Resolved. 13 to 3.

Goodbye, 2009. You were Awesome.  Let’s look at the list of things I promised you:

Wear less sweatpants. This is the beauty of a tropical climate. You own a thousand cute outfits that are perfectly wearable year round. Hello? After writing this last year, I immediately went to the outlets and bought 2 pears of comfy warm sweatpants from J. Crew- including the infamous “yellow sweatpants” from Vegas. However, after Mardi Gras, I did go organic and accidentally lose a bunch of weight which allowed me to wear pants without elastic waistbands more often. I even got new jeans. Resolved.

Do not wait until the last minute to read an entire semester’s worth of articles. You are paying a trillion dollars for this education, so you might as well learn actual theories and not just Marva Lewis’s notes on attachment via overhead (read: iChat). I never took Marva Lewis again. Resolved.

Get more than 6 hours of sleep per night. This will likely mean limiting midnight back-to-back episodes of Chelsea Lately and Sex and the City. You will manage. Ummm. Mostly resolved. It resolved itself when I went to Belize.

Remember the athletic center you are forced to pay $900 a semester to use? Go to it. Your friends used to have to come pick you up because you rode your bike too long and too far. Figure out where that bike riding joy went and reinstate it. Except, don’t ride yourself silly in New Orleans. You will get kidnapped. I never bought a bike. Unresolved. But I joined the ABT class at the Athletic center and started swimming when the weather got warm. I also took up running again for about 2 weeks. Resolved.

Do not drink Diet Coke for breakfast. Start each morning with a giant glass of water. End each day with a giant glass of water. If you must have the Diet Coke, at least buy it from the machine where Molly won $1.25 and haunted house tickets. Unresolved. End of Story.

Stop writing emails on Ambien. If you send an email after 10 pm, there’s a good chance it was written under the influence (cough, Judy Lewis). You are not more hilarious on Ambien. You simply have no filter. Find the tool on gmail that screens for irresponsible emailing and enable it.  I’m 5 months off the Ambien! Resolved!

Stop being so afraid of new things the first time around. They always turn out just fine. Unresolved. I’m always afraid of new things. I just don’t like change.

Be patient. Timing is everything. Patience is not really my thing, but in this particular circumstance (and I remember what it was when I wrote this) I was. And it paid off. Resolved!

Clean your apartment so you can begin hosting the over-promised, under-delivered hot tub reading parties and Sex and the City Sundays. Your home should be your place. That means you should be able to walk through it without having to scale piles of clothes. Cleaning- Unresolved. Hot tub parties- Resolved!

Purchase cleaning supplies and hangers. Resolved.

Be intentional with keep-in-touch-Sunday even when other things try to crowd it out. Relationships are most important. Don’t forget.  You tell me?

Ski. You know you want to. Un. Re. Solved.

You are about to become an intern again. Be yourself and trust that who you are is good enough, cool enough, nice enough, honest enough, funny enough, pretty enough, smart enough and competent enough.  Resolved. Right, Mia? Riiiight?

Embrace the next eight months and try everything. You’ll never get this season back. Resolved. Mostly- with a few grass is greener… moments.

Graduate! It’s sort of the point. Re-to-the-solved!

Allow God to lead your heart. He did a fantastic job in 2008, and if you pay attention, your whole life could be as amazing. Resolved

Stories & Evals from Belize

It took me forever to be able to post this stuff, because I had to get permission from kids, parents, supervisors, etc… identifying information has been changed, details have been switched around, but you’ll get the idea.

Most of the kids we were working were survivors of some kind of violent crime, usually within the household. Beginning in the second month, I spent half my time training shelter staff, teachers, and my supervisor how to facilitate coping exercises with these kids, and the other half of my time doing actual clinical work with them.

Like mentioned in previous posts, my supervisor was welcoming and eager to learn from me as much as I was hoping to learn from her. We were able to trade knowledge and skills—she taught me about family therapy and cultural differences in Belize, autism, schizophrenia and behavioral issues, and I taught her everything I knew about PTSD and grief and trauma.

About a month ago, the kids really started to open up and grasp the skills we were trying to teach them, and it was encouraging to see them progress. But at the same time it was sad to know that termination (for me, at least) was just around the corner. I felt like a big bad needle popping all these cute trusting little balloons of positive coping skills. We worked hard at making the transition to Arlette seamless and positive, so I’m sure the kids will continue to grow, and Arlette couldn’t thank me (and Tulane) enough for passing off this specific model to her. Here’s an example of how sessions sometimes went and were used as teaching tools between us:

We were seeing a little 5 year-old who had witnessed a stabbing and was waking up at night rubbing his mom’s scars saying: It’s okay, it’s okay… He was referred to Arlette after pinning a teacher to the wall by her neck (although the teacher had hit him), and after finding out his history, Arlette called me in to help with the trauma piece.

During the assessment, she asked the boy to tell us about when the stabbing happened, but he couldn’t really give us any kind of coherent narrative, so I asked Arlette if it was okay for me to try some things. I had him draw a picture of that night and asked him to explain the picture. The whole story came tumbling out chronologically- exactly the same story we’d gotten from his mom (he and his sister were in the kitchen, a guy broke in through the back and stabbed his mom almost to death). After he explained his picture he put his head down on the desk and seemed to be taking a little break, really upset, but not crying or anything. I asked him how he felt after drawing that picture, and he said he felt really bad. So I taught him—and, in the process, Arlette—some deep breathing and muscle relaxation exercises, which he loved, and it calmed him down. I asked him how he felt then, and he said really good. I asked if he wanted to keep going or stop, and he wanted to keep going. So then we got him to name his support people, things he likes to do for fun, etc. and the session ended really positively. His teacher says he comes to the office every day to see if we’re there, which is sad cause we only come about once every 2 weeks…

After he went back to class, Arlette and I talked about what she would do for the next 2-3 sessions after I leave, and we went through the Project LAST model together focusing on positive coping skills and anger management (normalizing how okay it is that he’s scared and angry all the time) and whether or not to use the traumatic narrative component. Arlette thanked me on the way back for being able to come and go through some sessions with her and giving her a chance to watch—which I wouldn’t have been able to do had Children’s Bureau not taught me—so thanks deferred to CBNO and Tulane. She has had a hard time convincing the Ministry of Ed that it’s important to address the trauma as a precursor to fixing the behavior issues. (Duh, Ministry.)

She also invited me to see this 12 year-old girl who the school sent to the psych nurse for being suicidal. She tried to take her grandma’s blood pressure medication, but that didn’t work, so she tried to hang her self, but the rope broke and that didn’t work, so everyone just thought she was crazy. But then it turned out her mom had been murdered in the home—decapitated, so she was sent to live with her aunt. Soon after, her aunt was murdered in the same way, decapitated, and so she was sent to live with her grandma. Her grandma is Salvadorian, though, and this little girl is black, so the grandma didn’t want her. But since there was no one else to care for the girl, the grandma took her in. Now she calls the girl a whore and all kinds of names and beats the girl and tells her how much she hates her. Even to Arlette, in front of the girl herself, when Areltte asked what she liked about the girl, the grandma said there is nothing good about her, and nothing to like. When Arlette got the girl by herself, the girl was all hunched over and wouldn’t lift her head up to look at Arlette. Arlette said to her, “I don’t believe any thing your grandma says. You can look me in the eye, because I think you’re a good girl, and a pretty girl, and pure” So the girl looked up at Arlette and started crying. Arlette’s compassion was just heartbreaking, especially in a culture where all rights belong to the adults. The case haunted me for weeks, but at least the girl knows that for one hour every week an adult will value and listen and care about her.

There are about 50 other stories I could tell, but I’ll just give you one really great one. There were two little boys I was seeing separately, but they were in the same class. Both had been through Mary Open Doors about a year apart, but didn’t know it. They were in trouble for fighting in class. What I didn’t know was that they were fighting with each other, and worse—for talking about each other’s mothers! When the teacher told me this, I asked the boys if they wanted to have a session together (which wasn’t unusual—sometimes I saw the kids in groups—and they agreed). When we started playing the thoughts and feelings game, they found out they had a lot in common. Every time one of the kids answered a questions, the other would say: Hey, I’m the oldest too… I have sisters too… my dad was like that too… me too! Me too! Me too! Playing dumb, I said, “Wow. You guys seem like you could be really good friends! You really have a lot in common…” Throughout the session, they physically got closer and closer together, and by the end of the group, they had their arms around each other. Before they left, I said, “I really want you two to look out for each other. If you see someone trying to fight with your friend, stand up for him—okay?” They nodded and walked off side-by-side. Every week thereafter they asked if they could have their sessions together, and the teacher told me they have been inseparable every since. I asked if I could share their picture as new friends, and they happily agreed:

Teacher workshop

Just to keep things real, when I was trying to write this last post, I’d already left the village (I’m in Dallas now, after spending a week in San Pedro with my Dad & Kathy), and I just felt like I had nothing to report. I had read everyone’s international posts and felt like my cultural experiences, organizational challenges, work-related activities, new skills and lessons learned were just less impactful and shiny as everyone else’s. I actually said, the other night, when Jeff asked what was wrong: “Kim’s cooler”.

