Bicycles are almost as good as guitars for meeting women

My friend Gilbert enjoys communicating with a combination of sound effects and pantomime.  25 years old, eager to learn new skills and see new places.  Just one of the many good-natured and personable need greaters we've gotten a chance to know in Belize. 

Placencia is a small town but trudging up and down the streets time and again can get a little tiresome.  Thus when your friend Gilbert says that he knows a guy in Dangriga who can get us a deal on a bicycle for 110 Belize (55 US dollars), your ears perk up.  Soon thereafter, myself, Ian, Gilbert, and Carl and Matthew, the Brits as they are affectionately known, board the 1:00 PM bus to Dangriga at about 1:20 (that's how things work here).  The bus chugs along weaving it's way north for a couple hours.  A simple ride with no bicycles.

We arrive in Dangriga and meet up with Eli and Dave, a couple of laid back need greaters from the East coast, USA.  From Connecticut but they remind me of some SoCal surfers.  As soon as we enter the main city street, Charley, a local Garifuna, comes up to see who the new guys in town are.  Eli tells him we're with him, subsequently Charley leaves us alone.  Eli explains Charley is not a bad guy, he's just an opportunist, and is always aware of an opportunity to hustle a gringo.

We go to the meeting in Dangriga. It's our first meeting in a Kingdom Hall since we've been here, because in Placencia we meet in the local community center.  The humidity in the Kingdom Hall is comparable to a steam room but you can feel the energy and positivity throughout. Apparently this energy has broken more  than half the fans, it's just that powerful.  Dangriga English, a congregation of about 100, a combination of need greaters, special pioneers, and locals. They are already having a Saturday and Sunday meeting and soon they will be splitting, now that the Jacobs, a special pioneer couple from Belmopan have arrived. The Jacobs are from California but have been in Belize for 8 years. 

The next morning as we leave the service group, Brother Jacobs pounds his chest twice and says "Respect brothers".  Wow, I ponder, even the white people are cool here.  In the ministry I work with a brother who moved here from Canada 3 years ago with his family.  He has 9 Bible studies right now, because that's all he has time for.  I'm a little nervous as I take my first door, but I muster it up, and call out "Hello . . . Morning!" from the bottom of the stairs as is the custom.  The somewhat dilapidated house is about 8 feet off the ground, on stilts providing shade for the dogs and the drunks.  

"I'm busy right now, sorry", she says from the door.  Sounds like the states, the difference is the person here is most likely legitimately busy.   "Should I come back?"  I ask.  "Yes, come back in 20 minutes please".  We circle the block talking to a few people.  Strangely almost everyone seems to be busy this morning but one lady cooking fish talks to us for a bit.  She studied in the past and even went to the meetings some.  So we invite her to the meeting on the weekend. She says she'll be there. 

Making our way back to the busy lady, we call up again, "Hello. . .  Good morning!" She invites us up.  I start my presentation in the Truth tract, and read Psalm 37:10, 11.  She listens very attentively, and I ask her if she'd like to learn more.  She says yes.  And before I can offer she asks, "Can someone study the Bible with me?"  We go and find sister Jacobs.  I introduce them and they set up a time to meet in a couple days.  As we leave, the householder (whose name has escaped me, granted this was a couple weeks ago) says, "you really made my day, today" with a big smile on her face.   She made ours as well. 

Service is over, we've had our siesta, we've gotten our bicycles, it's time to go home.  It's an interesting feeling going home to Placencia.  Leaving it and coming back, is the first time, for me at least that it has really felt like home.  Maybe that's typical.  

There is the less then trivial matter of getting the bikes back on the bus.  These buses don't exactly have bike racks.  After cramming, scrunching, folding, bunching, climbing and situating the three of us (the Brits took a different bus) and the three bikes into the back of the bus; we sit, cozy and content.  As the sky darkens and the air cools Gilbert and Ian discuss; well things I suppose, I wasn't really paying attention.  Opposite them I stare out my window, watching the Mayan villages and banana plantations fly by.  The beauty of the evening makes it easy to reflect on how privileged we are to be here right now. Riding on possibly the same bus I went to the zoo in when I was in the 4th grade, surrounded by good friends, and sporadically colored beach cruisers.  That "journey is the destination" thing is kind of making sense these days. 

