Goodbye Mexico - Hello Belize!

So after a lovely couple of days in Tulum, we boarded the Kevin bus and headed down to Ladyville in Belize which is in the North and where the Assembly Hall is. They have their English conventions there this weekend and next weekend which take in Mexican English Congs as well as all of Belize.

Crossing the border was interesting to say the least, you have to get out of the car to sort immigration, including bag checks, vehicle needs spraying and new insurance... just bizarre. Just before the border there's an interesting area called the 'free zone' where you can buy all sorts of things cheaply - its like a duty free zone. Again, very bizarre place!


Our introduction to Belize cuisine was Chinese food... a LOT of it here... the Chinese also own most of the grocery shops as well. We feel like we've had enough Chinese to last us a very long time!
crazy Kevin and the crew

So we stayed a night at the Gulf Hotel in Ladyville and the next morning we woke up early to get the ferry across to 2 islands where Kevin was giving the talk - one meeting at 10am and the next at 6pm. Our first island was Caye Caulker, a tiny island with sand roads and everyone on bicycles sauntering around. The houses are mostly wooden and on stilts, totally different to Mexico, and everywhere is much quieter and relaxed. The kingdom hall is pink, but very cute and they've just got air conditioning, thank goodness! There's only one elder there, him and his wife have recently moved there from the US, so he has a LOT on his plate! The bros from San Pedro, the neighbouring island about 20 mins by boat go across to help out, and any visitors are asked to read the WT or do the talk! The island is beautiful, a little oasis surrounded by tourqoise water... just beautiful...

Caye Caulker

The Kingdom Hall - Caye Caulker

View from the beach

When we arrived at San Pedro a similar scene awaited us (population c.12/13000), white sands, wooden piers and a mass of palm trees lining a slightly bigger island. After a swim and a sleep in our accommodation which was right on the beachfront we were ready for our second meeting! The cong was lovely and despite a serious attack of mosquitos which left me seriously eaten up we loved San Pedro!




The next day we boarded a boat with Silvan - A Dive Master in San Pedro cong and we went snorkelling/diving. We went to a point called Shark & Ray Alley which was amazing - we saw nurse sharks, stingrays, a giant parrot fish, moray eels, barracuda, eagle ray, grouper fish, and LOADS of other fish, it was fantastic and it was mega hot, the water looked so beautiful with the sun streaming through.

After a quick change we were back in Belize City - anyone thinking of coming to Belize - try and avoid this place at all costs! Its eerie! We boarded a bus back to the Assembly Hall, Kevin placing magazines with all the people on the bus as apparently its rude to be reading something and not let the person next to you read it too... or to leave them with it after your done. But everyone loves the magazines here, and its a real protection for them to know that you're a Witness here. Its not uncommon for the Witnesses to be warned to leave a certain area if they know somethings going to 'happen' in that area or street. Of course they leave no questions asked!

So we left Kevin and Chris and the next day made our way to Placencia in the South of Belize. We arrived at the house we've rented and have basically not done much since we arrived other than sleep alot and watch movies as the weather has been really unpredictable - its humid but suddenly with no warning the heavens open and there is a HUGE downpour which can last for a while, or just a few minutes! Its crazy - i actually woke up to it this morning in quite fright thinking what an earth is that?! And its starting the thunderous downpour again as we speak!

The local shop doesn't have much variety in terms of fresh fruit and veg, and although you can get Special K and Andrex toilet paper you'll pay about £6 for the privilege! Also, the GREAT news is that they have Dairy Milk!!! But it cost me £4 for a medium sized bar - and it went in 2 days... an expensive habit! Mallika even found Palmers body butter yesterday which made her very happy - the queen of moisturising!

Our house is right on a lagoon with mangrove in it - Brett found out that he can fish there so has been out there just stood on the side a few times, he hasn't caught anything as yet, but one of the other guys caught a snapper and gave it to us so thats dinner tonight!