He asked if it was because of her gold medal, but I told him it was because she was doing AIDS stuff in Kenya, and Karen was interviewing child heads of households in Rwanda, and everyone’s work was just so international, really important and meaningful in the big picture. My niche was small, and the impact was limited to this little village in this tiny country. (But I actually re-read Karen’s post and caught the part about her feeling lackluster and tedius…)

I think I’m just emotional about leaving and evaluating. Its hard when things end, even if good things are coming.

At the very least, I finally developed a macro interest when I realized you can address issues forever at the individual level or you could go after the origin on a community level. I think I’ve walked away with a new (renewed) interest in public health and development, which I came to Tulane with but hadn’t really understood. We’ll see what happens.

For more pics on life and work in San Ignacio, click here

For pics of goodbye parties & time in San Pedro, click here

Scary porridge & Grapefruit-o-lanterns

Well, there I was feeling all homesick for some fall in the Midwest—pumpkins, leaves, jackets, football—or at least a little Halloween fun in New Orleans, when lo and behold, I walk into the kitchen and they’re all carving  grapefruits.  They did it just like a pumpkin: cut a little hold in top, reached in and pulled out the insides, then very carefully, using gigantic knives with no handles and teeny little fingers and grapefruits, carved out spooky little faces. Then they put a candle inside, tied some ribbon to either end, and hung them on the doorknobs to greet trick-or-treaters, who don’t come on October 31^st. They come on November 1^st and 2^nd for All Saints and All Souls days.  They even have a creepy little version of trick-or-treat: Eshpasha pa la calabera, si no me das te da cagalera.

Translation: Special porridge for the skull, but if you don’t give me, it will give you loose stools. Usually, then, the villagers give the kids some porridge and sweets, sincerely wanting to avoid the loose stools.

On All Saints Day, they light little candles for the kids and babies who have died, and place the first plate of food they cook on the table next to the candles and wait for the steam of the food to go to the souls of the babies. After about half an hour, they say, “Okay. The souls are finished eating. Now it’s time to eat!”

They also place one plate of food and one little black candle on a chair for the anima soula: the lonely soul.  Each person gets a plate of food, including kids who come to the door, and a special plate is always set aside for the lonely soul.  The very next day, on All Souls Day, they do the same thing for adults who have died.

Also, we’re out of water again. The water went out Friday night, and by Sunday night—with no clean dishes, no reserve water in the drum and nothing to bathe with, people started asking around.  Apparently a pipe broke. I suggested we try to wash some dishes with the maybe 5 liters of water we had left in the drum, but Antonia said it wasn’t clean.  She said we have to be careful because these are the times when people, especially ones with babies, are desperate to use any water they can find to wash and cook and bathe, and people start getting sick from the unclean water.  Point taken. Taking a shower now costs $2.50 in 1.5L of Crystal water:

Update: it poured all day. Everyone ran outside with soap and shampoo and bathed, right there in the front lawn. I really wanted to lay all the dishes out on the grass, too, but I didn’t think of it in time.

Being a tourist in my own city…

So. Things have been kind of busy and spectacular lately. Last last week, Dr. Gilkey came from the States to meet my supervisor and do a site visit. She was able to sit down with Arlette and the Mary Open Doors founders, a couple of volunteers, Antonia and the fam, and visit both Faith Nazarene and Santa Familia schools. She also went to PG for a day to find out about possible internship possibilities in the south. Everything went really well, and I think both sides (Tulane & Belize) are excited about the potential internship placements here in the future, which I will henceforth refer to as My Legacy.

We also finally managed to pull off my first training with the staff and volunteers at Mary Open Doors last Tuesday. We’ve been trying to arrange this for 5 weeks, and even though it was an hour late, it happened. Even a client from Mary Open doors sat in on the training and asked if she could come back next week to participate in the therapeutic activities, which I had just thrown in for good measure. I was trying to demonstrate how the program feels to the kids, but everyone accidentally got a lot out of it.

Also, I had a beautiful moment with an 8 year old who hadn’t wanted to participate in the program at all to begin with—her dad committed suicide last year and she has been very depressed and withdrawn—but she agreed to one session, which I disguised as “art activities” and “games” and “little stories”. At the end of the session, she said she would come to one more session, but no more. At the end of that session, she agreed to one more session, but that’s all. At some point, she started asking which day I was coming back, and would I bring play-dough next time, and can she use the orange pencil case next time instead of the pink one, and can she bring a picture of her dad to show me how their teeth are alike, and could I bring gummy bears instead of chips, and do I want to come to her cousin’s party this weekend? It’s been fun to watch her grow and smile and play and open up a little, and I already feel anxious about starting the termination process. Lucky for all of us, my supervisor Arlette has been involved in these cases from the beginning and will be taking them over after I leave. She’s incredibly competent and caring and I trust that the kids are in good hands entirely.

(Her grandmother gave me permission to use this pic.)

Also… smile… Jeff came to visit. Inez gave up her room for a couple of nights, Antonia and Ricardo and Antonia’s parents welcomed him and then grilled him do death for incriminating information about me, the Chinchilla family took him canoeing and then drove us all to Spanish Lookout in the back of the pick-up truck for ice cream. We also walked up to Mr. Neil’s house, the tallest hill in the village, and Mr. Neil invited us in for a coke on his deck, which has the most spectacular views of San Ignacio.

After a weekend in the village we went to Cahal Pech (a village resort in San Ignacio) and spent a couple of days in town, and also lots of time on the cabana hammock. I introduced him to one of the founders at Mary Open Doors and went on a little walking tour of my day-to-day routine between the office and the school and the Ministry and the French Bakery and the juice guy and the bus stop, and all the other little places I like to eat and shop and check e-mail and sit. We also got to join a trip to Tikal, this old Mayan city outside of Flores, Guatemala. It has over 4,000 structures, including the tallest one in the Mayan world, and more are still being excavated. We saw howler monkeys (which sound like a horrifying combination of chainsaws and dinosaurs) and spider monkeys and toucans and one snake, all in the wild. We had our own private tour of the grounds by a really interesting guide, and I’m still not sure how that happened, but it was great. Mayan Ruins aren’t even my most exciting to-do list items, but I’ve always wanted to see Tikal, and the views and history were amazing.

After a few days in Cayo, we headed to Caye Caulker and, thanks to Hugo, got a free stop at the zoo and lunch at Old Belize. The important thing to know here is we saw jaguars and at Pirate nachos.

We arrived at Caye Caulker via water taxi just in time for a panoramic view of the island at sunset, from the very top of our discounted low-season gorgeous hotel/condo, which was still being renovated since it just opened in July and tourist season doesn’t start until November. In all the times I’ve been to Belize, I’ve never gone on vacation. But THIS was one of the most spectacular places I’ve ever stayed, and we found it on accident! Two days before we arrived! And it was cheaper than the cheapest Holiday Inn Express! We had the building to ourselves, a sea-facing balcony with a hammock at sunrise, a sunset-facing bedroom over the other side of the island, and a rooftop Jacuzzi with a panoramic view of everything. Also, because it’s still slow season, the island was quiet and calm and sleepy and peaceful. Only a handful of places were open for business and the only sound we heard was an occasional golf cart, water lapping and some island music. It was a perfect recharge. With perfect company. And good food. (Except the cereal we bought from 2007. That was gross).

Anyway. This week I’m back to the real world. Trying to finish papers, find a job, counsel kids, train volunteers, and begin the process of leaving… one month and I’m home to graduate. Weird.

More pics of San Ignacio: here

More pics of Caye Caulker: here

More pics of Tikal: here

Hillside, PG and Snake Caye

So. After a 7-and-a-half hour ride on the non-express bus from Cayo, across the Western Highway, down the Hummingbird Highway, through the Maya Mountains and down the Southern Highway, through Belmopan and Dangriga and a bunch of little villages like Roaring Creek and Teakettle and Independence, I spent a surprise weekend with Jeff at the Hillside clinic in Punta Gorda.

Thanks to careful and sneaky coordination with the Brinkmans and Dan (one of the nurse practitioners) I got a pick-up from the bus terminal, homemade chocolate-chip cookies, an afternoon with Dan’s family, an introduction to the Jesuit volunteers, dinner with the doctors and a tour of Abby’s house.

Jeff and I got to stay in the Treehouse, and we lucked out on a little excursion with TIDE (Toledo Institute for Development and Environment). The TIDE trip was supposed to be a community event, but no one else showed up, so we had our own personal boat tour of the Rio Grande river, the mangrove Cayes, the TIDE lookout tower, and a burrito-pineapple-chips lunch with snorkeling at Snake Caye. It was beautiful and fun, and totally unexpected.

