San Ignacio

Just a little more about the town that we live in - San Ignacio. San Ignacio is a bout 2 hours from the airport in Belize City. The city/town is set on a hillside full of fairly dense foliage. Our beautiful coral-colored house is uptown and literally sits at the midpoint of a fairly steep hill, just up from the bust stop and city market place.

There are 2 major bridges that lead into San Ignacio - the Lower & Upper. Sometimes the natives refer to it merely as "Cayo", which is actually the name of the region San Ignacio is in. "Cayo" means "island", and San Ignacio is essentially just that, situated between two of Belize's major rivers the Macal and the Mopan. So the two bridges connect San Ignacio to the areas across both of these rivers. The Lower bridge is basic - no fancy structure here and sits at the bottom of town. It rises only several feet above the current water level and is quickly covered during flooding season. The Upper bridge has a pedestrian passageway (we walk along it to go to the English Branch in Santa Elena for Church), large pillars and large metal cables suspending the bridge at least 90 feet above the water. The pedestrian footpath is small metal grate - just large enough to catch a great view of the water moving below. Raymon, one of the country directors, told us that the last time it flooded in San Ignacio (something that's fairly common here during the rainy season) the river rose up to the bottom of the Upper bridge.

Like any small town, San Ignacio has a Saturday market, held downtown where local farmers come to sell produce, handmade items, and other products. We went yesterday, purchased a tupperware to put our beans/salsa in so we could have it for lunches with tortilla chips. The market provided plenty of options for produce - the most interesting we found yesterday was smoked sea weed... not sure I'll ever be up for trying that one!

Architecture is varied around the city. There's not really a distinction in standard of living between neighborhoods. Our home is one of the nicer ones for the natives (excluding some of the ex-pats homes) but are all inter-mixed with those homes that are much more humble. For example, our next door neighbor's live in a cement box of sorts. No stucco or paint and only lace curtains for the windows and doors. Our house has a nice wrought-iron fence surrounding it and a few dogs, where as our neighbors have none of these added securities. It makes us both grateful for the types of homes we grew up and currently live in and for all the blessings we have.

That said, our neighbors and many of the people here are extremely friendly and grateful despite their circumstances. The little girl that lives next door often plays outside with her little puppy - they're both tiny and she watches for us and waves as we come and go.

The foliage is fairly dense - as you can see in the picture above. In fact, men wander around with weed wackers trimming along the sides of roads to keep the green down. We've also seen several people out in their yards with lawn mowers - attempting to cut grass/foliage that is closer in height to their knees than their ankles. I have to laugh, because I think I'd give up at that point and just accept that my front yard was a jungle, which in this case it actually is.

Some of the people are incredibly hardworking, while others hardly work at all. The branch members tells us this is a problem among members and new converts as well, causing issues with church attendance and activity, but at church today we were so impressed with the number of faithful members and their passion and love for the gospel.

Regardless of the culture differences though, we're loving our time here and our interaction with the Belizians we've met so far. Some of our favorites include our cook, Sister Kay. She's a Creole, a lot of fun, and one of the best cooks ever. There's much more to say about her and her family, but we'll save that as well as a glimpse of her best dishes for a later post!