(Jan 8, 2012)
Well, it’s been a busy couple of weeks – though I haven’t exactly been doing all that much! I spent a ‘relaxing’ week in Hopkins, Belize – waking up at a leisurely 7am and working on projects for ICO. Most of my time, it seemed, was actually spent e-mailing back and forth between various correspondents with the organization. I was, however, also able to work on my ‘Request for Interview E-mail’, ‘Interview Intake’ and ‘Report Write-up’ templates (they are almost done!) ; as well as conducting research on ICO’s Stoves for Health Project – which involves the installation of UNIL stoves in rural communities to help combat health issues associated with traditional open-flame methods of cooking. I was also able to (finally) conduct some research on ICO itself and I now feel that I have a much better of the organization that I am working for! It seems amazing that, all this time, I was organizing myself to work for an organization that I knew very little about. Having been introduced to the organization a mere 2 days before leaving for Mexico, my busy travel schedule had not left much time for ICO education, up until now! I will need to become better at diversifying my day – including both travel-related AND work-related activities in one day. The ‘all-or-nothing’ method I seem to be using right now (where I focus all of my energy on travel and then have to stop somewhere and focus all of my energy on work for a few days) is draining and inefficient!
Well, it’s been a busy couple of weeks – though I haven’t exactly been doing all that much! I spent a ‘relaxing’ week in Hopkins, Belize – waking up at a leisurely 7am and working on projects for ICO. Most of my time, it seemed, was actually spent e-mailing back and forth between various correspondents with the organization. I was, however, also able to work on my ‘Request for Interview E-mail’, ‘Interview Intake’ and ‘Report Write-up’ templates (they are almost done!) ; as well as conducting research on ICO’s Stoves for Health Project – which involves the installation of UNIL stoves in rural communities to help combat health issues associated with traditional open-flame methods of cooking. I was also able to (finally) conduct some research on ICO itself and I now feel that I have a much better of the organization that I am working for! It seems amazing that, all this time, I was organizing myself to work for an organization that I knew very little about. Having been introduced to the organization a mere 2 days before leaving for Mexico, my busy travel schedule had not left much time for ICO education, up until now! I will need to become better at diversifying my day – including both travel-related AND work-related activities in one day. The ‘all-or-nothing’ method I seem to be using right now (where I focus all of my energy on travel and then have to stop somewhere and focus all of my energy on work for a few days) is draining and inefficient!
My New Years was spent with a wonderful group of people staying at The Funky Dodo hostel in Hopkins, Belize. We moved from beach bar to beach bar, ending up at a beautiful beachfront house outside of town to ring in the New Year. The phosphorescents were out in full force that night and we spent much of the night marveling at their shimmers in the sand and ocean. Not usually one for ‘all-nighters’, I discovered that staying up all night on New Years Eve seems like a great idea at the time, but makes for a less-than-ideal start to the New Year on January 1st. I was a little disappointed that I missed out on a work day, as I lay on the beach and caught up on my sleep – but I guess I deserved a break. Man, the life of an untethered traveler is tough!
After having said goodbye to Stav and my other couchsurfing friends as they traveled south ahead of me after Christmas, I was starting to feel lonely. However, just as I started to feel as though my couchsurfing community had all moved on without me, I found Santiago, a couchsurfer who stayed with Stav and I in Hoctun, Mexico, lounging in the Funky Dodo’s hammock! Happy to have reconnected we decided to hitchhike South from Hopkins to Punta Gorda, the southernmost city in Belize. I had organized to stay with a very nice couchsurfer, Maartin, who works at a local Environmental and Community Development Not-For-Profit organization (www.yaaxche.org). His roommate, James, it turned out also works at a (different) local NGO, called TIDE (http://www.tidebelize.org/), and is currently working on his PhD in Marine Biology from UVic! They were extremely gracious hosts and I loved staying with them and learning more about the organizations they worked for. I was able to conduct interviews with Ya’axche and will be writing a report on them soon to input them into my NGO database. While not interviewing, Santiago and I spent our first few days going on a tour of a nearby cacao farm and chocolate factory (we got to see and participate in the WHOLE process – roasting, peeling, and grinding the raw chocolate ourselves), listening to a Maartin doing some Garifuna-esq drumming at a local restaurant, and taking a ‘ranger-for-a-day’ tour of the Golden Stream Nature Reserve (managed by Ya’axche). The chocolate tour was owned and operated by a local Mayan family, living in the very rural mayan village of San Felipe and Santiago and I marveled at how difficult life must be with only one round trip bus a day, three days a week going to the small village! The ‘ranger-for-a-day’ tour was great: we woke up at a VERY early 5am, hopped on the 6am bus to the Ya’axche field station, had coffee with some of the Ya’axche staff, took a tour of the site and learned more about some of the organization’s reserve management and agro-business support operations, and then went on a patrol with one of the locally sourced mayan rangers working in the reserve. The highlight of the trek was, without a doubt, the copious tracks we found from stalking jaguars, pumas, ocelots, and tapirs! So close and yet so evasive! As per usual, we didn’t actually SEE any of the animals but I have no doubt that they saw us! The tracks that we saw were all very, very fresh!