Gilbert's mad skills

In case there was doubt, yes I am a Nerd!

Good thing Ian is too :)

"The best things in life are unexpected - - because there is no expectation"

We unload from the back of the pickup truck and apply bug spray in a car wash assembly line manner. The various desks and chairs from the lime green school have been scattered on the lawn in front of the building. A white sheet is set up on the side of the building with a projector and a laptop cued up with a young people ask video sitting on a desk in the front row.
Thus far it's just need greaters and a few studies standing around, chatting and laughing while telling tales small and tall.  Oh yeah and avoiding the tall grass, deep in the Stann Creek district of Belize the bugs are the worst in the tall grass. 
It's now nearing 6 o'clock, 30 minutes or so past the advertised start time of the program, and still no Maya villagers. Will anybody show we wonder?  Or will we just have to sit on our own and listen to a talk in a language we don't understand. At least we'll get to watch a video I guess.
The brothers arranged the program due to a recent string of suicides among Maya youth in the area.  Most recently 3 Maya teenagers all poisoned themselves and then spent the next week slowly dying.  It took one teenager nearly 5 days to end his life. The effect on the community is hard for us to even begin to comprehend. 
Slowly, gradually the seats begin to fill.  Mostly children sit in the seats near the front.  Mothers with two or three children with them occupy the chairs on the outskirts of the group.  We stand at the back and observe the crowd gather to hear a talk with practical advice from the Bible in there own Mayan language.  A rarity indeed.  I notice very few men in the audience at the start of the talk.  Just women, children, and pack of dogs to the side fighting and growling at each other.   Soon though, scanning the field to the right more begin to creep in.  There is half a dozen people, mostly older men, standing about 20 feet away from the main group.  As the talk continues they slowly ease in closer and closer to the group.  Seemingly; always alert and paying close attention, absorbing the words being spoken.
The talk ends and polite applause proceeds.
As the young people ask video begins I find myself originally nervous of there choice.  It's the drama based on the Bible account of Dinah. The girl gets in with poor association at school and this has a negative effect on her life for a time. How will they relate to this video, I wonder. It seems so far away and distant from there lifestyle.  I think modern suburbia really couldn't be any further away.  The first somewhat cheesy funny part of the video happens with the girl's dad doing something which I can't recall.  And to my pleasing surprise, the crowd of over 100 roars with laughter.  Well, I guess they like it. The Maya people fill in the gaps in the makeshift outdoor meeting place and nobody, that I noticed, leaves while the video plays.
Afterwards we have a few minutes to talk with the villagers.  They are so appreciative of us coming.  One man asks me if we'll be doing this every week here.  He says the people here need this type of education. He thanks us, and I feel a deep warmth to have the privilege to belong to such a brotherhood.
Ian also gets a little chatty with a villager.  Chatty enough that we almost end up leaving him in the village (that would of been tough to explain).  Banging on the outside of the truck, the brother driving stops and Ian has time to run and jump in the back. They don't mess around here.  I wasn't looking forward to the chilly hour long ride back home in the back of a pickup truck. 
To escape the wind we lie on our backs and are treated to possibly the most beautiful night sky I've experienced in my life.  The stars are not scattered in the sky. Rather they form a continuous variance of different patterns and brightness until the heavens above seem to have nearly exploded with light. As the truck makes turns on the road the whole sky shifts.  Almost as if we can feel the movement of the earth beneath us.
This night was an experience I wouldn't of been able to imagine.
I went into this trip trying my best to have no expectations.  But once I got here I faced the hard reality that, inevitably, I did indeed have some expectations.  Which of course were highly inaccurate. Looking back now on a couple weeks.  It is not the picture I had in my mind; but everyday has been unique, different, and quite fantastic.
I suppose maybe I've seen that we can't help but have some expectations going into a new situation.  But the important thing is to be willing to let go, completely, of those expectations.  And not only except things for what they are but embrace things for what they are.  Because in this way, life it seems can often be more amazing and fresh and exciting then we could ever possibly imagine.

 Sorry I still have taken just a few low quality pics.  I will try to remember to get my camera out more.