Ich bin keine sonderlich musikalische Person. Ich habs probiert. Wirklich. Von Glockenspiel (ja, ich bin das Kind dem in der zweiten Stunde der Schlaeger abgebrochen ist und nie ersetzt wurde...) ueber Floete (im zweiten Jahr habe ich angefangen das Mundstueck zu zerbeissen um mich um die Stunden zu druecken...), Klavier/Keyboard (ich war so gut, dass der Lehrer jedes.einzelne.mal nach 5 Akkorden eingeschlafen ist) bis hin zu Geige (habt Ihr eine Ahnung wie nervig es sein kann so ein Geraet auf einem 90 Minuten Schulweg zu Fuss, per Bus, per Bahn und wieder zu Fuss – und das ganze wieder zurueck – zu schleppen?). Meine Eltern haben sich viel Muehe gegeben mich musikalisch...

I'm not a very musical person. It's not that I haven't tried. From lessons playing the glockenspiel (yes, I'm the kid whose drumstick broke in week 2 and never got replaced...) to the flute (in year 2 I started biting on the mouthpiece, hoping it would break and I could sneak out of classes...), piano/keyboard (my skills were so great that the teacher fell asleep within the first five accords. Every.Single.Time.) and the violin (quite annoying to carry that monstreous case on a 90min way to school by foot-bus-train-foot and back). My parents really tried to plant that musical seed. With minor success. But still, I like music. My last concert was at Frankfort Special. A...

That's what it looks like after 2 hours of snorkeling and not noticing that your shirt was a few inches displaced...

I have been in Belize for the better part of a year now. I arrived with a backpack full of things that I didn’t need or that I could’ve easily bought here. A few things I brought proved to be very valuable. For the rest I just begged visiting friends. Here are the 5 things that are essential when visiting Belize: Sunscreen For me, sunscreen used to belong in the same category as machetes, bug spray and rum: It’s something that people need where you go on a daily basis so you can safely assume that they have it readily available. This worked out quite well for me until I came across a batch of fake sunscreen that gave me the worst sunburn in years. Don’t fall for...

Belize has a national animal (Tapir), a national tree (Mahagony), a national flower (Black Orchid) and a national bird (Keel Billed Toucan). I was able to scratch Tapir, Mahagony and Black Orchid off of my list months ago, shortly after getting here. But that Toucan ... just didn't want to show! And it's not like I didn't try. At Maruba I even got up at 5 in the morning and walked along the road where they supposedly sit in the morning. Nopes. Didn't work. Earlier this year, we were staying at Chaa Creek and Frank and myself got up early again to go on a bird watching. Now - if you're a regular reader you know how big of a fan of bird watching I am. But ... Fr...

Um herauszufinden wie gut ein Projekt fuer eine Gemeinde war, muss man zunaechst einmal die Basis kennen. Fuer unser "Saving Lives in the Caribbean Through Prepardness" Disaster Risk Reduction Projekt waren wir in den letzten Wochen in 8 Gemeinden unterwegs und haben die sogenannte "Baseline" Umfrage gemacht. Dabei werden 100 Haushalte aus allen Teilen der Gemeinde mit 32 Fragen zum Thema Katastrophenvorbereitung befragt. 32 Fragen, die man im Schnitt 17 mal am Tag stellt. Das ganze uber zwei Wochen, fast jeden Tag. 32 Fragen, die einen irgendwann verfolgen vom Fruehstueck bis zum Abend. Und dann braucht es noch ein paar Tage um sie wieder aus dem Kopf zu kriegen um nicht...

Happy after a long day

In order to measure the impact of a project you have to know what the basis is. For our "Saving Lives in the Caribbean Through Prepardness" Disaster Risk Reduction project we worked on exactly that in the past weeks. In all the 14 communitites we did the so called "baseline" survey to measure how well prepared is 'the' community. In order to do that, 100 households per community get asked 32 questions. 32 Questions that I repeated for almost two weeks, every day in a row. 32 questions that follow you from breakfast to bed. And it takes quite a few days to recover and not think of "Do you think natural disasters are A) great concern B) little concern C) no concern or D...

A very unusual sunday. Doing nothing. Hanging around. Playing. Reading. Sleeping. I could get used to this! The other Challenges Worldwide volunteers text us in the morning if we want to come to Old Belize. It's a restaurant/bar/mini museum with a sort of artificial lagoon to swim in. And it has a water slide. A big one. We share a big taxi over (it's about 10 minutes out of town on the Western Highway). The others have themselves a lunch while I run out for a quick workout. Short and sweet with bonus points for the coolest location yet: A helipad overlooking the Carib Sea. Then it's plantsching time. Water slide. Swing. A few beers. Oh what a blissfully...

(I waited to publish this tongue-in-cheek article for several reasons - this was written a few weeks ago when I was working 24/7 for the Coalition to save our natural heritage, a union of NGOs in Belize trying to fight oil drilling in Belize's reef.)   Wednesday, 2:05 pm, Propaganda Desk “Please report to the propaganda desk!” I holler across the office to get my colleague’s attention. The propaganda desk, you see, is my desk. I am the dedicated propagandist. I was appointed over lunch. I am German, but I think the other reason for my new, enthusiastically announced appointment is the fact that I have a shiny new MacBook that can put videos on YouTube in about ...