Our second weekend adventure began bright and early (seems like a common theme) as we strolled to the water taxi to get to the island. Finally made it after the most annoying boat ride filled with obnoxious tourists...(note: we do not consider ourselves tourists anymore, we are straight up Belizean). Got off the boat and were greeted by a rasta with an orange 3 ring binder full of hotels where we could stay, we walked us along the beach to the tropical paradise hotel. A tiny room with 3 beds about an inch apart with little room to move in any direction, thats how we roll.
Next rasta man took us to the snorkeling shop where we geared up, N95 mask fit styles. Our tour guide Salvador took us out, but first we picked up two other people. One older man who looked about 112, tall, gangly, 100 lbs, transparent skin, long toe nails and extremely awkward. He was accompanied by a stronge middle aged fellow who worked for a news station in Belize and we will return to him in our next blog :) Due to the extreme heat/sun shine the older geratric fellow so kindly asked us to apply sunscreen to his back region. Both sulls and kit conveniently looked away into the abyss while poh was stuck taking on this task. During the application process kit whips out her camera to document this endeavor and so kindly states to poh "I think you missed a few spots" ensuring she got the best picture possible. She massaged it into his white back like a PRO!
Moving on to actually snorkeling, it was AMAZING!!! The best stop was at a place called "shark ray alley" where we were snorkeling in shoulder deep water with tons and tons of string rays and nurse sharks swimming around us. Touching our legs with there stingers, we had a bunch of steve irwin moments. We all got to pet the string rays and poh held one like the champion that she is. Side note: our tour guide had to hold us each like babies when we first got into the water due to extreme fear, he may have copped a feel one too many times. Poh liked it...just kidding...but not really (poh is cheesed at this while we are writing this, doan care)
During our next stop while looking at coral gramps panicked in the water, despite the fact that he had multiple life jackets keeping him afloat. He turned to the guide and sulls and proclaimed "I feel disoriented" while flailing his toe nails about in the sea. Salvador had to tow him back to the boat and we thought we may need to bust out our CPR C skills. Finished snorkeling and went back to the hotel where we met a bunch of nice people travelling as well. Had a few drinks on the beach then we all went to dinner, poh had a near death experience when a massive crab crawled across her feet, luckily she made it through this. Next we ventured to a reggae roof top bar with swings for seating. Met an aussie guy who was petrified when he found out sulls was a ging, including hissing and doing the cross sign with his hands.
Overall had a blast and our sunburns started to creep out so we went to bed. Experienced severe fear whilst sleeping due to the rickity wabbily fans going at hyper speed and we thought we were going to become chop suey....we made it.
Woke up on sunday and had a relaxing day on the beach (in the shade) and made our way back to the city to have a family dinner.
THee you
xoxo
BG
Thursday, May 12, 2011
Friday, May 6, 2011
Work Week #2
Tuesday
We are concerned that breakfast just keeps getting earlier and earlier! Sully fears that if we give in today we will be eating at 4am very shortly. What do we do? Do we give in or hold out until 7? Poh says we should hold out but we are currently afraid of getting slapped by Mrs. Leiva. As of right now, we are hiding in our room. Cat is planning on using her extra time to do our standard morning shower consisting of wiping ourselves with wet naps. We will let you know how it turns out.....
Ok, so we held out and everything was ok. We made it to work and our presentation went surprisingly well. We can thank Queen's for giving us great improv skillz. As we went on to the second half of Tuesday's presentation, all of us contracted Poh's extra long blinks- SO SO hot in the room!
Met an amazing, inspiring (and hot) guy named Jerome with a SCI. He has a hand trike and Rick Hanson's his way across Belize. Also, he could bench press all of us. Also, Poh is stunned by his beauty. Jerome also showed us his car that he adapted to drive himself- so cool!
On way home from work to mitigate the delirium and heat stroke, dehydrated our bodies with half price drinks at the Tavern! Also, they had airconditioning which made our day!
Met Mrs. Leiva's three grandchildren. They are super cute and come every day after school.
