Travel ~ Taiwan

 When I was nineteen I went on a missions trip to Taiwan and the Philippines. We were there for almost a month between the two countries and they could not have been any more different! 

In this post I will reminisce about Taiwan. When we first got off the plane and were driving to our destination we were driving through a city but there would be places all through it where I would see elderly people in their pointed straw hats gardening. That was my first memory ~ the elderly people in their straw hats.

Another memory was the ornate temples in every town no matter how big or small. The temples were beautiful and sometimes a little terrible and very ornate and bright. 

We stayed in Taipei but then also smaller villages and towns. The city people dressed in very mismatched clothing that felt like they hurt my eyes sometimes.  In my country people were so obsessed with matching. The women wore shoes that were too big for them and that made a lot of them shuffle in some ways. The villagers and people from the mountains wore more simple traditional garb. 

The people were not warm or affectionate but reserved, guarded and respectful. Since we had just been to the Philippines this stood out in stark contrast to the warmth and affection of the Phillipino people. The people we stayed with were Taiwanese and missionaries themselves. They were so kind and caring. Taiwanese people were not very open to Christianity at that time so it took many years to build up a church community. We were, however, invited to a school where we shared what we had prepared. We spent time with the children and that was special.  

We went out to farmland and walked among rice fields. We met villagers who were astonished and kind to us foreigners. One family invited us into their home of many generations. It was such a special experience. They served us tea in tiny glasses and we visited as best we could with the language barriers. They had lived in their home time out of mind. It reminded me of a very long hallway with little rooms all along it. I think it was all made of brick.

We went up into the mountains and encountered the beauty of bamboo forests. We ate traditional food cooked inside bamboo. The bamboo as far as the eye could see was absolutely breathtaking. We also visited an area that had waterfalls and many steps to climb and traditional cultural performances. 

The trip was deeply beautiful and our encounters with people were impacting. I turned twenty while I was there. Little did I know I would be married at twenty one and life would be changing drastically at age twenty two.

I am so thankful that I was able to go to Taiwan. It was a stunning country with diverse landscape. 

Travel ~ Jamaica Part Two

 When my husband and I went to Jamaica again we had gone through a lot in a short time. When we had travelled to Jamaica before we had been married for a year and I was starting to go through my cancer journey and was going through a very long drawn out miscarriage. It was an amazing trip for us, but it had a lot of challenges for me. I was weak and sick and not sure what was happening to my body. I also was helping get ready for a wedding. It was very very hot where we were staying. When we arrived home I immediately started chemotherapy and my life was changed forever.

We decided to go to Jamaica again, because we wanted to visit our friends and see the children we had met the time we had been in Jamaica previously. In our hearts we wished to adopt them but adoption in Jamaica is almost impossible without living there for years and years.

At this time in our lives our friends had moved to a new town to start a church and I was very newly pregnant with my first son and we were also going to adopt our daughter. This time we went to Jamaica in the rainy season. Our friends didn't have a vehicle yet and so any time we were going to go somewhere we hired a driver or took a taxi. It rained a lot. It rained so much that our clothes wouldn't fully dry and the cement walls were weeping. I had pretty intense sickness from my pregnancy and while I was there someone I loved took their life. I could not attend their funeral which was very very hard for me. I was mourning and just feeling so heart broken. 

There were also such beautiful moments. We loved getting to see the children we had connected with. They were in a children's home and we so wished we could adopt them but that was not to be. We loved our time with our friends who continue to live in Jamaica to this day and have a seventeen year old church that is thriving. My husband and my friend's husband are kindred spirits and had so much fun dancing and sliding in the rain just getting to act like kids (which really we all still were) and have the time of their lives. 

Something else we did that was impacting to me was we attended a funeral for my friend's husband's grandmother up in the mountains. We rented a car and drove as far up as we could. The road was rough and more like a track. We caused some damage to the car for sure! We ended up going to the top of a mountain where a church was perched. It filled with people who were dressed beautifully and many women wore hats. The funeral was unlike any I had ever been to. There were many speeches and songs. It was a cultural experience that was totally sincere. Afterwards we also saw where our friend's grandmother had lived. There were small places close together and built with whatever material could be found.  There was no running water or electricity. There were fires for cooking. It felt like a different era.

This was the last trip I took before I had children. After that I didn't travel again until my oldest was nineteen years old. 

