Official Day One: Galen University, meeting the M A Y O R, and damaging a Budget rental van

(sorry, picture wouldn't load and I need to sleep :))

Today was the first official day of our course. We had the privilege of hearing about issues of sustainability in Belize from two professors at Galen University as well as a technical officer from a quasi-governmental organization called Protected Areas Conservation Trust (PACT). In addition, we met a number of Belizean students who joined us for two of the presentations. It was a great start to the day and I had a moment where it all seemed surreal that we were really here, in a classroom in a Belizean university hearing from local experts on sustainability issues.

The first presentation was primarily on watershed management and ways that community leaders are partnering with the university to protect streamside forests. He also discussed the issues facing Belize including the huge national debt, and the huge foreign investment from the United States of America. It seems like there are a lot of people in the country committed to preserving the vast natural resources. At the same time, the highways we travel are often littered with trash, and in a couple instances, we witnessed large mounds of trash being burned.

We then heard about the Mayan culture and the ways in which space is being created for the Mayan culture to be embraced. The challenge presented is the way that development is seen as a linear process from underdeveloped to developed. Difference is not seen as a positive, nor even relevant. Rather, the Mayans are being judged by Western standards of development as underdeveloped and in need of help. Toledo is the district within Belize where the largest concentration of Mayans live and its poverty data compared with the rest of the country is staggering. One telling statistic is the percentage of child poverty in the country compared with the Toledo District. In Belize as a nation, the child poverty rate is an overwhelming 39%. However, that seems minuscule when compared with the poverty rate of the Toledo District which is 84.5%. The larger issue presented was the lack of the ability for Mayans to determine their own future. In a hopeful sign, a group of Mayans recently won a court ruling that settled a long existing dispute and granted them land rights. It was a victory and a hopeful sign for many Mayan people who are fearful of their way of being disappearing.

The final presentation was from a technical officer from PACT dedicated to funding grants throughout Belize to preserve protected areas. She told a great story about a women’s group that came together to fund efforts to maintain the howler monkey population within protected areas. In addition to their successful efforts in repopulating howler monkeys throughout Belize, they personally developed skills in marketing, and non-profit management and the funds opened new, more economically viable careers to them. On the other hand, the officer also spoke of the distribution of funds by district within the country and Toledo received far less funding than any of the other five districts in Belize. The reasoning was the lack of capacity for the organizations in Toledo, which came across as also neglecting the needs of a population for self determination.

The excitement of the afternoon happened when one of our vans was rear ended by another car. Some minor damage and it seems that everyone is all right. Having an accident in the U.S. is enough of an ordeal, but having to deal with it in Belize was another matter altogether. We were waiting in a parking lot for the Belmopan police to come when a car pulled up with a license plate that said “M A Y O R”. He happened to be shopping at an adjacent store, so I got to meet the Mayor of Belmopan, who seemed more than a bit disinterested in our accident and our leadership course. He did welcome us to Belize and share his best wishes for a good trip though.

We received a lot of rain last night and the local wisdom is the rain kept the howler monkeys away. It’s a clear night tonight, so I’ll let you know if we get the joy of being awoken in the wee hours of the morning.