Adapting to Belize’s Heat and Humidity

After being in Punta Gorda for about 9 days, I’ve adapted mostly to the heat and humidity. I can’t really tell how sweaty I am anymore. I’ve adapted mostly to this beautiful tropical climate now. I find it comfortable to wake up at 7 am every day, to eat strange seasoning, to try hot sauce and to be out drumming and dancing in the heat.

Our schedule most days consist of waking up for a 7:30 breakfast at Gomier’s, a restaurant that specializes in Vegan food, such as omelettes with peppers, veggies and herbs inside, scrambled eggs with bread and veggies and lots and lots of whole grains. Gomier conversed with us for a while; he talked about his health habit beliefs such as eating refrained carbohydrates, soda and excessive amounts of juice aren’t healthy. After breakfast we head back to the St. Charles Inn and get ready for our day at the Maroon Creole drum school. When we arrive at the Emmeth (the H is silent), the owner and founder of the drum school starts our day with a drumming lesson. We have learned Sambai, Funga, Brokdong rhythm, and Kunji. Sambai is a courtship dance held over the 3 day course of the full moon, The day before, the day off and the day after. Funga is an African rhythm, Brokdong is performed around Christmas and is well known. Kunji is the last section of the Sambai.

In the past three days, a professional dancer came from Belize dance company; Delbert. He taught us mostly the Broukdong dance, or one of the many versions; which you can find on the Belize dance company website or when you google Belize Dance Company. We learned the most the first day and cleaned it up the last two days.

In the afternoons after 3:30, we had as personal time- mostly used as writing or nap time. At 5:30, we had a short class discussion at Asha’s before dinner. Dinner at Asha’s is always amazing- lots of fresh seafood, fruits and veggies. And Asha is awesome and so is his wife Stacey.

Guest Post By: Beth Miltenberger
West Virginia University

Bio: Beth Miltenberger
I just finished my fourth year, and have one more year left. My degree will be a Bachelors of Science in Psychology with minors in anthropology and world music. I’ve always been involved with music; I’ve played clarinet for over 10 years, I played piano for a couple years and I’ve been doing world ensembles for the past four years. I’ve taken African ensemble for 8 semesters, taiko ensemble for two, brazillian for two, and gamelan for four semesters. I would love to continue with music, hopefully world music or I would love to work with kids, adults in a psychology field setting.