Thursday and Friday: Iguanas and Illness

So, as you may have noticed, I have gone over 3 days without posting. :-/ This was not preferred, but will be explained as you read. I will be doing my catch-up work in 2 main installments. This post will cover Thursday and Friday and then I'll write another one to cover yesterday and today. I might write a few more "meet the team" posts in between.

So, let's begin with Thursday! Allow me to preface this day by reassuring you faithful readers out there who may have noticed a brief hiatus on this blog from my formerly standard "Can you find the iguana?" feature; this post should more than make up for the recent lack because in the evening after the work day was over we visited an iguana nursery at the San Ignacio resort where they help raise iguanas for re-population (they are over-hunted for their meat and skins). Perhaps for the remainder of this post, the real question should be: How MANY iguanas can you find? Rather than post them all at once, I'll just spread them throughout the post, starting with this one:

Fun iguana fact #1: Belizeans consider male and female iguanas to be 2 different things. Females are called iguanas and males are called garrobos. This is Bradford, and he is a garrobo.

(By the way, don't fall behind in counting iguanas. This picture has 3!)

Anyway, besides ending the day with an iguana nursery, Thursday was an INCREDIBLE day for the projects I'm leading, as I'll now tell you:

We began the day as 6 of us traveled to Succotz where we broke into pairs and continued to "tract" out the village of Succotz to gather information on all the businesses there. This has been quite the informative project; to our knowledge, it is the most thorough profiling of a single village in Belize ever made to date. While we have very specific immediate objectives for how we will use this information to help adjust and improve the revenue flow to the village, I'm beginning to see as I sort through all of it just how much further use it could serve for future understanding of the economics of small Central American villages and the poverty problems that exist in them. It could be used not only to help Succotz in the future but might give insight into possible solutions that could be applied to other communities. It is quite exciting! Jake and I were "companions" for the morning. Let me show you in pictures just a few of the things we found in Succotz:

This is Glenda's tortillaria. She makes her tortillas fresh right there and you can buy them as she makes them. There's a good handful of little open tortilla shops like this in Succotz. For example...

...this one belongs to Natalie, who uses an adobe stove made in the design introduced to Succotz village by HELP International earlier this summer!

Fun iguana fact #2: Male iguanas change color during mating season from green to a black and orange pattern. Unfortunately, it isn't quite that time of year, so all the iguanas you'll see in this post are green.

Here I am with Natalie, explaining our information collecting project to her, pointing out where her house is on the map we are creating for the village.

These are Natalie's 3 daughters. You might recognize Jewel, the one in the middle, because a close-up picture of her cute face was featured quite memorably in the fundraising video I made a few months back before I'd ever met her or even come to Belize! This is not the first time I've met people who were featured in that video and it's always somewhat surreal to do so, knowing that I'd read about their stories and studied their faces months before coming here and actually meeting them!

Anyway, moving on to other things in Succotz:

This is the police station... at least downstairs. The upstairs might be residential since there are clothes hanging out to dry that don't look like the standard issue uniforms of Belize's finest.

This is the post office. There is no mail delivery from house to house in Succotz. All the mail comes here and then people just come and get whatever has their name on it.

The iguana at center is Gomez, the dominant garrobo of the nursery.

Fun iguana fact #3: iguanas, like cats, always land on their feet. Cats use their whiskers when in free fall to gather their bearings and come out on their feet. Iguanas use the ridges on their backs to do the same thing. When escaping a predator, an iguana can simply free fall 90 feet from a rainforest tree, land on its feet and be just fine!!!

Here's a purified water store in Succotz.

This building seems normal and unassuming enough, right? Well, inside...

...we met a sweet Master's student from the University of Pennsylvania who's part of a team studying all these ancient Mayan artifacts recovered near Xunantunich! We had no idea that any US collegiate organizations had set up camp in Succotz. This is a major asset, especially since they said tourists were welcome to come by and take a look at what they were doing. She also told us that they were interested in helping us in getting more funding for Succotz and gave us some great leads and information.

Fun iguana fact #4: male iguanas "fight" primarily by puffing their dewlap (large pouch on their face) until one backs down. Very rarely do they resort to physical violence.

We found TONS of tiny little snack shops (or sheds, rather) like this one...

...and this one...

...and this one. I could keep going, but I think you get the picture(s)! ;) On a more unique note...

