ERICA AT THE BBG

Each morning of my internship I would wake up around 4:30 when roosters that lived outside my host family’s home began to crow. My host mom didn’t get up too much later to begin cooking breakfast and packing lunches for her 9 children and me. By 6:15, I had found a place to sit in the overcrowded the staff van and made the bumpy ride to the Belize Botanic Gardens. As an intern interested in horticulture, I was placed with Rudy Aguilar in the nursery. I was responsible to help with whatever tasks he was scheduled to do that morning. This included repotting palms and coconuts, replacing and sealing the walkway boards at the garden entrance, relocating the nursery/gardener workstation, reorganizing the plants in the nursery, doing maintenance work in Zingiber Alley, adding soil and raising the plants in the Native Orchid House, and doing general garden and path upkeep. Most of my tasks in the afternoon were centered on making interpretive displays for the Visitor’s Center. The two main tasks I was given were to finish painting the Belizean home display and brainstorm and research ideas for a new educational seed display. I also spent some time researching information on native Costa Rican palms and painting news signs for the garden.

GENA AT THE BELIZE ZOO

I spent two weeks doing my internship at the Belize Zoo. For most of my days there, I helped the zookeepers with animal care duties such as food preparation, food delivery, watering the animals and cleaning their enclosures. I worked with several different keepers, so I was working with different types of animals each day. The highlight of my experience was being able to hand-feed the jaguars. It was a dream-come-true to be so close to those powerful and beautiful cats. The Belize Zoo prides itself on being “the best little zoo in the world” and I would have to agree with that. The animals are kept in very natural enclosures and most of the time it is only wood and wire fencing that separates the animals from the visitors, so you get an up close and personal look at the animals. The zoo is also very active in education programs and teaching the public about Belize’s ecosystems and raising awareness to create appreciation of the natural world. In 2004, the zoo started a Problem Jaguar Rehabilitation Program. This program removes jaguars from the wild that have been killing livestock and exposes them to positive human contact to prepare them for life in a zoo. When they have completed the program they are then transferred to a zoo in North America for captive breeding programs. Right now, the zoo has about 8 jaguars in the program. I thoroughly enjoyed my time at the Belize Zoo and learned so much about many exotic creatures that I had never seen before. If you are ever in Belize, I would highly recommend taking a tour of the Belize Zoo.

DAVE AT CORNERSTONE

At the Cornerstone Foundation in San Ignacio, I was in charge of the design of all the materials necessary for the Caring for Children campaign. The goal of the campaign is to provide necessary items, such as food, toiletries, clothing, shoes, and school supplies, for children who have been infected with or affected by HIV and AIDS. After designing all the materials we needed on Microsoft Publisher, I needed to find price quotes for all of these items, and help to decide how to allocate $5,000, provided by UNICEF for the production costs, among all the materials we needed to purchase. The concept of creation care espoused in Cornerstone’s mission and practice can be described by the term “relational justice”. This term describes the battle for honesty and respect that Cornerstone strives to embody in daily life among the staff and volunteers, and also in the community. Whether dealing with cases of domestic abuse or a child being neglected in a classroom, Cornerstone demands fair treatment for people overlooked by others. This applies whether the perpetrator is the government or just another person in the community. So my work fit into this mission, as my goal was to provide for children who are typically stigmatized from the community, or otherwise are simply unable to have the opportunities other Belizean children do on account of HIV and AIDS. It could be necessary for these children to stay home from school in order to care for a parent, or they may be unable to eat because the income is going to toward care of another family member. Whatever the situation is, this program seeks to provide these children with all that they need to thrive and grow.

AUSTIN AT MOUNT CARMEL

I did my internship at Mount Carmel Primary School in Benque Viejo del Carmen. My tasks included responsibilities that many teachers often have. These responsibilities included researching, lesson writing/preparing, homework assigning, quiz writing, paper correcting, classroom beautifying, and of course teaching. I also created an environmental awareness pamphlet for the students in my class to give to their parents, which provided practical tips for preventing environmental degradation. It was such a great experience to be able to make more friends with Belizeans. My homestay family, the students I taught, and the staff members I worked with were all such a blessing to get to know. They were all very kind to me. I especially appreciated making career connections, which will be beneficial, should I decide to become a teacher at Mount Carmel or some other school in Belize. I had to do a good bit of preparation to properly teach the students. I knew some things about water pollution (which is what I taught the students about), but there were a lot of things I still wanted to research. For example, I wanted to find out about the water system of Benque, and so I interviewed different people from Belize Water Services, and walked all over town to find the source of Benque’s water.

