The Final Week in School and the Texan Family Dog
Our team headed off to Corozal, the most northern district in Belize. As it is extremely close to the Mexican border, the town has a very hispanic feel to it. It's on the most beautiful stretch of coastline with parks and benches lining the turquoise water. We taught in a a variety of schools in town as well as in the surrounding villages, each one treating us to a different kind of Belizean food. The district coordinator, Miss Pena, drove us to and from every school and became almost like our mother for the week. The first day she took us to see the local mayan ruins and gave us a tour of the town. The following day, she took us to her family's house for lunch where we ate traditional escabeche, a type of onion soup with chicken served with handmade tortillas made by the grandmother on an open fire in the back yard. Every day she would bring us mangoes or creole bread to give us a taste of Belizean culture.
Besides giving us these amazing experiences, she also shared with us some of her most personal stories of her family and her students to give us a first hand account of the type of abuse that is commonplace in Belize. At 15, her daughter was kidnapped on the way home from school by a drug dealer who raped her then sold her to all of his friends. She was missing for 8 days and on her way to being sold in Guatemala when by pure chance a storeowner across the country recognized her as Miss Pena's daughter and hid her in the back of his store. The rest of the stories are really too heartbreaking to even recount. They are the type of stories I will never forget for the rest of my life and will constantly remind myself of when life in Canada seems what we consider "hard".
This past weekend we bussed into Orange Walk district to take a tour of the Lamanai Mayan ruins. There were about 20 people on the tour including a stereotypical Texan family that gave us hours of entertainment/bewilderment at the fact that some people like this actually exsist! They started out by bringing their family dog on the tour which immeadiately infuriated the dogs chained up at our departure point for the tour. They were luckily chained up, but were barking incessantly and pulling on their chains. This went on for about 10 minutes before the grandmother finally said "I wish that dog would be quiet!" The father was one of those men who liked to repeat everything the guide said adding his two cents to every comment. We took a 1hr ride up this beautiful river. It looked like black glass with banks overflowing with trees from the dense Belizean jungle. We saw numerous birds, lizards and plants along the way. When we arrived (and after the teenage girls had finished brushing their hair) we walked to the first temple, the Temple of the Masks. This smaller sized ruin had 4 10 foot carvings of faces all symmetrically arranged on the building (only one had been excavated in order to preserve the others). The mayans were interesting people in that every 52 years (the length of one mayan calendar) they built on top of the old temples with new walls, altars, carvings and levels. So during each historical period of their existance, the buildings would look completely different. It's really quite something. The carving of the face or mask was gorgeous and carved from white stone. After the Texan family dog had climbed all over it a few times, it decided that this would be a great place to relieve itself... on a 2500 yr old mayan carving....
The second temple was the largest and had hundreds of stairs to get to the top. The QMO team waited patiently as the previous group was trying to come down the steep steps. The family, of course, scampered right up passing the poor old couple trying to make their way down without falling 500ft to the ground. I was not impressed. The view from above was dizzying, but also beautiful. Mayans used to use it to look down upon the rest of the city and keep watch for intruders and smoke signals. The final temple, The Jaguar Temple, so named for its jaguar face stones was also quite large and impressive. It looked down upon a residential section of the town that we also walked through. We also saw an area where they played a type of ball game where either the winner or the loser (they are not sure which at this point) would be sacrificed. A giant carved stone in the centre of the court- the centre marker was lifted by archaelogists who found liquid mercury in a container underneath. The 9 year old made extra sure it was sturdy by walking all over it...
The site was very interesting and breathtaking in many cases. Unfortunately it poured rain on the ride home and we all got soaked. We tried to scope out some crocodiles down this small stream, but the Texan dad kept yelling "THIS MUST BE A SHORTCUT GIRLS!! IT'S A SHORTCUT!!" that they were all well warned of our arrival and we didn't see anything at all. We had a lot of fun, both because of the ruins themselves, but also laughing at the obliviousness of the family to their actions. We got in a van at the end of the ride with some of the other tourists. When it looked like we might not be leaving right away and my friend offered to move out of the way so I could get back outside I mumbled "that's okay, I'd rather be cooped up in here than out there with the family". A couple of the others heard me and we all had a good laugh, everyone feeling slightly relieved that they were not the only ones put out by our southern family.
We are now back in Belize City for the wrap-up week of our project. There will be lots of meetings, planning and administrative stuff to ensure a smooth project next year! Then we have a week to do some more touring around until we all head home!
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home