Belize Doctoral Internship Summary Video

I put together this short video to show my overall experiences in Belize- food, people, schools, kids, geography and culture.

Sea Turtle!

Look at this cute little turtle! I wish I could have gotten closer.

Commuting

Most residents of San Pedro get around one of three ways:
-bikes
- golf carts
- walking
Kids get to school these three ways as well- you'll find no school buses here. Some arrive via the water taxi from another island or the mainland. That's a hefty commute from Belize City of over 1 hour each way. The first ride in the water taxi was nauseating, and I could not understand how the man across from me could sleep through the constant bumps and waves. But I nodded off during my third trip. You can get used to anything I guess.

Recurring Thoughts During My Trip

1. During the ten days I spent on Ambergris Caye, I did not fully understand how to pronounce its name. Not until I got home and looked at this wonderful web site. Not sure why it was so difficult for me.

http://ambergriscaye.com/pages/town/island.html

2. Currency exchange: 2 Belize = 1 U.S.- No, wait, it's 1 U.S. = 2 Belize. CRAP! Which is it? They accept both kinds of currency and you never know what you'll get in change, so there was a lot of trust that the Belizean folks were honestly doing the math correctly.

3. Where are we? We walked the same path back and forth over and over to get to the schools, the beach, the restaurants, main drag, etc. Our accomodations were on the middle street and one street in each direction was on the water. So the island is 3 blocks wide? We never got to the length-wise end of the island, but where is it anyway? According to the above web site, the island is a mile wide in some places. Really? I saw such a small part it seems, but while there I felt like I had seen it all.

4. Where is the Belizean music? I traveled to Mexico and heard clearly Mexican music everywhere. I saw street musicians and felt the rhythm of the culture. In San Pedro, I heard American music. 70s and 80s music especially. At lunch, we heard Jimmy Buffet; at a school function, it was 1970s folk and pop. I saw no street performers or authentic "Belizean" music that I can recall. Even the island's main web site (listed above) has Madonna playing in the background. I found that strange.

One classmate put it well- it seems that the people of this island were on the way to somewhere else but just stayed in San Pedro when they arrived. So the mix of people is quite diverse. There is no majority or minority. It is a cultural blend, so it was impossible to get a true vibe of what this place was all about.

5. Oh my god that child is going to get hurt!! One VERY big difference between America and San Pedro is the level of safety precautions for kids. We saw: -toddlers riding bikes alone with no shoes and definitely no helmets

- parents carrying newborn babies with one arm while riding a bike

- very small kids riding on golf carts with no seat belts or restraints of any kind
- children playing in the ocean with no supervision

- 2, 3, 4 year olds riding on the bar in front of the bike seat while the adult rides the bike (ALL OF THE TIME)

- bare feet- not just on the beach but on the dirt roads, in the street, everywhere. But as the signs in the restaurants say, "no shirt, no shoes, no problem!"