I may have spent more time on the bus than actually in PG—I haven’t added it all up—but it was a fun and sweet weekend. Thanks for all who helped!

Here are some pics of the weekend, and pics of Independence Day, because I forgot to post a link.

This is long. Settle in.

I’m kind of embarrassed to admit this, but I guess its part of the process, so I’ll disclose. Honesty and growth, make way. I’m coming.

I spent all morning looking at my classmates’ pictures from India feeling jealous and regretful. There are mountains there, and silk, and friends. Now most of them are back in New Orleans finishing out an easy last semester at places like The Rue and Superior Grill, which sound like heaven to me right now… and I’m still here. In Belize. Again. Still. (I know, I know—Belize? You feel real sorry for me. You know I’m not on the coast, right? I’m in the jungle.)

While familiarity makes things easy and comfortable here, it also takes the new and exciting back to ordinary and routine. The exotic fruits aren’t so exotic—although, coincidentally, I did just eat a guava for the first time today. Rice and beans are just rice and beans, not: Rice and Beans! Cattle stop and stare at me when I hang my laundry. I walk past iguanas and step over roosters and make tortillas and wait for electricity and stockpile water, and never ever wash my underwear with my socks, and brush ants off my bed and eat mangoes and catch parasites and hail bus drivers and sit on stoops and walk up and down giant hills from school to school for work like its nothing. Like those things are normal. If you know me, this isn’t me! My specialty is finding extraordinary things in every day life—unless you’re that crazy life-changing story lady. If you’re her, then, no, you’re right, I suck.

Anyway. India would have been new and exciting. And besides that, I don’t think I was ready to be done with New Orleans yet. When I return, graduation will happen and this part of my life will be over. Why did I decide to spend the last half of it in another country? The work I was doing in New Orleans was good and meaningful, and Belize is always gonna be Belize. Here my work seems like a drop in the bucket. Then I started wondering: why did I think these kids deserved this program more than the kids in New Orleans in the first place? Is it just because they live here and not there? Kids are kids. Need is need. Was I being selfish in wanting to do this? I could have stayed in New Orleans, gone to India for a month, learned a bunch of new things about a new culture, and then continued to help kids in the exact same way I had been, right there. Did I waste this whole semester on something I’ve already done, that doesn’t even really matter in the big picture, when my heart really was in New Orleans all along?

I don’t know. But because I am a social worker, I have been knocked over the head with a variety of coping skills. I told myself there has to be a reason I’m here, and that I just have to trust God is doing something, somewhere, outside my view—that I may never even get to see. Maybe it’s the family I’m paying $100 per week to stay with. Maybe they were having a desperate time with finances, and I was their secret answer to prayer or something. Or maybe there is one specific kid who really needed something this program offers, and for that one kid, all of this will be worth it. Maybe Mary Open Doors or my supervisor were overwhelmed and overworked and kind of just wanted a person to have a Sprite with at lunch to recharge. Who knows, but I decided to be okay with everything because a bad attitude would be like poison, and deciding that there is still purpose for me here even if there’s not makes me feel better. Plus, there was that really undeniable string of events that happened in November… Everyone said: write this down, Brooke. There will be a time in Belize when you say: What am I doing here? and this story will be your proof. Hmm.

BUT.

Then I met the actual kids. Real-life little kids, shy and hyper and adorable and desperate: an 8-year-old whose dad committed suicide last year, four elementary kids whose dad tattooed his own birthmark on their faces, a 7-year-old who saw a knife fight between his mom and grandpa, a 15-year-old who dropped out of school after his friend committed suicide.

It’s like my heart recognized something my brain couldn’t catch up to. In New Orleans, there is a waiting list, a protocol, a budget and a set number of counselors. The same number of kids would have been seen with or without me in 3 months. But in Belize, there is only one social worker. One social worker for a hundred thousand kids in Cayo, who has never had any training or experience with grief and trauma. The 7 kids I saw today and yesterday wouldn’t have even been on the radar had Mary Open Doors not said- Brooke, these kids really need help, and had I not said- Arlette, these kids really need help, and had there not been this ready-made program for their exact need. The school system has to focus primarily on behavioral problems in the classroom. There’s no time or manpower to waste on things like grief or trauma—even though the result of those things is behavioral problems in the classroom… but social work isn’t even a legitimate field yet. There are no standards, no associations, no practices, no codes, nothing. My supervisor keeps records for the Ministry of Education only because she wants to and because that’s how she was trained in the States. She has to constantly fight for confidentiality. She makes however many appointments per day she thinks she can fit in, and transportation is always an issue. No one has cars. The Ministry does not reimburse. She covers a hundred square miles, and we walk or take the bus or taxi on our dime. I see kids at 3 schools, and spend half my day walking up and down hills to get there. If she does home visits, she stays for a couple of hours because she knows it could be a couple of weeks before she gets there again. Her caseload is about 50 students. Every time she goes to a new school, she gets another list of 10-15 students she knows she may not even be able to see. Sigh. And yet she gives her absolute best to each family I’ve seen her with…

One thing I feel good about in this realm is that we’ll use the coping skills program I brought to train a team of 6 teachers in Santa Elena to respond to their kids, in addition to training the shelter workers. Maybe those 6 can feed 5,000…

Anyway. Some funny similarities between the kids in NOLA and the kids here—

• No kid wants to miss computer lab

• Every kid asks for a quarter

• Schools never have space, and finding space with privacy is next to impossible

• The schedule changes every day

• Other kids walk by, stop, and ask if they can come too

• Snacks facilitate anything and everything

In short long: I still really want to go to India. And I still miss my friends. And I still miss my little apartment and margaritas in New Orleans. But I trust that something here is happening outside my control, and I’ll gladly pour as many drops as I can into this bucket in the tiny amount of time I have here. Thank you for contributing to this trip if you did, and for believing in the project. I spent all these months convincing you guys this was important and almost completely lost sight of it myself. It turns out grass is everywhere, greener than ever…

So there you have it. The good, the bad and the ugly.

Brooke vs. Flu (vs. color wheel)

I got the flu. (Not the stomach flu—the coughing, fever, swine-ish flu.) I went to the doctor and discovered there is also a bacterial infection in my stomach. Perhaps a visit from my old friends Samantha and Jon? I spent a week in bed eating toast and rice and Dayquil and Nyquil and Cipro. Caye Caulker is closed, schools in Cayo and Belize City are closed and half the schools in PG are closed, because of flu. I had to go to town on Tuesday to see the doctor, and buy some meds and phone credit, ran into my supervisor for 10 minutes, and by Thursday, she had the flu. Everyone has flu. Everything is closed.

In the meantime, rainy season came! It started raining the day after Independence Day and hasn’t stopped. We welcomed the change for a few days, and then got stir crazy, and now can’t do laundry because nothing ever dries. I am still enjoying the cooler temps though…

Laundry is still the exact same.

On Monday, providing flu has passed and schools are reopened and supervisor is healed, I’ll have my first four clients. On Tuesday and Wednesday, hopefully the next 8. The majority are kids who have been through Mary Open Doors and are now in area schools trying to adjust. We’ll see them on an individual basis during the school day—once a week for the next 8 weeks, Children’s Bureau style. No one had really considered seeing the child during the school day, during art or some other enrichment hour, instead of at the end of the day. As noted from years of programming at the Boys & Girls Club, after school is a frustrating time to get kids to sit down and do some more work, even if you throw in a game and a pencil case. My supervisor got permission from the school system and principals, and we’re all excited to see how this goes. She’s anxious to learn from the ideas and resources I’ve brought, and I’m excited to learn from her expertise with families. A volunteer from Mary Open Doors will accompany us to co-facilitate the sessions and learn how to work through the manual for use within the shelter. She’ll take over facilitating halfway through, and my supervisor will continue with the school kids after I leave.

In the village schools my only task is to do a lesson with the Standard 4, 5 & 6 classes on how to write an autobiography.  This is so they can enter CFI’s writing contest this fall and be awarded when the CFI comes this spring. No biggie. I thought it would be easy, and I reserved Thursdays exclusively for this purpose. But, as you might have guessed knowing Antonia and Belize in general, nothing of the sort has happened. The first Thursday Antonia whisked me off to take pictures of each class and of each building to send to the Ministry of Education for a report. No problem. I insisted on coming back Friday to at least award last year’s winners to generate some momentum toward the project. Somehow I ended up in Standard 3 doing a color wheel with Richard. Not only that, actual color wheels were never even created. They were pages of smeared red or blue paint. In some cases a long brown streak with a splash of yellow. I think the kids missed the point. Antonia came in, looked at me and Richard, who were covered in red paint, looked at the kids who had obviously not learned how to mix colors properly, and laughed about how she sent two perfectly capable people into teach the kids 6 colors, and we couldn’t pull it off.  The following Thursday I showed up, and they sent me to build a float for the parade. The following Thursday- flu. Everyone.  No autobiography. I did, however, manage to award last year’s winners and take pictures to document:

Next Thursday: Autobiography, come hell or high water or color wheels or parades or flu.