...we found an INCREDIBLE artist who makes these carvings entirely by hand with no power tools whatsoever. He makes custom engravings in Mayan style. I have seen plenty of gift shops offering Mayan-themed carvings, but nothing as fantastic as this work. I'm going to be working a little more closely with him on getting his own business going, so you'll hear more about "Jorge the Carver" in the future. :)

Well, after some very successful information gathering in Succotz, we met up with the other "companionships" at Benny's restaurant, definitely the most successful business in Succotz and a great place for an affordable and delicious lunch! While there, we saw this girl and her pet parrot:

That's all I'll post for today on the Succotz project, but as you can tell, our thorough research is coming along very nicely! Now, before I transition to the next part of my Thursday work, let's have another iguana pic:

BABY IGUANAS! (This was, after all, an iguana nursery!)

Anyway, after tracting Succotz in the morning I was able to do something quite important in regards to the Rainforest Haven Resort project... visit the resort for the first time! So far my consulting on this project has been entirely based on pictures and information. Being able to go and see the property myself was very helpful! In case you are wondering more about the objective of this project, let me explain: Jorge and Shamira are our current landlords at the building we rent at. They are wonderful middle-income people who often engage in locally started non-profit organization work. They have hit some hard financial times personally but have acquired some property that was developed into a resort that never actually opened or took off due to some poor decisions on the part of the former owners. We are helping them turn a financial burden into a profitable venture by helping them get the resort going. By helping them, we not only strengthen HELP International's ties with an important partner, but we enable those in the community who are taking their own initiative to fight poverty locally, help those who will be employed by the resort, and feed other local growing businesses dependent upon the tourism industry (a major anti-poverty weapon in Belize) specifically helping the community of Bullet Tree Falls Village where the resort is located. I helped do consulting on this project my first working day in Belize (see the post for Thursday, July 14, titled "Jumping In"). Here's some pictures of the still somewhat unfinished resort that I took while I was there, interlaced, of course, with some more iguanas!

One of the 2 private Cabanas that will be available for rent.

There's a nice little bar and restaurant already built...

...though the kitchen could use some work!

The iguana tour guide just started throwing baby iguanas on us!

Back to Rainforest Haven...

Viewed through some scenic vines, this is the largest residence for rent at the resort. Very spacious yet hidden away. My personal favorite.

This building has three separate rooms: One where the caretaker lives, another small room on the lower floor for a single visitor, and a larger family-size room for rent on the upper floor.

If an iguana in the hand is worth 2 in the bushel, are 2 in the hand worth 4 in the bushel?
I think so.

Several mounds like this exist along the back of the property. The former owners used them as a trash dump spot. This is unfortunate since it was recently discovered that they are in fact...

...markers for unexcavated Mayan grave sites! We're going to be contacting NICH about this (of course, so far my [attempted] dealings with NICH have been less than satisfactory).

So, that's an intro to Rainforest Haven. Lots more pictures to come later this week since a lot of the team is going to stay the night there on Wednesday so we can do some cleaning and a photo-shoot. Following this iguana pic, I have one more project to comment on to report on Thursday.

How is counting iguanas coming?

With the last hour of our day before dinner on Thursday, Maren, Katie, Megan, and I went worm hunting! We need earth worms for a project called a "soilet" that Katie is leading. It is a special replacement for a septic tank which uses soil, vermiculture, and a system of filters to turn waste from an outhouse into recyclable by-products. We are repairing one of these and building a new one. But first, we need worms!!! Unfortunately, I only got these 2 lame pictures from the worm excursion because by the time we found some, my hands were all gross and I didn't want to touch my camera! However, I'll have you know that I found the very first worm! :)

Worm hunting!

So, that was my Thursday. Now, you're probably thinking, "wasn't he going to post about Thursday AND Friday in this post? This is already pretty long!" Well, fear not. Friday is very easy and can be summed up in a paragraph (the very same paragraph you are already reading!). On Thursday night, as I was just starting to blog about my day I started to feel rather nauseous. So, I put down my laptop for the night without finishing the post you are now reading. Two hours later I started throwing up. Friday I was wiped out all day with food poisoning. Threw up a total of 9 times during the ordeal. Slept on and off all day Friday and through the night, luckily feeling much better on Saturday morning. The team was wonderful, buying some soda crackers and ginger ale for me and helping make sure everyone was quiet all day. They are so awesome! It was not a pleasant day, but at least it's quick and easy to blog about! :)

Now, before I finish I'll give you one last iguana pic (I COULD give you 40!):

Do you think Jake likes baby iguanas?

I think he does. :)

P.S. How many iguanas did you find?

Be honest.

You should have found 45.

;)