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!
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