Thursday the 8th

By now, in real time, it's Jan 23 and I'm behind in getting these blog posts done for you, dear reader (!)

And you really like the photos, not so much my ramblings... it's ok, you can tell me.

So let's blast out a few and get you up to speed!

Oh but Thursday the 8th! It was a good day! A nice long service day full of awesome deaf adventures! So we'll tell you all about it.

We met with the group and then went and picked up Bris's grandma. Now also my grandma too. Remember my abuela I picked up yesterday? Now I have a Belizean granny too...

So we had 2 cars, Horace & Reymona & Bris in one and then Nate & I, Carolyn & her mom in Carolyn's car. Carolyn is Bris's mom and their family was in ASL when there was a Cong here in OW. So she had deaf RVs and studies previously and knew where they still lived.

But first breakfast. Bris had called in breakfast at a local cafe so we all drove there. I ran in for a coffee.

Now, we're ready. We headed to Yo Creek.

On a clear day, you can see forever... I mean, Mexico

Carolyn had studied with a deaf woman here previously so we stopped by. No one was home! So our caravan continued on to another house with another deaf woman. She was home! Reymona & Carolyn went in and stayed for a while. Then I noticed that Reymona was "calling" Nate from the balcony of the house (she was signing his sign name). So Nate went in and he was inside for a while. Then Nate called me inside!

D & Reymona

And this was what we saw! We met the deaf woman. By now we have been in Belize for 24 days and this woman was the first one who used home sign (a form of sign language unique to the deaf person, it indicates a lack of familiarity or knowledge of a sign language, such as ASL). The more language ability a deaf person has then the sooner you can communicate with them, rather than spending time figuring out what their signs mean to them.

We met this woman and her mom and some other family members. Reymona had downloaded Zoom for her and explained how to connect for the meetings. Eventually we were joined by Horace & Bris.

And then this happened....

There was a tank in the corner of the room with 3 turtles. One turtle was fairly content, one wanted to escape and the other was hellbent on escaping! During our stay, he kept climbing and stretching and standing on another turtle and you get the idea. Then we hear a commotion and he tasted air! He got halfway out!

After all this excitement, it was time to head on down the road. The next village was San Lazaro and yes there was a deaf person there to call on but first, lunch. We drove past the village to August Pine Ridge. There's a little restaurant off the side of the road that if you didn't know it was there, you'd never find it. We had the place to ourselves and it was perfect. The vibe it gave off was Charleston - sun, nice breeze, palm trees. It captured that essence.

We ordered the salpicon and we would gladly do so again. If you've had ceviche, salpicon is its cousin. Instead of seafood, you use beef or pork.

Pork Salpicon

After lunch, we hinted that ice cream just might be the cherry on top. Turns out there is a Mennonite community nearby and they have a dairy! So further down the road we went to Shipyard. I'm here to tell you, I haven't seen a cleaner village. It's mainly farms and farmhouses. We pulled off the road, again, no sign, and into a building. It was a hot sunny day and we had eaten outside at the restaurant in the shade. We entered the dairy and it was cold! They had the AC cranked! We ordered in Spanish... Yes, you read that right, Spanish. Remember you can see Mexico from here?! So the Mennonites here speak Spanish and Low German. We ordered a half-liter of chocolate to share and then drove back to the restaurant to eat it.

Now back to business. We drove back to San Lazaro and found the deaf woman. She grinned so big at the sight of us! Carolyn had previously studied with her as well.

On our way back to Orange Walk, we decided to stop by the first house we had called on today where the lady had not been home. This time the door was open and the woman was home with her 2 daughters. Carolyn signed with the mom and I signed with the eldest daughter who was 6. Normally if you have a kid who is a child of a deaf adult, then once they find out you are hearing, they want to talk, they don't want to sign. This little girl signed with me the whole time. She was so sweet, polite, well-mannered, great signer!

I shared with her a picture of Jehovah, since I didn't have a Caleb & Sophia video downloaded for ASL and I didn't have internet. So I asked her who it was and she signed God and then signed Jesus. I explained prayer and I pointed to the picture to indicate that we pray to God. Then I signed Father. Then I signed God has a son. His name is Jesus. So then I pointed to her mom and signed Mother. I pointed to her and signed daughter. I pointed back at the picture and signed this is God, he has a name, it's Jehovah. She signed back to me, that's Jehovah God, he has a son, Jesus. I signed pray and she pointed to the picture again.

M (another M) with her 2 daughters, Reymona & Carolyn

We invited the family to the meeting on Sunday and then made our way home after a long, wonderful day! We dropped Granny off at her house, then went home and made dinner. Then Bris picked Granny back up as well as another couple and brought them over to the house for dinner. We made salbutes, a fried street taco like creation - instead of a corn tortilla, it's fried masa with toppings, including shredded meat, lettuce, tomato, crema (sour cream) and pepper sauce if you want.