Apparently in the lagoon its possible to catch Barracuda, Grouper & Tarpon in there! Hilarious that out of all of these huge fish its possible to catch we have a dinner of a small snapper! ha ha So while Brett was engaged in his manly sport, Mallika and I went to explore the beach a bit - again SO quiet, there's just hardly anyone around - not really stray dogs like Mexico, just a smattering of tourists and the locals..

Placencia beach




Tomorrow we're heading back up to Ladyville to the District Convention for a couple of days and then Monday we're going back to San Pedro to look for somewhere to live for the next 4 months to join the cong there, we just loved it so much that we think we'll be really happy serving there... so watch this space!!!

Love the 3 musketeers x

And then there were three....

So how did it get to be Christmas Eve already? In Mexico you just don't notice the onset of Christmas at all, just a few lights on a smattering of houses, so with it being hot and no one really making a big fuss we now have to pinch ourselves that a whole year has passed since the last one!

So the last blog was 2 weeks ago when we visited Playa, and since then 2 bible studies have been started, we said goodbye to Cancun and our little appartment and the lovely cong who we really miss, said hello to Mallika and started our descent down the Coast.

First stop... Cozumel - a lovely island which attracts cruise ships and tourists like bees to honey, but still manages to maintain its rugedness, with one side of the island barely developed. We stayed with the lovely Ash and Joanna who we were the perfect hosts and who we had lots of fun with - including their hugely entrtaining dogs - Cokies and Freckles. Cozumel is a 45 min boat ride from Playa del Carmen. The weather when we arrived was fair, but once we'd boarded Luke's bug and we went to the beach it was actually quite cloudy and cold! There will be a picture of Luke's bug and the hole in the floor which made us all slightly nervous as we could see the road through it as he was driving!
In the evening we saw AVATAR - brilliant! Brett's talk went really well again and we had a lovely lunch at a family's place after the meeting. They have about 30 in the cong, but Sunday there were brothers from 8 different countries, as many were visiting while holidaying on the Island so it was great to meet those from all over once again.

The next day was RAINING - lightly in the morning as we navigated our way to the nearest square to find desayuno (breakfast - our favourite Spanish word!) at about 11.45 to which most looked at us as if we were crazy - 'desayuno, noooo its lunchtime' - its never to late for desayuno we thought and so plopped ourselves down at a cute place with umbrellas... desayuno was followed by a beer and a chocolate crepe as the rain got harder and faster and we really weren't dressed for walking in the rain. Enough was enough and as it lightened we ran to a corner shop, stocked up on Hersheys chocolate, crisps, M&Ms, and yoghurt for Mallika - and we caught a taxi to go home for an afternoon of movies. Literally the rain just went on and on and in the end there was lots of flooding and both Joanna and Ash's cars were flooded the next day as well as the Kingdom Hall - when the girls got to the ministry group the following morning there was frantic mopping going on!

Tuesday we went on field service which was really nice to spend some time with the brothers there and I met a lovely lady who wants to study which was a lovely experience. She gave me her email address and I took a photo of her an her little boy so I'm defininitely going to keep in touch with her. I love the Mexican people, they are just so humble and happy and always happy to talk. The day went so quickly and in the evening we decided as the weather had cleared up that we'd have a bbq - but first - we hired a VW Beetle...

As most of you will know these are my favourite cars, but alas I had never driven one! So knowing that they hired them out thanks to Lonely Planet, I asked Brett if we could hire one! So as the boys drove off into the distance to a Bible Study, us girls were left with hiring the car and then going shopping for food! Once we'd got to the rental place and agreed that yes we'd hire one without a roof (i mean completely no roof, no even a soft top), negotiated a price, I then had the fun of driving this thing on the right side of the road on an island with lots of narrow and one way streets and strange right of way rules... well they were foreign to me! So we had some fun, some scrapes, but lots of laughs and everyone stayed in tact (including the stationary cars I passed). It was great, and my first experience was a happy one :)