Poh continually talks to us about her need to marry Jerome in the near future. She also hope to carry his child.
Good Day!
Wednesday
Our morning stroll to work began with a glowing compliment from Mark: "Wow, your workplace must be very casual." in reference to our attire (Cat's shorts have been worn everyday for the past 3 weeks, Sully was wearing her poum poum shorts-which will be explained later, and Poh was rocking her sneaks much to her disgust). Thanks Mark. The walk continued to be coloured with a guy yielding a sword, letting us know "dat he likes da slim gyals" and Sully especially being offered half-price tours on account of her ging factor.
Got to work and proceeded to present in yet again in 90++++ degree weather, with 20 people crammed in a room with no windows. Awesome. Blah blah blah...Jerome gave us "I Refuse to Lose" t-shirts and bracelets...Jenn refuses to lose the battle for his love.
Learned a few Kriol lines and vocab including "Me no no noting bwai!" and a few odd words here and there including "poum poum shorts" which are bootie shorts that make your bum look extremely famished. Sulls got told she was wearing these right before she had to present. Needless to say, she went tomato blotchy red. Please note, her shorts were not short at all. However, we are all on the hunt for these shorts used to win votes in local political campaigns..they are worn by people known as "caliente girls" aka strippers. Thee you!
Thursday and Friday
Okay so we finally got to do some more home visits with our gyals Inga and Jher. Visited four little ones. all with varying degrees of CP. Attempted to use some shotty OT skills to try and assist them with their seating difficulties. The heat is at an all time high, with our bodies slowly turning into "crispy Canadian back bacon" as Poh so eloquently put it.
Lunch was an adventure as we were introduced to tamales....yikes...made of lots of corn, chicken and some other questionable ingredients. Needless to say we ate about 58 starbursts each post tamales extravaganza. Finished work and decided to go for happy hour at Tropicana with Mark. 2 for 1 beers which was a slippery slope resulting in accidental drunkenness coupled with a scolding from our house mom. Apparently it is more important to be on time for dinner (note: we were 15 minutes late) than arriving home before 5am...go figure. Also we blame this scolding on our good pal Mark, who has been living here for 4 years and knew that we would get in trouble for being late but decided note to tell us that. Dinner was littered with inappropriate drunken laughter sandwiched between cut eye from our mom and Poh making fun of Jon's british accent. Slinked off to bed...
Finally made it to Friday and met Inga at a local school for children with disabilities. Spent the morning being extremely overwhelmed especially when in a classroom of 8 children with autism. Felt pretty useless at times but we tried our best. Had an amazing three course lunch---main course, three different desserts and mango's to top it off! Assembled a PET cart which is a cute little car/wagon which the kiddy propels with their arms...cat got in it and rode around the office. We are trying to figure out how to upload a picture of this. so stay tuned...
Heading to the cayes this weekend to snorkel with the sharks and lounge on the beach so we will have much to update on Monday!
Love
xoxo
STEAKETTE, LIL POH KIM & KRUSTIE THE KLOWN
We are concerned that breakfast just keeps getting earlier and earlier! Sully fears that if we give in today we will be eating at 4am very shortly. What do we do? Do we give in or hold out until 7? Poh says we should hold out but we are currently afraid of getting slapped by Mrs. Leiva. As of right now, we are hiding in our room. Cat is planning on using her extra time to do our standard morning shower consisting of wiping ourselves with wet naps. We will let you know how it turns out.....
Ok, so we held out and everything was ok. We made it to work and our presentation went surprisingly well. We can thank Queen's for giving us great improv skillz. As we went on to the second half of Tuesday's presentation, all of us contracted Poh's extra long blinks- SO SO hot in the room!
Met an amazing, inspiring (and hot) guy named Jerome with a SCI. He has a hand trike and Rick Hanson's his way across Belize. Also, he could bench press all of us. Also, Poh is stunned by his beauty. Jerome also showed us his car that he adapted to drive himself- so cool!
