Bring it on, Harvey!

To Jimmy Stewart in the classic 1950 film, Harvey was a large rabbit seen only by himself. To me, Harvey is a menacing Tropical Storm expected to reach Hurricane status just in time to give Belize a thorough pummeling this weekend. Now, you loyal readers need not worry, for I am safe, sound, secure, and protected in our pink and white fortress in San Ignacio. San Ignacio is quite far inland anyway, so the storm will be greatly decreased by the time it hits us. If I were in San Pedro, Belize City, or Dangriga, or perhaps northern Honduras I'd be more alarmed, but as it is I'm not worried. If you'd like to watch Harvey's progress, click the link below for the national hurricane center. (If you don't want to watch Harvey's progress, perhaps you'd rather watch the 1950 film).

http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/ 

 Harvey's whereabouts as of this writing.

Well, yesterday and today have been filled with lots of work! Yesterday I worked a lot on redesigning the non-map side of the brochure for Succotz, and I'm really pleased with the outcome. It is a much more simple, yet much more striking design and I finally feel satisfied with it. I'll give you all a slight preview taste by revealing the all new redesigned cover:

While the old design with the collage of pictures was kind of fun, it ultimately looked too messy and busy once you printed it, so I started from square one again and recast the whole thing with this new theme and look. Isn't little Cathy just adorable? I figure tourists will be helpless to resist that cute little face! :)

Besides redesigning the pamphlet, yesterday, like usual, I went to Succotz to run more errands and put more pieces in place. My primary focus at this point has been solidifying the advertising blocks and locking them in with contract between each business and the village council. Similarly, we've been drafting a contract of usage for the revenue funds generated so that future village council members will be locked into using the funds for specific causes in the areas of village cleanliness/upkeep, subsidizing education, and improving public health. In the evening Katie went running and on the way back we saw a good omen, though I failed to obtain a very good photograph:

You probably can't tell from this rotten picture, but this is a lucky Nissan Altima! I had not seen one in Belize up until this point so I had to take a picture. (Some of you may know that I consider Altimas to be particularly lucky if spotted, so I was quite excited to find one here!)

As for today, we began the day by doing our very last work at the Barzakh Fallah Orphanage, where we've been helping to construct one of the live-in administrator housing units. Our original pledge was to provide materials and labor to finish the first construction phase of one of these unique buildings--that is, the stacking of bags filled with a dirt and concrete blend to create the shape of the building (see former posts for a more detailed description). We got that done early enough that we even began helping this week with the plastering phase, which will be completed by the owner of the orphanage and other volunteers and contracted workers helping him. Today we did more plastering and now the lower 2/3 of the building have their first outside coat of plaster. It is kind of sad that we won't get to see the completely finished building, but we did get to see more than we expected in the first place! Here's some pictures from today's orphanage work:

Any trip to the orphanage or to Succotz (unless we have the team van, which is usually doing other things) begins here in downtown San Ignacio, just a few blocks from our home at the main bus stop. The buses are a very unique experience and waiting here has become a very standard part of my daily routine. The orphanage is in Georgeville, about 15 minutes east of where we live, and we take the eastward-traveling Belize City-bound buses to get there. Those buses usually come about every 15-20 minutes, but today we had to wait nearly 50! First a westward-bound Benque-destined bus showed up; next, a bus to Belize City pulled in, but it was an express bus that doesn't make stops in little places like Georgeville; then ANOTHER Benque bus came before finally a normal Belize City bus arrived. At least we had the company of...

...our loyal dog Shadow! So, Shadow is one of the many strays in Belize, but she took a liking for the team before I got here (which couldn't POSSIBLY be the result of certain team members taking pity and giving her food...) and though we don't let her inside or try to entice her to stay, we don't mind her either. In fact, she basically lives outside our main door and guards us. She'll growl at other dogs who may not be as nice and even people if they seem menacing. We figure she makes us a little more secure down here. We TRY to refrain from feeding her (she probably mostly eats garbage from dumpsters like most of the dogs), not because we have no hearts, but because we don't want her to develop a dependency on us when we are only here temporarily to begin with. She usually follows us down to the bus station every day and then walks back to the house to take a nap on the porch after we get on the bus. Heaven knows we never touch her since she is still a wild dog and thus has lots of fleas and who-knows-what-else. This is hard because she is very likable and loyal and so sometimes we find sticks to scratch her back with or use our feet. But, you were expecting more on the orphanage, so let me move on...

