Canada night in Belize

So it's Sunday morning and we are happily sitting in Sacrament Meeting and the branch president gets up to read the announcements for the week. Imagine our surprise when he announces there will be a branch activity on Thursday night and the Burgess family will be in charge. Blink ... OK ... we should be able to do this ... Thursday is a long way off. That was the thought process on Sunday. On Tuesday when we thought of it again, it was more of a panicked 'What the heck are we going to do!!! Thursday is in TWO days!' Well, we brainstormed our way to Spanish lessons on Tues night and came up with the idea of having a Canadian culture night. Believe it or not, guys, we have culture! Of course the only 'culture' we could think of at the time was hockey. Brynn did bring 8 hockey sticks, tennis balls and nets with her when we came to Belize. (A year without hockey was too much to bear) On Thursday morning we are still in a bit of a panic because we have close to 20 people showing up and all we have planned is hockey for 8 and some other vague thing in the primary room. Finally it dawns on us that there is nothing more western Canada than cowboys. We need to teach line dancing! Brynn and Kori run off to Alfred's office and the internet to download 'Cadillac Ranch'. We are ready!

Now it is Thursday night and we are at the church with hockey equipment and CD in hand. One little Spanish girl picks up a stick and says 'I don't know what this is.' Brynn explains that it is a hockey stick and we are going to play hockey. 'Oh' says adoreable spanish girl 'I've seen these on TV.' Meanwhile along comes little spanish girl's big brother. As all good sisters anywhere would, the little girl sees an opportunity. 'Do you know what this is?' Brother answers 'YES! It's a golf club.' Now, you all know the look and voice of sister 'NO it's a hockey stick!' Well, let me tell you, for people who had no idea what the stick was when we started, Belize took to hockey. As Brynn put it later: 'Belizeans are INTENSE hockey players!'

(for those of you that are interested, the room we are playing hockey in is our chapel/classroom/cultural hall at church)

Meanwhile, back at the ranch (so to speak) how was the line dancing going? We were having a blast! I must say, though, dancing in a stuffy room in the +30 heat takes it out of you! We had two groups going and switched off halfway but, of course, I had to dance the entire time. We did have to take a short recess while Todd (American peace corp) got over the name of the song. Apparently he's never heard of a Cadillac ranch. At the end of the evening we all got together for one large line dance. While we were dancing, one of our young men wandered in and asked Kori if we were doing a traditional national dance. She said 'well, kind of. It's a cowboy dance.' So I guess we now have a national dance.