Fresh

I had some hilarious and insightful ways of recounting the consistent inconsistency of water and electricity in the village, but after 2 days of temps in the lower thousands and no electricity or water, I am fresh out of jokes. And by fresh, I mean not fresh at all. Hot and sweaty and miserable. The water is on for a couple of hours in the morning, and a couple of hours at night. But the night water is a crap shoot, because when it comes on, every one in the village rushes to shower or cook dinner or wash dishes, which leaves one drop per 25 minutes in our little faucet. We walk around all night asking each other, “Is there water yet?” and when the water is on, “Is there pressure yet?”

You know me. I love hot weather. I love Belize. I’ve done this before, many times, and weathered fairly well. But for some reason this time I just can’t cool off. Every day they say, “Today is hot Brooke.” And I say, “Yes, and yesterday was hot.” And they say, “But today is extra hot, Brooke. It’s not usually this hot.” And I just nod, thinking every day feels the exact same hot to me, and I just have this god-given need to strip everything off and sit in front of the fan naked. But then there’s the problem of electricity. We’ve had blackouts in the evenings. Which means in addition to no water, there is also no fan. Which is why I haven’t been sleeping, which is why my immunity is down, and I guess, why I can’t keep any food in me. Or maybe it was the street tacos and papaya juice? I don’t know. I am on a solid diet of soup and oats until further notice.

As for my job, every day I learn a little more about patience, waiting and flexibility. Monday was really profitable: meetings were held, trainings were scheduled, plans came together, clients assigned, letters written, learning goals established, the right people answered the phones at the right times, and the day was full of shade and fans and productivity and calls from boyfriends and moms, and tomolitos for dinner. There was lots of smiling and motivation and hope and excitement. Tuesday, however, I stared at a wall. Then walked from empty building to empty building up and down that giant hill. It’s like everyone in the city got together and agreed to disappear. At the end of the day, 6 hours later, the only tangible thing I could recount having been accomplished was a uniform found for a girl who needed to start school Friday. I suppose for that little girl, Tuesday was a good day. For me, no. By the time I realized nothing was happening and no one would be in the office, I had missed the 1 o’clock bus. The next bus was at 4 o’clock. So I sat and walked and sat and walked for 3 hours and then caught the bus home—which, you should know, always adds 4 layers of dust to sweaty skin, which, you already know, may or may not be washed off when those 8 drops of water come at 7:30. You get the idea. They tell me every day, “Life in Belize is hard, Brooke”. Usually I reply with something like, “Yeah, but you have great social capital or Yeah, but the weather is nice, or Yeah but your limes are delicious.” Last night I nodded and said, “Yes. Life in Belize is hard.” Inside I was thinking: that stupid lime tree that gives such delicious limes pricked me and we can’t get the thorn out.

Sigh. Sorry. I guess I’m kind of complainy today. How about some pictures?

(As if on cue. No pictures on my flash drive. They’ll have to be on the next post!) Monday is Independence Day in Belize. They’ve asked me to judge the parade on Friday…

Brooke? You look like a begger.

A. I take the 8 o’clock bus every day, and my agency doesn’t open until 9 or 10 or whenever the first person arrives. Lucky for me, an internet cafe is right down the hill, which is why I keep bothering everyone with blog posts. I can only sit on a stoop in the sun for so long before I go pay $2.50 for my hour in the shade with a computer. The same thing happens at lunch, and so I have made friends at the Ministry of Human Development, because they have fans. They are also at the bottom of the hill. The long, hot, steep hill. “You will reduce!” they say of me walking up and down that hill all day long.

B. I forgot to tell you this last time. I have been over the bus routine several times with the family I am staying with and others in the village. I know what time the buses come. I know where to stand. I know where to get off. I am all set. So Monday I felt fairly confident in my bus-catching skills. I woke up an hour early and took my time cooking oats, packing my lunch, picking out my first day outfit, loading my bag for the day, etc. and had everything ready to go by 8 o’clock for the last bus into town. I stood by the door looking far into the distance for that bus. I had seen the 7 o’clock bus pass and the 7:30 bus and both 7:45 buses. Mine would be next. Richard walked out sleepy-eyed and said: Brooke. What are you doing? It is only 7 o’clock. I looked at my watch and realized I was looking at the CST setting. I was an hour early.

(The funny thing is that when the 8 o’clock bus actually came, I was talking to Antonia and almost missed it. She saw it pass behind me a couple of minutes early, ran outside and yelled Boyeee! I had to run after it.)

Also, when I take the 4 or 5 o’clock bus home, many of the high school students take the same bus, so I wasn’t surprised to hear “Brooooooky!” from down the street while I sat on a stoop by the bus lot. Shawn, who likes to think he is an extra-cool version of 16, shook his head and laughed at me from way up the hill. He sat down next to me, which was nice because I had spent all day waiting for people that never came. I was tired, hot and out of water. He said, “Do you want to go on the bus, Brooke? You look like a begger.”

And here’s the worst part. When I got on the bus, Bryon said: Brooke! A strange thing happen last night. I neva see wah tornado in all of Belize, but last night a tornado came, right here da Cayo! I froze, and vaguely remembered a sleep-talking-walking incident from the night before wherein, during a huge storm, I shook Inez awake and tried to make her get under the bed because in my sleep a tornado was coming. She laughed all morning and told everyone at school. When I got off the bus, they yelled out the window: Brooke, be careful because an earthquake will come tonight at 6 o’clock, and hail will fall from the sky!

We’ve been laughing about that for three days.

I met my supervisor this week, and she was grrrreat. She works for the Ministry of Education and is the only social worker in all of Cayo! She seemed worn out just talking about all the need in the district for only her to attend to. I am looking forward to learning from her and traveling to different schools and homes. One boy, she said, was 14 and selectively mute. She said no one knew how to make him talk, so people hit him over the head and yelled in his face. They wanted to put him in the special needs program. But she went to his home a few times to play simple games with him like tic-tac-toe, and then progressed to snakes and ladders with the family, and the boy was talking within weeks. She is still assessing what caused him to stop speaking in the first place, but her work seems interesting and never-ending, and she has been very welcoming.

As for the shelter, I spent 4 hours yesterday talking with 3 ladies who’d been through the shelter and are now volunteers. Their stories are hard to hear. It seems to me that the most severe cases of domestic violence in the States are the middle of the bell curve here- hot dinner on at 5, windows closed and locked, no speaking unless spoken to, shut the kids up, etc… the more I hear, the more depressed I feel about gender roles. Even among well-respected, high-functioning families. Three times today I heard mothers telling their daughter, “No one is allowed to hit you. You have a right…” because the norm is that they don’t have a right—so much so they have to be taught NOT to tolerate abuse.

In other news, I have not instituted jump rope hour at the Flowers like I promised. It’s just too hot. I really can’t waste clothes on things like exercise

All kinds of things

Essentials: On the plane next to me was a girl from the UK spending a month in Belize and then a month in Fiji doing some kind of medical internship. On the other side was a lady from Belize City who told the med student and me everything we need to know about Belize City. She had been visiting her daughter in Florida and thought it was hilarious that we came from the UK and the US to study in Belize, and her daughter left Belize to study in the States. She wrote out her address and phone number on an index card and gave one to each of us. She told us to call if we need anything, like lunch in Belize City. We’ll go out, she said. Unless it’s hot, then we’ll order in.

After spending an hour in baggage claim and immigration, and another 15 minutes with no power—200 of us clamoring for carts and luggage and air—somehow the three of us landed right back in a row in the customs line and were able to say goodbye as our personal items were spread on a table for all to see.

Onward!

The minute I caught that first campfire and coconut smell and saw my first raccoon on a chain in the back of a truck (what?!) I knew I was home.

David picked me up, and when I turned to thank the baggage guy, he was climbing in the front seat. That’s Belize. Your luggage guy is your neighbor. The postal guy is your grandpa. The checkpoint guard is your cousin.