Going to Jamaica and suffering so much there (twice) made me never want to go back.  My husband has gone back three times and taken my three oldest children. It has been really incredible for them. Our friend's live on fifty acres now ( or something like that) and are camp directors. The property is beautiful and a wonderful place to raise children. They are amazing people and have been so impacting to thousands of people in their life time. 

I am thankful for the two times I was able to travel to Jamaica because I was able to be in my friends' wedding and see the country she adopted as her own.  I also am thankful that our husbands could become life long friends because of these trips. 

Assurance in Obedience

 I read a book last night and there were passages of it that I hope I can hold before me often. I look around and see other people living lives that seem 'better' than my own. I feel like if I could just get over certain walls that have been created by my past, or that I have built for myself, that I could do more, be better, and I could help. Help who? I don't know! Do more of what!? So many things. I just have this nagging feeling that I am doing something wrong. I wish I could bring in an income for my family and cook healthier meals and exercise, parent much more effectively, and the simple list is pretty extensive. However the list comes from a place of feeling like I am going to end up a failure, because I have not been able to do these things that I value and feel is vital with regularity or to the extent I would like to.

When I try to stand back and look at this I realize that this is the life my parents led and still lead in many ways. They are both still alive but their past trauma and their situations led them to a place now where they have a lot of pain and regret and bitterness and it's eaten them away. I want to walk towards something different but I often feel stuck in the battle. Like I am trying to scoop up the incoming tide and throw it back.

Is there truth in this? That I am doing something wrong? Not enough? Yes I think so. I also think I am doing what I can. There are days when I could do more and I don't. But more often than not I am doing every single thing I can do. It's just embarrassing that I can't do much. I think I always thought I was capable of more. Then the world sort of laughed and said nope. 

Last night when I read this though ~ it resonated with me.

'This, at least, was Molly's working theory of life. She saw plainly that her business - every day, every hour, every moment - was to order her way as He who had sent her into being would have her order her way. Doing God's things -that is, what God gave her to do - God's thoughts would come to her. God's things were better than man's thoughts, man's best thoughts the discovery of the thoughts hidden in God's things. Obeying him, perhaps a day would come in which God would think directly into the mind of his child without the intervention of things! For Molly had made the one rational, one practical discovery of being - that life is to be lived, not by helpless assent or aimless drifting, but by active cooperation with the Life that has said 'Live'. To her everything was part of a whole, which, with its parts, she was learning to know. She was finding out the secrets of life by obedience - that is, duty done - for developing even the common intellect. Those who obey are soon wiser than all their lessons, while from those who do not obey, even what knowledge they started with will be taken away."

'The Poet's Homecoming' by George MacDonald

This is a long quote but in reading it I felt a peace come over me. I so often forget that I can ask God what He would have me do. I forget to quiet my spirit and listen. I am overstimulated with the noise and clutter and energy. I am going from thing to thing not accomplishing much. However if I am doing what God has asked me to do - which I think I am that is enough. He has given me children to raise, a house to steward, relationships to give to if at all possible. It has not been much I realize compared to so many - but it is what He has given to ME. So instead of casting my eye around and looking at my lack and failures and regrets I can refocus. I can realize that in obedience I can rest in assurance. 

Maybe it doesn't make much sense. 

It has been long day and my body and brain are exhausted. My husband, daughter and son in law went snow boarding on a mountain close to us. I try to advocate for my daughter to get to go once a year. She loves to snowboard but it is an expensive endeavour and until she is older and can pay her own way this is what we can offer. Today I was home with all my children and grandson and it was a truly lovely day. Of course every day is filled with a lot of fighting between my children, a lot of whining, and I wash many many dishes and process many loads of laundry and make food over and over again. This holds much loveliness in the moments of eyes alight with thankfulness when I serve a snack that was asked for. Or when I read to someone or snuggle someone or look up when they are calling for me to watch them do something they think is absolutely mind blowing. Today I cleaned the bathrooms and washed barn clothes and cut up cabbage and read a Hardy Boy's novel to my son, and snuggled a baby to sleep multiple times. I went for a walk with my children in the beautiful sunshine and we dressed up like we were venturing out into the Arctic. I worked until my body ached. The three snowboarders came home tired, sore, bruised and happy. They had a great day. We all had a great day. Feeling peace today in amongst the chaos came from knowing that what I was doing was enough. It was what was laid before me and I obeyed. 