On way home from work to mitigate the delirium and heat stroke, dehydrated our bodies with half price drinks at the Tavern! Also, they had airconditioning which made our day!
Met Mrs. Leiva's three grandchildren. They are super cute and come every day after school.
Poh continually talks to us about her need to marry Jerome in the near future. She also hope to carry his child.
Good Day!
Wednesday
Our morning stroll to work began with a glowing compliment from Mark: "Wow, your workplace must be very casual." in reference to our attire (Cat's shorts have been worn everyday for the past 3 weeks, Sully was wearing her poum poum shorts-which will be explained later, and Poh was rocking her sneaks much to her disgust). Thanks Mark. The walk continued to be coloured with a guy yielding a sword, letting us know "dat he likes da slim gyals" and Sully especially being offered half-price tours on account of her ging factor.
Got to work and proceeded to present in yet again in 90++++ degree weather, with 20 people crammed in a room with no windows. Awesome. Blah blah blah...Jerome gave us "I Refuse to Lose" t-shirts and bracelets...Jenn refuses to lose the battle for his love.
Learned a few Kriol lines and vocab including "Me no no noting bwai!" and a few odd words here and there including "poum poum shorts" which are bootie shorts that make your bum look extremely famished. Sulls got told she was wearing these right before she had to present. Needless to say, she went tomato blotchy red. Please note, her shorts were not short at all. However, we are all on the hunt for these shorts used to win votes in local political campaigns..they are worn by people known as "caliente girls" aka strippers. Thee you!
Thursday and Friday
Okay so we finally got to do some more home visits with our gyals Inga and Jher. Visited four little ones. all with varying degrees of CP. Attempted to use some shotty OT skills to try and assist them with their seating difficulties. The heat is at an all time high, with our bodies slowly turning into "crispy Canadian back bacon" as Poh so eloquently put it.
Lunch was an adventure as we were introduced to tamales....yikes...made of lots of corn, chicken and some other questionable ingredients. Needless to say we ate about 58 starbursts each post tamales extravaganza. Finished work and decided to go for happy hour at Tropicana with Mark. 2 for 1 beers which was a slippery slope resulting in accidental drunkenness coupled with a scolding from our house mom. Apparently it is more important to be on time for dinner (note: we were 15 minutes late) than arriving home before 5am...go figure. Also we blame this scolding on our good pal Mark, who has been living here for 4 years and knew that we would get in trouble for being late but decided note to tell us that. Dinner was littered with inappropriate drunken laughter sandwiched between cut eye from our mom and Poh making fun of Jon's british accent. Slinked off to bed...
Finally made it to Friday and met Inga at a local school for children with disabilities. Spent the morning being extremely overwhelmed especially when in a classroom of 8 children with autism. Felt pretty useless at times but we tried our best. Had an amazing three course lunch---main course, three different desserts and mango's to top it off! Assembled a PET cart which is a cute little car/wagon which the kiddy propels with their arms...cat got in it and rode around the office. We are trying to figure out how to upload a picture of this. so stay tuned...
Heading to the cayes this weekend to snorkel with the sharks and lounge on the beach so we will have much to update on Monday!
Love
xoxo
STEAKETTE, LIL POH KIM & KRUSTIE THE KLOWN
Wednesday, May 4, 2011
Weekend Addendum
Oops sorry forgot to add that we had a holiday on monday so decided we needed to go swimming to help with the extreme heat. Got in our suits and trekked to the Radisson for some pool time. Strutted in and pretended like we were staying there...so stealth. Enjoyed the refreshing water and cold belikin. Such a GRAND day and way to end the weekend
Theeeeeee
xo
S, P and C
Theeeeeee
xo
S, P and C
Weekend Adventure
Finally the weekend including visits to ATM and Mountain Pine Ridge.
