Last Wednesday (Day 31) we spent the morning doing some wrap-up work with everybody, including making a start up loan on a table and chairs rental business in Cristo Rey. That afternoon, Connor and I were going to talk to Mary Ann, but we couldn’t find her at the hotel. We returned to Patchakan. Thursday, I went to a school between Santana and Corozalito, two villages about 30 miles out from Belize City, to meet another great school principal named Ruth. There was a graduation that day that Mac wanted us to see. We went to see Rodney one last time, but he didn’t have our chess sets ready, which was a bummer. I stayed in Corozal that night, and Friday morning I got on the water taxi to San Pedro. Since then, I’ve just been enjoying the good life on the beach, and by that I mean watching movies in the hotel room because its so hot outside, then going to the beach and into town in the evenings and nights. I also talked to the man who runs the Gallery at San Pedro, and it looks like that shop would carry Ismael and Rodney’s crafts.
Days 29-30
Yesterday we visited the Tortilla Factory again to ask some more questions of Flora Che (though honestly many of them were repeats of questions Connor and I already asked, but with Mac coming down at one time and the Vanderbilt graduates another, a lot of work gets done twice). Mac wasn’t feeling well, so he went back to his hotel after this meeting. Eleodoro took us to talk to another farmer in Patchakan. We had lunch in Corozal, met up with Mac, and went to a meeting with Juan Lopez, the Pentecostal pastor in Cristo Rey who has been in the rice business for many years, and several other farmers, to discuss more details about our project. Again, some questions that were asked, I already had answers to from our previous work, but we did learn more at this meeting.
Today, we stopped by Flora’s house to look at her policy book. While we were in Cristo Rey, Connor and I also met Mary Ann Meiners, an economics professor visiting for the week who will be returning in a couple of months to work on the runner route project. We will be meeting with her later in the week. We also visited Louisville, to see Ishmael Yah, the furniture maker and Eleodoro’s son-in-law. We were thinking his son would be a possible runner for the runner route, but it turns out he may be getting a nice job with the health department soon. That being said, we still want this family to be able to sell their crafts in the tourist shops, and the furniture to nice stores in Belmopan or Belize City. I’m taking some stuff out to San Pedro to show the owner of the shop we found and see how much he would buy it for. We also donated some fabric for upholstery.
We stopped by Cornerstone High School briefly on the way to Corozal. We had a late lunch, and since Mac had meetings unrelated to our work, we were left with little to do, so Connor and I tried to visit Rodney, but he wasn’t home.
Ishmael in his shop pictured below.
Day 28
We returned up north today. We drove to Spanish Lookout to see if we could look at rice-cleaning machines, but all the stores were closed. I could have told Mac that most everything would be closed on Sunday, but since Connor and I were in the back of the van, we never heard what he was saying or knew where we were going. He then took a scenic route back to Corozal by driving around Belmopan and the all around Belize City before trying to find lunch in the city, at a restaurant that was, you guessed it, closed on Sunday (again, Connor and I knew the hours of this restaurant due to a visit when it was closed, but again, we didn’t know what was going on). We returned the van to the airport and ate a meal there, then headed back to Corozal, with the Vanderbilt graduates riding in the truck bed, since we were eight people in a five- person car. Luckily for them, it only rained a little bit. Before going to Patchakan to drop off Connor and myself, we went to Xaibe to buy some rice seed for Jacob’s Farm and get some more information.
Day 27, Rice Cleaning operation
Due to the heavy rain and flooding, we only got to visit one of the four small-scale rice-cleaning operations in Toledo, but it was a very informative visit. This particular operation is also run by a women’s group (that also operates a corn mill next door to the rice-cleaning building) so we were able to learn about the rice-cleaning operation and the formation of the women’s group, and the problems associated with each. We used the numbers related to the costs and profits of the rice-cleaning operation to make a model for our business, and got some notes on the workings of a women’s group so we will have some ideas when we help organize a similar group.
