"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.