We took off down the Western Highway at sunset—my exact favorite way to drive the Western Highway—and an interesting topic came up. I learned that the city is having a meeting tomorrow about a dam that was built a few years ago. It was contested by the Belize Zoo lady, along with many different environmental groups, and pushed forward by the electric company, the Belizean government, and those who wanted Belize’s electricity to come from Belize, not Mexico. The only problem was the entire dam. Environmentalists warned that the rock wouldn’t hold, the river would suffer, the quality of the water would decline, energy prices would go up, and the flooding would kill off the Scarlet Macaw (side note: The last Flight of the Scarlet Macaw is a must-read. It’s a story about the Belize Zoo lady who fought against the dam, and the rich descriptions of the Belizean government and the people here are unbelievable. It’s full of history about Belize and Cayo District. And the author is funny. His first impression of Belize City had something to do with a pedal-by shooting.) Anyway, I read this book before I came, got really into the dam issue and had meant to ask about it, then right there out of nowhere, David brought it up. He said they were calling a village meeting to discuss the dam. Apparently the water is orange. The orange water is downstream from the dam, right in San Ignacio. This is the water they bathe in, play in, clean with, wash clothes and dishes in… It has something to do with the chemical makeup and silt that have filtered out and around the dam, and worse, in order to remove or fix the dam, they’d have to release the wall, which would flood all of San Ignacio and the surrounding valley villages, like Santa Familia. David said they came around this week to the villages with a blue siren and said: If you hear this sound, you have 2 hours to get out before the flood comes. Omg. I just knew that Zoo Lady was right!

I arrived in Santa Familila to a welcome surprise, and also termite season in my room. Antonia, Ricardo and Inez had spent the day rearranging all the rooms so Inez and I could be roomies and each have a bed in the room that doesn’t rain!

Before I could even unpack or think about how tired I was, they whisked me off to the Miss Bullet Tree pageant.

(I am trying to upload a video of a punta dancer, but it’s taking forever…)

Garifunda Dancer

Fire Dancer

Sunday I went to church, and then to Guatemala in the back of a pickup truck, then squeezed into a cab with 6 people and spent an hour in the Melchor hospital. Richard (the son of the principal I am staying with) had a cough that wouldn’t lift because of the dusty roads and needed to see a doctor today for asthma. But there are no doctors in Cayo on Sundays, and so we had to cross the border. There are apparently also no doctors in Melchor on Sundays, which is how we ended up in the hospital. He got his treatment, and I bought all my little Belize gifts for you all at 1/3 price from the Gulatemalans. Finally a Guatemala stamp in my passport… although I’ve already been to Melchor. Figure that one out. Wink!

Today I am supposed to meet with my supervisor and she will accompany me to Mary Open Doors to begin the internship. But I have not been able to reach anyone. None of us have ever met each other, and the last contact I had with them was 2 weeks ago, by email. I still took (read: chased after) the 8 o’clock bus, and if I have to hang around the French bakery eating Mennonite cookies until I figure something out, so be it.

I have a phone number, and I will soon have a phone- hopefully by the end of the day. I can receive calls for free, but your carrier will charge you for the international call. I can make calls sometimes. And I can text sometimes.

My phone number is: 011-501-621-8102.

If you see this number, answer it! It’s me.

Address and such

If I were an honest blogger, I would write: Ah. Eeeee. Ooh. Cha. Kee. Blah. Ahhhhhhckkkkkkk. Ouwowoaoiwekghaksjhd! Bloogey blookey blah blah blah blah. Shh.

Instead, I’ll say, calmly: Tomorrow I leave for Belize. I have packed and repacked all day. My bags weigh 49.5 pounds each and are waiting patiently by the door. There are 4 suitcases, one duffle, two carry-ons, one crate, & a comforter: 5 for Belize, 2 for Dallas & 2 for New Orleans. Everything else is neatly stashed organized in various closets and attic spaces at my dad’s house in Indianapolis, and my car is in Madison.

Again, if I were an honest blogger, I would fill the rest of this page up with Please write! Please call! 85 times in a row I’d write that. But instead I’ll say, calmly and without desperation: Here is my address in Belize-

Brooke Wilson

Santa Familia Village

Cayo District, Belize

Central America

Eventually I’ll have a local Belizean phone that will allow you to call me (on your dime, wink!) whenever you want, and I’ll be able to make limited calls. I’m hoping to have internet at least once a week, and will post whenever possible. You know me. I can find internet from a rock.

My classmates are in India, Rwanda, Kenya & Ethiopia, and I can’t wait to hear about everyone’s experiences! The Tulane School of Social Work has put together an international blog for those of us doing our last semester abroad. If you want to read their stories, go here.

Me? I’ll be working with kids in a domestic violence shelter (teaching kids and staff coping skills and anger interventions), and I’ll spend one day a week in the village schools doing a writing project with the Standard 4, 5 & 6 classes. Below is my professional project, the manual I put together to train shelter staff and volunteers on interventions and coping skills for kids who have witnessed violence. I think it’s pretty, and I’m excited to see how everything works out.

Otherwise, I’m over and out! See you in December.

50 days of oatmeal and 10 face wipes

Today the AT&T guy asked for my address, and I was totally stumped. I couldn’t remember the address to my dad’s attic.  AT&T had a Fort Wayne address in the system and a New Orleans address in the system, and there I was in Indianapolis trying to suspend my plan while I go to Belize.  He squinted at me with that you’re-an-identity-thief-look, then asked for my license and the last 4 digits of my social security number. I started to explain the situation, but he was bored by the fifth word, so I just sighed and waited while he dialed customer care.  He told customer care I was going to Guatemala.

Some people do displacement well. I do it kind of complainy and neurotic-like.  I feel like my life is totally out of control when I can’t put together a good outfit, and when doing so includes a trip to the attic, a trip to the trunk and rummaging through 4 suitcases. Is it in the Belize bag? Is it in the Thanksgiving bag? Is it in the New Orleans bag? Is it in the Madison bag? Nope. It must be in the trunk. Nope. It’s gotta be in the attic. Oh. There it is. Right there in the 4th box from the back labeled dishes. My black sweater!

Yesterday I purchased 50 days worth of Instant oatmeal and Fiber One bars- both items of comfort and ease that are simple to make, quick to fill and parasite free- and spent 2 hours rearranging and weighing suitcases to get them to fit. Also $80 worth of bug spray, sunscreen, tee trea oil, wet wipes… and a jump rope. For exercise. I remember doing this last year with Steph at the target- should I get washcloths or face wipes? The kind that’s already wet, or the kind where I have to add water? Which takes up less space? Which one is heavier? What I have found is: little luxuries go a long way.  I can’t bring 90 days of face wipes. But I can bring a washcloth and know that 10 Olay face wipes will feel like gold on ten special days when the water is off and I really just want to wash my face.

And you should have seen Elaine helping with my clothes… There were mountains and mountains. Then piles and piles. Then stacks of three.

• Please can I bring my blue and white striped pants?
• Will you even wear those pants?
• I think so. I don’t know. Maybe.
• But you already have the khaki and white striped ones.
• I know but I like the blue ones.
• You can’t have both. You already have 8 other pants. Pick one.

And on and on and on: please can I bring my 10th green tank top… please can I bring my 8th pink Nike shorts… please can I bring my 4th white sweatshirt… It felt like last year’s Gustav evacuation. It was a careful selection process, and in the end, I always wanted the thing I dind’t bring.  Sigh.  As of tonight, my clothes for 3 monts fit into one moderately sized suitcase. My supplies fit into an second, and my sheets/towels/bathroom/bugstuff/meds/snacks/etc. fit into a third. Whew. I’d like to share a picture sequence of my life in relation to this topic.

My apartment at the beginning of the school year:

My apartment at Finals:

My apartment in the middle of selling furniture and hosting guests:

Apartment during packing phase:

Post Packing:

All the lipgloss I found while packing up the apartment:

What happened to SJP- kickball. Home run if you hit her in the face:

Getting home:

My mover: Note the basket he’s holding. It wouldn’t fit into the car, so we dropped it off under the I-10 overpass where the homeless hang…

My life now:

The end:

In case you wonder about me, you can find me according to the following itinerary:

• August 29th Madison
• September 1st Indianapolis
• September 5th Belize
• November 25th Dallas
• November 29th Madison
• November 30th Indianapolis
• December 1st New Orleans
• December 11th- GRADUATE!

Goodbye. Post you in a couple days.

Good Morning, August. Who let you in?

I don’t even know how to start this one. Apparently life moves slowly while you’re waiting for it to boil, and then one day you wake up and it’s over. Not life, just your time in New Orleans.

Sprinky asked me yesterday if I was sad yet about leaving. I had meant to already be sad by now, but I am just way behind schedule. In the midst of all the violence papers and statistics labs and policy analysis and client terminations and closing summaries and furniture selling and Belize packing and friend hosting, I hadn’t really thought about it. The end-of-the-semester glow in my eyes had failed to consider that at the end of the semester a) assignments must be finished and b) I have to leave. What?!