EVAN AT ITZAMNA

I spent the two weeks the Itzamna Society, a community development organization that focuses on biodiversity conservation, community development such as working to bring clean water to a nearby community and cultural awareness centering on the Mayan culture. My first week I learned about the water project Itzamna is involved with and about how Itzamna functions. I spent the last part of the week with the warden in the national park. The park was accessed by horseback and I went discovered the visitor center, a waterfall and a cave. The second week was much more work related. I wrote a funding proposal for a local school in the village. I’d never written a funding proposal before, so it was really interesting learning the proper format for the proposal, and learning about the structure in the school, and well as interacting a little with the students. Working with Itzamna made me realize that community development work is a lot about relationship building. I also understand that the idea of creation care in development work must include caring for the humans who also live in creation, as well as caring for the earth and all the creatures in it.

KAT IN MAYA CENTER

Over the past two weeks, I spent my days working, playing, eating, and sleeping under the care of Aurora Saqui (a Mayan healer) and her family and friends. Aurora had me paint signs advertising her business (H’men Herbal Center & Botanical Garden/ Nu’uk Che’il Cottages & Restaurant) and repaint traditional Mayan images on the furniture in her restaurant and the outside of her gift shop. She had me collect, dry, and package various plants and herbs from her garden (i.e. lemongrass, sensitive plant, chal che, sycropia leaves, basil, and cilantro) Apart from those “assigned” tasks, Aurora taught me the art of carving slate and how to make corn tortillas and tamales. All of which were tasks foreign to my hands, but it felt frustratingly refreshing to be among the unfamiliar. I also got to spend a little time at the local school sharing stories that I have heard, from various Belizean friends, about Tataduende (a Mayan folktale/legend character). In the short amount of time I spent at Maya Center, I got to lay eyes upon the blue-crowned mot mot, golden-hooded tanager and many other unfamiliar beauties. I return from the experience with pocketfuls of stories and a renewed sense of gratitude for the people of Maya Center and the missed bits of home.

HILLARY AT CORNERSTONE

On September 17th I packed my bags and boarded a bus to San Ignacio for a two-week long internship with a community development organization called Cornerstone. I was nervous going in and had only a vague idea of what I would be doing while at Cornerstone. My mornings were spent at the fledgling library at St. Andrew’s Primary School across the street from Cornerstone. I helped the librarian, Jane Hail, catalogue books and control the masses of eager children who converged on the library daily to check out books. The children at St. Andrew’s had never had a library before Jane came a year ago with 2,000 books and the desire to start a library (I couldn’t believe it—growing up without a library!) and they were excited to make use of it. I loved having the opportunity to suggest books to kids, exclaim over their choices, and ask them how they liked a certain book. I love seeing kids read, American or Belizean!

I spent my afternoons in Cornerstone’s main building helping out with the lunch program that Cornerstone provides for children who cannot afford to eat lunch during the school day. The kids who came to eat lunch with us were rambunctious but a little shy the first week. I spent a majority of the afternoons organizing ESL curriculum and later, when I’d finished the curriculum, organizing Cornerstone’s book collection. This was all very tedious work, but very worthwhile, and I hope, very helpful to Cornerstone. All in all, a great experience!

IMAGINING THE EARTH

This week we got a chance to practice using our imaginations with Drew Ward as our guide. Using scripture, poetry, film, short story, essay and text from early transcendentalist writers like Emerson and Thoreau to more modern environmentalist writers like Berry and Leopold, we surveyed some of the standard texts of American culture and Modern thought, exploring some of the obvious complications which arise in their formation of an American environmental imagination. Drew's passion filled the room and it was hard not to like this stuff. On Wednesday we headed out to the Mountain Pine Ridge for class to see what their was to see. Pictured are the girls taking a break from class at Big Rock Falls, one of our favorite swimming holes.

INDEPENDENCE DAY CELEBRATIONS

Independent Strong and Free
Belize, Free All Ah We!

The colors were still red, white and blue but a different flag was flying as we celebrated Belize’s 26th year of independence from Britain on the 21st of September. Thursday night each village celebrated with fireworks and Friday there were many parades. The group headed to San Ignacio for a parade Friday afternoon and the rain headed in about the same time. After an hour huddled together eating candy from a few of the floats the parade began. Schools boasted marching bands and floats competed for first prize. The boy scouts marched and girls danced, followed by the queens of the parade and a wild group on horseback. It was a great cultural experience for all.

