Maya leaders and community members from village across the Toledo district traveled to Belize City to file a consitutional claim in the Supreme Court on Tuesday April 3, 2007. They are asking the Government of Belize to respect their traditional land rights.

Jim and I were fortunate enough to witness this historical event.

This week is our one year anniversary of being in Belize! Madness! Time has flown and it is quickly coming to an end- we still have a few months to go and leaving will be hugely bitter and a little sweet (stoked to get back to family and friends and sushi)...but I can't even begin to imagine everyone and everything i will miss.

So lately I have become a li' bit obsessed with Facebook...so the blog is even suffering more...but i will post some photos here that tell a little story themselves...(i hope!) especially for those who aren't sucked into the facebook thang.

Cultural day in San Jose village this past Friday:

We went out to the village council elections in Crique Sarco yesterday. Very interesting to see how the local politics played out. This is the village where Jim has been doing most of his field work. It was actually my first time there- and it was really beautiful. Suffering a little now from chigger bites, but it was well worth it : )

A few weeks ago we also went on a really nice little kayaking trip that took us south of Barranco (one of the most southern villages in Belize) to the mouth of the Temash river, inside the Sarstoon Temash National Park. It was really great to be out on the beautiful warm caribbean waters, under the stars, enjoying peaceful belize. here are some photos...

Hello dear friends who have not given up on me yet! Sorry I haven't been writing very much. Thanks to Andrea for the comment, that really motivated me to get back on the blogging horse!

So here are some highlights from Belize 2007 so far!

After a fantastic time at home over Christmas - sooo good to see so many of you! We had a great time in Playa del Carmen after flying into Cancun en route to Belize. Enjoyed chilling on the beach for a few days and taking in the varied and plentiful restaurants, shops, cafes, art galleries, bars, clubs, etc! After living in southern belize, these things are all quite novel and I enjoyed them! It was also super fun to visit with Tommy Mo who was going through Playa at the same time- lucky or what! so we had a great time with him - never enough tacos al pastor that's for sure- yum!

Then it was back to work- and we have been busy! Jim's research is coming along really well. He is making sure to nail down some important interviews, spending some time in a different village to get some different perspectives and working on a survey. I'm still working on this advocacy campaign on the potential oil development that is proposed in the national park and indigenous communities. It continues be challenging on many levels. I am learning a lot! and I hope to come out of this year a little bit stonger, my skin a little tougher (and tanned : ), and hopefully not cynical but with faith in the fight and struggle for this type of justice. I've had the opportunity to meet with the Deputy Prime Minister and some of his cabinet, organize a trip for a busload of folks from the indigenous communities around the park to visit the current oil development that is happening in western Belize, and then spending a lot of time wrapping my head around Production Sharing Agreements, EIA guidelines for indigenous communities, impact benefit sharing agreements, etc.

The trip to the oil fields at Spanish Lookout in Cayo District was one of the most interesting and, I feel, one of the best educational and outreach activities we have done yet. Folks from Toledo were able to meet and talk with some people from the local mennonite community as well as the oil company (different company than would be operating down here). They were able to see with their own eyes the drills, the pipelines about to go up, the big facilities that are needed, the trucks, and to see and smell the flares (I had a headache within 10 minutes of being near the flare). And to hear some of the local concerns and experiences of the community.

A couple weeks ago we took a trip up to Cayo to visit Tom, who was coming through Belize this time, and we had a great visit with him- even played frisbee golf that took us over an ancient mayan ruin. pretty fun! Also visited the awesome Xunantanich and Cahel Pech ruins.

Another cool thing we checked out in PG in January was a traditional maya deer dance - incredible costumes, story telling dance all to marimba music.

One more of my fave pics: a guanacaste tree in western Belize

that's all for now, i will try to do better! miss you all and sending you tons of love. take care. xoxo

ps. we watched the beautiful lunar eclipse last night as it rose over the caribbean sea. amazing.

Garifuna settlement day is for sure one of my favourite Belizean holidays- especially in Punta Gorda, one of the major Garifuna communities in Belize. So much fun! Lots of fantastic drumming, dancing, singing, drinking and eating hudut (a delicious coconut curried fish dish with mashed plantains) - a fantastic celebration of culture. A culture that is vibrant and a people that are obviously proud of remembering their roots. Garifuna people are a unique racial blend of escaped African slaves and indigenous Caribbean islanders.