After this visit, we headed back up towards Belmopan. We ended up staying in cabanas at the Banana Bank Lodge outside of Belmopan, which was an experience. It was a real cool place to stay, but the atmosphere was a bit ruined for me by the very strong opinions of the owner (a very very very conservative man, both politically and religiously, he talked about how states in the U.S. had “fallen” by passing progressive marriage equality laws). On the plus side, there was a lot of wildlife in the area; howler monkeys lived near the river bank, and there was a jaguar kept at the hotel. THERE WAS A JAGUAR AT MY HOTEL.
Day 27, Morning Meeting
This morning we had a meeting with a man (whose name I missed but will get from Mac later) who has been working on starting a micro-finance bank in Belize. He talked about several banks that operate throughout Central America, but do not operate in Belize due to strict banking regulations that keep interest rates on loans relatively high, which makes micro-finance difficult but also reduces the competitiveness of banking in general. He lived in the U.S. and worked with an aerospace company (wow), but he was born in Corozal and moved back to Belize (though to the other side of the country) three years ago and has become very influential in the Toledo district. During our meeting, he kept having to take phone calls from the Rotary club, which was mobilizing aid for villages that were being effected by flooding in the area, since government aid wouldn’t be mobilized until Monday. He explained many interesting things about business in Belize in general. For example, the Mennonites dominate agriculture because they do not pay taxes, due to an agreement with the Belizean government that exempts them from paying taxes if any of the money will be used for the military or defense. The Mennonites moved to Belize from Canada after the latter would not exempt them from taxes that funded national defense. The deal with the Mennonites was agreed upon before Belize had a national defense program, but it is honored even today. Thus the Mennonites have lower costs. The Chinese shops that are present in the cities and many villages also have an interesting way to save money and push out local businesses; they shut down when government agents drop by to audit the stores. Upon hearing this, the man we were meeting with (still don’t remember his name) talked to the local government and had the agent return another time, unannounced, and caught the first stores he made it to unloading two truckloads each of undeclared goods.
(Note:It was a great meeting, and we talked about even more than what I have listed here, but I am writing this several days after the fact)
We had a second meeting with a farmer, who gave us some information on the prices of rice in the area, and the state of rice farming in general. It isn’t as large in the south as it used to be, due to competition from other areas of the country and changes in policy.
Day 26, Roadtrip to Punta Gorda
Note: I am saying “today” just for simplicity’s sake, even though the events in this post happened 3 days ago.
After picking up the Vanderbilt graduates (Nathan, Dave, and Alejandro) from the airport, we rented a van and headed down to Toledo, the southernmost district in Belize (and Corozal, where I woke up this morning, is the northernmost, and due to the odd layout of highways, which requires going all the way inland to Belmopan, in Cayo, before heading to the southern coast, as opposed to going straight down the coast, which is swampy, I managed to pass through every district in Belize in one day). We passed through the beautiful, mountainous regions of central and southern Belize. It looked more like Central America in those areas than it did up north. The vegetation is thicker too, due to the large amounts of rain in this part of the country. We also happened to pass through Armenia, a small village where my church does clean-water projects. I love this area of the country, part of me wishes I had been working there. But then again, there aren’t as many people in this part of the country so it would be harder to do some of the work I’ve been doing in the north.
After many hours of travel, and heavy, heavy rain, we arrived in Punta Gorda, situated on the Caribbean in the south. The water is rougher and darker here, as opposed to the nice clear emerald waters in Corozal.
Days 26-28, more to come
It’s been a busy weekend and I haven’t had reliable internet or time to update this blog, I’ll try to catch up tomorrow.
Day 26, Shipyard
Today we left the north to go down to Toledo, at the other end of the country. The students from Vanderbilt, or graduates from Vanderbilt rather, arrived today as well. On the way to the airport, we stopped at Shipyard, a Mennonite settlement near Orange Walk that is the runs the large-scale rice cleaning operation in the area. Its not an easy place to reach. It was a bit odd driving into a Mennonite settlement as well, because it looked just like rural Kentucky if rural Kentucky had the occasional palm tree. I forgot to take down the numbers they gave us, but Connor has them. It was a pretty interesting place. 