Itching to take advantage of Belize’s fantastic diving sites in the area, Santiago continued onwards to Placencia, leaving me to stay in Punta Gorda for a few more days. On my third day I had the opportunity to tag along with James as he went on a research and maintenance venture out to TIDE’s Marine Field Station on one of PG’s nearby Cayes (pronounced ‘key’). Recent extreme erosion events had reduced the size of the caye drastically and was now threatening the structural integrity of the field station itself, with waves lapping up onto the support stilts upon which the station was built. A visiting physical geography professor from the USA had recently arrived in town and together he and James took some GPS censor data to determine the speed and form of erosion through GIS mapping. It was neat that I not only had the opportunity to tag along and learn more about TIDE and its operations for environmental protection and community development of the rural fishing communities nearby, but also that my geography background helped me understand much of what they were talking about! The terminology did not escape me and it was nice to be able to keep up! I learned that Punta Gorda contains some of the most fertile, lush and unexploited wilderness in Central America and that organizations like TIDE and Ya’axche are working tirelessly to, not only protect the environment itself, but also to determine ways in which the local communities can continue to develop and use the surrounding environment in an increasingly sustainable way. I feel so lucky to have the interest and opportunity to learn about the challenges being faced in these regions and to hear about the activities that are underway to protect the environment and local communities. There is something so fantastic about being able to learn and ask questions, without the threat of an essay or exam looming in the background. This way of travel makes me feel like I get all the benefits of university and none of the stress! Furthermore, I have the opportunity to meet new and amazing people who are passionate about their work and successful in making a difference in their communities. In Punta Gorda I really felt like I was getting into the ‘professional’ component of my trip and I look forward to moving into Guatemala and meeting with ICO - affiliated organizations and community development initiatives.
The trip out to the field station included dolphin sightings, a wonderful boat ride through the beautiful Port Honduras Reserve, education about local environmental and community stressors, and was topped off with a last minute visit to a rural seaside community, named Punta Negra, to pay respects at a funeral. The community was very small (an estimated 20 year-round residents) and was without road access. Very few outsiders get the privilege to visit the community and I felt very fortunate to be one of them. While there James and I discussed the potential for developing a volunteer program at TIDE to fuel development initiatives within the community. James mentioned that he was in the process of looking for a Volunteer Coordinator intern and offered me the job! Cool – second internship offered so far! I passed up the opportunity – with my sights set on getting into South America before stopping – but it is nice to know that there are opportunities out there for me to take when I’m ready!
I left PG the next morning, after going to the fabulous (but small) Saturday market. Though the market only took up a small block, it was filled with strange and wonderful fruit and vegetables grown in the nearby rural Mayan communities. While I can’t remember the names for all of the new produce I encountered, there will be pictures posted for everyone to look at! While wandering through the small fish component of the market I learned of the serious tension that exists in the fishing community due to illegal fishing practices and the activities on behalf of TIDE to limit these unsustainable practices. Walking through the fish market with James, a well-known TIDE representative, was not my most popular moment. Interesting though!
I arrived in San Ignacio and booked in at the beautiful and quaint Hi-et Guesthouse. Though a little out of my price range, the room I stayed in was absolutely perfect, charming and even had a little balcony looking over the street below! My purpose in San Ignacio was to go on a tour of the Actun Tunichil Muknal (ATM) cave, an ancient Mayan sacrificial site in the depths of a beautiful cave. The cave itself was spectacular and worth the money paid, but the tour was (as always) lacking. The guide seemed very bored with his job, peppered his ‘spiel’ with slightly offensive and crude jokes, and focused his tour highlights on showing us stalactite formations that looked like figures from pop culture, rather than telling us any valuable or insightful information about the mayan artifacts, society or traditions. At one point in the tour he actually called one of the guests fat and then, upon being confronted by her husband in private later on, became embarrassed and abandoned the group for the hike back to the parking lot. The trail was easy enough to follow but I had never experienced anything like it – to have a tour guide sprint ahead and ignore his paying guests as they made their way across waist-high rivers was absolutely unfathomable. What is it with the quality of tours in this area?
I am back in my beautiful little room now and am preparing to travel over into Guatemala tomorrow. I will be heading to the island of Flores, a popular jumping-off point into the spectacular Tikal Mayan ruins. I’ll stay in Flores for a few days to see the city and HOPEFULLY complete some reports, and then will head South towards Lake Atitlan to meet up with some ICO correspondents and learn about local initiatives in the area. I can’t wait!
I hope everyone is having a great start to the New Year!
Lots of Love,
Robin
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