The next day we got up early, boarded a boat and went snorkelling & diving to 3 sites on Palancaar reef which is one of the best spots on the island. Mallika and i snorkelled and Brett dived. It was hilarious as we had a guide who was with us and he had a lifesaver ring in the water which we asumed we should hold onto... otherwise why would we have it - so we're all (Mallika, me & the guide) hanging onto this thing and doing our thing. Anyway, the 2nd time that we go out, they gave us these life belts to wear... so we thought ah maybe they're abandoning the life saver ring... no, they had that as well, so we basically looked like 5 year olds hanging on to the ring and with these lifebelts tied round us we were bobbing up in the water like bobbing seals - i wondered if on the 3rd snorkel they'd give us arm bands too! But it was a lot of fun, and the highlight was as we were sailing along on our way to pick up 2 people from a resort, a pod of dolphins came into view, so we rushed to the front of the boat and they were jumping in and out of the water and swimming under the boat, and giving us quite a show, it was amazing, i've seen dolphins before but not up close like that - the trip was worth it just for that!

We later took a ride to the other side of the island in the bug - by now I couldn't even see out of the wind screen it was so dirty! The scenery was more rugged, with rainforest and a long beach with some decent surf, reminded me of the north shore in hawaii but smaller waves! We stopped at a fab restaurant called coconuts which is set up on the cliff overlooking the sea and beach which you can see for miles.... it was fab.

So Cozumel was great, the food, the company, the sea life, it was sad to leave - like everywhere we've been and made friends. But now we have come back to Tulum and staying with a lovely Canadian couple from Playa del carmen Cong, until Saturday when we leave for Belize.

Mallika is making some dinner - food awaits :)
We are all well and missing you all.
Lots of love... x

Playa del Carmen

So we decided yesterday to take the day 'off' which i know sounds funny but anyway, we boarded a bus with our new Danish friend Ditte which took us an hour south of Cancun to Playa del Carmen. Now when I was planning our route up the coast I said to Brett lets give Playa a wide birth as I'd heard it was really touristy and all I could imagine was tacky beachfront bars and drunk students everywhere... until we got to Cancun and everyone said, wow everyone usually goes to Playa as its much prettier than Cancun.... great!

So we ventured down there to find a small town perched on the coast, with lots of cute restaurants and shops on a street called 5th Avenue.



Tequilla anyone?!
The Nacho Libre masks - just slightly bizarre


Everytime you came to a small crossroads and looked right down the street
you could see the glint of the tourquoise water... 'I am home' I thought.





We went for breakfast at this place called 100% natural which is the type of place that as soon as you sit down at one of their tables outside near a small waterfall dotted with exotic fruits, you take a deep breath and immediately feel healthier. The juices were amazing, and below is a pic of my oh so healthy oatmeal! After having been living in Cancun where the nearest healthy place to eat is called SuperSalads where they serve you a giant portion of salad plus 4 chicken filled pitta breads, a side of tortilla chips, guacomole and a litre of coke, this was a refreshing treat!


me and ditte & some yummo juices


i feel healthy just looking at it!

Once on the beach we plopped ourselves down on what only can be described as soft single mattresses and laid and swam and ate - all of our favourite things! Had the most amazing thai beef salad... the best meal I've had in Mexico which is worrying considering it was a Thai dish! (unlike the sushi this did not come with cheese!)








We had a thoroughly enjoyable day which finished with a wander on 5th Avenue which was all pretty and lit up and littered with artists displaying their art in the street, it was a great atmosphere, and yes touristy.. but touristy in a tasteful way. If only we'd have known!


Playa by night

Ditte & Aleisha

Loved the swings!

A tankard of Coffee & Cake - the only way to end an evening!


Brett gave his first 2 public talks today - he did so well and I was so proud of him, he got lots of nice compliments on it. He'll be giving it again next weekend on Cozumel which is an Island off the coast at Playa del Carmen.
I can't believe we leave here on Saturday and we've been away for 5 weeks...

Anyway, thanks for your emails and updates on xfactor... I can't believe Olly didn't win!
I'm off to find the Strictly results on You tube now!

Adios for now amigos xx

Wednesday - Malaria Tablet Day - yuk!

Hello!!