I am thankful

Travel ~ Jamaica Part One

 The first time I went to Jamaica I was twenty two. I went with my husband and we were going to celebrate the marriage of one of my dearest friends. I had met her when I was a baby and we had been friends until about age seven or eight. We reconnected at the age of twenty. We ended up living in the same house randomly in a totally different town than where we had first met. At that time her boyfriend lived in Jamaica and mine was in South Africa. We both were struggling students who were spending hundreds of dollars on long distance phone calls! We bonded on many fronts and have remained friends ever since. We have never lived on the same continent again but that small time together meant everything.

She came to my wedding and I was going to hers. I was a bridesmaid in the wedding actually! Back in those golden olden days of travel you could bring everything and your kitchen sink in your suitcase. I remember bringing a bag full of snacks because I didn't know what the food situation would be like. I also remember bringing a full and massive CD player along with a platter, plastic wrap, and so much more (in a suitcase). I was bringing her down the things she had gotten at a wedding shower. I brought a blow up bed, sheets, the list was endless! 

When I arrived I was hit with that same kind of heat I had felt in the Philippines. It was that tropical heat that you can't fathom until you are in it. I was travelling down with, not just my husband, but a whole group of friends. We needed to get to the coastal town where my friend was living and so we all jumped into a small taxi. I had to sit on my husbands lap. 

We were all hungry and so we tried to go through a drive through to get food. This was my first experience with Jamaican customer service. Let's just say that the fast food joint did not have ANY of the numbers we asked for and in the end the poor taxi driver had to ask the lady what numbers they DID have and she, in a VERY annoyed voice, listed off the numbers and we were then able to order. This is not an experience  I had ever had in my country. 

Then we were taken to the town. The roads were curvy, covered in potholes, the taxi was hot, goats and donkeys grazed along the sides of the road and we drove quickly. I was happy to arrive in one piece.

The town we stayed in was right on the coast of Jamaica. It was very hot there. My friend and her husband were renting a house to live in but had not moved in yet. It was completely unfurnished but it had a bathroom, a bedroom or two, a living room and small kitchen. There were no coverings on the windows but we did have electricity. 

So many things happened while I was on that trip. The small town did not have plastic wrap. I had brought it for zero reason other than I had a weird hunch we would need it. Little did I know that in Jamaican culture, at a wedding, you had to give out a special rum cake. The plastic wrap I brought was needed to wrap each individual piece of cake! While we were there we were working hard on preparing for the wedding ~ making cloth napkins, decorations, and running errands. I had a taste of my friend's life. She was only twenty two but she and her soon to be husband were pastoring a church. Just days before her wedding she got a call that four children were orphaned up in the mountains and could she take them. They were at risk for having AIDS and so until they were tested no one else would take them. She said yes. My friend's parents lived in the same town at the time so the children slept there. They were so precious and going through so much. It was very eye opening and so impacting to me.

Since we were right by the water and it was SO hot we did go swimming a lot. I saw puffer fish and other colourful fish and my husband saved me from a shark. He can truthfully say that he has saved my life. We didn't know that the area was a popular place for sharks because the fishermen gutted their fish in that area. Well, we learned our lesson. I was swimming happily when suddenly he scooped me up and ran. Everyone was hightailing it out of the water and I didn't understand what was going on. They all ran up on the banks far from the water and when I looked back I could see the shark fin circling around. It has been coming right for me. 

While we were there we got to be part of a marriage proposal and also got to be part of a Jamaican wedding. 

It was held on the grounds of a resort close to the water. I remember that the guests arrived an hour late which was expected and called 'island time'. There was a parrot in a cage that made very loud cell phone ringing noises during the ceremony. I was wearing a short strapless black dress made of cotton and I sunburned badly. My friend wore a large full satin wedding dress made for her by her mother. with a long heavy train I could not fathom how she could manage in the heat.

The wedding was beautiful ~ the groom met his dad for the first time at his wedding! He also saw his mom and dad interact for the first time in his life. The groom had grown up in a very poverty stricken area and was raised by his mom who had him, his twin brother, and other siblings. His dad had a whole other family in the States and had never visited his sons in Jamaica!