Can you find the baby iguana?

We did more plastering, but first, we needed to add a few more edges to the foundation for landscaping purposes. You may have noticed in previous posts that the foundation of the building is made of tires. These tires are stuffed completely full of dirt and rocks. They were laid before I got here, but I'm glad we added more today so I could document the process as follows:

A number of large rocks are put in the tire.

A wheelbarrow is filled with dirt.

The dirt is poured into the tires and pounded in very tightly. In fact, this way astound you (it did for me!) but each tire, besides the rock already put in it, is additionally filled with THREE wheelbarrows full of dirt each! You simply compact it more and more and squeeze it all in! Those tires ultimately are super solid, and you additionally pour dirt around each one and fill in all the cracks just as tight. After filling 5 of these tires, we moved on to more plastering work, as described in my last post.

Meanwhile, that little baby iguana continued to make cameo appearances on both the outside of the building...

...and the inside!

Mixing the plaster. For whatever reason, most of our shovels were missing today and we only had 2! Luckily we are done with the bagging stage or that would have been really inconvenient. Speaking of the bagging phase, we actually still needed to put one last bag on top and we waited until today, knowing it would be our last on this project, to do so. Before filling it...

...we all signed it! :)

Emily and Mackenzie (the project leads for this project) precariously climbed atop the building to fill the bag as I shoveled buckets and sent them down the assembly line, up the ladder, and to the filling point up top. It was a fulfilling and memorable moment. :) Of course, it still needed to be pounded as well, so...

...Sarah, who has been a very significant contributor to this project, also made the climb and did the pounding job. Yay!

Here's the welcome sign to orphanage at Barzakh Falah, that will soon be able to drop the word "future." Writing about "lasts" is kind of sad. The orphanage project has resulted in my dirtiest, sweatiest, most exhausting hours in Belize, but it has been fun to build it alongside great team members and worth every sweaty minute invested. 

After the orphanage we hoped to have the street signs done for Succotz and begin installation, but the sign maker didn't have them ready and told us Monday afternoon!!! This is rather alarming and means we'll have to work very quickly on Monday and Tuesday to get all of them hung. At least we all had lots of great backup plans. Some people started packing, others wrote year-end reports. As for me--yup, you guessed it: I headed to Succotz, as usual, to do more errands etc, just like yesterday. It was a particularly productive run to Succotz and besides the street signs, everything is just about done and ready to go!

Upon returning from Succotz I had 15 minutes to catch my breath before an evening meeting with Jorge and Shamira about the Rainforest Haven resort consulting project. I had done a lot of work on the website during my down time recently and it was exciting to show it to them and really hammer out business plan details. Additionally, they treated us (Kyle, Lindsay, and myself) kindly to dinner at their favorite restaurant and I had one of the most delicious meals I've had here--fish and chips with curry mustard (the fish and chips are a traditional hold-over from the British occupation period). 

I think that's all I have for today. It's been crazy busy, and will continue to be until I'm back in the states! Meanwhile, help pray that the Hurricane Harvey will be short so as to not linger and hinder our project efforts on Monday!

Some projects you haven't heard much about before!

Skipping days of blogging is dumb. Anyway, sorry for no post last night. I was tired and decided to sleep.

Let's begin with yesterday, then, shall we? The day began with a trip to a semi-distant village called Duck Run Three where we worked on the Soilet project (the one we formerly dug worms for, if you remember). I don't think I've ever given a very full description of the Soilet project (mainly because I haven't worked much on it). A soilet is an alternative to a septic tank which filters waste naturally breaking everything down into non-toxic byproducts including clean water. It first uses vermiculture (worms) to initially break the waste down and then passes it through a series of filters over time. Unfortunately, last year's team started but did not finish some of these units, so we've been not only building a new one, but finishing the job that should have been done last year, finding pieces in disrepair. The unit at Duck Run Three was one such unfinished job. The waste box where the filtration happens was built, but that's about it. The box looks like a Belizean coffin. Nobody in Belize is ever buried underground (I assume because of high water table concerns), so the cemeteries are all full of cement boxes above ground where the bodies are laid. The soilet box looks just like those. Our objective at this spot yesterday was to make needed repairs to the box, build a connecting outhouse, and (first) fill in an irrigation ditch and dig in on an alternative path since it ran through where we needed to build the outhouse. Many of the team members were there all day, but I was only there from 9 to noon and primarily worked on the ditch redirection committee, though I was then able to help start the outhouse construction for a short while before leaving.

 Digging the ditch. 

Lots of pesky roots got in the way and had to be sawed out (or else hacked away by the broad end of the pick by yours truly)

 Opening up the unfinished soilet box to see what condition it was in (it wasn't very good).

Can you find the frog we found inside? Can you find the hole in the wall of the box as well?

 Repairing the hole.

Beginning the outhouse frame. It will be built on stilts (like many buildings in Belize) to not only protect from floodwater but the drain properly to the soilet box.

At noon, Megan and I had to go to get some other project work done. We soon discovered that the return bus wasn't for another half hour, so we ate lunch at one of the restaurants run by the German Mennonites (they make really good food and ice cream!), who heavily populate the Duck Run Three area. In fact, we ate at their new location which had this sign out front:

 This is actually not incorrect in Belize. In America we'd say "Now Open," but in Belize they say "Now Opened." Likewise, I kid you not, the other day I saw a sign for a "Becoming Closed" sale at a store. It's always fun to go to other English-speaking places and still learn completely different ways of saying things. As another example, when you go to a restaurant in the US the cashier will probably ask if you'd like your food "To Stay" or "To Go." In Belize they say "To Have" or "To Take" respectively! This is quite confusing initially until you get the hang of it, because if the lady just asks "is this to have?" then you'll probably say "yes, of course I want to have it" even if you do in fact intend to take it away and eat it elsewhere.

After the relatively long bus ride back to San Ignacio and some quick showers (digging the ditch got us splattered in mud once the water started coming in) Megan and I then headed out on a long round of errands. We first needed to print off reports for yet another project you haven't really heard much about on this blog: the suicide study project. This project was done almost exclusively before I arrived. Basically, everyone around here talks about the crazy unusual spike of suicides among teenagers in the town of Benque Viejo (the town at the border with Guatemala, just 2 miles beyond Succotz) over the last year. Some of the team members in the last wave did an in-depth research project for school and public officials' use investigating the cause of the suicides. If you talk to people around here, almost everyone will tell you that the cause is related to witchcraft. The research project, which not only investigated some specific suicide cases but also interviewed nearly 400 teenagers in Benque Viejo, concluded that the primary root cause seems to be parental neglect among a number of other complex causes. Our task yesterday was to print off several copies of the final draft of the comprehensive report from the data and research and deliver the copies to various officials who work at the schools in Benque, the ministry of education in Santa Elena, and other positions of influence of those who work with teens in the area. Hopefully they will use the research wisely to develop better solutions rather than blaming witchcraft (note: the officials we worked with and delivered these reports are NOT among those blaming witchcraft!).

After dropping off the reports we made a stop in Succotz on the way back to talk with a few officials and business owners about some Succotz Revenue project details. We made it back to San Ignacio again just in time for dinner. As Mama Kay is still out of town, we've been eating out all week and had a wonderful meal of rice and fish with a special sauce at one of our favorite restaurants, Cenaida's. 

Dinner at Cenaida's!

After I ate dinner Katie had to do her running so I went to the park and then we ended the day doing another Karaoke party--very fun! 

Today was another computer day mostly, though we did a little at the orphanage this morning. I am happy to announce that we have finished the bag step of the construction process!

Ta-da!

Top of the dome, viewed looking up from inside.

Can you find the white tree frog? He was just sitting inside, asleep and matching in with the bags!

The next step was to begin preparing for plastering by filling the foundation with dirt and then wrapping the whole building in chicken wire, as shown. Unfortunately, we ran out of chicken wire and will have to get more and finish wrapping it and then plaster it all next week--our last full week in country!

The rest of my day today was full of on-the-computer project work. Some was for Succotz, some was for the Rainforest Haven project, working more on the website doing a lot of underpinning HTML code. Fascinating to me, probably boring to you. Anyway, that's my report for another 2 productive days in Belize!

What is a "barbecue"?

If you've been keeping up with the blog, then hopefully the title today makes sense. Otherwise, you'll get it later. :)

Anyway, I'm not a big fan of having to cover 2 days worth of work in one night, yet I keep putting myself in that situation a lot as of the last few days and am about to do so again the next few as well! I'm going to try to make it kind of brief since I have lots of other things to get done tonight, but we'll see.

So, let's start with yesterday, shall we? In the morning, Ashley and I headed to Succotz to fill in cracks in information after mining through all the data gathered in the first phase of the revenue project there. We also had another very important and productive meeting with the village council there and talked about a lot of important details of the project and the next phase which we intend to begin next week--street sign installation! The morning was overall very productive and good for our legs as we did lots of walking around Succotz visiting different businesses to ask different questions. The particulars may seem strange to blog about, but I'll show you a few pictures I took while we walked through the village:

The first time I saw this unusual sight last week, I thought it was an unfinished or destroyed house. It is not. It is the village park. That structure is the play-place. It has rusty nails and rebar sticking out of it. It is boring and not fun for children in any way imaginable. It is covered in trash. With the new revenue flow to the village council resulting from our project, funds will now be available for them to do things like fix this disaster of a playground disguised as an injury factory. On a more meaningful level, the project long-term will give funds that will ultimately subsidize education and public health.

The park also featured this fantastic sign urging us to not litter or bring pigs to the park. Uncertain whether they mentioned the pig part because they are worried for the park or the pigs. Given the park's condition as described above, I pick the latter. Either way, it is a wonderful and absurd sign!

A great view of the village nestled on the hillside, taken from a road near the park.

Can you find the iguana?

We were just walking along the western highway which runs along the river and suddenly Ashley points to the grass 2 feet from me where we saw this beautiful 5-foot male, already turning orange for the mating season. I guess we startled him and he started running off. It wasn't long before one of the many stray dogs saw him and started chasing but he was fast and got to the river where he lunged in and swam out of sight!

So, after Succotz Ashley and I met up with Jorge and Shamira to go get supplies for the Rainforest Haven resort (part of a consulting job project I'm working on) so we could have our team outing there/photo shoot for the website, as will be described later. Along the way, we had to stop off at Shamira's grandmother's house. Her grandmother has a tree in the backyard with 6 iguanas! I couldn't ever get all of them in a single shot, but I have a few pics you can find them in:

Can you find the iguanas?

If you click to zoom in and look closely, you can see 2 iguanas swimming in the river in the background.

Anyway, after the errands we got back just in time for me to go teach computer class. Unfortunately, the Cornerstone Foundation where we hold the class was for some reason locked when we got there. Luckily I had my laptop with me and we just taught our little handful of students out on the porch. It was not very ideal since they couldn't all follow along and do the actions themselves on their individual computers, but at least it got the job done. Hopefully that won't happen again!

After computer classes, I did some work on my computer and also got things ready to go for an evening at the resort! The whole team came out so we could do a big photo shoot in the various rooms and on the grounds for the website. Read my former posts on Rainforest Haven for more details on this project. Ironically, even though it was a photoshoot I don't have many pictures to show you since we did most of the picture-taking on a few of the nicer cameras some of our team members have. I did take a couple, but none with any people; really only shots of the beautiful grounds, like these:

We made a little camp fire at dark and roasted some marshmallows and had a fantastic time together. It was great fun at the end of a productive work day, but also productive in and of itself! I did learn some interesting things while staying there. First and foremost is that domesticating parrots is a really good idea. Why? Because wild parrots are the most annoying creature known to man! Several flocks of parrots live around the property and they make the most annoying squawking noise I've ever heard in my life. They are super loud and all squawk together as they fly in little groups of 7-15; for any other type of bird I'm sure you'd need at least 50 to make that much noise! They are especially annoying at 4:00 in the morning. I also discovered that they are rather violent birds in the wild and like to fight each other. In fact, I witnessed such a battle, as two parrots in one of the flocks got in a fight in midair and wrestled each other in free fall until they hit the ground about 10 yards away from me, whereupon they looked up startled and flew off. 