READING WEEK

Emerson, Thoreau, Whitman, Berry, Kingsolver, oh my! Each semester students have a week to prepare for future class by completing the readings ahead of time. This semester students dove right in to their Environmental Literature readings interspersed with a bit of forest ecology. Everyone worked really hard but we still managed to squeeze in some fun with time at the pool and breaks for ice cream along the way.

ACTUN TUNICHIL MUKNAL

For centuries the mysteries of the Mayan underworld have been hidden deep in the jungle. Discovered in 1989 and open to the general public since 1998, Actun Tunichil Muknal, the most wonderful and adventurous cave experience in Belize (and arguably the world!) was our destination for the day. Hiking through the Tapir Mountain Reserve through lush subtropical forest, CCSP staff and students came upon the crystal blue waters surrounding the entrance of the cave. To get into the cave you must enter the river and swim into the mouth of this deep, dark and mysterious underworld. For the next few hours we waded, hiked, climbed and swam in between centuries old stalactites and stalagmites. Not only is ATM a startlingly beautiful cave, but it is full of Mayan history, containing hundreds of artifacts that were left by people thousands of years ago. It was decided that the artifacts found in the cave would be left exactly where archaeologists found them so we had to be careful not to step on the clay pots, bones, and the full skeletons that rested beneath us on the ground. It is known that human sacrifice was a part of Mayan culture - the remains of 14 humans were found in ATM! Along the way we passed extraordinary calcite formations, a few which the Maya sculpted to create shadows of jaguars and kings on the walls when a fire is made.

After several hours in the dark wading through waste deep water the light at the end of the tunnel was refreshing. We learned so much today, not just about Speleology and the way caves were formed in Belize, but also the rich history played out in these caves by Mayan civilizations. What a peculiar and fascinating experience!

SUSTAINABLE COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT

After a rainy but action-packed orientation week, it’s time for the first week of class! The students came to class just on time, with their freshly ironed first day of school outfits, their brand new boxes of crayons and markers, their trapper keepers, and their cute lunch boxes with a sandwich and a hand written note on a napkin from mom. Well, not quite. This week is the first week of Sustainable Community Development and with us we have Dr. Robert Pelant from the Au Sable Institute in Whidbey Island. This week we studied the three words in the course title, what they mean and how they interact with one another. We studied the World Bank, IMF, UN, WTO to see what roles each play in the developing world. We talked about technology and how it relates (or doesn’t) to the Kingdom of God. We talked about ecological literacy and how that affects our understanding of the world. We visited a controversial hydroelectric dam facility to see if it is a good development strategy for Belize. We visited a Mennonite farmer and a Mennonite-run large-scale dairy processing facility to see how these people’s values shape the way they do business. Through guest speakers, class lectures, fieldtrips, and conversations with each other we learned much about how the world works, through various economic, social, and political systems, and reflected on what it means to be a Christian in a broken world, a world in need of prophetic imagination and redemption. Thanks for being with us this week Robert!

MISS MARTHA WINS FIRST PLACE!!

This week Miss Martha received word that she had won a national artisan competition sponsored by the Image Factory Art Foundation in Belize City. The objective of the competition was to stimulate creativity and to encourage artists in Belize to explore all avenues in the art world. There were a total of 30 competitors in categories of painting, sculpture, mixed media, photography, and textile/fabric. Miss Martha took first prize in the textile/fabric category with a piece called “Flour Bag.” Miss Martha has been designing and making backpacks, tote bags, and even laptop bags out of cloth and old rice and flour sacks for almost a year. Many students and staff members have purchased bags and some of her clothing from her and last year her work was featured in a micro-finance presentation at a development conference held at Messiah College. We are very excited that Miss Martha won this competition and honored to know one of the up and coming artists in Belize! She won $500 and her work may start being sold at the Image Factory store in Belize City.

NABITUNICH STAFF

We want to take an opportunity to recognize our excellent Nabitunich staff members for all that they do for us during the course of each semester. The place where we live, Nabitunich is situated on a small portion of Rudy Juan’s 400+ acre farm in western Belize. The Nabitunich staff is made up of several Belizeans including Dominic Juan who is our landlord and the owner’s son. He also serves as “Mr. Fix-It”, helping us with any and all maintenance requests. Mr. Andres is our friendly groundskeeper. He works hard every day to keep the tropical plants and lawn from swallowing us up! Mr. Max and Tarquin keep an eye on things throughout each night. Miss Shelly is one of two wonderful women who cook every meal we eat except Sunday breakfasts. Miss Martha and Miss Shelly do all the cooking and some cleaning of common areas throughout the semester.

