Leaf Cutters and Chicken Coops

Okay, so I must say, yesterday’s first picture was kind of a lie. There was no iguana in the picture. However, before you all stone me, let me add that there WAS a large iguana-like lizard; it just wasn’t an iguana… but I didn’t know that at the time. Apparently, it’s called a “Wish Willy” and they are related to iguanas, but with less frills and a grayer color. Didn’t find him? Keep looking, he’s there—promise. :) Meanwhile, are you ready for round two? The one hiding in the picture below is younger and thus harder to distinguish between the two species. Probably also a “Wish Willy,” but I’m not going to say, “Can you find the Wish Willy?”

Can you find the iguana?

Speaking of Belizean creatures, I have a new favorite fascination: leafcutter ants! These things are large and crazy. They can strip the leaves off of an entire tree overnight. I saw a bunch of them carrying large leaf chunks in a line that stretched 40 feet away in both directions—one direction leading to a giant tree (actually the same one featured in yesterday’s iguana picture) and the other leading to a giant mound with several other long lines leading in. These crazy buggers strip the leaves not as food or building material. Instead, they take all the leaf chunks and toss them in an enormous pile deep within their mound where other ants help it decompose so that it becomes the perfect fertilizer for a very specific fungus to grow and they actually eat the fungus that grows on their decomposed leaf piles! Isn’t that totally remarkable? Ants may be invasive and annoying sometimes (especially given my mild allergy to their bites—thankfully none of these guys bit me!) but I find them absolutely fascinating to observe. Apparently, some leafcutter colonies have been found to contain over 7-8 BILLION ants—that’s more than there are people on earth! By the way, all of this leaf-cutter ant knowledge is just what other team members told me, so you can correct me if there are factual inaccuracies.

Leaf cutter ants are hard to take pictures of, but look closely. Do you see the leaf chunks they're carrying?

 

Zoomed in more, yet still not very effective at relaying the amazingness of these little buggers.

 See the giganto-ant there checking up on the little minions? These are particularly vicious looking overlord leaf cutter ants who follow the progress and protect the trail of ants.

Well, today fellow team member Chloe and I finished the chicken coop we were working on yesterday. Now that we’ve built one, subsequent coops should be much easier. A lot of this project was described yesterday, so I’ll let you read that post, but today was great fun working with more of the boys to help them build the coop. One of them, Justin, is actually 18 and leaving soon for the University of Belize where he will be studying Computer Science. I talked to him a lot about the local computer expertise levels and incorporated it into some local research I’m doing for some projects I’m planning personally. More information on those projects coming soon. Meanwhile, here’s some pictures from today’s chicken coop project:

Chloe and Justin install a hinge.

Stapling down the chicken wire.

A finished chicken coop! Yay!

Sorry this post is so short. Been a long day with an unusual evening, but all is well in Belize. Tomorrow is one of our days off, so I think there is some adventuring in store. :) 

This is Ken signing off for another day.

Jumping In

Can you find the iguana?

Those of you who know me well know that I have a chronic addiction (besides chocolate milk); I am addicted to being busy. Few things grate on my nerves more than having nothing to do, and I can usually create far too many things to fill in extra time on those rare occasions that I have any. Well, I’m glad to say that my experience here in Belize has been a fantastic supplier to feed my addiction: my day was filled with delicious productivity that I’m just dying to tell you all about.

In case you missed it, I already posted a short entry here on this blog this morning detailing my morning. Things just got even better from there. This is truly an amazing team of young adults with well over 30 projects currently going on to help decrease poverty and battle its effects here in Belize. All of the projects are come up with by the team members themselves and we all help with lots of the different projects the other team members are heading up. At any given moment there are 3-6 projects going on somewhere nearby that we can be helping with when we aren’t doing research to aid in starting our own projects. 

The first several hours of my day I was helping with the Chicken Coop project. We are building chicken coops at a school for orphaned boys so that they can learn how to raise the chickens as a trade. Several of the boys came to help us build the coop and we taught them how to use the power tools. The plan is later to make an even bigger coop that will house 3 species simultaneously that reinforce each other. This larger coop will have rabbits, chickens, and worms. The rabbits can survive on a very basic diet of plants that, when digested, becomes food for the worms, who multiply and become food for the chickens. Excess worms can be sold for bait and the chickens and rabbits can both be sold for food. This is a very valuable self-sustaining system that these boys will learn how to take care of so they can use it to provide if needs be in their future. 