SO we told you all to watch this space for the end of the 'back to school experience' but sadly we weren't able to be part of it! We were told by Kevin that even by us going into the school and just helping the kids with their English this could be constituted as 'teaching' and therefore 'working' and as tourists we're obviously not allowed to work, :( :( :( so 3 from the group went that are allowed to work so at least we got to hear what happened! They said it was really good, even though it was a beginner class, they just covered simple things like 'whats your name, where do you live etc.' and they invited them all to the meeting on Sunday, where Brett will be giving his first public talk! Not just once but twice! There is an English meeting at 1pm and at 3pm so we'll be hot footing it once he's done his first one, to the next Kingdom Hall. I'm feeling so nervous for him, but I know he'll be great. The school has also invited them back Thursday morning at 7am to talk to the advanced English students.

SO what have we been up to... well last week Brett was really ill - we think it was a mild case of Dengue fever which you get from infected mosquitos - he was very bored of being ill and I, the dedicated nurse was sat by his bedside... well more likely skyping by his bed side keeping him awake! No, joking aside I was quite worried, although we bought pain killers with us and lemsip (hooray for lemsip) it is a bit of a worry when your in a foreign country - especially as I've heard so many mixed reports on the doctors here. Fortunately he is feeling much better now and is up and about as normal. PHEW!

Worringly one of the bros from the cong said it may be a good idea to take a couple of generic anti biotics with us to Belize as you can get them over the counter here and in Belize may not be as easy to get... so far we've been told lots of negatives about Belize - its expensive, we'll just be eating rice and beans, the sand isn't as soft as along the Mexican coast, the local bird is the mosquito, and they have flies that literally bite chunks out of your skin... so as you can imagine we can't wait to get there and spend the remaining 5 months of our trip in fear of our lives! ha ha. Nah, we're just trying to keep positive and remember we're young and everything is an adventure! (Anyone thats coming to visit, please don't let this pout you off, its lies, all lies!!)

To be honest i do find times where I get a bit bored, like when Brett was ill and I couldn't get anywhere, and like this morning Brett is doing his talk and noone could pick me up for ministry - i guess its just so different from home where you feel like your chasing your tail the whole time, I'm just not used to having nothing to do. But this afternoon we're going to Zara which we have finally found, so a nice air conditioned walk through the mall will be nice!!! When we are out though, we're out the door by 8 and not back til 6.30 so I should probably be happy for a break especially as the heat is tiring.

For those asking about temperature its been about 32 C - but thanks to my Mum and Dad I now have a hat again as I left mine on the bus when we arrived in Cancun, so they sent me the exact same one over with some friends that arrived in Cancun on Sunday - they also sent Dairy Milk and Twinnings tea (essentials for living), oh and very importantly inspect spray with 95% DEET which apparently the shop assistant said we shouldn't spray on our skin directly and that mosquitos instantly burn as soon as they land on you when your wearing it - clearly he has never been outside of England as both notions are entirely ridiculous!!!!

Anyway we've had a couple of long days on the ministry, in fact yesterday there was 6 of us in a car party and we went down to the Hotel Zone (aka. where the Americans have ruined the beach with their hotels) as one of the girls had a call to do, and so as she was doing it the rest of us went and sat by this pool which overlooked a lagoon with the Hotels in the distance (far enough away that it was quite a nice view) and we sat with our legs in the water chatting, it was relaxing half an hour while she started a Bible study. Its a hard life!

Oh we had a nice experience a couple of days ago, one of the Sisters was doing a Bible study in McDonalds with a really nice guy who is half Lebanese, half Mexican (and his family owns a Lebanese restaurant which we are definitely going to visit!) and as they were studying, (he is a story in himself) and we were drinking McD's coffee (!) 2 girls got up from their table came over and asked Miguel if he spoke Spanish, which he said he did and they asked him if we were Testigos de Jeova - which he said we were, and they said 'we want to become witnesses, where is the Kingdom Hall' ... to which the Sister gave them an invitation with a map and went about explaining. Brett and I at this point were about to spit our coffee out as we realised what had just happened... I'm sorry, run that passed me again...
But these things happen here, the growth in Mexico is huge, the Witnesses are the 2nd biggest religion after Catholicism. The guy studying told us after the girls had left that people are really searching for satisfying answers from the Bible, not just the Priests opinion, and when they study with the Witnesses they realise the difference. It was nice to hear that from him.

