Belize – Day 4
(The day it started to rain)
Overcast, birds chirping, dogs
barking in the distance, I’m sitting by the pool in a cast iron chair, gazing
off into the horizon, its 7:00am. The pool is shaped like hump, or a bump, one
side straight, the other with a curve. On the bottom of the pool in a mosaic it
reads ‘Cahal Pech’. There is a wooden fence surrounding the pool area, more
like a guard rail, the hill on which we are on is steep. The trees are lush and
green, with several palms supporting various nuts. There are two ways around
the pool; the most adventurous is through a cast of a cave, in which the
janitor keeps his gear, a maintance room wouldn’t want to linger too long in
the cave, seems dangerous. The clouds turned darker over the valley, I only
noticed cause the man sweeping the area beside me pointed it out, I’m not
exactly sure how the weather works around here, apparently they have a wet
season, and a dry season, we are just past the wet one… apparently. All the
rain from Guatemala comes into Belize, causes a lot of problems I imagine.
Time for breakfast, the most
important meal of the day - I walked over, put my note pad down to save my spot
at the table with Chris, Tony and Dart. I come back and my Jan moved my book to
a different table, no comment. This way I can continue writing, French toast
and refried beans with eggs, watermelon and pineapple. I over hear the other
table talking about Cuban food, and how terrible it was. I had to agree, the
food is pretty awful at some locations. The first cloud bursts and it started
to rain, you could hear it on the roof, slow at first, but now constant,
getting louder. Ben arrives at the breakfast table, “I think I might buy a
shirt today, or start washing the ones I got” proclaimed Ben. Not a bad idea, smart man, learn to avoid
laundry, the lady in the group Michelle brought laundry detergent, might borrow
some and take a lesson in hygiene. She had earned the title of Godmother, like
from the Godfather movies, she convinces me to buy a note book for $8 U.S and I
should take her word for it.
We board the van and go into the
village, we are told that ‘things are going to get more rural after this,’ this
will be our last night in the hotel, today we are going to see some farms at
Spanish Lookout. Pastures of Brahma cattle (look like Holsteins) are now more
visible. We pass a Holstein calf on the side of the road. Les points out a farm
on the left, Cayo Deaf Education and Farm Institute, He says the Mayans and Mennonites
have trouble with hearing and have a higher chance of being born deaf, so the
Mennonites set up an institute to help them, and raise some cattle too. This is
not a government funded operation.
There was a new building being
built - a tilapia fish farm. Next time we go down here, we might get to see it
finished. They are building the factory before they even know if it’s possible
for the fishery to work, if that makes any sense. They are right beside the
river, so it has possibilities. We board the hand cranked river ferry. The
girls ask one another “Are we not allowed
to take photos of the Mennonites?” I
believe that is the Amish. The ferry
reaches the other side, Les turns the key. The van is dead, won’t start, a
faint click, won’t turn over. This is a problem, Les keeps his cool, “it’s
early on in the day.” It’s not the battery, maybe a fuse? A crowd swarms the
hood of the van, a local inspects it.
“Maybe the starter?” Ben is convinced it is the fuse. The man helping us
knows someone in his church community that might be able to help. He speaks a
funny Dutch English, every other word. This is possibly the best place for the
van to break down, but yet again, we are stuck on the ferry and holding up
traffic. Time passes and the traffic builds at the ferry cross. Locals are
honking their horns, getting out of their cars, and form a mob. They believe
they can push us up the hill. Don’t worry, someone is coming to help us, hold
your horses. The crowd grows restless and impatient they are going to move us
off the ferry, at that point it seems they just wanted us off. A miracle, the
van starts, Les puts the petal to the floor and away we go. The mechanic can’t
seem to find anything wrong with it, so we leave the garage with hopes it won’t
happen again, “Upwards and onwards.’
This community is well developed,
paved roads, with stop signs! This couldn’t
feel more like home. They had it all - tractor dealerships, feed mills
and a country store that was much like a Walmart. They can double crop here as
well, so keep that in mind too, eh. “If you come to Belize with a lot of money
with big ideas, they will turn them into small ideas and you will have not much
money left.” The Mennonites are an exception to that, normally that applies to
retirees. So, with that in mind, it is the land of opportunity. With heavy
rain, we arrive at the school. They have an amazing jungle gym, a nice wooden
one. This is a refugee school for people from Guatemala and El Salvador; they
are smarter than the average kid back home. The books were donated - all 3000
of them by an American charity. Back home we take them all for granted, the
books that we no longer use to the internet. You can rest in peace, my beloved
Encyclopedia collection. I chatted with the teacher as she was marking report
cards. She lives near Cahal Pech, which
is a long drive. She says ‘I am more tired out by the drive, than by teaching
here and working.’ The kids show me what they are learning - the different
phases of a frog and the butterfly. The rest of the kids sitting around are
talking to Dart. Ben is playing a card game, looks like a version of Uno. The
game involves Ben being smacked with a small wooden ruler, I believe he is
losing…
After we
drove and stopped for lunch at a giant industrial concrete slab with a steel
roof. It was a pavilion, you can tell because it had one tiny picnic table
underneath it – a dead giveaway. We didn’t stop there but went to a nice bench
area underneath, with signs listing important dates for Spanish Lookout. The
next stop was the feed mill. Our guide was Frank Friesen, and ‘he’s not frozen,
but Friesen’. They grow a high grade
corn here that is not genetically modified.
It is against the law for them to have GMO’s here. He says he has ‘special
chickens’ that can tell the difference between GMO and normal corn. They had a
bumper crop this year, about 100-125 bushel an acre. The surplus goes to the Caribbean
market as corn grits for food. Mexico buys from the USA and it is generally a
low grade. Frank is a vet, and a chiropractor. He is a part of the heritage,
since his family was one of the founding fathers of this great foundation of
Spanish Lookout. They produce a great amount of products at this mill - molasses,
broiler feed, all the way to dog food, the second biggest mill in Belize. Afterwards
he gave us calendars, on the wall hung a quote, that best described their way
of operating ‘ Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths but only
what is helpful for building others,” Ephesians 4:29
We
embark on a tour with Frank. He gives directions, and leads us down the river
side road. The road is a dead end with an abandoned taxi cab blocking us from
going any further. We have to back up, easier said than done. We go to a chicken
and beef farm and we see some Brahma cattle. Farming here is different from
ours. The rain prevents us from talking
for long periods of time.
Rain, rain, heavy rain, now coming down like hammers on a tin roof. There seems to be no end in sight, it just keeps coming. Ben brings me a nice cold refreshing beer. I sit at the table, face down writing, what happened today, well let’s summarize, the school, the ferry breakdown, Mennonite Walmart, the feed mill, the rain, and back again. It’s the last night in the hotel. I guess I should start converting this to the laptop. Well here I am. Just another day in this crazy jungle of Belize, excellence in every drop of rain.
Rain, rain, heavy rain, now coming down like hammers on a tin roof. There seems to be no end in sight, it just keeps coming. Ben brings me a nice cold refreshing beer. I sit at the table, face down writing, what happened today, well let’s summarize, the school, the ferry breakdown, Mennonite Walmart, the feed mill, the rain, and back again. It’s the last night in the hotel. I guess I should start converting this to the laptop. Well here I am. Just another day in this crazy jungle of Belize, excellence in every drop of rain.
By Mikey Eckert
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