La Vida de Jessica

 The Belizean people are some of the friendliest I've met in my journeys. They speak four languages which contribute to their ability to converse so easily. Although they were originally settled by the Mayan people around 15,000 BCE, their official language is English because the British colonized them in the 1600's.  They became a colony of British Honduras until they finally became independent from Britain in 1981, with English remaining as their primary language. Spanish is prevalent, as is Creole and Garifuna. Almost all Belizeans speak Creole, which is essentially a shortened version of English. Creole originated because they didn't want the British soldiers to understand what they said. Today, while driving around in the primary form of transportation (the golf cart), you hear the townspeople greeting each other and exchanging news in a hodgepodge of English and Creole.  The Garifuna presence is important around Belize, with music and dance an important element of t...

"First sanitize your hands, and then you can sanitize your insides." Upon arriving at the Belize airport, Jessie and I entered the airport store with free rum samples. Covid restrictions are strict here, so they required us to sanitize our hands upon entering the store. Once our hands were ready, the store worker invited us to sanitize our insides. I thought about this phrase the following morning as I saw the village of San Pedro, Belize for the first time. Elyssa, Jessie, and I rode bicycles from our abode on the water to the opposite side of the island. Our destination was Secret Beach, and the journey was about one and a half hours each way. While biking, I thought about travel as is a necessity to me. I cannot go too long without it because I begin to feel stifled. Traveling, venturing even slightly outside that which is comfortable, sanitizes my insides of complacency. Biking through the town, all of my senses were heightened. By all means, San Pedro is not a large city...

  "We are now in the mountains, and they are in us..."-John Muir, My First Summer in the Sierra   As Muir writes in his love letter to the mountains, the mountains, too, find themselves in me each time venture into their territory. Escaping into the mountains fills me with respect and awe for their stature, their ability to see all, and their disposition to disclose nothing.  Being on a mountain makes me feel grand and insignificant at once. It is a spiritual journey with each trek. I don't believe it is a coincidence that this Earth is abundant with beauty. It was placed here with intention. I am blessed to be one of the lucky ones that gets to see this sublimity in its own habitat. When I am on the mountain and surrounded by the forest, there is no problem that does not have a solution. The solution is to be present, and with that, I am always peaceful on the mountain. My journeys into nature bring a paradox of challenge and peace. This past weekend's trip in the l...