Its funny when I started this entry I thought, mmm this is going to be short we've not really done that much, but I've managed to witter on for quite a while haven't i!

We leave for Belize on 20th where we will be joined by Mallika to do a bit more travelling down the coast and then we'll be off to Ladyville in Belize to hopefully do some pre convention work (District Convention we had in Aug) ready for our convention 1-3 Jan and then we'll arrive at our final destination Placencia (south of Belize) about 4th Jan.

Talk to you all soon, miss you
Mrs M xxx

Back to School...

Thought I would share this brief ministry experience with you that we had today:

I was working along with two other Mexican brothers this morning and one of them is learning Chinese and as their are many Chinese people in Mexico he has been expanding his ministry beyond just the English field. So this morning while he was conducting a study in Chinese, Miguel and I decided to visit a language school to see if it was possible to leave some English literature with either the teachers or any of the students.

As we entered the building we were met by an official looking gentleman who turned out to be one of the English teachers. At first he gave quite a negative response and said we were not allowed to come in, however after showing him the magazines he changed his attitude somewhat and began to explain that while he had been living in LA years before, he received the magazines regularly and had enjoyed reading them.

After a brief but friendly chat, we ended up leaving him with 6 magazines for him and the Students to read at their leisure. We thanked him for his time and left.

Back outside on the street we began walking off, only to discover the same man running down the street after us shouting at us to stop. As he approached he said "Can you come back please, the School Director wants to see you"... "Uh oh" we thought, "now we're in for it", perhaps he hadn't taken too kindly to our visit.

We were led up the stairs and into an office where the Director was sat and he told us to take a seat at his desk...in front of him were the magazines that we had just left with first gentleman. At this point his secretary got up and left the room, closing the door behind her. For the first time in a long time I felt like a naughty boy who was about to get a few strips torn off him for bad behavior. The Director proceeded to explain to us (Only in Spanish, he didn't speak any English but I was able to decipher bits and pieces until Miguel translated afterward) that his school was one of the best in the area. He told us what the curriculum entails, how the classes work and the type of students that enroll here. I was waiting for it, any minute, to hear the "and you're not welcome here" speech. To say that we were pleasantly surprised to be invited to come back next Tuesday for an hour to talk to the students during one of the classes is an understatement. Oh and would it be possible for us to bring along 10 English speaking friends so that the students could have one-one discussions with us!??

Needless to say, we let him know that we would be delighted to come back to talk to the students and sit in his air-conditioned classrooms for an hour.

We're busy getting some of the other pioneers lined up to come along with us and English copies of literature to hand out during class. We'll let you know how we get on!

Cancun - lets get down to business!

A whole week has passed since our last entry - I'm sure you're missing us! ha ha.

Our last night in Tulum we moved the last night to a bungalow which had no mosquitos and was cheaper than our little leaky cabana! 2 nights of rain and we actually thought the whole thing was going to cave in! It was nice though being cosy and hearing the rain... bouncing off the mosquito net, but we slept SO well once we'd moved to the bungalow!


view from the restaurant/bar onto the beach



view from our bungalow

Our last couple of days we snorkelled in 2 cenotes - one open, one closed (a cavern) we swam in the crystal clear water, and we went to a connecting cave in the closed cenote which had bats! The fish are tropical in there but are like the little ones you'd have in a tank back home so Brett was very excited to see them in the wild. They all looked like Shabunkins to me! Even though we had wet suits on the water was freezing!



the walk through a mangrove to the open cenote



the open cenote (complete with Brett in it trying to catch the little fish)



The closed cenote (with Brett in it somewhere, trying to catch these fish too)

