Day Six

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It rained all day Thursday and Thursday night and into Friday morning. It rained and rained and rained. And thundered! And lightninged! The power went out! It was dark. Very dark. Everything we had was wet. And mildewy. (And, between you and me, we didn't smell very good...) It was a good thing that due to timing, we had known in advance we would not be able to be at Tumul K'in on Friday morning because as we learned later many of the area roads were flooded. Including...the road out of our lodging. The bus that was coming to pick us up had to remain about half a mile away and we had to carry our luggage on our shoulders through muddy water, thigh-deep, in order to reach our bus. Singing "Wade In the Water" was very tempting, but the fact that our lodge host had advised us to watch for "crawling things" in the water had us preoccupied.

The short version: we all made it.

On to Punta Gorda where it was market day. Because of the flooding there were fewer vendors than normal, but it was fun to see farmers out with their fruits and vegetables and hand-made goods. A quick education in the making of chocolate and we were on to Maya Air, where we boarded two small planes to take us to San Pedro and Holy Cross Anglican School.

We were able to tour Holy Cross late in the afternoon and found a number of improvements made to the school since we had last worked there. The school is still struggling with a neighboring developer over land ownership issues, but is moving forward with plans for growth. Holy Cross is currently educating 500 students and continues to make a difference in the nearby San Mateo neighborhood.

With love from Belize,
The St. Anne's Belize Team 2010

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