Trio Village

One of the fondest memories and experiences so far has been mine and Tati's visit to Trio village, to meet and stay with the Garcia family. This is a family made up of a husband and wife, Fidel and Vilma, and their 5 children. The two oldest sons didn't go to high school because they could not afford it, and so every day they go work in the fields with their dad. In Belize it is really easy to get land, and very cheaply, so the Garcia family has 75 acres, 50 that has vegetation on it that is currently reaping, which include orange trees, corn, beans, grapefruit, limes, pineapples and casaba (Yuca root ;). Their oldest daughter is 15 and has been sponsored by someone in the states to go to highschool, which is a huge blessing for their whole family. As we pulled up their driveway, they were SOOO surprised and happy to see us (mainly Tati of course haha) - they greet everyone with hugs regardless of who you are, which was so sweet, and they are so hospitable despite the fact that they have cement and dirt floors, an outhouse for a bathroom, and cardboard and flimsy boards to separate rooms. One of the girls gave up their bed for us to sleep in, and around 5 am I woke up to the VERY LOUD gobbling of turkeys and crowing of roosters outside the thin wood walls of the small house. 

Vilma took us to go visit the boys out in the field!

Look how horrible the roads are!

Beautiful orange groves

nice hot day, nice long trek through the fields

I seriously NEVER knew that pineapples grew from the ground like this! I guess I thought maybe they grew on trees? 

The boys machetes

Prickly things, those pineapple bushes

I am in the (long and annoying) process of uploading to youtube the video of him cutting this pineapple, stay tuned

he cut us some pineapple for us to eat for our little visit! 

scorpio

little dog just hanging out in the shade

we had to walk with our hands on our heads!

This is how you get oranges and grapefruits out of the trees!

this is how you retrieve them to put them into the truck!

corn fields

Machetes!

their living room

Tati playing go fish

Minolo their precious baby son

just chillin in the hammock

nice cold shower

They do family so well. So loving, so welcoming, and though they have so little, they know how to play, laugh, learn, share and take care of one another. So refreshing and sweet. They shared lots of memories of visiting other times with our friends from back home in Georgia, Kat and Jesse and Justin. They shared about a pasta meal Kat made for them, worship songs played with them, and learning the "Joyful Noise" dance :) Next week some friends are coming down, and on Thursday and Friday we will get to come back and visit with them again! So excited.