SO we left our little paradise home in Tulum and last Thursday we arrived in Cancun - just 2 hours from Tulum. Kevin our new landlord and friend picked us up and took us to his and his wife Lina's home (our flat is under their apartment along with another little unit where the sub CO is staying - they are Texan but living in Puebla near Mex City). Its been the Circuit overseer visit so Friday was our first introduction to witnessing with an English congregation in Cancun. The cong is lovely, such lovely humble people and so so happy, its got a lovely atmosphere and everyone that can't speak English so well (although its way better than our Spanish!!) are trying their best to improve to be able to help in the Bible study work. The main English speakers here are Americans/other foreigners, and Mexicans who prefer to speak/study the Bible in English. No one understands my Spanish - you have to be SO precise when you say words and can get yourself easily into trouble!

Cancun - the centre - not so good - but we have been spoiled with the gorgeous places we've visited so far - its basically a dirty concrete City with no real centre or history (only 30 years old) in contrast to the beautiful little towns we've seen all with a Zocolo and lovely squares with coffee shops lining them and cute markets selling all things Mexican. So yeah it was a bit of a shock to the system - and Wallmart was another shock - talk about Superstore - Man the Americans invented the word! I didn't realise Christmas was coming up until I walked in there - and was worried I wouldn't ever find my way out! ha ha.

So anyway, we love our little flat for the month, a few photos up and our little Mexican soft furnishings we've picked up along the way moved in and it feels like home, simple but really all we need! The City we would never choose to have come here (we're told the beach and hotel zone is nicer but of course very commercial and expensive to get to in a taxi!) but the congregation here is a keeper, and we've loved every second of their kindness and hospitality which blows our minds and we've only been here a few days.





photos of our apartamento (its humble and basic, but we like it)



Outside on our way to our first meeting with Cancun Ingles

So Saturday there was a special effort for the C.O visit to go to a small island off the coast of Cancun called Isla Mujeres (Island of Women) where there are 3 Spanish congregations and there used to be an English group and they are hoping to restart it. So in an effort to help them find the English speakers a group of about 20 of us went over - it was an early start but it was worth it, the island is lovely, lots of tourists attracted to it - they visit and never leave. The water is tourquoise and they have a reef and lots of fishes to see (we saw a Baracuda!!)
So we did some search work - I spoke to 3 people and had good conversations - one guy was Mexican and had lived in LA and been in prison then deported... so sad that he thought he was going to hell and didn't want to think about the Bible because he feels guilty. So we showed him the 6 myths of Christianity magazine that shows that Hellfire is not a Biblical teaching and showed him from the Bible what it says about the condition of the dead, and that Jehovah wants him to get to know him. He was such a nice guy and someone is going to follow up on him.
Apparently to get this group up and running officially, it needs a foreigner to move there.... another place with a lot of need... just like Tulum in case any of you are thinking of a place to come and help!





Getting the ferry over to isla mujeres



We had a lovely lunch at a brother and sisters food place a traditional soup dish with Chicken, chilli and puffed up corn (like soft pop corn) and you load it up with avocado, lettuce, onion, radishes, and eat it with round tortilla chips -its called Pasole.










pics from the day including how many people can you get in a pick up truck for the Ministry (anywhere else in the world totally illegal, in Mexico tho, ah...its ok Senor!



The ferry home



And the sunset


Today at the meeting, back on the main land we met an American couple on holiday in Cancun from Ohio and a friend of theirs Brittany who were all lovely and came back for dinner with Kevin and John and Lilly (the sub CO) - I made drunk chicken thanks to my Mum's inspiration and quick text of the ingredients! Its weird they don't really use ovens here, just a oven top stove - going to be a challenge to make interesting dinners over the next few weeks!

So our life for the next few weeks is ministry - tomorrow brett and I are studying with a young brother and sister who normally study with Kevin and Lina but as they are away they're coming to see us, so really looking forward to that - i think they are 8 and 11 and are the cutest, we met them today.

currently listening to Guitar - album = Tokyo (love it, you will too!)

Love to all, and miss yas xx