WHO'S IN CHARGE, ANYWAY?

During the course of the semester five people work full time for the Creation Care Study Program in Belize. They serve as teaching assistants for the classes, chauffeurs to field trips and other fun events, seek to play an integral role in the development of our community, keep our vehicles running, make sure our students are healthy and safe, add books and maintain the CCSP library catalog, cultivate our organic garden, and from time to time herd cattle and horses out of our campus when they get to thinking the grass really is greaner on the other side of the fence!


This is the third semester Courtnay Wilson has worked for CCSP. Prior to coming to Belize she taught English in the JET program in Japan. She received her undergraduate degree in History (?) from McMasters University in Hamilton, Ontario Canada and her Masters of Divinity from McMasters Theological Seminary. Courtnay coordinates student internships, cultural fieldtrips, and looks after the library among other duties and commitments.


Taylor Kirkland has spent almost four semesters with CCSP in Belize. He was a student here in spring 2005 and then came to work for us in fall 2006. Taylor graduated from Eastern University in St. Davids, Pennsylvania with a degree in business and is now proud to call Black Mountain, North Carolina home. Taylor works on the blog, gets his hands dirty in the garden, and together with Peter he plans different activities and events for us to attend or to do at Nabitunich.


Peter Lion has worked for CCSP for almost three semesters. He graduated from Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan with a B.S. in environmental science and will call Grand Rapids, Michigan his home after returning from Belize. Peter is constantly keep an eye on our vehicles (you would understand a bit more if you saw the roads in Belize!) and is always thinking of ways for us to compost our food and plant scraps, ashes, shredded paper, and cow manure more effectively.


Meghan and Jared Friesen have been directing and administrating the CCSP program in Belize for almost two years now. Along with this work they have another job of being parents to an increasingly energetic 23-month-old girl named Gloria. Before coming to Belize Meghan received her first undergraduate degree from the University of Ohio in Athens, Ohio in speech and hearing science. She received her second undergraduate degree in nursing from Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan. She has worked for The Ohio Hunger Taskforce, Habitat for Humanity, and the Peace Corps. Meghan tries not to spend her entire life behind a computer keeping track of budgets, flights of staff, students, and faculty, and staying in touch with the CCSP folks in California. In addition to her administrative duties Meghan serves as our health and safety officer, which gives her a chance to keep her nursing skills fresh. Jared completed a B.A. in psychology at Huntington University in Huntington, Indiana and a Masters Degree from Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana in Student Affairs Personnel in Higher Education. This is Jared’s eighth year living and working with college students. Before working for CCSP he worked in residence life at Taylor University and Calvin College (Meghan and Jared were already married prior to coming to Calvin College). Jared spends time keep faculty members happy and comfortable, supporting and challenging the CCSP staff team, and communicating with our landlords.

OUR GARDEN

Wendell Berry once said, “One of the most important resources that a garden makes available for use, is the gardener's own body. A garden gives the body the dignity of working in its own support. It is a way of rejoining the human race.” Without electric tools or combustion engines, without chemicals or pesticides, and with our hands and our bodies and our minds, we spent the afternoon in our garden, a place of growth for both the seed planted and the seed planter. We garden as a community, a skill and art form and important way of life being forgotten. We grow food to entertain our minds and our bodies, to have food readily available for the table, so that we know where our food has come from, so that we can experience miracles, so that we can watch the energy cycle that revolves from soil to seed to flower to fruit to food to offal to decay, and around again. With so many helping hands we were able to plant corn, tomatoes, carrots, squash, cucumber, sweet pepper, hot pepper, and cabbage. Thanks for all your help everyone!

The seed is in the ground.
Now we may rest in hope
While darkness does its work.

THE BBG

To learn more about the beautiful and diverse flora of Belize, we visited to the Belize Botanic Gardens. Here we became acquainted with a variety of plant and trees, like the gumbolimbo, also know as the tourist tree because of its red peeling bark when it is exposed to the sun. We learned about the ylang-ylang, known as the Chanel No. 5 tree for its flowers that emit a frangrance used in making in perfume. And then there is the shampoo ginger. When the plant is squeezed it produces a thick sweet liquid that is a natural hair conditioner. We learned so much and had a great time getting the meet the Mayan tour guides that took us around the beautiful gardens. Pictured below is the group on the fire tower and a black orchid, the national flower of Belize.

