Slowly Slowly

"Slowly, slowly"- it's something my grandmother (or yiayia because we're Greek), used to say all the time. That's how things get done. Slowly, slowly, and little by little. I've seen a lot of changes and progress being made at Barzakh Falah over two alternative spring breaks and my co-op. Although it has been slow, we have made incredible progress at Barzakh Falah. What was once an overgrown field next to a patch of jungle, is now in the last stages of construction to become a home for at-risk children and young women.

This past week was chaotic with two different construction projects ongoing at Barzakh. The Hval family was still with us to work on both the kitchen roof and the root cellar floor- and they crushed it. Both of these projects have been a long time coming. The root cellar floor was particularly satisfying to see completed since I personally worked on the earthbag structure during Alternative Spring break in 2016 and more recently in January 2017 with one of our volunteer groups. 

The new concrete floor of the root cellar and nearly complete plastering

The hardwood beams and purlins in place to support the tin roof

So shiny and new!!

We celebrated with the Hval's by getting lunch at a local barbecue place. Santa Elena, the sister town to San Ignacio, is famous for it's numerous open-air, tin-roofed, barbecue restaurants. Rodriguez's Chicken is our go-to spot. The portions are massive. You get a whole chicken breast, still on the bone, on a piece of tin foil with a healthy spoonful of secret barbecue sauce and a massive tortilla. No utensils provided so the best approach is to rip the chicken off the bone with your hands and turn the whole thing into a wrap. The result? Burnt finger tips, a ruined shirt, and a pretty epic food coma. 10/10 would recommend.

It's been an exciting week to say the least- but somehow, the most exciting part of the week was my very first quash sighting. Also called a coatimundi in Mexico & Guatemala, these creatures are the equivalent of a raccoon in Belize. They're mostly regarded as pests, although they don't get into garbage as much. I spotted the quash eating some fruits off the ground in the forest at the back of the Barzakh Falah property. I don't have any photos since we startled each other, but I did draw some to celebrate the occasion: