Marine- a week experiencing the Caribbean

Hi friends and family!  I’m now back to the real world after a week on a tiny island way off the coast of Belize.  There the students studied the ecology of coral reefs, sea grass and mangrove communities which together support all of the life of the oceans!  I was supposed to be a supporting TA, which meant that I helped out with packing all of our supplies for the class/lab and breakfast, and keeping stuff organized.  I also drove the three hours it takes to get to Sittee River in the vehicle with all our stuff. From there we took a boat out to Glover's Atoll.

I’ve been growing so much this semester that it is hard to write about it and tell you what has been going through my mind.  One recent area of growth is that I've became comfortable with my role as an encourager.  I’ve been realizing that I should be encouraging the students more this semester, but am not naturally an encourager. I have been of the opinion that I would just try to model my excitement and positive outlook on life, so that the students would follow.  And modeling is certainly necessary in this role, but during Marine, I realized that words are necessary too. 

A couple of the students were anxious about snorkeling and being in the ocean and I felt comfortable enough in our relationship to encourage them and pray with them during some tough times.  It was a week of growth for me in those experiences, and also a relaxing week for me to be de-stress after being “on”  all of the week before.  And the uniqueness of marine life always causes me to be in awe of God- another reason why last week was a great week. 

We traveled back from Glover’s all day Saturday.  Three hour boat ride including snorkeling the mangroves, late lunch, three hour drive back to the Nab.  So we all were pretty tired.  But Sunday was Easter!  We had planned to do an Easter Sunrise service on Sunday morning, so Ashley and I put a service together after supper, and then I spent the rest of the night practicing Easter songs. 

Easter Sunday was another long day for me, but one that I received a lot of joy from.  The Sunrise service at 6 went well, and then there was time for breakfast before church.  I arrived at St Andrews and was asked to read in church, as I went to a special Friday night service during lent and met a good number of the women in the church who organize everything. Typical two hour service, then we headed back to the Nab where Ashley and I started cooking up the Easter feast! 

The Easter feast was a big deal, as Ashley and I had been dreaming up the menu for quite sometime!  We don’t have the traditional ‘Sunday dinner’ here in Belize and we were both craving the food and traditions of home. Cooking up a storm all afternoon, with some students’ help, we made supper for 16!  It was a fun day and we were all stuffed and satisfied with turkey, mashed potatoes and gravy, roasted root vegetables, sautéed broccoli and beans in balsamic vinegar, homemade baked beans, fresh whole wheat rolls, salad with toasted/caramelized almonds, pineapple cobbler, banana and coconut cream pies, and homemade ice cream!  It was quite the experience, especially the work that went into getting some of the ingredients!

Hope that all your Easter celebrations were joyful.
Love,
Joelle

internship weeks and summer plans

Three weeks ago, internships began for the students. We dropped off students at their homestays and internship sites, gave instructions on how to get to and from their home and work places and left them to experience the next week on their own!  The students all came back to the Nab during the weekend, so the first week I stayed at the Nab and finished up odds and ends for work.  It was great to spend time with Derek and Ashley (the directors) who were also around the whole week, and the other staff who were in and out throughout the week. I went on a cooking frenzy with Ashley, and tons of time cooking and baking for breakfast, lunch and supper to satisfy some of our food cravings for favorite recipes from home that we don't eat here. The first week of internships also brought temperatures of over 100 degrees F.  Afternoons became too hot to do anything but go to the river and sit in the cool water and talk, so that's what Ashley and I did.

The students all came back on the weekend, and it was great to hear all of their stories and hang out with them in a relaxed way, because I wasn't planning too many activities!
On Monday morning of the next week I left early in the morning to catch a bus and headed down south to a Mayan village near Punta Gorda. After I finally arrived in the village I asked around to find the village leader and walked to his house.  Jorge was the man who brings people upriver in his traditionally made dugout canoe.  Then I enjoyed an amazing dory ride upriver during the early evening. I visited and relaxed at a Maya Mountain Research Farm, which is a permaculture farm that is 30 minutes upriver from the village via dory, or a 45 minute hike.  Permaculture is a method of sustainable agriculture which is based off of ecological principles.  So a permaculture farm in Belize seeks to model a forest system, while producing food and products for human use. The benefit of this model is that it is a stable system, as natural systems stabilize and add to the soil instead of degrading and eroding the soil. 

During the week I read up on permaculture, helped the other interns who were studying at the farm cook over the wood fire, and got to know the stories of the other interns.  It was great to be in a different community of people my age, as we swam at the river and had all sorts of discussions with them about their ideas about environmental issues and solutions and what their hopes and dreams.  I was also in love with the area, being very remote and surrounded by forest.  I drank pure spring water the whole week and also drank in the beauty of the trees, birds and the river. Coming back to the Nab on Friday, I felt the most relaxed that I have all semester, which was great because I jumped right back into work with community events, and TAing.  Last week I was the TA for a pretty intense class, Sustainable Community Development 2.  We had three days of fieldtrips, and so everyone was worn out at the end of this week! 

The great thing about this week was that our professor was Robert Pelant, who runs Pacific Rim Institute, where I will be volunteering this summer!  So I got to talk with him more about where I'll be living, what I'll be doing, etc.

Pacific Rim is on Whidby Island in Washington, and used to be AuSable Pacific Rim.  I will be primarily helping out with their restoration projects, which includes prairie restoration. I will also be helping out with some of their on going research projects and collecting data.  The first half of the summer I'll be working full time with the restoration and research, and the second half of the summer I will (in the process of registering for) be auditing an Au Sable class while also working.  I hope to take Alpine Ecology, and it will be awesome to study this ecosystem through a field biology course! I will be on Whidby Island from the second week in June through the middle of August.  At this point, I plan to fly home from on May 27, and then probably leave for Washington on June 6 or 7. 


So those are my summer plans!  I hope to see some of you this summer!
Love,
Joelle

ps- have a blessed Semana Santa. I was really blessed by a Palm Sunday service at the local Catholic church.  The Benque church has both a Spanish and and English service but because of the holiday the service this week was only in Spanish.  Somehow I managed to understand most of the sermon and was blessed by the service which included singing with marimba and guitar music.

since spring break...?

I know that it is far too long, again!  I’ve been busy… I said I would write about spring break, however, that was 4 weeks ago already!  I have some amazing stories of my Guatemala travels, but most of them will have to wait. 

The overview of my break was that I traveled with Nick, another CCSP staff person, first to the black sand beaches on the Pacific coast which were created by volcanoes!  While there, I generally tried to have a true break from work, by doing a bunch of lounging (reading, relaxing, journaling) in a hammock on the shaded deck of the hotel, right on the beach (2 steps and I was on sand).  After a couple of days, Nick and I decided that we wanted to see the Quetzal, and would try to fit in the trip despite limited travel time. So we had a long day of busing across Guatemala to get to the cloud forests. Cloud forests are tropical forests that are high enough in the mountains that they are covered in clouds and fog for most of the day.  I have fallen in love with the beauty of the cloud forest; as a distinct community they have a different feel than any other forest I’ve been to.  We spent one night in this cool mountainous area, and the next morning went hunting for the (reportedly) beautiful but elusive bird. Spent another day traveling back to Nabitunich (more crazy stories), so that we could be back one whole day before the students got back from their spring break travels! 

Forest Ecology was a really good week!  Unfortunately I came back from spring break sick, so I couldn’t do all of the class hikes, and spent a lot of time sleeping, but I was able to spend a day hiking with other staff while the students did research projects. We did a ton of birding, as our professor, David Foster, is has an amazing eye for birds!  Birds are a really important indicator for the health of the forest, so I’m glad that I’m expanding my knowledge to include birds as well as plants.  If you want to read more about the class you can check out www.belizejournals11.blogspot.com

Two week ago we finished up God and Nature 2 with Rolf Bouma.  The class mostly dealt with environmental ethics, and our ethical responsibility as Christians for the earth.  It was a great class, even though I couldn’t attend many classes due to the urgent work I needed to do with organizing the next  class that I will be TAing, which is Sustainable Community Development 2 this coming week!  So two weeks ago I was busy setting up fieldtrips and getting our schedule figured out for the class, which takes a lot of phone calls and emails! 

Sustainable Community Development 2 involves a two day field trip… including an overnight with host families in a rural Mayan village up north, close to the Mexican border. Thankfully, the professor is someone I also had my semester, although he didn’t teach SCD 2 last time, so this will be a new class for him.

In between the crazy work week of God and Nature and this coming week, we had 2 weeks of Internships! This meant that students spent their weekdays off campus, with a Belizean organization doing all different activities related to their diverse interests, all over Belize!  Students also had a homestay during the weekdays, but most of them came home on the weekend in between to check in and relax.

I’ll write more about what I did during these 2 weeks soon, but this is already a long enough blog! Hope you are all doing well.  I would love to hear from you!