{"id":107,"date":"2014-01-23T15:42:21","date_gmt":"2014-01-23T20:42:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/web.colby.edu\/es358j\/?p=107"},"modified":"2014-01-24T18:42:42","modified_gmt":"2014-01-24T23:42:42","slug":"craftcorn-cacaoand-calabash","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/es358j\/2014\/01\/23\/craftcorn-cacaoand-calabash\/","title":{"rendered":"Day 10: Craft, Corn, Cacao, and Calabash!"},"content":{"rendered":"

On our 10th<\/sup> day in Belize and the second day at Blue Creek, it rained\u2026 a lot. We woke up to the sound of a light drizzle on our metal roofs in the morning, but we didn\u2019t let that stop us from our daily bird-watching trip. We decided we would head into town where there was more open space for optimal bird viewing. The decision paid off as we saw a blue black grassquit, a slaty tailed trogan, a tropical pewee, and our first swifts of the trip (Vaux\u2019s swifts).<\/p>\n

\"Crafts

Ophelia, Eusebio’s wife, and her daughters are doing local crafts for us.<\/p><\/div>\n

After breakfast, we split in two groups and went to the houses of our guides, Eusebio and Geraldo. The houses consisted of one big open room, and they were built with materials from the rainforest. The guides\u2019 families taught us how to make cocoa from the beans they grow and corn tortillas from the corn they grow, both of which were very tasty! We were all very impressed with the effort that goes into every meal, and we gained a greater appreciation for supermarkets! Eusebio and
\nGeraldo\u2019s wives then showed us many of the crafts they make in their free time. These included baskets made of various local plants, embroideries of national symbols, and various handmade jewelry.<\/p>\n

\u00a0In the afternoon, the rain kept pouring, and for safety\u2019s sake, we postponed the cave visit until the sun comes out. Instead, we spent this leisure time swimming, setting up camera-traps, playing cards, and reflecting on our Belize experience thus far. The research groups of neotropical birds, mammals, and ant ecology took turns educating the class on the species we have encountered. Largely thanks to our amazing guides at all the sites, we have seen 139 species of birds, which is 24.8% of all birds that can be found in Belize (there are 561 species in total). We also spotted ten mammals species and five ants species. We are still expecting to increase these numbers as we continue.<\/p>\n

Following the dinner, Florencio, Blue Creek manager, local high school teacher, and town council secretary gave us a presentation. He talked about Blue Creek\u2019s history and the school system. In the 1920s, three cashew growing families migrated to Blue Creek and lived by farming and fishing. In the 1950s, Mopan Mayans moved to Blue Creek and developed the tiny town into a community of about 500. Catholicism is the dominant religion of the town. Intermarriage between Mopan and Kekchi Mayans has gradually become more accepted as more citizens have gotten higher education. Arranged marriages that used to be common are largely a thing of the past.<\/p>\n

\"Florencio's

Florencio’s giving us the presentation.<\/p><\/div>\n

Florencio told us that the town council positions are mostly voluntary, and elections for all council positions are every two years. There are usually five to seven members in the council, and councils try to manage the town issues in a traditional non-political way. As for the school system, education is mandatory for everyone until he or she is fourteen years old. After elementary school, students need to pass the high school exam to be placed in different levels in high school. Some students go to universities, but education beyond the high school is not usually affordable. Blue Creek recently raised the price of high school to support students pursuing higher education every year. Occasionally, students will go to universities in the United Sates on scholarships.<\/p>\n

What we will do tomorrow is still up in the air; it all depends on whether we will have a sunny day. One thing we learned today: rainforests do rain!<\/p>\n

P.S. Happy birthday Stephen! We had a delicious corn cake for a combined birthday celebration of Stephen (Jan 19th) and James (Jan 22nd)!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

-Vera and Stephen<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On our 10th day in Belize and the second day at Blue Creek, it rained\u2026 a lot. We woke up to the sound of a light drizzle on our metal roofs in the morning, but we didn\u2019t let that stop … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5121,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[141982],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/es358j\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/es358j\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/es358j\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/es358j\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5121"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/es358j\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=107"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/es358j\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":152,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/es358j\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107\/revisions\/152"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/es358j\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=107"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/es358j\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=107"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/es358j\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=107"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}