My trusty travel guide provides the following info on the Garifuna people: In 1635 two Spanish slave ships carrying Nigerians were ship wrecked off St. Vincent. Many of the captive Africans swam ashore and found shelter on the island of St. Vincent. The escaped slaves and the indigenous Arawak people of St. Vincent mixed and by 1773, this hybrid people, now known as the Garifuna, was the dominant population of St. Vincent. However, colonial powers eventually drove these people away "more and more British settlers landed on St. Vincent, until there was no question of the British design: the colonial forces would never tolerate a free black community at the very heart of their own slave plantations" (p252 of the Belize Insight Guide). So the Garifuna people fled to Roatan in Honduras and eventually after trouble in Honduras they eventually landed on the shores of Belize in 1823.

For more info on the Garifuna people of Belize out check the website for the National Garifuna Council of Belize Garifuna people continue to fish to support their livelihood and continue to make amazing music and speak a really beautiful language. Settlement day is a holiday to celebrate their landing on the Belizean coast. Yesterday morning at sunrise there was a re-enactment of the arrival of the boats. Many folks had been partying and dancing all night and others (like us) came out of our sleep to the sound of drumming and came to the docks to the see the action. Lots of people were wearing their traditional dress and of course drumming, singing and dancing, waving palms and sugar cane. Following their landing everyone proceeded by procession to a church service.

One of the local NGOs TIDE (the Toledo Institute for Development and Environment) organizes an annual Fishers Festival this weekend. So we spent a good part of the weekend watching all kinds of competitions- from Hudut eating to punta dancing (kids too!), coconut husking, cast net throwing and finally the weighing of the barracuda, jack fish and grouper that were harvested that day! Lots of fun. Last night Jim and I went to our friend Judith's birthday party where her kids, nieces and nephews got a real kick out of our digital camera and teaching us how to punta dance! Super fun!

Going back to Antigua Guatemala, where I had studied and lived five years ago, was a refreshing getaway from hot sticky Belize, and so much fun to explore our old favorite hang outs, visit my host family and of course just take in all of the history, beauty, amazing food, markets, art galleries, book stores, parque central, etc. I love the smell of Antigua in the cool morning- there was something so familiar and comforting about the fresh mountain air, mixed with the smells of coffee and diesel and wood fires burning. The feel of walking down the cobblestone streets, peeking into the colonial ruins of fantastic structures damaged by earthquakes of years gone by, watching the shoe shiner kids laugh and play and work, foreigners off to their spanish classes or grabbing mini buses to tour surrounding areas. So many familiar places and sites, smells and sounds. Looking up at the Agua volcano - damn no wonder that was a hard hike- it is so massive and impressive!! The gorgeous architecture, the colours, the vibe, the food, the people. It was really good to be back. And the city is changing! SO many new restaurants and spanish schools, shops and galleries. There is a LOT of money in that town. But, the city is still very beautitful- it's not growing in a way that makes it lose it's magic i think. Such a fun little city to visit and only a day of travel to get there from where we are in Belize.

We were visiting Antigua so we could meet up with our friend from home Tommy Mo, who was starting one of his GAP tours, cool to meet his group and see him in tour guiding action! Dos pusas ariba! We spent our days walking around the town, shopping, eating, and getting our hair cut (by the end of the weekend all three of us had some locks chopped!). Butl really, we mostly ate- we ate Thai food from Cafe Flor, sushi, desayuna typico (typical guatemalan breakfast) from Riki's, cookies from Dona Luisa's, leche Krishna from Rainbow Cafe (Karine i was thinking of you!!), nachos from Mono Loco's- we hit up all the old favorites and loved it! Jim even managed to get in a meal at Pollo Campero and McDick's (not one McDonalds in all of Belize- or any other fast food chain besides Subway for that matter- pretty crazy!). We saw a great Cuban band play, Tom even got me to salsa, took in a film about Noam Chomsky, and walked through jade and art galleries -novel experiences after living in Punta Gorda- i tell you!.

