The 2011 Belize team after building a house with Hand in Hand Ministry.
By Valerie Grant
Our trip to Belize lasted nine days—just enough time for the eleven of us to establish nightly rituals of yo-yoing, Garifuna singing and dancing, and cherished late-night conversations; to adjust to each other’s sleeping habits and our new rice and bean diets; and most importantly, to adapt to life in a foreign country that differed from our own in many obvious and some unexpected ways.
As soon as we stepped off the plane on New Year’s Day, the warm night that greeted us let us know we had left snowy New York City far behind. Our trip coordinator Roxanne and her family greeted us at the airport and drove us to our accommodations, the Starfish House located in Belize City. We began the next day by walking down the street to the beach, where the beautiful and well-kept properties that gave us an impression of Belize as a coastal environment that was not radically different from the beaches back home. We spent the remainder of the day travelling just outside Belize City to Altun Ha, the site of the Mayan Temples. A tour guide told us about the daily lives of Belize’s original inhabitants, and we had the chance to climb the awesome and somewhat terrifying pyramids.
Our main service project, building a Hand-in-Hand ministry sponsored home for a woman named Guadalupe, started bright and early on the third day of the trip. The short ten minute drive from the Starfish brought us to a strikingly different neighborhood. Giant potholes interrupted the dirt road every few feet; poorly constructed and barely maintained homes surrounded the worksite; and previous visitors to our empty lot had covered the overgrown grass with trash. It seemed hard to imagine that this would be the place for Guadalupe’s fresh start.
Fortunately, our tight schedule did not allow for too much time to be spent on culture shock. The two contractors, Bata and Alfonso, put us right to work: weeding, disposing of trash, and mixing cement to seal the cinderblock foundation. Soon, we started constructing the wooden base of the house, and by the end of the day, the entire base was constructed and water-sealed. The next three days, work on our sixteen-by-sixteen foot house mostly continued as it had began, but each day, various members of Guadalupe’s family would come help us work. Her sister, Virginia, and her father quickly won us over with their great work ethic and ability to laugh at our construction blunders (and then quickly fix our mistakes). By the end of the third day, we were ready to raise the walls. While a couple of us held the first, upright wall in place, the remainder of the team pushed the adjacent wall into place on Bata’s count of three. For a moment it seemed that our entire house might go toppling over; instead, the walls fit perfectly together.
Just in time for the house dedication ceremony, Bata nailed the roof’s last shingle into place. The ceremony brought together the coordinators of Hand-in-Hand ministries, everyone who helped construct the house, and Guadalupe and her family. Fr. Joe offered a blessing, than we all sang hymns and our team gave Guadalupe truly Belizean housewarming gifts: rice, hot sauce, and fruitcake and presented Guadalupe with the keys to her brand-new home. The freshly painted wooden house had transformed the formerly homely lot into a welcoming place where we could easily imagine Guadalupe’s family gathering together.
With just two days left in Belize, we had enough time to explore the city a bit further. We spent one morning visiting Hand-in-Hand’s outreach center and nursery for children affected by HIV, and the hours spent playing with the children – who ranged from six months to six years – were definitely a trip highlight for us all. That night, Garifuna dancers came to share their interesting heritage with us through song and dance, and we all had fun attempting to “shuffle” and sing-along with them.
Our final full day was spent taking a boat to Caye Caulker where we explored the beautiful island and snorkeled with sharks, sting rays, and the coral reefs. Our relaxing beach day served as the perfect conclusion to a trip that was at times physically and emotionally challenging, and allowed us to see the Belize that attract thousands of tourists each year. Though our nine days in Belize passed quickly, our trip lasted just long enough for each member of our team to form a lasting attachment to the country and to one another.