Kyle teaches Edward how to use the drill.

More chicken coop work with the boys.

We teach true principles... and they build chicken coops themselves! 

(Favorite picture of the day)

Following a lunch of delicious local fried rice, all of the new team members had a training meeting for several hours where we talked about the projects going on, the basic program rules, safety guidelines, etc. 

Next is the most exciting part! Building chicken coops is very cool and exciting, and I’m glad to be a part of some of these other labor-centric projects. However, the kinds of projects I’ll probably be leading will be business-centric and I got to have my first taste of putting that skill set to work this evening. After the training I teamed up on a mini-project with Lindsey, one of our team members and also the wife of the program director for Belize. She and Kyle had recently been talking with the landlords of the building we stay in, a wonderful Belizean couple named Jorge and Shamira, about a resort they recently purchased that is a slight fixer-upper but which they don’t have the money to make major renovations at right now. They wanted advice in marketing it and adjusting their business plan and Kyle has been eager to help them since they’ve been so good to the team here and as they could really benefit from the business counseling and in return have shown themselves to be great pillars in the community who are highly interested in helping to fight poverty. So, at 3:30 I was asked if I’d like to help Lindsey come up with a marketing and business plan to present to them at 6:30 that evening! I quickly read about the resort they’d purchased, saw pictures, and began formulating ideas to help them revise their plan and market to the right sub-groups of the American tourist set. We had an incredible brainstorming session and made a PowerPoint presentation detailing our marketing plan, including our suggestion to rename the resort “Rainforest Haven” as well as other adjustments to their plan and minor, affordable renovations to the resort. 

Then, at 6:30, Kyle, Lindsey, and I met up with Jorge and Shamira and I gave the pitch to them. They LOVED it! They were overjoyed and excited and began to see their purchase of the resort, which was a major risk they had begun to worry about, as a very positive opportunity to improve their financial situation (not to mention that of others that they’ll employ and stimulate other businesses in the area of the resort). We’re going to meet with them again soon to work out more details and I’m going to help them create a website for their resort and teach them how to use PayPal to process online reservations. I was on cloud 9. My first full day in Belize and I’ve already helped counsel a business after hearing about it with 3 hours’ notice and having to develop a full marketing strategy and accompanying PowerPoint. That’s the crazy kind of thing you do in classes in the business school, but I never expected to put it into effect so quickly and drastically in the real world, and especially for it to be such a success! This is a very small mini-project and not quite the same as most business-related projects, but it was a fantastic experience nonetheless and I’m hungry for more! 

Dinner tonight was FANTASTIC! Our cook, “Mama Kay,” made mashed potatoes, chopped tomatoes with corn, Belizean meatloaf, and FANTASTIC homemade tortillas. Later, at the end of the day, the team had a meeting to coordinate the next few days of projects and we celebrated the success of the second wave (the last six weeks of projects) with fantastic Belizean ice cream which, you would never guess this from tasting it, is made with their own soy milk. Anyway, that’s the Cliff’s notes version of my amazing day. I love you all, and I love Belize.

Waking Up

Just a really quick one this morning: 

I woke up naturally this morning around 5:00 and had that split second of fear you get whenever you wake up some place you aren’t used to. Then I remembered where I was and smiled for a really, really long time. J I’m still here, in Belize. This is gonna be a good day and great 6 weeks! 

By the way, the mornings here are beautiful and peaceful, despite the 10 gajillion birds in San Ignacio making all their morning noises. A lot of them have unique sounds I’ve never heard before and several of them sound like the guinea pigs we used to own years ago! I went on the balcony to do my workout, showered, ate, read my scriptures, and planned/coordinated my day. Now I’m writing this, then I’m off to help on several projects for the day and get some more training on creating my own projects with the business sector here in San Ignacio. I’ll write more about it hopefully tonight!