Bright and early we had our driver Mr. Gomez drive us to the bus station with Johnny cakes in our backpacks. It was a little sketch as we had never ridden the bus and weren't too sure where we were headed.- Tea Kettle. Cat made sure to tell the bus driver we were going to Tea Kettle but he had no clue what she was saying! Luckily a guy behind us translated in a Kriol accent. We all passed out extremely hard on the bus and were in a state of extreme panic when the driver said "Last Stop". To get the bus divers attention to figure out what was happening- Poh: "Um, excuse me sir.."- No response. Cat wide-eyed in her best Kriol accent yells "HEYY!" which finally made the driver turn around ( we were right behind him the whole time).
Got off the bus, waited on the side of the road in Tea Kettle for the tour to pick us up. Fortunately we had Johnny cakes to eat while we waited.
ATM (Actun Tunichil Muknal) was AMAZING! Google it! We had to make a trekk through the jungle including walking through knee deep water, almost tripped like 100 times on the slippery rocks! Finally got to the cave entrance and strapped on our helmets and head lamps...we all looked so hot obviously! The adventure began and lasted for 2 hours within the cave. We had to swim, walk, crawl and contort our bodies through the craziest rocks. Highlights included: the neck chopper, cliff hanger, human remains and mayan artifacts. We had a 4 ft tall mestizo tour guide who was amazing and gave us the history of the mayan culture! We have amazing pictures which will explain the wildness of this experience! Afterwards we had to trekk back through the jungle/rivers and were so dehydrated....cat started hallucinating mirages of water/rolled her ankle due to lower limb weakness and sulls almost punched a girl on our tour for her water. We had an amazing lunch and drove to San Ignacio, a small town an hour from ATM. We spent the night there in a hostel called tropicool (great play on words) and went for pizza at a local restaurant where we met some older gentlemen aka cradle robbers with very very young wives...cat's response "youre kidding me right?!!?" nope not a joke! Once back in the room had our first gecko experience which resulted in screaming fits by both sulls and poh.
Woke up bright and early to start the next adventure to mountain pine ridge. Had the best tour guide who gave us the history of Belize and told us some very questionable jokes! We got to experience another amazing cave..where cat had a 127 hour moment! Next was two stops at different waterfalls, poh took a swim in the water but got scared of the potential anaconda! Made our way back to San Ignacio to catch the bus to Belize City. Another packed ride where poh and cat had to take turns standing, we all passed out again on the bus which included mouth breathing, head bobbing and a lady falling asleep on poh.
Finally made it home after a sketchy walk and went to the local park with our "brothers" mark, jon and tony for some tacos and papusas from local street vendors...oops sorry OCASP! Went back home to experience some gold rum and coke yummm. We will bring some home with us!!
Overall amazing first weekend, counting down the days until next weekend. We are planning on going to the islands for some snorkeling (with sharks) and beach time!
Until then puppies,
xo
Steak, Poh and Krust
Bright and early we had our driver Mr. Gomez drive us to the bus station with Johnny cakes in our backpacks. It was a little sketch as we had never ridden the bus and weren't too sure where we were headed.- Tea Kettle. Cat made sure to tell the bus driver we were going to Tea Kettle but he had no clue what she was saying! Luckily a guy behind us translated in a Kriol accent. We all passed out extremely hard on the bus and were in a state of extreme panic when the driver said "Last Stop". To get the bus divers attention to figure out what was happening- Poh: "Um, excuse me sir.."- No response. Cat wide-eyed in her best Kriol accent yells "HEYY!" which finally made the driver turn around ( we were right behind him the whole time).
Got off the bus, waited on the side of the road in Tea Kettle for the tour to pick us up. Fortunately we had Johnny cakes to eat while we waited.
