Belize 3- An American In Belize
So I spent the weekend at the Benque Viejo Fiesta, helping the nurses from the Ministry of Health with free HIV testing. It was a disappointing weekend, actualy. We had a little under 20 people come in and get tested, total. Most people took the information and pamphlets we offered, but nobody seemed that interested or asked questions. The festival itself was uninspiring, and left me with a very bad taste in my mouth.
By Sunday morning, the party was in its third day. We arrived at the festival to find a skeletal street dog with obvious breast cancer lapping vomit out of the gutter. The festival went downhill from there. It was swelteringly hot- this far south, the sun is like a physical pressure on your skin. The stereos were turned up, blasting various hispanic and American hip-hop songs at full volume. It was crowded and everyone was drunk. We didn't seem to be getting anything done. One of the nurses went off on a rant about the breakdown of the Belizean family that sounded eerily familiar. I ended up leaving the festival at about 5pm yesterday, while N and the testing center planned to stay till 7:30 or so. Ironically, they ended up staying much later, because they got a rush of people come in to be tested around 7. So the day wasn't as much of a loss as it seemed to me at the time.
I feel bad about leaving, but I'm not sure I should. That was my 6th solid day working, the physical strain in this climate is considerable, and I hadn't been able to bring myself to eat anything since the fiesta was so filthy. Plus a loud, hot environment crowded with drunk strangers, speaking a different language, weaving in and out among whirling carnival rides is just about the perfect recipe for a Very Bad Day For Persipone. I was confused and grumpy and tired and more than a little freaked out. I was very down on the whole country, and I wanted to go back home to the states, my bed, my cat, and my dvd player damnit!
So I did what I've promised myself to do in situations like that, and withdrew to a comfort zone. The driver for the Ministry of Health was kind enough to give me a ride home, and I felt better as soon as I was indoors and had washed my face off. I chilled for a couple hours reading and doodling on my laptop, and went out with C and A, my roomates. We ran into a bunch of international cultural anthropology students here on a summer program, and hung out with them for a while. I came home early and went to sleep, and felt much better this morning.
The thing is, just being in a different culture and wanting to help the people in it doesn't mean you have to like everything about the culture and go completely native. I'm still an American in Belize. The Benque Fiesta was completely put on for Belizeans, by Belizeans. There were only a handful of tourists around and that was quite a change from San Ignacio, which is just swarming with Americans. I had a conversation about the festival with one of the anthropology students, who turned out to be amazingly pretentious. She said that she didn't want to stick around for the Fiesta because there was "no culture, it's just a bunch of people getting drunk and doing drugs." But that *is* culture, just like football and handguns are culture in the US. Culture isn't just about ancient artifiacts and museums. And you don't have to like something for it to be part of the culture. Belize isn't for American students, after all.
Today was entirely more productive. N and I did a presentation to a group of kids at a soccer camp on HIV/AIDS. It was fairly well received. They seemed to know a lot of the basics already, and they asked some very frank questions which gave us the chance to do a bit more explaining than we'd felt comfortable doing right out of the gate. N has declared that I get a day off tomorrow, and I may go check out some Maya ruins with C and A, who are scheduled for that trip. Or I may just laze around and pay my way into a hotel pool for the day! I've been working pretty hard since I got here. It's odd to think that I actually paid a fair bit of money to do this much work- but I'm a student, and paying to work my butt off feels very natural to me.
Later this week, we distribute the condom boxes around, and that's the last of the planned activities I have while I'm down here. I've got some tours scheduled for the weekend, and a couple more that I'm planning to check out next week, depending on how the money situation holds out. N says he's going to see what he can score for me through Cornerstone's connections. The countryside around here is beautiful, and I'm really looking forward to seeing some pyramids. This part of the country is full of Mayan ruins. So it's not going to be all work and no play- not by a long shot!
I'm finding that I get along better with the other volunteers. The drinking aside, they're a great group. We're all so amazingly idealistic. I've gotten into several conversations- more like heated arguments- about politics and social policy. But what's amazing about it is that everyone's coming at it from basically the same point of view. We all want to help the most people as best we can. We get into these passionate arguments about how to do the most good in the world. I feel that it has really left me free to express that side of myself. At home, I always feel pressured to couch things in practical or cynical terms. "I just want to help people" is never considered an acceptable explanation for what I'm doing. Around here, with these people, it is. I hope that's something I'm able to bring back with me.
