Weh di go aan?

Weh taim yu gat? It's too early. 6:30 A.M. wake up call.

Harvest Caye (pronounced "key"), is a private island located in southern Belize, just five miles off the shore of Placencia. It is a 75-acre island with something for everyone and easy access to the mainland. With everything from eco-tourism, relaxation, water sports, and adventure, you are sure to enjoy this new cruise ship destination.

Owned by Norwegian Cruise Line, Harvest Caye is not designed as a typical, cruise ship-owned, private island. Norwegian partnered with the country of Belize to develop Harvest Caye as a hub to explore Belize. Walk, or take a golf cart, along the canopied pier into Harvest Caye for many activities.

Harvest Caye was developed by NCL in a responsible way. They planted thousands of trees and plants, including over 10,000 mangroves, as a habitat for birds and marine life. The Nature Center is helping the endangered scarlet macaws with a breed and release program.

After breakfast we all back-packed up and headed out. We lined up at the port to take a ferry over to Palencia, where we met out guide, for the day. I was a bit worried, because of NCL's delays in getting folks off the ship, but John was there waiting for us.

We loaded up in his raggedy van and I do mean raggedy. Absolutely not one shock on this van. While driving, we notice all the scenery. After about 40+ minutes, we ended up at a Medicinal Village. I asked John about tubing and he seemed to have a bit of an attitude. We all agreed that we really wanted to do the tubing activity and he went on about the number of activities that we paid for. I told him yes, we paid for 3. So, we decided to skip the medicinal village and headed not to far, to the Mayan chocolate making farm.

I was taken aback a bit, because John wanted payment, before the tour began. I thought it must have been a black thing. He spoke to the demonstrator in their kriol language and we had to wait until the room was set up.

The Belize Kriol language is part of the Caribbean family of Creole languages. From the 2000 census for Belize, one notes that while 24.9% claim Kriol as their ethnicity, an increase to 33% claim Kriol as their first language. Note too that the Ministry's 1999 School Effectiveness Report (p. 84) notes that "Creole is spoken as the first language in most homes." Creole Launguages were birthed by the clash of masters and slaves in the holding cells of Sierra Leone in West Africa all the way to the coasts of Georgia and the Carolinas. The contact situation of colonialism and slave trade routes that forced people from western Africa across the Atlantic to the Central American Caribbean coastal areas of Belize, Nicaragua, Panama, Costa Rica further contributed to the development of the language. In the Caribbean, a Creole language can be thought of as the offspring of the union of a colonizer's vocabulary base with the grammar of an African language - or a family of African languages.

The Caribbean and Atlantic Coast regions have Creole languages with vocabulary bases that are either English, French, Dutch or Spanish; it depends on which colonizer that country had. This article has limited itself to the Belize Creole language (di Bileez Kriol langwij), which is an English-based Kriol language.

Since 1993, a standard orthography for the Belize Kriol language has been in existence. After almost a dozen years of its use, revision and promotion, the 'one symbol equals one sound" phonemic-based spelling system has increasingly become popularized. Other national languages are Garifuna, Spanish, and three varieties of Maya. The official language is English. An official language is the language used by a government in official situations; a national language is - like Kriol, Garifuna, Spanish or Maya in Belize - a language that the government recognizes as having significance in the country's social life. This might mean that the government may allow one or more national languages to be used in education. The Belizean government has already enacted this policy (1996 Language Education Policy); it simply has not formally engineered its implementation yet. Note too that although Belize only boasts a population of some 250,000 people, several other languages are also spoken. These are the immigrant languages, not yet considered national languages in Belize, and these include Mandarin, Hindi , Arabic and German.

The basis of Kriol literacy is that literacy is, after all, not a language, but a skill. Once the skill of knowing how to read and write is mastered in one's native language - one's mother tongue - transition to the much-needed international languages of English and Spanish would begin. The stress-free and cultural benefits of mother tongue literacy are based on sound educational principles.

