Housemates

So after 4 absolutely crazy days in Belize we've had the chance to learn a ton about our housemates. All together there are 17 people (we've got quite a group of varied personalities which leads to a lot of great laughing moments) in a 4 bedroom/3 bathroom house. It's quite a stylish place. Stucco walls inside, dark wood panel doors, and linoleum floors that have just been rolled out and tacked down with duct tape seams. The houses in Belize are fairly colorful, for example:

We live on the bottom floor and we have some neighbors that live above us, but they're currently visiting the US. However, they left 3 glorious dogs at home with us, who tend to bark the majority of the night. Added security though is a definite bonus.

In addition to the dogs, we've got geckos and my personal favorite:

 Tarantulas! We've seen 3 so far, but this one was by far the biggest. Now I'm ok with these because they keep the bugs down (which goes for the geckos as well). However, we were moving things around in our room and we found one of these beauties by our stuff. Squishing it wasn't an option. So Benj went to get a cup and I stayed on the lookout until he got back.

Our little friend kept heading towards a pile of clothes near the bed, so I decided to stomp my foot on the floor in front of the clothes. Bad idea! Tarantulas love confrontation and he charged! I ended up on the bed telling Benj that he better hurry.

We've been down to the market, bought a laundry basket for our constantly growing pile of dirty clothes, eaten an entire pineapple between the 2 of us in just one sitting, and walked up and down a lot of hills. The streets here in Belize are either pavement (well the larger, busier streets) or white dirt and rocky. The latter, is almost blinding when the sun is out.

We'll post more later, but are headed off to catch the end of the USA/England soccer game!