During this trip I experienced really hard things. I was in the process of slowly dying of cancer but I didn't know. I kept having these episodes where I would start haemorrhaging and I know that something was very wrong, but I was nowhere near a hospital and I'd have to lay on the blow up mattress in the sweltering heat just suffering. It was challenging and I got weaker and weaker. Everyone was young and living this carefree life and I was living such a different reality.

The ants surprised me. They were everywhere and so determined. If you left one crumb of food out there would be a trail of ants to it no matter how tall the building. 

I was most impacted by the orphans that we met, by my friend's decision to make Jamaica her forever home, by the heat and my suffering, and by the fun of the wedding. Jamaica culture is complicated. It comes from such trauma and tragedy and the people are resilient and devout and can dance! 

I didn't know at that time but when I got home I would have to start chemotherapy and my life would be forever changed. This little slice of time in Jamaica with a group of friends, celebrating my friend getting married, was a huge blessing ~ it was the last of my youth.

I am glad we went.

Travel ~ The Phillipines

 When I was nineteen I was part of a program through a church that took a month long trip to Taiwan and the Philippines. This was an experience of epic proportions from the beginning to the end.

The plan ride was so.many.hours.long. It was important to get up and walk every so often so your legs didn't swell and you didn't develop blood clots. It was a fun plane ride though for me as it was with good friends. I liked everyone on my team. 

When we arrived the heat, humidity and noise hit me like a ton of bricks. We were loaded into a Jeepney which is a vehicle left over from World War Two days. It was a vehicle with a front driver seat and then two benches in the truck bed with a roof and walls but the walls had slits in it. Where I am from you do not use your horn ever, unless you are angry. In the Philippines you use your horn constantly to communicate to other drivers what you are doing. The roads are teeming with vehicles and there does not seem to be many rules to an untrained eye. Pedestrians have zero right of way. It is so full of pollution and noise and heat. When the traffic stops people come up to try to sell you things and you have to be careful not to have jewelry stolen off of you. We had been flying for hours and to encounter this right off the batt was an assault of the sense to the highest degree. We were overwhelmed. When we arrived at our destination we were relieved. The girls were in a room full of bunk beds and the boys were next door in the same set up. 

As we were settling in our room one of the girls let out a shriek as the first cockroach encounter of our lives happened. The boys came in to the rescue and assured us they could not see any more (which was a huge lie to keep up quiet) as the cockroach had run under a bed. Apparently there were many cockroaches under the said bed but we didn't know till later. We then had our first shower experience in the Philippines. There was no hot water and no seats on the toilet. Where we were from every shower was hot and there were seats on every toilet and there was not a single cockroach. 

My time in the Philippines was absolutely life changing and incredible. I loved the country. 

The open air markets were mind boggling to someone that had only been in quality controlled grocery stores. So many carcasses hanging out covered in flies. So many things to buy at such cheap prices. 

The Philippines was covered in litter. The streets were so dirty. Once again I had come from a country where I rarely saw litter on the streets or highways because people were payed to constantly clean and there are high fines for littering. I hope it does not seem like I am being negative or scornful about it. It was just such a vast difference from where I had come from that it stuck out to me,

I saw people defacating in the middle of the streets, and dogs and cats covered in sores. I had also never encountered this in my country. I went to a massive garbage dump where many acres of land was piled mountains high with garbage. In fact the piles were so high that there was an area that had collapsed and killed multiple people. I saw little naked children who lived the outskirts of the dump and who's parents spent their days combing through garbage to find what they could to eke out a living. Once again I had not experienced that here. There are MANY homeless people in my town but none of them are allowed to live at the town garbage dump.  

I stayed at a woman's house whose husband was a missionary for most of her marriage in another country. She had four children many years apart because she only saw her husband once every five to seven years and would then get pregnant. The children did not really know their father. Her youngest son had never met him. This woman was one of a few women that we met in the same circumstances. They stayed back and ran businesses to support their husbands. It was a strange concept that we felt was very wrong. 

We all split up and stayed in different villages. I stayed with three friends in a little village that was beautiful and where many people had basically nothing. I had never been exposed to such poverty before. I remember standing at the top of a hill and looking down onto hundreds and hundreds of shacks built out of cardboard and tin that people had constructed. It was a whole community with chickens walking down the tiny dirt paths between houses. There was no running water or sanitation but people kept their places immaculately clean. The people we encountered were so deeply kind and sweet. They gave what they could. We made food to share and children came running. We also did crafts with them and taught them what we could about the love of Jesus. 