ATM (Actun Tunichil Muknal) was AMAZING! Google it! We had to make a trekk through the jungle including walking through knee deep water, almost tripped like 100 times on the slippery rocks! Finally got to the cave entrance and strapped on our helmets and head lamps...we all looked so hot obviously! The adventure began and lasted for 2 hours within the cave. We had to swim, walk, crawl and contort our bodies through the craziest rocks. Highlights included: the neck chopper, cliff hanger, human remains and mayan artifacts. We had a 4 ft tall mestizo tour guide who was amazing and gave us the history of the mayan culture! We have amazing pictures which will explain the wildness of this experience! Afterwards we had to trekk back through the jungle/rivers and were so dehydrated....cat started hallucinating mirages of water/rolled her ankle due to lower limb weakness and sulls almost punched a girl on our tour for her water. We had an amazing lunch and drove to San Ignacio, a small town an hour from ATM. We spent the night there in a hostel called tropicool (great play on words) and went for pizza at a local restaurant where we met some older gentlemen aka cradle robbers with very very young wives...cat's response "youre kidding me right?!!?" nope not a joke! Once back in the room had our first gecko experience which resulted in screaming fits by both sulls and poh.
Woke up bright and early to start the next adventure to mountain pine ridge. Had the best tour guide who gave us the history of Belize and told us some very questionable jokes! We got to experience another amazing cave..where cat had a 127 hour moment! Next was two stops at different waterfalls, poh took a swim in the water but got scared of the potential anaconda! Made our way back to San Ignacio to catch the bus to Belize City. Another packed ride where poh and cat had to take turns standing, we all passed out again on the bus which included mouth breathing, head bobbing and a lady falling asleep on poh.
Finally made it home after a sketchy walk and went to the local park with our "brothers" mark, jon and tony for some tacos and papusas from local street vendors...oops sorry OCASP! Went back home to experience some gold rum and coke yummm. We will bring some home with us!!
Overall amazing first weekend, counting down the days until next weekend. We are planning on going to the islands for some snorkeling (with sharks) and beach time!
Until then puppies,
xo
Steak, Poh and Krust
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
Friday Fun
Woke up and ventured out for our first walk to work. Success! Sully wins mvp for directions. We had our best morning so far. We got to hang out with our buds Jher and Inga to do some community visits. Our first visit was with a little cutie girl with cerebral palsy. We had velcro, padded straps, needle and thread, and a stapler to modify her wheelchair which was about 3x too big for her. We whipped out some crazy, makeshift OT skills to make her more comfortable in her chair. Upon reflection, through our OT lens, we unpacked the piece from our toolbox and gave ourself an "A".
We were greeted at our second visit by what we can only describe as a stray, rabid hyena/dog (Nat might have lost it). We saw a little girl who was 8 years old and still crawling, has feeding difficulties and is non-verbal but has good verbal comprehension. We have made a plan to make a picture board for her to communicate with her family.
Got back to the office and Jher caught Jenn "tornado-ing". Oopsies! The tornado is a dance by this local guy, Lova Boi (not sure if it's Boi or Boy?). There are two versions of the dance: slow tornado and fast tornado. Youtube it baby! Poh's specialty is, well, she says both. We'll leave it up to your imagination as to what it is.
Practiced Queen's style for our presentation later that day aka not at all. We hope your appreciating our posts as we are sweating and delirious. Sweat factor has reached new heights. 12 baby. Later. Thee you soon.
We were greeted at our second visit by what we can only describe as a stray, rabid hyena/dog (Nat might have lost it). We saw a little girl who was 8 years old and still crawling, has feeding difficulties and is non-verbal but has good verbal comprehension. We have made a plan to make a picture board for her to communicate with her family.
Got back to the office and Jher caught Jenn "tornado-ing". Oopsies! The tornado is a dance by this local guy, Lova Boi (not sure if it's Boi or Boy?). There are two versions of the dance: slow tornado and fast tornado. Youtube it baby! Poh's specialty is, well, she says both. We'll leave it up to your imagination as to what it is.
Practiced Queen's style for our presentation later that day aka not at all. We hope your appreciating our posts as we are sweating and delirious. Sweat factor has reached new heights. 12 baby. Later. Thee you soon.
Medical Mysteries...
We thought you would share with you all the mayhem the heat is doing to our bodies...