Per a), I cannot possibly finish in time. Here is how homework has gone for me lately:
8:40- arrive
8:45- arrange table
8:47- dig for change
8:50- Buy tea
8:51- mess around on Facebook
8:52- open the document
8:53- go to the bathroom
8:55- check my phone
8:57- write a sentence
9:01- check my email
9:03- stretch
9:05- check my phone
9:07- mess around on Facebook
9:10- make sure the document is still there
9:15- save the document
9:18- pack up
9:20- leave

Per b), But I just got here! I can’t even wrap my brain around the fact one year ago today I packed up everything I owned and moved to New Orleans. We poured sugar on Sprinky. We sang with the Hattiesburg Applebees singers. We dumped my stuff into a storage closet and took the city by storm. What I mean is, I flipped out. New Orleans just seemed so new and scary and impossible then. But things settled, I took a few deep breaths and couple thousand beignets and recovered. I really thought I had arrived, you know? And I thought I’d be here for a while. I had no idea that, behind its back, life held a bunch of other crazy ideas: an opportunity to do my last semester in Belize, a brand new adorable Maycie to love in Indianapolis, along with a delicious old Lil, a best-ever Jeff (don’t start!) in Wisconsin, and the impossible task of graduating into the non-profit world during the worst possible job-finding time ever… with a special expertise in an area that doesn’t really exist outside of New Orleans. Sigh.

But it will be okay.

Two weeks from today I’ll blow a kiss to New Orleans & thank her for her hospitality, then head north. I am drooling at the thought of getting my hands on all those cute winter coats… but only for a second. Three weeks from then, I’ll leave for Belize.

August equals change. I have to tell myself every 25 minutes that everything will be just fine. I also have to keep myself from stockpiling Bee Sweet cupcakes in my cheeks…

New Orleans, you’re crazy and I like you. Don’t forget about me.

139 in New Orleans

Sigh. Last night at like 2 in the morning, I woke up to a lady screaming outside my window. I was totally disoriented and couldn’t figure out if I was night hallucinating or if I’d just had a bad dream, until I heard the lady scream again, then yell—I mean, like, yell, scared and desperate lose-your-voice kind of yell, HELP! She yelled again, long and whimpery and hoarse, and I sat up in this weird paralyzed terror. I listened to her scream again and then heard a car drive away. I thought I might throw up. I didn’t know what to do, so I just sat in my bed in the dark. Yes, I realize normal people would have run to the window, grabbed the cell and filled the dispatcher in on everything they saw. But I was too afraid to look out my window.

When I finally snapped to it and peeked out the window, the street was empty, and leaves were swirling around in the middle of the street where the car must have pulled away, presumably with the lady in it. I could hear the lady screaming in the distance farther and farther away.

I never called 911. I don’t know why—maybe, I think, because I could imagine them saying: where? What did she look like? What did the car look like? Why didn’t you call right away? And I just didn’t know any of those answers. The longer I waited, the more stupid and irresponsible and guilty I felt for not looking and then for not calling right away. I just stared out onto dark, creepy Jackson Avenue, and the saddest, angriest feeling of hatred for this city came over me. I just wanted to pack up all my stuff and go back to Indiana. Like they don’t have abductions, rapes, murders, etc. there…

I love this city, and I have this beautiful view of the skyline, and the front of my building sits right on Saint Charles with the streetcar line and parades and everything. But outside my window, six floors down is Jackson Ave. I started to wonder about Jackson when I first moved here and people kept asking me where I lived, and I’d tell them, and they’d say, ‘Oh, Crack Corner? Just don’t park on the lakeside of St. Charles and you’ll be fine…’ or, “Isn’t that the triangle of death?” Yes. Yes it is. Also called mid-city.

I’ve seen a thousand million drug busts and arrests and roll calls out that window, most of them at like 6pm, with a beautiful sunset and skyline view behind the cop car lights, and safety is a daily discussion in class, but I just felt unaffected. Until this lady’s screams came in my window.

So I turned on all my lights, the TV, my music, watched videos of my baby niece, Lily, for 2 hours and took an Ambien. I had to wake up 3 hours later to work this family therapy conference in the quarter—and my body was still on Ambien, I think, until noon. But I couldn’t stop thinking about that lady, and I couldn’t stop wondering if she was safe, and I couldn’t stop asking: what if that had been me and people heard me screaming for help but didn’t do anything?

Anyway. I’ve been telling myself that if I heard her, other people heard her too, and one of those people probably called, right? We looked up the crime stats for last night—3 murders in 3 hours, no women.

At noon today I got caught in a downpour and went home to sleep. I woke up 3 hours later in a gloomy haze. It was a beautiful night with a beautiful sunset and I couldn’t even bring myself to look outside or acknowledge Jackson Ave out my window, which is so obviously unhealthy—as if me and that street and this stupid city were in some kind of irreparable fight. It was so strong a feeling of withdrawal and isolation that I forced myself to get up and seek out all the places in this city where I knew beauty existed. I went to Audubon Park, I went to the fly, and I went to the lake. I ran and jogged and walked until I couldn’t take another step, and then I cried for a long time. I felt like God didn’t exist here last night, and that ugliness had taken over.

But it’s not true. Ugliness is everywhere. But so is truth and beauty. Are New Orleanians eating and laughing and enjoying things and generally being held together? Because if they are, then God is here. These things—truth and beauty—can’t exist here without Him.

I read this book—it was given to me by my Grandma, who’s friend’s granddaughter had self-published it—called Charismatic City: My New York. She did a funny thing with Psalm 139, and I liked it. I claimed it as a way of humanizing this amazing, ugly, beautiful, complex city:

139 in New Orleans

Lord, you have searched Crawfish Guy, and you know him.

You know when that avocado vendor sits and when that preacher on channel 79 who hangs out at the Daiquiri shop rises.

You perceive that pickle-tub drummer’s thoughts from afar.

You discern the deaf guy outside my apartment’s going out and his lying down.

You are familiar with all the meter lady’s ways.

Before a word is on the hotdog man’s tongue you know it completely, O Lord.

Such knowledge is too wonderful for this streetcar driver, too lofty for him to attain.

For you created those scary guys on the corner of Jackson and Carondelet’s inmost beings, you knit them together in their mother’s wombs.

I praise you because that little girl with the booty shorts is fearfully and wonderfully made. The man following her on his bike was not hidden from you when he was made in the secret place.

How precious are your thoughts about that homeless man under I-10, O God.

How vast is the sum of them! Were he to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand.

When the super skinny lady on Louisiana Avenue awakes, you are still with her.

Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. Amen.

Oh, and please let that lady be safe tonight.

Now Showing…

Watch and share the video here- it was created as a public service announcement for our Global Social Work class and we are using it to promote awareness and funding of this program for kids in Belize.

In August, a new program will be introduced at a grassroots domestic violence shelter in Belize teaching coping skills to kids who have witnessed domestic violence. The cost of the project is $3,900. Email me (brkwilson@gmail.com) or read this for more information on the project or how to support!

It’s also on YouTube, if you want to share the link: here
And you can join the Cause “Help Kids of Domestic Violence in Belize!” on Facebook.

It’s about that time again.

I have to tell you three things:

1. I have a boyfriend. That’s both ‘boy and ‘friend’ in the same word. I do not have to pay a monthly boyfriend fee. It’s totally voluntary in his part.

2. I’m graduating this year! Not in May, but in December. I have been working toward my Master’s Degree in Social Work at Tulane University in New Orleans. I’ve had the best experience doing individual and group grief and trauma counseling in the Recovery School District with kids who are experiencing stress due to having witnessed a violent crime or having been through Hurricane Katrina.

3. As my culminating capstone experience, I will be taking this grief/trauma model to Belize in August and implementing it in a grassroots Domestic Violence shelter. I’m dying to tell you the story of how this whole thing came about, but it would be impossible and annoying to make you read a 5 page letter, so I’m just going to list the facts:

• I went to Belize in the fall with CFI. A team member saw “Open Doors” on a storefront. Team member said, “Hey, we have an Open Doors food bank in Westfield! Let’s see what this place is!” Team drove around for an hour trying to re-find Open Doors. Couldn’t be found. Gave up. Went back to hotel. Front desk lady said her aunt works for Open Doors and lives right behind hotel. Open Doors Lady came over after dinner to talk. Open doors lady has a name: Marilyn.

• Turns out, Open Doors is a domestic violence shelter in San Ignacio that was just opened last February. It’s only the second safe shelter in the entire country. One woman walked miles from three villages over on a broken foot, broken hip, and broken hand carrying a baby and a three-year-old with a broken arm.

• Marilyn and her friend, Anna, started Open Doors to provide support and help for the women who come in, but they have no idea what to do with the kids, many of whom are imitating violence and showing significant distress.

• I have been trained in how to help and treat kids who had witnessed ongoing, traumatic violence in New Orleans. I felt the tug to find a way to bring the New Orleans program to this shelter and train the shelter staff.

• I went back to Tulane over Thanksgiving break and proposed the program. Tulane pulled strings to get me into the International Program, but said I’d have to find someone in the country to supervise me.

