canoe, drive back down to the river, and John (our grandpa) asks what time he should come back to get us AND the canoe. Oh, and he brought us padding for the seats and a bottle of cold water. Yep. Again, shamed. A lot.

Our practices were successful. We didn't tip (it would be pretty hard to tip the kitchen table canoe, but I'm SURE we could do it) and we talked about our strokes and about what we think will stress us out on the river. One goal: to finish. Next goal: to not injure ourselves in any way. Secret goal: to not finish last.

Please pray for us this weekend!

Oh, and I wanted my hair plaited for the race because I didn't want it in my face. Our friend had twisted it once before (looks the same as plaits but, literally, is twists into my scalp) and I liked it because I didn't have to do anything with it! I asked my friend Keisha if she could plait my hair. She asked me how I wanted it and I told her I wanted it however she thought it would look cute. Wow. She came over and was plaiting my hair for 6 hours. I AM NOT KIDDING. She decided to do the plaits that are the teeny tiny ones all over my head. They are not corn rows; they do not go down against my scalp. I can't think of another description except just that--that they are a bazillion teeny tiny braids all over! She told me it would take 3 hours. 3!!! It took over 6! I am NEVER taking these out. EVER! But, I think it looks really good. It's hard to have any sort of hairstyle here without looking like a tourist, because all the white people come in and get their hair done up. So, I am aware that I look somewhat like a tourist--I'll just have to deal, because I really like having my hair like this!

Last--you know, on the list of things that I did today: ate lunch at Dawn's, talked with the Boston College group that is building a house for HH this week, updated a few files, MET MALCOM X'S DAUGHTER. Sure did. HH built a transitional house for women (the same dimensions--16x16) in Hattieville a few months ago. Malcom X's daughter heard about it and wanted to come down and put in plants and trees in the yard. Thus, this morning at the house blessing, I met her along with a group of women called 'Sacred Essence' who came here for a women's summit. I swear, every day it's something like this!

I will be counting on your prayers to send us swiftly and safely down the river this weekend!