We all have strange thing going on including:
-Sully and Poh both suffering home heat rashes...sulls got it on her face and inside of her arms and poh's on her back, arms and elbows
-Cat, because she's half black didnt get heat rash but instead had been battling extreme foot edema (huge bricks-super painful but hilarious to see!!) She has fashioned elevated foot rests out of all of her luggage...including filling a ziploc bag with air, unfortunately it deflated during the night
-Poh has also been experiencing a bout of psychological traveler's constipation (just for you Nat!!)
-All of us also have dehydration contirbuting to bouts of delirium involving inappropriate laughter....we cant think of the actual diagnostic term for this oops sorry OT education!
We will continue to update on our medical mysteries throughout the trip!
xoxo
We all have strange thing going on including:
-Sully and Poh both suffering home heat rashes...sulls got it on her face and inside of her arms and poh's on her back, arms and elbows
-Cat, because she's half black didnt get heat rash but instead had been battling extreme foot edema (huge bricks-super painful but hilarious to see!!) She has fashioned elevated foot rests out of all of her luggage...including filling a ziploc bag with air, unfortunately it deflated during the night
-Poh has also been experiencing a bout of psychological traveler's constipation (just for you Nat!!)
-All of us also have dehydration contirbuting to bouts of delirium involving inappropriate laughter....we cant think of the actual diagnostic term for this oops sorry OT education!
We will continue to update on our medical mysteries throughout the trip!
xoxo
First Day of Placement!!
6:30am wake up!! Poh wakes up MEGA cheesed because she couldn't catch a wink of sleep for two reasons, the cucaracha and extreme hot flashes throughout the night. Added to her cheese level was the fact that sulls slept like a baby! We all finally hot up and organized to eat breakfast which included eggs, beans, fried jacks and bananas, delicious! VIP pick up by the director of CARE, the weather is hot hot hot we were all sweating like crazy and it was only 8am uh ohhhh
We worked at the office in the morning and had an information session on CARE and the services they provide...all very OT!! We went on our first home visit in Belize City which was quite interesting and very different from Canada! We trekked to get lunch, our first solo outing! We survived and had another great meal (rice and beans, chicken, cole slaw and fresh juice). Back to the office to prepare for the training session next week with sister bev. SF through the roof and sooo tired. Poh's eyes started shutting while sister bev was talking to her, including very long blinks!! Cat and sulls couldnt stop chuckling in the background. Long weekend coming up so we are organizing our trip to ATM which is a wild cave adventure!
Had an amazing dinner at home, yet again then decided to brush out Cats hair which looked like a lions mane or diana ross. We made her show our mom, we think she was scared but she laughed pretty hard! We went to Birds Isle a local karaoke bar right on the water with the people we live with. Dscovered everyone here LOVES country music especially Strawberry Wine! Listened to tone deaf girl #1 #2 and #3 the Poh got convinced to sing Michael Jackson, Man in the mirror with Virginia...so cute!! Trekked it home and passed out so hard!!
Until next time little ones! xoxoxo
Love,
Sulls, Cat and Poh
We worked at the office in the morning and had an information session on CARE and the services they provide...all very OT!! We went on our first home visit in Belize City which was quite interesting and very different from Canada! We trekked to get lunch, our first solo outing! We survived and had another great meal (rice and beans, chicken, cole slaw and fresh juice). Back to the office to prepare for the training session next week with sister bev. SF through the roof and sooo tired. Poh's eyes started shutting while sister bev was talking to her, including very long blinks!! Cat and sulls couldnt stop chuckling in the background. Long weekend coming up so we are organizing our trip to ATM which is a wild cave adventure!
Had an amazing dinner at home, yet again then decided to brush out Cats hair which looked like a lions mane or diana ross. We made her show our mom, we think she was scared but she laughed pretty hard! We went to Birds Isle a local karaoke bar right on the water with the people we live with. Dscovered everyone here LOVES country music especially Strawberry Wine! Listened to tone deaf girl #1 #2 and #3 the Poh got convinced to sing Michael Jackson, Man in the mirror with Virginia...so cute!! Trekked it home and passed out so hard!!
Until next time little ones! xoxoxo
Love,
Sulls, Cat and Poh
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