Aktun Tunichil Muknal

This past weekend being a long weekend here in Belize as well (go commonwealth!) the entire team headed off to San Ignacio, a beautiful town not far from the Guatemalan border. The team went off to do some cave tubing, and I headeded off on a little adventure of my own to Aktun Tunichil Muknal, Mayan for Cave of the Stone Sepulchre ... ATM as the locals call it. ATM is an archaeological treasure in the heart of the Belizean jungle. After a 1 hour hike to the entrance of the cave we swam in pristine saphire coloured water to reach the beginning of our real adventure. The cave was used in ancient times by centuries of Mayans to perform bloodletting ceremonies, make offerings to the gods and make sacrifices. We crawled over giagantic rocks, squeezed through tight spaces and waded through chest-deep water all while admiring the amazing rock formations that surrounded our every move. Stallagmites (on the floor) and stallactites (on the ceiling) formed cathedral like walls around us and above us. Thousands of years of tiny drops of water all combined into one amazing sight. After about two hours of caving, we climbed up into a more secluded area of the cave to find the floor littered with broken clay pottery. One tiny step in the wrong direction and you could easily step on an ancient piece of history. Mayans would bring the beautifully crafted clay pots into the site and break them in honour of the gods. Some even contained detailed carvings on the side depicting the gods. The most fascinating part of the caves were that they were used for human sacrifices. 16 different skeletons were found inside- most of children under the age of five. The skeleton after which the cave was named after is found in one of the uppermost regions of the cave and has been partially coated with deposits of calcium carbonate from years of lying in the cave. It was an amazing sight! And I met a lot of neat people on the tour as well, including one woman who became the "team mother" making sure everyone knew where the sharp rocks and dangerous turns were. It was an amazing trip, one which has apparantly also been chronicled by national geographic.

The teams split again with my foursome staying here in San Ignacio to teach in the Cayo district. Yesterday we trekked our way to St. Martin's school in a tiny town called Blackman Eddy only to find that the principal wasn't expecting us and also wasn't the person on our information sheet. We soon realized that we were supposed to teach at St. Martin's school in Belmopan, the country capital. So we hopped on the bus and did our best to teach at the right school for the rest of the day. Because of Cayo district's proximity to the Guatemalan border, we've found that most of the kids are hispanic so it provides us with new challenges when we teach. My favourite part of teaching is by far the question and answer period. This is when we experience the funniest and saddest parts of the project. Today during the session Katie picked up a paper with a question on it and read aloud "Will..you..marry me?" We looked up, turned to each other and simultaneously said "uhh no" much to the delight of the class. Unfortunately we also received a question saying "What happens if a nine year old girl is being sexually abused and right afterwards she gets her period for the first time?" It is sad to have to tell someone that what she thought was her first period may have very well been the result of internal bleeding. But we are providing them with numbers for all the services and maybe a little bit of hope for something better.

The weather here has been cooler as the rainy season sets in a little early. Mangoes are ripe and we have been trying some new fruits including one fuscia one called pitaya. Hard to believe we've allready been here for three weeks! Looking forward to the next four and thinking about everyone at home!