We ate many different foods. I was struck by the fact that bananas have seeds! Since bananas are imported here they never have seeds. Also bananas in their home country are much more yellow inside. They are always white here. A delicacy was chunks of fat floating a broth. When the more picky people on my team refused to eat it the kind Phillipinos just took our bowls and ate what was left. Also a very special meal prepared for us was a whole fish with eyeballs  still in in a bowl. We were so young and rude not realizing how much they were sacrificing to feed us these special foods. When they asked us what a staple food was for us we had no idea what that really meant. We were so privileged. We said bread. They made sure to have a loaf of white bread at every meal even though they never ate bread. I am filled with gratefulness at their sacrifice to my unaware, young, privileged self. I hope I can thank them in Heaven.

In the Philippines one night I stayed at a conference that the rest of my team did not stay at. I was asked to stay by the people there and I said yes. That night I slept on the floor on a piece of cardboard that I shared with a three year old. I have never slept on cardboard again but I had a great sleep that night. 

Being in the Philippines opened my eyes to a different level of poverty I had never seen before. We met a wealthy lady and went to her house. It was amazing to see all that she had when others so close to her, just down the road, were so hungry and had nothing. She was wealthy because her son worked on a ship and was gone for months at a time but made a good wage. We met his wife who suffered from headaches and what I believe was a lot of anxiety. We met children hungry to learn but who did not have opportunity. We so wished we could rescue the many starving sick animals and help the children who so deserved all the chances we had been given. 

We met so many kind people and we ate fresh mangos and hotdogs on sticks poked into pineapple. We shopped in massive malls and in open markets. We swam at a new indoor swimming pool. The ocean was full of garbage and so it was not advised to us to swim. We saw so many different neighborhods and drove in Jeepneys and buses. 

One memory I have that is one of the best of them all for me. I have many memories of this trip that are dear, but it was how I felt during this memory that blessed me deeply.

One day it started to rain. I had never experienced a tropical downpour. Every day had been thick with heat and humidity. Our clothes stuck to us and we felt wilted. One day it started to rain and I was in a small village with three friends. We decided to go outside and walk in the rain. The rain was pouring but it was so bright outside, the air was warm, the rain was warm! It was raining so hard that within a very short amount of time the roads were flooded and water was rushing through buildings. The sewers flooded and rats were floating down the road. People were showering with soap in the rain as many did not have running water. I was struck with the thought of the people whom we had served that lived at the bottom of the hill in their cardboard and corrugated metal structures. I knew their places would be decimated. However there was this sense of elation and freedom in the warm pouring rain that felt unique to me. I had felt that once before as a child in warm rain storm with a friend and we had ran outside and rolled on the hot pavement in the rushing water. It was such a fun surprise happening at the time and this felt the same.

We got soaked to the skin and it felt like this beautiful experience. Then the sun shone again, the rain was done and we went back to the place we were staying. 

One more thing that I remember clearly from the Philippines ~

The Phillipino culture is very affectionate. Where we were from people rarely touched and were not affectionate. In the Philippines it was common to see men walking down the road with arms around each other. In our country that would mean they were in a romantic relationship. Here it was just what people did. It was normal and lovely. I had grown up with very little touch in my life and the girls on my team knew this. In the Philippines they took the opportunity to lavish me with healthy touch. We would walk down the road holding hands because that was accepted and normal. They would stand with an arm around me because that was normal and it blessed me so deeply.

I spent the last few weeks of my nineteenth year in the Philippines and I am so thankful I did. 

Going to the Zoo

  Last night my oldest daughter asked me if I wanted to go the zoo with her and her family today and bring my family. Truthfully I had had a full week and did not want to go. However, I knew for one of the first times in weeks that the sun would be shining, and so I said yes. There is so much power in the word yes and this time yes was such a good choice. See, when I am home I am consumed with work ~ mostly cleaning. My home has way too much stuff in it ~ toys and books and craft supplies. It is such a blessing, but something I really lack when it comes to parenting is consistency in teaching my children to work and clean up after themselves, and so I do most of it. It takes a lot of my time. 

