Culture Differences...

Can one culture impact another? It kind of seems so. Here I notice it in a few different ways...

When we do our morning runs for example... If we meet any other runners they are usually tourists. They are running for the same reason we are. Health and fitness. Here in the Belize culture most of them don't run unless they are running from something. You might see some of the women out running the beach in the evenings but not many. They are mostly overweight women here. They can't get away from it with there diet and little exercise.

We run every morning rain or shine and you can tell they look at us like we are out of our minds! This morning it was drizzling when I did my run to the airport and I had to laugh at some of the expressions I got...:) Here when its raining they might even keep there child home from school! The rains keep them in unless they have a good reason to be out! They watch a lot of TV here.

Ariel has a fit that my kids don't watch TV! She says her two kids wouldn't survive four hours without TV! I think with the small homes and the limited space that they have to play (especially in town) just keeps them inside watching TV.

It seems to be changing some though. They do cross fit here in gyms. Some of the female workers here are getting into the greens from Ambergreens. They seems to watch the team from the states and they marvel at our diets and how we exercise. They are making changes to! Britney and Lara (two gals living at MBV) are both into health and fitness and they are impacting locals! They both started to make Kombucha tea to! I gave them the culture and they are so into it! They both were tea drinkers in the states so now I have somebody to pass my tea off to next week when we leave! Ariel wants a culture to so I made a fresh batch this morning, wrote out the instructions and I will be passing a gallon off to her.

I love where I come from! I love that we care about our health in the states. I love that we have healthy options! Even if we have bad ones at least we have good ones to! I find here its not near as easy for some reason. Real food yes, fruit and veggies yes but they don't really have the extras like we do to get creative with and when they do it is just so expensive!

At home when I shop at Wegman's for groceries you see so many people in gym clothes and most shoppers there look like the health conscious type. When I shop at Wal-mart the crowd is all together different. Most shoppers are buying junk food and look unhealthy...:) Not that I'm saying shopping at Wal-mart is bad its just something that I observe. We have the farmers markets at home that I love! We have farmers all around us that grow, raise and sell there food! We are so so blessed even if we have to watch out for the GMO's and other poisons that they don't allow here in Belize!

One culture can impact another for sure.

We had a dinner the other evening. One that Britney hosted. Her ministry is called "Shine" (On eagles wings) They have bought property here and they have a blueprint of a building like one here at MBV that they plan to put up on there ministry property. It will focus on teens and they call it "The Teen Center". The locals here are so excited about this!! It will be a place where abuse victims can get help. It will be a safe place where teens can gather. It will have games rooms and other activities. They will have rooms for counsling and rooms for privite group meetings. They will do worship service and Bible studies. They will focus on reaching out to the next generation through teens.

It was so great to be a part of this dinner meeting and hear the "Shine" vision! I have had coffee dates with Britney and we both run. We went to the procuce market together on Tuesday mornings. She is such a sweet girl and I love what she is doing here!

One culture can impact another!

We do not want to come here and push our agenda on the locals. We don't. But they watch and observe and soon they realize that maybe they are missing something. (The longer I'm here the more I observe the newcomers to. You just know who they are by the way they look, walk around and drive the carts...:) ... We are different and we do things different. It's intresting and I can kind of see why we interest the locals so much)

As I watched Justin work across the canal the other day I had to stop and just watch him a bit. He was raking but he was going so slow and he looked so unmotivated! I wondered what his deal was so when he came home for lunch I asked him why he is moving so slow!? He said "Mac told me to slow down or you will run out of work! They just want you to get something done so as long as you are doing something there is no reason to move fast!" Justin was like...Aw really? Cause where he comes from its nothing but hustle!! You move as fast as you can for as long as you can!...:)

I wonder how our culture would get things done here!? It wouldn't take long at all to have this whole island looking just like Lancaster County with that Lancaster County work ethic but then it wouldn't be authentic Belize and they don't want that. They are not lazy here by any means. They get up early and get to work even if its on foot! They sweat and get dirty all day long and they don't shy away from hard work. I guess they just don't think it's that important to be so speedy!...:) It gets done eventually. The project here has some of the best workers on the island though and some of them just come here to work but actually live on the mainland. They go back and forth on weekends and some only see family or girlfriends on weekends. It's an intresting culture to observe and those of us from the US get watched by them when we visit here!

This is how Belize culture looks at life...:)

I want to appreciate my culture. I do. I like it here and I love this culture to! It's different but it grows on you and we will have a huge culture shock in a few days!

The man of the house just walked in the door!! I'm off to catch up with him!!...

Have a great day!...