Final days of Our Love Affair

(This was written on Sunday, March 7th)
Our vacation is officially over. Josh, Di, James, Mariza and I are sitting in the Belize International Airport waiting for our flight. Milea left early this morning (on her own!) on the water taxi back to Belize City from Caye Caulker to catch her noon flight. It was sad to see her go because it meant our service trip was finally over…but also because we won’t see each other for a while (again!). She should just move back to Seattle!

Let’s rewind and recap our time in Caye Caulker…

Friday:
The boys took an early water taxi to Caye Caulker on Friday afternoon. They girls finished up at our placements and ran some errands before taking a later taxi. We took pictures with some of the people we met during our short week in Belize City (to be posted later). We jumped on our boat, which ended up breaking down in the middle of the water, so we had to wait 30 minutes for “rescue boats” to come get us.
It was almost dark when we got to Caye Caulker. We walked down the sandy road with our luggage, through an old cemetery, and checked into Tom’s Hotel where the boys were waiting on the dock worried sick because we had planned to meet for dinner at 5pm, but we didn’t get there until 6:30pm! We got settled and grabbed dinner at Joe’s Habanero; 2 for 1 pina coladas, pizzas, fish and chips, nachos, and fries! Yum! Then we just walked down the one main street to look at shops and stuff. It took about 20 minutes (with stops) to get to the other shore of the island.

Initial observations about Caye Caulker
-Mosquitos are killer!
-There are plenty of friendly stray dogs walking around to give your food scraps to; just be prepared for them to follow you.
-The roads are made of compacted sand
-There are no cars – only golf carts and bicycles
-Obviously there is no need for stop lights – only stop signs.

We stopped at a bar to watch and listen to a Garifuna band for a little bit. Then we walked back to the hotel. It was amazing how bright the stars were! Milea, Josh, and I sat on the dock to star gaze and to talk about the meaning of life…

I saw my first shooting star. =)


Saturday
My alarm clock woke everyone up (except for me) Saturday morning. We went to the waffle house that Josh had been raving about all week (yummy!), then got on our boat that would take us out snorkeling and scuba diving (for Lauren & Josh). We loaded up on Dramamine, which wasn’t strong enough for the choppy waters! Our group definitely bonded on this water adventure…hehehe...uhhh...WAH WAH!!
After 5 hours on the water, we finally made it back to dry land (thank goodness)! Some of us fat kids grabbed some fruit, panedas, and fried chicken, then headed back to meet up with the not-so-fat-kids to get ready for dinner. Haha! I just realized how truly fat we are! Dinner was at this fancy shmancy restaurant called Habaneros where all the dishes looked awesome! (Di will elaborate later). It was the perfect place to celebrate our final group dinner to cap our amazing two weeks!
We picked up some souvenirs and went back to the hotel after dinner to pack our bags because a lot of us were worried we wouldn’t be able to fit everything or we’d be over the weight limit, but praise God we even had extra room! To celebrate our successful packing endeavors, James took a few of us to I&I Reggae Bar (the treehouse bar). It was pretty cool! Hopefully someone has pictures from there…

Sunday
So now we’re back to Sunday – officially our final day. I woke up before everyone else this morning without the aid of my alarm clock at 5:30am!! I ran down the hall to the deck to see that the clouds were blocking the edge of the horizon so our plans to see the sunrise failed. Or so I thought. Fifteen minutes later, Milea knocked on my door to come out to the deck. James, Mariza, Di, Milea, and I sat in silence as we observed the beauty and majesty of the Sun rising above the clouds. Words cannot describe the overflowing of love I felt at that moment. I only wish the pictures that we took that morning can remind me everyday that I am loved – by God, by others, by my self.