Day 25, Other Notes
Eleodoro
We also visited Eleodoro today and went over some ideas for where to house the rice cleaning machine. Several ideas came up, such as trying to get community property or renting-to-own the building it is installed in. We will see what happens there. Eleodoro and Mac discussed a program where the kids of Cristo Rey are given a new book each month, currently they are giving out 150 books a month, and this is a pretty big success (which is nice after seeing no progress on some projects and the failures of others). Not to much was discussed with Eleodoro that I haven’t already covered, but I did think of several other important things to note. The number of projects Mac is working on is astounding, even a bit overwhelming. There is just so much to do in Belize. Which brings me to another problem, we have made Belize dependent on aid. Missionary groups and college students send teams down on any extended breaks during the year to help, and it has gotten to a point where people and organizations will not work at improving or fixing anything because they know a group will come along and do it. There was a group in Louisville last week, there is one in Patchakan this week, and I think another is coming down next week to another village. Churches and schools don’t work on repairs, but instead wait until someone will do it for them. Mac recommended the book, When Helping Hurts, prior to the trip. Unfortunately I have not read the whole thing, but I did read a bit of it and other related readings. I will try to read it in the near future. In all honesty, we have created a problem through sending so many teams down. It’s a complex issue, and backing out or ceasing sending teams completely at this point wouldn’t help the problem, and it seems there is always more work to be done. Mac personally wants to stop sending teams down, but there are also many other organizations operating in Belize, and some amount of aid is necessary at this point (Mac still does work mind you, but he likes working with Belizeans to help them get projects going that they can operate, as opposed to doing things for them; he wants to get a group to own and operate the rice cleaning machine, he doesn’t want to buy it for them or own it). Interestingly, even the European Union is sending large amounts of aid to Belize, they fund road projects and give grants to various groups, including the tortilla factory in Cristo Rey. I don’t know too much about that, but I’ll write more on this topic another time.
Day 25, Orange Walk
From left to right, Mac, Ruth, Mario (sitting on a stool he isn’t actually super short), Lydia.
After visiting the rice factory, we went to Orange Walk to meet with Mario and Ruth. Connor and I were of less relevance at this meeting, as it mainly dealt with the women’s shelters that Lydia and Ruth run. Mac wants to see this operation expanded into a series of shelters throughout the country with a shared goal. I tuned out of this conversation at various points, but I did pick up on a few things that are important in my involvement with the Belize Project. The Belize Project works in education, microfinance, some healthcare, and ministry. As stated by Mac today, the priorities, as decided by his board, are as follows:
- Ministry- this includes work with the churches and the rehabilitation programs. One of Mac’s biggest efforts involves a program called Journey to Freedom, which is a face-based rehab program. Religion is a motivation for almost everyone he is trying to help, and Christianity is the way he and many others see for people to improve their lives.
- Women’s ministry/ groups- like the group that runs the tortilla factory. Mac wants to see women empowered in Belize.
- Education- helping with the schools.
He stopped listing priorities there, so I’m not sure where the other work Connor and I are working on would be. It is important to him, but as anyone can see from the above priorities, Connor and I will only have some of the time Mac is here dedicated to our projects. Luckily, he works very hard.
The number one priority also speaks volumes to the character of Mac’s organization and why it works in Belize. The Belize Project is many things, but at heart it is a Christian organization, and the work is based on ministry. To clarify, this is not an aspect of an organization that I look for, I wanted to work for a microfinance organization, this one happened to be associated with a church, it didn’t matter too much to me. In the case of the Belize Project and Belize, I think this approach may offer benefits other non-religious organizations cannot. As I said in an earlier post, the church is the organizing body of many things in the country, including schools. Today at Orange Walk I heard Ruth question how anyone could seek recovery without accepting Christianity or without the help of the Bible and many other similar ideas were voiced throughout the meeting. While I do not agree that religion is necessary to help the people we are trying to help, and think that requiring faith as a factor of rehabilitation could turn away some people and cause problems, it is an approach that works in this particular culture. It worries me a bit, but it seems to have been working.
chrisbrittain 