So, after our beautiful resort excursion I worked most of today on the Succotz project again, most of my time on the computer. Then, in the evening I learned yet another area-based definition of the word "barbecue." Let me explain the history of my experience with this word. I grew up believing that "Barbecue" meant meat, like hamburgers or hotdogs, grilled on a barbecue grill, and possibly served with barbecue sauce. However, when my family moved to Wisconsin when I was 9 I was introduced to an alternative definition of the word, as it was there used to describe sloppy joes. Yet again, later while living in Florida, it seemed to refer specifically to pulled pork. Well, I have another even more unique definition to add to the list. 

You see, last week the branch of the Church here in San Ignacio invited us to have a "barbecue" with them in our honor this evening. We've grown very close to the members in both the San Ignacio and Santa Elena branches, even though we aren't here specifically as Church members doing Church things. We still become very attached to these branches as we offer our services on Sundays at Church and often in the evenings with activities, etc. Furthermore, several of the church members have helped us out a ton on our projects and even given us great leads on places to help out. We were touched and honored to be invited by Pres. Lemos, the branch pres in San Ignacio, to this special barbecue in our honor, to be held Thursday night. So, Megan and Kyle told our cook, Mama Kay, to take the night off since we'd have a barbecue. However, when we got there they had set up a great big branch dance party with some snacks but no actual substantive food. This is when we discovered that in Belize, "Barbecue" means "Get-together" or "social" and doesn't necessarily entail food. After having a good laugh, Megan and I went and got some food for the team so they didn't starve to death while dancing. 

In the middle of the party, Pres. Lemos stopped the music and called everyone together for a bit to bring things down and make a presentation for us. He talked about his love for Belize and how touched he was that we would leave the comforts of our own country to help make his a better place. He bore the sweetest and most touching testimony of service and being where God wants us to be and we were all in tears. He then gave each one of us a beautiful and personalized magnet in the shape of Belize each with various unique pictures painted on along with our names that the branch members had made for all of us. It is a simple gift, but perhaps one of the most meaningful I have ever received in my entire life.

This is my magnet handmade by the branch members in San Ignacio. I was particularly glad to see that mine featured the ruins of Xunantunich as they are the major attraction attached to Succotz village where most of my work has centered and the ruins serve an important role in the revenue stream of that village. Truly the gesture of the gift itself as well as the images it depicts will forever remind me of my experiences here in Belize.

After the gifts and a few more remarks, a much larger portion of the branch showed up to turn the party on! Belizeans absolutely love music and dancing. The branches out here have dance parties (or "barbecues") all the time, and dance parties often just break out at people's homes (like Jose Luis' house in Succotz a few weeks back if you remember). The music is a fun blend of American dance music hits (often slightly remixed) and the native Belizean hits that are in English, Spanish, Kriol, or even a mix of the three! (I haven't yet heard any in Mayan, but that is primarily only spoken down in the southernmost areas of Belize) Do you remember how last summer every other song on the radio was "Hey, Soul Sister"? Well, the current mega-hit in Belize is a song called "The Tornado Song" that is a really silly dance song with a very simple dance associated with it that every man, woman, and child in the country can do. The song tells the listener to "shake your tornado" and some times has bouts of "slow tornado" followed by "faster, faster tornado." YouTube it, as you probably won't hear it on an American radio any time soon. :)

Belizean dance party! Yay!

I have a FANTASTIC video as well that I took, but photos take long enough to load on this internet connection that I don't think I'm going to try a video. I'll just put it on my YouTube channel, probably when I'm back in the states. If sooner, I'll let you know. It was another unique interruption to the dance party that can only be seen and not described. 

Anyway, I guess this post wasn't very short after all! I have to warn you again that I'm going to probably be internet-less again, this time until Sunday! You see, my wonderful team member have planned a birthday getaway surprise trip for me to the Carribean islands that are part of Belize off of the mainland coast. During our time down here, we get weekends off and as you've probably read we've had some great adventures on the weekends. We also get 2 additional "vacation days" and I'm taking one of them tomorrow for this birthday trip with the team. So, it will be a 3-day weekend without internet till we get back on Sunday after Church in San Pedro. Talk to you then!

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.

;)