• I called Open Doors. Marilyn said she had a student was working with her, and I should talk to the student. The student wasn’t there. Dead end. Student walked into the office as we were hanging up. Marilyn handed over the phone. I couldn’t hear the student because of a bad connection and only 1 minute on my phone card. I asked for student’s email address to e-mail questions. Student said: Melissa@TULANE.edu. As in, TULANE UNIVERSITY, my school in New Orleans!! She (Melissa) is a cultural anthropology doctorate student and has been doing research on domestic violence in Belize since 2002. She will be leaving in July. I’ll come in August. A seamless transition.

• Even in the retelling of this, I feel unable to express God’s clear and shining presence in all our lives in that moment—Marilyn, the Tulane student, me and the kids who need services. All of our lives intersected in the realization of that little email address, and God’s plan became clear and undeniable to all of us. Everything we’d wondered on and off before—why I was at Tulane of all places, why Melissa was in San Ignacio of all places, why Dave (the team member) had insisted on finding Open Doors that day, that the front desk lady happened to be the niece of Marilyn, and that their exact need was my exact training—it all came together. God makes me cry, He is so perfect and organized. Sigh.

In addition to this project, I’ll be continuing the AIDS/HIV prevention programming I did last fall in the schools, and starting a mentoring program through CFI to match up the Standard 5 and 6 girls with “big-sister” type women in the States. These women will hopefully serve as pen-pals and supports, and will be a source of encouragement for the girls to continue their schooling past primary school.

Please know that if you’ve been involved in any of this Belize business for the past few years by supporting or encouraging in ANY way, this opportunity could not have come together without you. Although I am certain God would have met their needs with or without me, I appreciate your willingness to serve through prayer and financial support so that we could all be a part of it.

I’m working hard to fund the projects through student loans and corporate sponsors, however, if you feel particularly drawn to any of these upcoming fall projects, I’d love your prayer and support. The total cost of all three projects is $3,900 and if you’d like to contribute, it can be done in three ways:

• Make a check out to CFI with “Brooke Wilson” in memo line and mail to: CFI, 448 Leeds Circle, Carmel, IN 46032 (this method is tax deductible)

• Go to CFI website and contribute online (this method is also tax deductible): www.cfikids.com- designate to “Brooke Wilson”

• Make a check out to Brooke Wilson (this method is NOT tax deductible): email me

I hope you get a sense of my heart and my calling through this letter. It’s hard to put into words, but I feel blessed through this opportunity and want to help with the skills I’ve been given.

The end!

Brooke Wilson
brkwilson@gmail.com
www.brkwilson.blogspot.com

Spectacular Lil Vanil

Peekaboo

Uh-Oh

Lil Vanil. Talking. Waving. My dad confused.

This is how the Wilsons roll.

For a video of dancing fools, click here.

For other pictures of the birthday weekend click here!

Take home exam, Part II

I had a meltdown tonight that started with the realization that there was a Part II to my take home exam. I called Sprinky. She asked if I had a cold. I told her no, that I was crying and that I couldn’t even think of a good reason why since Part II only added two more double-spaced pages.

By the end of the conversation, I’d cried through the cellulite I had discovered on my thigh 20 minutes earlier and the resignation to aging and out-of-shapeness, which was only amplified by the understanding that I would not be able to get to the gym to play basketball tomorrow at 6 because I’d have to stay up later to finish the stupid exam; and after that, that I’d seen the most beautiful sunsets from the levee 4 nights in a row and had done my best to share them with people, but that at the end of the day, it was still only me walking to my car in the dark; and after that, that I’d missed the gorgeous moon tonight, but saw it last night when everyone else was busy and I was exploding with spectacular full-moon goodness; and after that, that the plane tickets I went to buy jumped like $70 during the 3 minutes I was trying to purchase them. My family—all 8 sides of them—will be together on the same day at the same time for my niece’s first birthday party, and American Airlines is messing with me. I don’t know when that will happen again barring a funeral or my own wedding. Doesn’t the airline industry know that?

In the end, it turned out that 80 degrees and sunny reminded me of summer in Fort Wayne with our little sliding door open, and me on the couch and Sprinky in the bedroom, and everyone coming in and out, and air mattresses all over the place, the OC and champagne, and the baby Weber grill, and my family only 2 hours away. I haven’t spent a summer outside of Fort Wayne in almost 10 years. What I’m missing here is couple of SCAN peeps, a very icy tall nonfat mocha on the corner of State and Coliseum, Elaine on my air mattress, a ten-year old following me around for weeks at a time, dusk on my balcony, and one very important Sprinky on the couch.

What I have instead is Schroeder’s take home exam part II, which seems to be as hazardous as tear gas or something.

Brooke, vegetables. Vegetables, Brooke.

Don’t they look lost and lonely on my counter?

After a nice little rally from New Years to Mardi Gras, and then a month straight of King Cake and margaritas, I have reintroduced fruits and vegetables to the diet. They were kind of shaky on the way home from the grocery, and they were very quiet all night, sort of clumping together and looking around nervously. I told them they’d get used to it, and they didn’t really protest. They just sat there and eyed the frosted frog cookies trying to creep up on them from the left. They are a smart bunch.

Yes, I know I’m weird.

Really, Mardi Gras? Really?

Mardi Gras is here. Do you know how I know? My apartment building is fenced off and there are guards at every entrance. I can’t park on the street, and to get into the building, I have to have to be wearing a wristband corresponding with the parade color of that day. My apartment number is on each wristband, and if I forget the wristband or wear the wrong color, I sleep on the streets. If that happens, though, I wont starve because I can reach out and touch 5 different funnel cake and corndog stands. It’s beautiful, really.

The upside: drinks and beads all around for the next 10 days!

Is this thing on?

I had this beautiful moment today driving across the industrial canal—the lake on my right, a giant cruise ship on the left, making my way from the upper 9th, where I successfully co-led my first grief and trauma group(!) through the city to the lower garden district, where I live. Twice, there was traffic and I ducked down and around and over and sideways and made it through the city quickly and efficiently, realizing: a) I know my city. At some point, my brain automatically began to calculate the shortcuts through an entire city separated by canals and interstates and really confusing u-turns. That moment felt like home. And b) I am exactly where I want to be, doing exactly what I want to do. How often does that happen?

I would also like to state for the record after careful consideration and eight articles that I have plenty of securely attached features, thankyouverymuch. I have also come up with my own theory. It’s called, we shouldn’t be forced to do 8-page reflections on a thousand articles covering the same basic theme, even if courier new does take it down to 5. It’s alarming what you find out. Did you guys know about this ‘reading’ business? Either way, bring on substance abuse. Now there’s a topic I can handle. With two hands.

Winn Dixie ran out of chickpeas. I think that’s so weird.

Fifty something.

I sure love this guy.
He’s the reason I am so unbelievably skilled in the art of 70’s dance.

Happy birthday, Dad.

Crawfish guy

Well. I realized two things today:

1. No matter how many years I’ve been doing this, or how many stories I’ve heard, or how many hurt kids I’ve seen, or how well-trained I am, or how supportive an agency is: some days will just be hard. There will always be thirteen-year-olds committing suicide. There will always be live-in boyfriends beating little kids up. There will always be caregivers dying and overwhelmed teachers flying off the handle. There will always be anniversaries of deaths and seven-year-olds whose first response is to stab someone with a crayon. Kids will always make fun of other kids’ teeth and shoes, even if their mother has just died. Even if the kid is an excellent singer. There will never be enough resources. I will never go home and feel okay about it.

2. In New Orleans, sometimes a crazy guy will run after you with a boiled crawfish and say, “Good mawnin! Good mawnin!” moving the crawfish’s little mouth up and down like a puppet, and you won’t know it at the time, but at the end of the day, you’ll feel overwhelmed and discouraged and crawfish guy will make you smile.

You and me

No individual can live alone, no nation can live alone, and anyone who feels that he can live alone is sleeping through a revolution…

Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly. For some strange reason I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. And you can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be. This is the way God’s universe is made; this is the way it is structured.

-MLK Jr.

Lets get this party started.

Dear B,

Wear less sweatpants. This is the beauty of a tropical climate. You own a thousand cute outfits that are perfectly wearable year round. Hello?

Do not wait until the last minute to read an entire semester’s worth of articles. You are paying a trillion dollars for this education, so you might as well learn actual theories and not just Marva Lewis’s notes on attachment via overhead (read: iChat).

Get more than 6 hours of sleep per night. This will likely mean limiting midnight back-to-back episodes of Chelsea Lately and Sex and the City. You will manage.

Remember the athletic center you are forced to pay $900 a semester to use? Go to it. Your friends used to have to come pick you up because you rode your bike too long and too far. Figure out where that bike riding joy went and reinstate it. Except, don’t ride yourself silly in New Orleans. You will get kidnapped.

Do not drink Diet Coke for breakfast. Start each morning with a giant glass of water. End each day with a giant glass of water. If you must have the Diet Coke, at least buy it from the machine where Molly won $1.25 and haunted house tickets.