 Today though, instead of cleaning, I got up and made some sandwiches and off we went to the zoo. My sister and her family met us there. The sun was shining but it was cold out. I went through my usual issues at the gate. I can never just line up and get into the zoo. There are always issues that often take thirty minutes or more. Today was no exception. After that though we were in! Today my entire family was there ~ all my children, my son in law, my husband and my grand baby. This is RARE! It was deeply special. My four youngest children also got to go on a little train at the zoo for the first time. My sister brought so much food which was so generous and hot chocolate. This made the trip so special. I had brought water and sandwiches as I was low in snack foods. She even brought a tablecloth! We had a lovely picnic lunch. The sun was shining and so all the animals were out in the sunshine desperate for the light. The Lions, Tiger, Cougars, Giraffes, Wildebeests, Snow Leopards, Buffalo, Zebra, Kangaroos...they were all out. It was the perfect day to go to the zoo. 

These days are what dreams are made of. I am so thankful my daughter got us all out into the sunshine. We were there for a few hours and the sun felt so life giving and the cold air felt so refreshing. We were all full of joy. 

                  

Travel ~ Belize

   I went to Belize. I was a teenager and I took two younger teenage boys there. They were staying in my country but were Korean citizens, and they also had landed immigrant status in Belize. They had to go there every so often to get their passport stamped. Through a random series of events I was chosen to be their guardian on this trip as their parents were in Korea and they were too young to travel there by themselves. My trip was payed for.

Now, I had never travelled anywhere in my life other than a very short plane ride to visit my cousin who resided in the same country as myself. I did not have a credit card, no real proof that I knew these boys, no cell phone, and had no idea what I was doing. I question how my parents felt I could do this ~ but then I realize that my parents let me do what I wanted when I wanted, because they didn't have a lot of spare time to worry about me. 

On the plane we got and headed to Belize. First thought we stopped in Texas and stayed the night there in a motel. Texas was exactly what I thought it would be and it was awesome. My only surprise was that I was from a small town full of mostly white people and in Texas there were so many darker skinned people! I don't know why I didn't realize this but it was something I remember. Texas was hot and muggy as well and I had not experienced that sort of heat before. The next morning we got back to the airport and headed to Belize.

I knew nothing about Belize or where we would be staying. We did not have cell phones as I said before. I do believe I had an email address but I did not email a soul while I was there. When we landed in Belize I knew we were going to be staying on a small island so we needed to catch another plane. The lady in customs looked askance at me as I herded the two boys through her docket. She questioned who I was and how I was taking these boys to this island. It had just had a hurricane and we knew no one there. I was eighteen. Somehow she let us through. We got on a teeny tiny eight seater plane and flew quite low over the most beautiful coloured tropical water I had ever seen. It was a terrifying experience to fly in such a tiny plane but it was also exhilarating. 

When we landed on the tiny island we got out of the plane and the heat was a shock. We got our bags and started walking. We had no clue where to go but we knew the name of the place we were staying. Locals directed us to the building. We were sharing a room. The boys shared a bed and I had my own bed. It was very hot. There was no air conditioning and we were there for a week. 

The first night we were there we ran into some trouble. We had brought money with us but we had to bring enough to pay the lady that was accommodating us. We had to pay for food, and whatever else we were going to do there. The lady who was in charge of the trip had estimated how much to send us with but she had no idea of the prices of anything or how tourists were gouged of all they had. 

The lady who the boys were staying with in my country knew a lady who lived on this island so she was our emergency contact if we got into trouble. We did not have her number though!

So the first night we went out for dinner and ate a normal meal. This ended up costing us so much money that we were now basically broke! From then on we relied on eating one bun from a bakery in the morning for breakfast, drinking Capri Sun juice boxes, and eating Chinese food takeout for dinner. We had to make a collect call to the lady back in my country to beg her to figure out a way to get us more money so we could eat while we were there. 

There wasn't a lot to do during the day since we had no money. After we made the emergency collect call to the lady in my country who had set up the trip she called the lady she knew on the island who then contacted us. She gave us some more money and she took us out snorkelling and to swim with sharks! I had never snorkelled in my life and was not a strong swimmer. This experience was unlike any I have ever had and may never have again. Belize has an incredible coral reef. A garden under the sea. It was so beautiful and magical and vibrant. I saw a huge manta ray and so many fish and coral. I could not bring myself to swim with the sharks but one of the boys I was with did. 