AN UNBELIZABLE ZOO EXPERIENCE

To learn about the animals of Belize we took a trip to the “best little zoo in the world.” While at the Belize Zoo we made friends with Panama the Harpy Eagle, April the Tapir, Junior the Jaguar, and the other several hundred animals housed here at the zoo. What a fun place! Here are two birds we got to meet, the Scarlet Macaw and the Keel Billed Toucan.

VACA (spanish for "cow") FALLS

What could be better than floating down a river, with jungle on either side as croaking Keel Billed Toucans fly overhead? Tubing the Macal River was an exhilarating way to kick off the semester.

CAYO SENSING

The students first introduction to Cayo or to the non-local San Ignacio is somewhat of a shocker. As we drive students curiosity is peaked. They stare out the windows of the bus looking at the unfamiliar setting unfolding before their eyes. Silently they hope to maybe catch a glimpse of home. They step off the bus still distracted by their new place. Welcome to Cayo! The activity we will be doing today is Cayo Sensing. The next set of instructions instantly pulls their gaze to me. You will now take your journal and walk around San Ignacio for 20 to 30 minutes ALONE!!! Immediately questions start flowing from students’ mouths about safety and directions. Positive words about the hospitality of Belizeans and the size of San Ignacio allow them to collect their thoughts and again lose themselves in the hustle and bustle of San Ignacio. The rest of the activity is explained. Students disperse in all directions mesmerized. This will be the only time Cayo will be seen for the first time. After this it will become a familiar place where the energy of the town is no longer what holds their attention but rather the task that brought them here. There is always something new to learn about the place you live. For myself and everyone else I can only hope that that all-important task that brought us to San Ignacio or where ever we are does not get in the way and that once again we can slow down and experience something again for the first time. Check out the girls here already making friends with the police!

WHERE ARE WE?

Orientation week is a time where we have a chance to learn not just about one another, but also about this beautiful and diverse country that we will be living in for the next four months. Belize, a country of less than 300,000 people, is by far one of the most diverse countries in Latin America. The people are Maya, mestizo, Garifuna, Creole, Taiwanese, Mennonite, Lebanese, and of coarse the thousands of European and North American folks who decided to call Belize home. There is rain forest, pine forest, temperate deciduous forest, savanna, mangroves, sea grass beds, salt water marshes, and the largest barrier reef in the western hemisphere. English is the national language, but most peoples first language is Spanish, Creole, or one of the three dialects of Maya spoken nationwide. The tallest man made structure is a Mayan ruin. Take a look at the map and se if you can find us - we are located on the Mopan River (coming into Belize from Guatemala) just west of San Ignacio. All this week we learned about the rivers, mountains, plants, animals, people groups, culture, and food of this new home of ours. The following are just a few of the many activities we took part in...

HURRICANE FELIX, OH NO!

Just days after students arrived we heard about Felix, a Category 5 hurricane with a projected path straight for Belize. What a way to start the semester! Keeping track of Felix on Love FM, on the news and with friends and family back in North America, we took this storm very seriously, especially after hearing of the damage of Hurricane Dean (hitting the Yucatan and Belize just a week before). Lucky for Belize (and unfortunately for Nicaragua and Honduras), the storm changed its path and hit land further south. Felix made landfall just south of the border between Nicaragua and Honduras in a region historically known as the Mosquito Coast. We understand that at least 133 deaths have been recorded, a tragic thing for those people and countries. So often hurricanes hit the poorest of the poor, those villagers trying to make a living on the coast – in this case it is estimated that nearly 40,000 have been affected. Though it is no longer being covered on the news and out of the minds of most of us, the destruction of this and other hurricanes are a serious reality for thousands of people who are not able to forget about it. May we continue to think of these people, support them, pray for them.

THEY'RE HERE!

Welcome Fall 2007 students! Today’s the day when our 19 students jumped off the plane for the semester they’ve been anticipating for months. We’re in the middle of the rainy (and hurricane) season here in Belize, so we all had a pretty wet first day. In fact, on the way home from the airport we were lucky to be sitting high in the school bus - looking out the window we witnessed some major flooding as the water was up past the license plates on cars, and up to the belly buttons of those walking through the streets! After Jared's careful and impressive maneuvering we headed off to Nabitunich! Located two hours from Belize City and just a few miles from the Guatemalan border, the “Nab” as we call it is a delightful 400-acre farm where the students will think and work and play for the next four months. This is only the beginning…