Stop writing emails on Ambien. If you send an email after 10 pm, there’s a good chance it was written under the influence (cough, Judy Lewis). You are not more hilarious on Ambien. You simply have no filter. Find the tool on gmail that screens for irresponsible emailing and enable it.

Stop being so afraid of new things the first time around. They always turn out just fine.

Be patient. Timing is everything.

Clean your apartment so you can begin hosting the over-promised, under-delivered hot tub reading parties and Sex and the City Sundays. Your home should be your place. That means you should be able to walk through it without having to scale piles of clothes.

Purchase cleaning supplies and hangers.

Be intentional with keep-in-touch-Sunday even when other things try to crowd it out. Relationships are most important. Don’t forget.

Ski. You know you want to.

You are about to become an intern again. Be yourself and trust that who you are is good enough, cool enough, nice enough, honest enough, funny enough, pretty enough, smart enough and competent enough.

Embrace the next eight months and try everything. You’ll never get this season back.

Graduate! It’s sort of the point.

Allow God to lead your heart. He did a fantastic job in 2008, and if you pay attention, your whole life could be as amazing.

Love,
B.

2008, we did the best we could.

January Moved to Belize. *Carry-on bag wouldn’t fit in the overhead compartment. Attendant made me take out bulge on top, which happened to be a Ziploc gallon-sized bag of underwear. Held underwear on lap for duration of the flight.

Lived on an Iguana reserve. Learned how to do laundry with a hose. Experienced Belizean wedding and funeral in the same week. Set out to teach everything I knew about conflict resolution, drugs, and AIDS. Learned everything I know about love. Got accepted into grad school.

February Caught a parasite, hiked to the top of a ruin, swam in a cave, experienced my first Belizean election and confirmation. Fought a piñata. Lost.

March Overcame fear of spiders. Discovered a new love for choco-bananas. Played with a monkey. Met real Guatemalan Indians in Guatemala. Bought skirt from them. Watched the Ruta Maya river race. Said goodbye to the Caribbean. Understood that life would never be the same.

April Got a niece! Heart opened a little wider. Fell in love with her.
Turned 27. Panicked. Cut my own bangs.

May Got another step-family. Danced! Celebrated! Laughed!
First laid eyes on my new city, New Orleans. Stabbed my foot with a parking lot spike.

June Went back to work at Boys and Girls Club. Happy to find that I still loved the kids. Got shingles. Thought I was dying.

July Sold everything I owned on Craigslist. Moved out of Fort Wayne (ten years!) Received Carrie Bradshaw as a parting gift.

August Moved to New Orleans. Found the two-story target, which I had previously thought was an urban legend. Took a family vacation to Destin. Came back. Became acquainted with city life. Loved it. Went to Tulane for student orientation after a month of waiting. Got evacuated for Gustav at lunch.

September Stayed evacuated for two and a half weeks. Went back to school. Dropped ten pounds for lack of friends.

October Made friends! Gained ten pounds. Heard that Taylor Fort Wayne would be closing. Felt orphaned. Dressed up like a ninja and fought pirates on Jackson square.

November Watched history unfold in the TSSW building with snacks and wine. Found out Bry and Jess are pregnant again. Went to Belize. Delivered school supplies. Painted a cafeteria. Provided flood relief with two armed guards on the Guatemalan border. Became acquainted with Big Mac and Quarter Pounder, the tarantulas. Realized I had not overcome fear of spiders. Had the sweetest reunions I could ever imagine at San Marcos School.

Learned that a plan is usually unfolding around me even when I am not still or patient enough to see it. Discovered that if I feel lost even for a second, all I have to do is ask for help. Understood the beauty in a prayer that goes, “Hi God, I’m an idiot and I don’t trust myself. Could you make this one clear for me?” Trusted completely. Found out I am purposed. Convinced Tulane I am purposed. Doing last semester internship in Belize!

December Wrote a thousand papers. Failed a final. Got all A’s!
Watched snow fall in New Orleans. Saw Lily take her first 3 steps.
Went to Chicago. Smile.

The Great Snow of 2008, and other silly stories.

I think you probably heard, but it snowed in New Orleans.

This was not just a little dusting; it was a full inch. School was canceled. Businesses pushed employees outside to run willy-nilly through the yard and throw snowballs. The entire city fell apart at the age line and turned six-and-a-half, simultaneously.

I’d heard there might be snow on the North shore, so when my mom woke me up with a text that said, “snow?” I turned on the TV and rolled over. I only jumped out of bed when Good Morning America and the Today show were preempted by local news standing at Audubon Park frantically and joyfully screaming about how blinding it is when it falls heavily. And white! I waited patiently for Geraldo to show up and walk sideways into the wind.

Kids were rolling around and spreading snow all over their bodies. Adults were sledding on suit coats and building thousands of teeny, tiny 6-inch snowmen, and then adorning them with full-sized hats and scarves and carrots and sticks. We were encouraged not to venture out if we didn’t have to, because the roads were very, very bad. The bridges and overpasses were closed, and government offices closed in two parishes. I ran outside to take pictures, and found clumps of people gathered all over the sidewalk and streets staring up at the sky. Most had their tongues out.

I called the Red Cross to make sure they were still open before I ventured out in the snow that wasn’t yet accumulating, and they asked me if I was comfortable driving in “this”. I told them they could count on me. They said good, because Orleans parish was in a Level One snow emergency and they were in the midst of pulling together staff and volunteers for two standby cold weather shelters.

All day stations played, “Let it snow” over and over, and it has since been referred to as the Great Snow of 2008. If you go to Tulane’s website, you’ll see an entire photo album and slide show documenting happy students playing in the lawn with scarves and hats to lure prospective students into thinking, “See? We have Christmas, too!”

It was a joyous and happy Christmas miracle. It melted by dinner, and the next day was 65 and sunny. Just how I like my snow—beautiful, then gone.

Here are some pics of the Christmasy city yesterday-

Santa and His half-brass Band

When right in the mall there arose such a clatter, I got up from the food court to see what was the matter.

Only in New Orleans would Santa and half a brass band saunter around the mall singing.

Finals Week

As of now, I am one-quarter Master Social Worker.
(You can call me Master for short.)

Things we like

Things we like: cute nieces.
Lil is 8 months old now!

Pictures from Thanksgiving.

And fall. And summer.

Just a few to tide you over…

I’ve heard its going around

Here’s the thing. I think I may have been born in the wrong country. Also, I might be living in the wrong city. It’s possible that I am totally lost in the world.

I have been so disoriented since arriving home Tuesday that I’ve done things like: pack up all my power cords and homework and earphones and books to do homework at the coffee shop, but left the computer at home.

Yesterday I could hear people talking, but when they walked away I looked around and realized I hadn’t heard a word they said. This was me all day: So, we are having class in room 103 today? So, what’s going to be on the quiz? So, when is that due? Wait. What article was it? Was I supposed to write that down?

Also, I sneezed while reaching for a cabinet on Wednesday and totally threw out my neck and back. I couldn’t move my left side or lift my left arm past 45% or turn my neck in any direction. My classmates kept saying I had a stroke or meningitis. I totally believed them because I’m prone to hypochondria. But deep down I knew I had the what-am-I-doing-here-I-don’t-know-anybody-this-is-not-my-home-plus-I-hate-homework-and-am-desperately-heartsick-for-my-hilarious-and-warm-Belizey-family…or-at-least-that-other-family-in-Indianapolis…you-know-the-blood-relatives… virus.

I’ve heard it’s going around.

So, at 4:30, I propped up all my little pillows around my left back and watched Christmas movies and Belize videos until I fell asleep sometime around 10. I have decided that this business of caring for people is hard. There are always goodbyes. And yes, they’re followed by hellos, but then usually goodbyes again. I don’t really feel at home anywhere. My foot is in two states and my heart is in two countries.

My friend Steph said: Brooke, welcome home to wherever you are hanging your fanny pack today. (Steph, for your information it’s a rugged Eddie Bauer bag.) But then she quoted Hebrews 11, reminding me to live in the light of eternity and as a comforting reminder that someone is saying, I’ll leave the light on for you:

Hebrews 11
9 By faith he made his home in the promised land like a stranger in a foreign country; he lived in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise. 10 For he was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God… 16 Instead, they were longing for a better country—a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them.

Tonight, I live in New Orleans, Louisiana, USA, Earth. I only have a few videos connecting me to some of my favorite places and people and moments everywhere else, but I’ll share them with you if you’ll have them:

Ricardo singing at the Teacher party

Election night with Inez and Antonia when UDP won

Standing on the balcony at Cahal Pech singing “Somewhere out there” with Ashley and Kenz to the village…

Teasing Bryon, and the kids.
(Don’t get mad, you guys. I just miss you and your weird fear of cameras.)