One day I got horribly sunburned. I have red hair and am very fair. An American couple saw me burning and alerted me and left me their bottle of aloe vera. I was in so much pain and sick. That aloe vera was such a kind gift! I remember they also gave me an orange. We couldn't to buy fruit or veggies while there so this was such a treat. Since I got so burned I could not be outside for a few days as the pain was so bad. Our room was very dark and although we had gone to the local library and found a few books in English I could only handle reading for so long.

On this island was one main road with little shops all along it for the tourists. We had already been on it many times to pass the time. Somehow I had met one of the shop owners and chatted with her. After I was burned I asked her if I could help out in her shop. It was very dark and disorganized and dirty. She asked me to clean it. I love cleaning and organizing so I was happy to help! 

Something to keep in mind is that this island was tiny. Everyone there knew how vulnerable we were and that we had no money and that no one was there to care for us. We could have gotten into trouble so easily from evil people but the locals were kind and gracious. We were kept safe. I didn't even think about this until years later.

The first day I worked in the shop I did so for eight hours. I organized a glass cabinet filled with  hundreds of pairs of earrings that looked like they had been tossed in by the handful. Many were not joined in pairs either. The cabinet had glass shelves that were uneven and propped up by books. My first order of business was to take out every pair of earrings and wash down the shelves and then re stack the books so the shelves were even. Then I arranged pair upon pair of earrings on all the shelves. It took me hours. After this I dusted and organized and spent two days working away. The shop owner commented that I accomplished in two days what they would not accomplish for weeks. The process was so interesting as there were no garbage bags or garbage cans and no rags or dusters. I had to be creative. Their pace of life there was so much slower. They would chat with friends for hours during the hottest hours of the day and really enjoy and live their lives. At the end of the few days I worked there she braided my thick red hair in tiny braids. My hair was very short at the time so I looked ridiculous. However it was kind of her to do this for me and took her a long time.

Back when I was a teenager I had a much different view on the world and on saying yes. I wanted to travel, I wanted to experience different cultures, and I didn't live in fear. I am so thankful I said yes to going to Belize. 

Something that struck me about the local people there were a few things. They lived isolated on a tiny island. The children had to go to high school on the mainland and stay there. They didn't get to come home often. I met the shop keeper's daughter and her boyfriend and they were more my age. They told me about their lives and begged me to send them textbooks so they could study and learn more. When I got home I tried my best to do it. However the school I went to would not give me any textbooks and I didn't know how to get any other ones so I could not send them any. I still regret that to this day.

Since they had just had a hurricane the local people's homes were torn apart. The shops had survived and the bigger buildings that tourists stayed in but the villagers homes were ruined. I wondered how they would rebuild because there wasn't exactly a local hardware store to buy supplies to rebuild the huts they lived in. 

The beaches were absolutely beautiful and had the most amazing shells to gather. The water was this aqua color that sometimes changed to an almost jade green. Tourists from all over the world came to snorkel the reef. There were not many cars on the island. People drove golf carts. The store keepers changed their prices every day. I finally called one shop keeper out on it and told him I would only pay a certain price each day for the juice boxes that sustained us and he sheepishly agreed. 

What an experience for an eighteen year old! I kept the boys alive but just barely. One night one of the boys told me he had left our room while I was asleep in the middle of the night and wandered around. There was a nightclub where not good things were happening but angels were guarding him and he was kept safe.  I firmly forbade him to ever do that again but he was fifteen! I couldn't really tell him much. The food we ate was unknown ingredients from a Chinese food place because it was so cheap. The men bent over huge woks with lit cigarettes in their mouths. The ash would fall into the food and sometimes you would bite something crunchy you knew should not be there. 

We got home in one piece and I got my films developed from my film camera and those photos are what I have left to remember my trip. Those boys went home to Korea. One became a dentist and I don't know what the other one became. I have not heard from them in many years. But I can remember how the white sand shone so brightly it hurt my eyes. I can remember the heat of the day and how it felt. I can remember the priest going to all the locals houses on Sunday afternoon as every family sat outside by the water and chatted and laughed the afternoon away. I can remember the colours under the water at the reef and how warm the water was. I can remember. 

What a gift memory is. What a gift the world is.

It holds so much beauty!

xo Tansy