Day 4 - 40 days and 40 nights!

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.

By Mikey Eckert