Day 6 - Bananas Bananas Everywhere!!

Day 6

Today we had breakfast at the Mayan centre at 7 AM and then headed out to see a banana plantation.  The bananas are planted and grow at a fast pace. Within 6 weeks, the trees grow to 2-3 feet in height. Banana trees are made up of 90% water which means they require a lot of irrigation during the dry season. When bananas are first planted they need water and fertilizer every day.

After that they are sprayed once a week which makes banana production a very expensive operation. Once the trees are big enough they begin to produce fruit. When the banana first start to develop the workers put elastic bands around the bunches, to keep them growing tight together. The fruit is then wrapped in a plastic bag for two months while they grow to a mature size. When the bananas are bagged they are tagged with a coloured plastic ribbon. There are 13 different colours of ribbons; the colours indicated when the bananas were wrapped. This allows the workers to know which ones are ready to be harvested. Once the bananas are ready they are hung on a zip line and brought into the plantation where the workers cut the bunches off the branches and put them into water that contains 10% chlorine. The bananas are then placed there for 25-35 minutes before being bagged. 

The workers ensure there is just over 1kg per bag because as they travel they lose weight. Each boxes weights 15kg - the boxes in the good season (January-June) are sold for $20 a box and the boxes in the other 6 months are sold for $16 a box. There are 390 acres of banana trees with 65 field workers in total who work together doing a series of different jobs such as pruning, bagging, and bringing in the bananas in from the field. The workers work 9 hours a day. After the bananas plantation we stopped at a citrus field and talked about the greening disease that has become a huge problem in the citrus industry. The disease first arrived in Belize in 2006 but was not fully recognised until 2008. This disease clogs the xylem of a tree with bacteria which causes the tops of the branches to die. Leaves and fruit are smaller and not fully developed. The tree loses 60% of its good fruit and the tree will die within 3-5 years. 

We then drove to the San Migal village where we will stay for two nights and learn the Mayan ways. Once we arrived we went swimming in a tropical river just down the street. As interesting as the banana plantation was cooling off in the beautifully clear tropical river was by far my favourite part of the day. After we swam we were split up into groups of two or three and joined the local families for dinner. We cooked traditional food with the ladies and learned how to make corn tortillas which is also very traditional. After dinner we showered in the river and went to sleep in bunk beds that each had a mosquito net. There are four beds per room in a thatched, hand build, Mayan hut.

by DariannTelford