We also traveled to a little town west of Antigua called Santiago Zamora to visit a really sucessful project run by a group of Kaqchikel Mayan women who have organized themselves to host tourists for an afternoon and show them the different steps of weaving, mat making, coffee grinding and tortilla baking, sell their weavings and textiles, and the money goes to a local health clinic for kids and adults. Seems like a great little project. It was really well done and we all had a chance to try our own hands at grinding some coffee beans- and then to drink the coffee- yum! All in all, it was a really nice little break- and we also got a chance to get a little start on some Christmas shopping... since we have decided to come home for a visit over Christmas! I am starting to get really excited about it : ) It will be great to be with family and friends, catch up, play in the snow, and again- eat lots of great food! (as much as i love rice and beans and chicken/beef/fish/ or pork i do look forward for a change). So I guess, that's it for now. Hope you are all having a great time- any fun Halloween parties happening? Trick or treating and dressing up doesn't really happen here. We did go to our first punta dance party at Southside on Friday night- and the bar tenders did have some halloween gear on...the punta dancing is crazy by the way. Fun but crazy. Take care and lots of love.

(I wrote this in my journal a few nights ago and thought i would share...)

Power outages. well, I am becoming quite familiar with these tropical/developing country occurences. Last Wednesday we had 7 black outs in 1 day! It slows down the already laid back pace of this country. Tonight i am enjoying the quiet and the dark. loving it actually. the laptop continues to play some lovely folk music - a new artist a friend down here has recommended - Brenda Belcher. I love how a power outage forces us to turn off the tv and computer (well almost...the laptop battery can't last forever). To listen to the bugs and not the hum of electricity, and to take out my journal! set some candles and really go slow. But without the fans i am starting to sweat. ahh. i never thought i could sweat as much as i have in the past 6 months. constantly really. i do wish i had a guitar so i could make my own music. the other exciting thing about black outs is the nocturnal critters who decide to come out - thinking it is dark and safe. scorpions for example. luckily i haven't seen any tonight. Jim has headed to Guatemala for some mayan spiritual ceremonies at Tikal. very cool. I am solo for the rest of the week- i'll have to deal with scorpions and storms myself if they come. i'm sure i'll be fine. ...

And i'm fine. Heading to a public forum later this afternoon on women and natural resource management, which should be interesting. Then over to my friend Alyssa's for some dinner and a movie i think.

So last weekend we didn't get any turkey but we did have a sweet trip to Moho Caye- only about a 15 min boat ride from PG. Gorgeous i tell you! (see photos on this post) snorkeling and swimming and chilling out on a tiny little island. pretty sweet way to spend a thanksgiving monday (holiday in belize too - only it's called Pan American day). Makes it pretty hard to get too homesick ; )And it looks like we will be heading back to the Caye this Sunday after a boat trip down to the Park and Sarstun, Guatemala with Josh's EcoLogic crew. Not too rough a life i say : ) Lots of love y'all. xoxo

The Supreme Court of Belize ruled this week that seismic testing (the first 'stage' of oil exploration) is legal in what should be the country’s most protected areas- National Parks. For a country that markets its natural beauty to eco-tourists world wide as “mother nature’s best kept secret” and boasts its extensive protected area system- this decision signals another reality in Belize- the oil craze can hit even a small Central American government when it is tight for cash. Judge Awich only agreed to one of the four arguments- that under the Environmental Protection Act, it was necessary for an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) to be conducted before the permit was issued. We were hoping for a stronger decision- a decision that would have found oil exploration to be unlawful under the Natural Parks System Act. Although we were kind of down after the decision, it is important for us to remember that this was a victory none the less. The company now has to do an EIA. This fight to protect the park is far from being over- at the very least we are delaying the process and that costs the oil company money.

I can't believe it is already October! Jim and I have been in Belize for 6 months now- time is flying! Today is a sleepy rainy Sunday and there is not too much going on. It is days like these that I do get a little homesick for movie theatres, coffee shops, and Sunday family dinners : )

September was the month of Independence Day parties and holidays. It was the 25th anniversary of Belize's Independence- so I think there was more festivities than usual. "Belize a nation alive- a people with pride'" was the slogan we heard a lot this month. As with everything in this country- even the two separate national holidays in September were highly politicized. The two political parties are associated with different holidays. The parade last week was lots of fun- HOT with some good floats, cute dancers and marching band.

And here is my co-worker Lynette with her new babe! His name is Jaden, and is he cute or what?!