Today, two generations since UNESCO declared in one of its 1953 monographs on education that "the best medium for teaching a child is his mother tongue", the mother of all tongues in Belize continues to have a dynamic, public face. Many faces: there is the Garifuna-Kriol Belizean, the Taiwanese-Kriol Belizean, the Maya-Kriol Belizean, the Mestizo-Kriol Belizeam...you get the point. Belize is a tiny representative slice of multi-ethnicity at its best. Come...keep on visiting us and who knows, you may become an honorary Belizean if, in response to the first welcome or hello you receive, you answer back, "Helo...weh di go aan? Mee laik Bileez!"

The presentation was interesting, but then became boring, as it was way too long.

We loaded up and headed to the South Stann Creek River, for our tubing adventure. We stopped at the gate, so John could pay for our admission and then we headed on in.

Oh my goodness, the 15 or 20 minute ride, seem like an eternity. John hit every chuckhole and bump that he could. It was the worse ride ever. His raggedy van even shut off, trying to manuever around the winding road. I was soooooooooooooooooo relieved to reach the entrance.

I thought about this: "Trips are full of unexpected incidents and one of the things I love most about travel is getting in the mind frame to appreciate them. Getting lost, breaking down, waiting in line-each is an opportunity to witness something new, to enjoy the journey." Greg Sullivan

We all changed into our swimsuits in these small little changing rooms. I thought it was kinda cool, because we had a backdrop of a beautiful forest. We finished and walked down some treacherous stairs and on to our guide, who showed and helped us suit up. Then we grabbed our tubes and walked down to the river.

After brief instruction, I plopped down onto my tube and waited for the instructor, to push me into the river, as I knew I couldn't get a start on my own, from the rocky shore.

We all hopped in and began to float on down the river. Clarke and Hope were in the lead. If you're looking for some relaxation, jungle time and adventure, this was it.

As we floated on down, Sabrina gave me the evil eye. I think I was scared to have a curse put on me, that I just turned my head, whispering to myself, "damn, she just gave me the stink eye."

Meanwhile, Tuwana was floating towards some hanging vines and started screaming, because she didn't want it to touch her. I was hoping that she'd just hold on to the handles of her tube. If we didn't get Hep A, Hep C, Typhiod or Yellow Fever back in Cartagena, we should be good. LOL

I grabbed Gunny's camera to snap some photos. After a while, my camera was full.

We went over a few small waterfalls and it was too funny that Clarke and Sabrina were fussing all the way. He was trying to tell her to paddle with her hands and Sabrina was hollering back, "my hands can't touch the water."

The 1+ hour journey was pretty cool.

Unfortunately we didn't have enough time to make the waterfalls. I believe John got part of his money back when we stopped at the admission office. Bum. But it was okay, because the tubing is actually $99 per person.

I never want to see John again!

I stepped into a liquor store and saw the Pure White Hennessey that Gunny wanted, but everyone had already split up and went their separate ways. I was hoping that he'd seen it, because I knew Harvest Caye had the cheapest liquor and was hoping he didn't miss it.

We headed on back to the port to catch out ferry back to Harvest Caye. We walked around a bit, dipping in and out of the shoppes there. Then we walked on towards the pier, but missed the ferry that was there.

While waiting a young lady and young man were selling tarts. I decided to try a lemon one and oh my goodness, it was really delicious. Really sweet but good. After she'd walked down by our group, she came back towards me and I purchased another. One of the vendors said to me, "good, yeah?" I said, "yes."

Finally the ferry came and wisked us back to Harvest Caye. Hope and I walked around, as there were a lot of shoppes there too.

We had to be back on the final tender at 4:30.

Back at port I saw Gunny and called out to him, to see if he got the liquor and he did. He said, he got the 6 bottle deal and another passenger hollered out, "what's your room number?" We all laughed.

The line was so long and a few of the Indian ladies, just barged their way through the line of folks.

We all headed up to dinner. Sabrina kept saying, "Deb, you really have taken me out of my comfort zone." We still laughed about the mud volcano.