My time in Belize has come to a TEMPORARY end

So I am back in Iowa now... and I miss all my children, and rice & beans, and Belize in general. It is cold here, just gonna throw that one out there.

But I need to tell you things that I planned on posting a long time ago.

First is my experience at Miss Mary's wake. I expected it to be much like a visitation... alas, it was not. It was held at her mother's house, she was in her coffin which was held by a chair at each end. This was in the front yard. The entire front yard was covered by a tent advertising Belikin Beer... The beer of Belize. The family was mostly inside the house, then the backyard was also full of people, all of which were intoxicated. Not all of Miss Mary's family are Christians, so it was interesting to see how they all were coping differently. I stayed in the front yard.
JR who is 3, and Jazmine who is 5 were both at there as well. Kristy and I caught JR poking Mary's face and trying to open her eyes cause he wanted her to wake up. Then he got very upset by the fact that she wouldn't wake up. He also told us that even though her body was there, she wasn't there. When we asked her where she was, he answered the States. So we took him away from the coffin, to be told that someone needed to get Jazmine away as well. She was also trying to get Mary to wake up, and had gotten the mouth to open a bit on one side. After some convincing that she needed to be left alone, we got her to come sit with us as well.
The next interesting experience was the funeral. There were over 300 people in the church, it was packed!! There were several people who fainted during the service. Then at the internment, Pastor led the service, and when they went to push coffin into the tomb, it wouldn't go. Men from the church made the tomb, and it was lovely, but they had been given the incorrect measurements of the coffin, and the coffin was too big!! So they had to chisel away the inside so that it would fit.

Saying goodbye to my friends and kids was hard. Some of the kids became very clingy my last days in Belize and wouldn't leave my side, others tried to stay as far from me as they could and some refused to say bye. Then there were others that hid until I was getting into the car and they ran out and gave me a hug. JR was possibly the cutest though. I was trying to get a picture of him, and he refused to smile for me because he was mad at me for even thinking of leaving and I was not allowed to go. So I left him alone for a while, but I went and picked him up as I was getting ready to leave for the airport, and he put his hands around my throat so that I would "Wake up dead" and then I couldn't leave.

I attempted to add pictures to this post, but it's not allowing it, so stay tuned and they will be added in the next couple of days. Then you can meet my kids and see the beautiful Country of Belize :)