By Sunday morning, the party was in its third day. We arrived at the festival to find a skeletal street dog with obvious breast cancer lapping vomit out of the gutter. The festival went downhill from there. It was swelteringly hot- this far south, the sun is like a physical pressure on your skin. The stereos were turned up, blasting various hispanic and American hip-hop songs at full volume. It was crowded and everyone was drunk. We didn't seem to be getting anything done. One of the nurses went off on a rant about the breakdown of the Belizean family that sounded eerily familiar. I ended up leaving the festival at about 5pm yesterday, while N and the testing center planned to stay till 7:30 or so. Ironically, they ended up staying much later, because they got a rush of people come in to be tested around 7. So the day wasn't as much of a loss as it seemed to me at the time.
I feel bad about leaving, but I'm not sure I should. That was my 6th solid day working, the physical strain in this climate is considerable, and I hadn't been able to bring myself to eat anything since the fiesta was so filthy. Plus a loud, hot environment crowded with drunk strangers, speaking a different language, weaving in and out among whirling carnival rides is just about the perfect recipe for a Very Bad Day For Persipone. I was confused and grumpy and tired and more than a little freaked out. I was very down on the whole country, and I wanted to go back home to the states, my bed, my cat, and my dvd player damnit!
So I did what I've promised myself to do in situations like that, and withdrew to a comfort zone. The driver for the Ministry of Health was kind enough to give me a ride home, and I felt better as soon as I was indoors and had washed my face off. I chilled for a couple hours reading and doodling on my laptop, and went out with C and A, my roomates. We ran into a bunch of international cultural anthropology students here on a summer program, and hung out with them for a while. I came home early and went to sleep, and felt much better this morning.
The thing is, just being in a different culture and wanting to help the people in it doesn't mean you have to like everything about the culture and go completely native. I'm still an American in Belize. The Benque Fiesta was completely put on for Belizeans, by Belizeans. There were only a handful of tourists around and that was quite a change from San Ignacio, which is just swarming with Americans. I had a conversation about the festival with one of the anthropology students, who turned out to be amazingly pretentious. She said that she didn't want to stick around for the Fiesta because there was "no culture, it's just a bunch of people getting drunk and doing drugs." But that *is* culture, just like football and handguns are culture in the US. Culture isn't just about ancient artifiacts and museums. And you don't have to like something for it to be part of the culture. Belize isn't for American students, after all.
Today was entirely more productive. N and I did a presentation to a group of kids at a soccer camp on HIV/AIDS. It was fairly well received. They seemed to know a lot of the basics already, and they asked some very frank questions which gave us the chance to do a bit more explaining than we'd felt comfortable doing right out of the gate. N has declared that I get a day off tomorrow, and I may go check out some Maya ruins with C and A, who are scheduled for that trip. Or I may just laze around and pay my way into a hotel pool for the day! I've been working pretty hard since I got here. It's odd to think that I actually paid a fair bit of money to do this much work- but I'm a student, and paying to work my butt off feels very natural to me.
Later this week, we distribute the condom boxes around, and that's the last of the planned activities I have while I'm down here. I've got some tours scheduled for the weekend, and a couple more that I'm planning to check out next week, depending on how the money situation holds out. N says he's going to see what he can score for me through Cornerstone's connections. The countryside around here is beautiful, and I'm really looking forward to seeing some pyramids. This part of the country is full of Mayan ruins. So it's not going to be all work and no play- not by a long shot!
I'm finding that I get along better with the other volunteers. The drinking aside, they're a great group. We're all so amazingly idealistic. I've gotten into several conversations- more like heated arguments- about politics and social policy. But what's amazing about it is that everyone's coming at it from basically the same point of view. We all want to help the most people as best we can. We get into these passionate arguments about how to do the most good in the world. I feel that it has really left me free to express that side of myself. At home, I always feel pressured to couch things in practical or cynical terms. "I just want to help people" is never considered an acceptable explanation for what I'm doing. Around here, with these people, it is. I hope that's something I'm able to bring back with me.