Here's some beautiful morning pictures of San Ignacio from our 5th-story balcony:

Surreal and Real

The Belize City International Airport

Driving through downtown Belize City

More Belize City

More Belize City

Well, I landed in Belize safe and sound and the only word to describe it all is surreal. Everything is so beautiful and green. The buildings all are so small and simple. The International Airport in Belize City may be the smallest airport I’ve ever been to. This is supposedly one of the most developed areas in the nation of Belize, and I feel like I’ve travelled 50 years back in time. As the plane was descending and I got a closer look at some of the “neighborhoods” of the area, I was nearly moved to tears seeing what often qualifies as a “home” here. Many of the buildings looked like they were in terrible disrepair and that impression has largely been confirmed now that I’m on the ground. So far, I’ve only barely walked out of the airport and taken a seat while I wait for the program directors here to pick me up, so I’m sure there will be much more to add throughout the remainder of this day before I get a chance to post these first impressions probably this evening.

*****

Well, it’s now 7 hours later and I’ve had quite the exposure to Belize already. It’s hard to put all my thoughts into words right now in fact. I’ve driven through downtown Belize City, the largest city in the country, and driven 2 hours across the country seeing various little villages and other isolated impoverished rural households. Belize City is a crazy place. Bikers, drivers, and pedestrians share the extremely narrow alleyways recklessly and the streets are lined with lots of little shops where people sell tourist items and other staple goods. The prices are in Belizean dollars, which convert very easily to American dollars: 2 Belizean dollars = 1 US dollar (so something listed as $10 costs B $10 or US $5). You can generally pay in either currency, though change is always given in the local bills. We ate lunch at a local restaurant where I tried a fantastic garlic-roasted lamb wrap. Kyle, the program director for the country, and his wife Lindsey were kind enough to pay for it and give me my mini-tour of Belize City along with their local friend who acted as driver, Nathaniel.

It has been about 85 degrees and very humid. Honestly, the humidity (you’re going to think I’m crazy) has been a welcome change from the extreme dryness of Utah. I actually grew quite fond of the humid climate on my mission in Florida and have never quite felt acclimated to the dry weather since then, so I’m liking the moisture. Another significant change from Utah is a much earlier sunset. It is only 7:30 and the sun is already set, unlike the 9:30 I’ve been used to. This is primarily due to the fact that Belize is in the Central time zone, but doesn’t observe daylight savings time, so they are actually on the same time as Utah but are much farther east. Furthermore, the closer proximity to the equator makes for an earlier sunset, so the daylight in my days just got cut down by 2 hours!

I’m staying in the village of San Ignacio, which is admittedly more impressive than Belize City by way of upkeep and development. As a team, we stay in the upper floors of a 5-story building right in the heart of the village. The view from our balcony is gorgeous and lots of similar buildings to our own can be seen. We have a native cook named “Mama K,” (I don’t know her real name yet—that’s just what the other team members call her) who made us a fantastic dinner with chicken, rice and beans, cole slaw, and fried banana strips. The team is full of great people and I already feel fantastically at home in this foreign land which is far unlike anywhere I’ve ever lived. I’m excited to work here to help fix some of the problems that are glaringly apparent every time I turn around. Nonetheless, while the problems are very real, the other readily apparent thing I’ve noticed is the goodness of the people here. They are warm and genuine and welcoming and I look forward to forming a connection with them in the coming weeks.

I repeat my initial thoughts from getting off the plane, that this experience is surreal. However, now at the end of the day the reality of it is setting in and my purpose is clear before me: to help fight against a very real problem known as poverty. I feel so inadequate, and yet hopeful for the possibilities to bring about a positive change. I pray God will make me equal to this daunting and difficult task. The team that has already been working here in Belize has gotten some fantastic projects rolling and I’m excited to jump in 100% tomorrow and begin lending a helping hand. I hope you are equally excited to share in the updates with me.

The video!

So, this morning at midnight I released a fundraising video on YouTube!

Check it out by following this link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OW9ttjYAYKk

It works on a pledge basis, so the more people view it today, the more money that gets raised to help fight poverty in Belize!

Thanks,

KEN

How you can help

You can help fight poverty in Belize by donating at:

http://help-international.org/donate-now

and clicking on "Donate."

Please include my name, "Kenneth Kenworthy" in the comments section!

Thanks so much!

Fundraising

Well, it's been about three weeks since I began my major fundraising efforts and I'm getting a little discouraged. I've not so far been able to raise very much and still need at least another $2000. Probably going to need to start looking into some other options.