long overdue

I have been a bad blogger. So here’s the short version of what’s been going on in Belize:

A couple of weeks ago Sr. Alejandro Aviles came to visit. We were supposed to go back to Goff’s Caye but it was icky out and we sat around the apartment and ate all the food we made for the caye trip instead. As I recall phase 10 was played. It wasn’t quite the same as going to the caye, but it was awesome hangin’ with jano (ir)regardless. Other than that life has been pretty boring: work, sleep, heat, mosquitos – repeat.

humidity + velour couch = ick factor

My boss lady at Youth Business Trust is president of the board of Belize Tourism Industry Association (BTIA) so I am lucky enough to get e-mails from her about happenings around Belize City. One such happening was at the Culture House, a place that used to be the governor’s house pre-independence and the place where the Belizean flag was first flown after indepedence from the British. Anywho, a Yucatan culture and tourism festival happened there and Lindsey and I were lucky enough to witness the opening ceremony where this happened:

Julianne, Linds, and I broke the cycle by celebrating my bday, Julianne’s bday,and America’s bday in Placencia this past weekend. We’ve heard lots of good things about Placencia and we were of course eager to have some r&r and see another part of Belize. Placencia is a beautiful peninsula with part of the coast on the Caribbean and the other half bordering a lagoon on the mainland side. We met lots of nice folks there from places like Alabama (RTR) and England. The highlight of the long weekend may have been my birthday present from the restaurant /bar Yoli’s… a Belekin beach towel.

Like I said, my boss lady sends me all kinds of events to go to in Belize City. Last night was the opening of an artist from Cayo, Paula Braun, at the Bliss Performing Arts Centre, so Linds and I decided to hit it up and get out of the house for a reason other than grocery shopping. The artist worked primarily in oils with a few mixed media peices thrown in. She also had a series of orchids (the national flower of Belize) done in water color that LB and I were quite taken with. Unfortunately, like most art in the known universe, the pieces were out of our budget.

As far as my project is concerned, I am in the thick of it now. The past couple of weeks were kind of slow for me because the office was preparing for the annual general meeting (AGM) and awards ceremony. The AGM is a meeting/ceremony/reception where the financials are publicly announced and approved and the auditor is also approved by the public. This event was supposed to go down the day after I got to work with YBTB, but the swine flu postponed that. I got the chance to meet some entrepreneurs, mentors, and board members that I hadn’t met yet which was a great experience for me.

Currently I am interviewing as many mentors as I possibly can in order to provide feedback on the mentoring program and finding ways to address major greivances of the mentors and reasons for lapses in performance. When it’s all said and done, I will have a document prepared with mentoring resources; mentor feedback, greivances, needs, and suggestions; and an action plan for addressing the mentor feedback and improved mentor recruiting methods.

Today Linds and I have taken ourselves hostage inside the Hotel Mopan (which brings me to my next post….) for reliable internet access and to crank out some w-o-r-k. Red bulls and canned coffee drinks were had.

So… that’s all folks! for now anyway…