Sunday, December 29, 2013

Christmas in the Caribbean

My parents flew to Belize from Arizona to spend Christmas with us. We were all very excited to have them here (especially the boys) and their arrival coincided with the Island Academy Christmas Pageant.

The boys were psyched to ride our rented golf cart to school with their Grandparents!

Post-school, pre-pageant beach time

Since this is our first year in San Pedro, we had no idea the Christmas Pageant is such a big deal. It seemed like half the town was there! The school had set up an enormous tent to cover the stage, the audience, and the BAR. Yes, there was a  bar serving beer (and I think maybe even wine and mixed drinks) adjacent to the seating area. How many school functions have you attended in the US with a temporary bar set up on school grounds??

The play was really well done and it was obvious the teachers and students worked hard preparing the props and rehearsing the material. It was a musical about the best way to present Christmas as a musical, and the kids performed several numbers reflecting the directorial and musical styles of several genres--film noir, action, old-timey silent films, Spaghetti Westerns, etc. Lochlan's class sand Mele Kalikimaka (complete with Hawaiian dance moves), Liam got to play The Villain in one of the musical numbers, and the boys' friend Aiden did a fantastic job as Sergio Spumoni, the spaghetti western director. 

We took a ton of pictures and videos, but it turns out one of the moms at Island Academy is a professional photographer, and her pictures are amazing. So the images below are hers (used with permission).


Lochlan's class performing

Liam's class, about to perform "Get Along Little Reindeer"

Lochlan's class post-pageant

Liam's class post-pageant

Fortunately the rain held off until the very end of the performance. We had promised the boys D & E's ice cream afterwards, and as it happens, Eileen herself was at the pageant! We asked if she was going to be open, and she said "yep, just as soon as I get back to the shop!" So we gave her a ride and were ensured access to the best ice cream on the island.

After the pageant, we headed to San Ignacio for a few days (which will be covered in a subsequent post), but I thought it would make more narrative sense to treat the pageant and Christmas Day in a single post. Which leads me to Christmas decorations. 

Living on a tropical island is truly wonderful but it presents certain difficulties when it comes to satisfying the holiday expectations of young people. For example, Christmas trees do not exist in this country. Sure, there are tropical pine trees up in Mountain Pine Ridge, but to my knowledge, no enterprising Belizean has yet taken on the challenge of harvesting, distributing, and selling said trees to the population (nevermind raising live trees to sell for decoration followed by planting after the holidays as we normally do in Seattle!). Artificial trees are available, but they are expensive, tough to store, and impractical to take along when we move back home in six months. So we improvised.

Inspired by an art project at school based on the work of Dr. Lala, we cut up soda cans into tiny squares, punched four holes in each piece, and then Amy spent HOURS and HOURS linking those suckers together. I think it turned out rather well, but it certainly is the most unorthodox Christmas tree we've ever had.

The Tree
The Tree with presents

Another complication was where to hang the stockings with care. Fireplaces are also not really common here, so we once again we improvised. I rigged up some nylon rope in a spiral around the central support pillar in the living room and Amy ran some LED lights alongside. We tied the stockings to the rope, and it turned out pretty well.
The final challenge was presents. We love how simple things are here in Belize, and the fact that there are no chain stores of any kind is pretty amazing. However, it does make it close to impossible to find things like Magic The Gathering playing cards, or build-it-yourself catapult kits. Receiving packages here (and conversely, sending them) is time consuming, expensive, and not always reliable. So--Mom and Dad to the rescue! The folks very graciously let us ship a bunch of stuff to their place in Arizona, and Amy's parents also dropped off some things for the boys, and my parents played Santa. We would not have had many Christmas presents without them! Although I'm sure the boys wouldn't have minded fewer presents, just having their grandparents here really made it feel like Christmas, even though everything about it was very different than what they're used to. 
Sand, sails, and Santa hats

The boys decorated a gingerbread house from Grandma and Grandpa Kaplan

PRESENTS FROM SANTA!!!

Dad with his jippy-jappa basket

We gave Mom some metal geckos to decorate their new house

I got a cool shirt with a map of the island on it
The boys got Amy a dolphin made by a local carver
Dad playing Forbidden Island with the boys
Since we won't be able to take large toys back with us, most of the gifts were on the small side, but we had a wonderful morning opening them and trying out some of the numerous games each of us received.

We had a Skype session with my brother and his family in Arizona, and another Skype session with Amy's parents and sister in Kentucky. We spent the remainder of the afternoon at the beach, then came home and prepared a delicious feast of all our favorite traditional dishes--mashed potatoes, stuffing, green bean casserole, corn casserole, etc--and we introduced a new favorite, fried breadfruit!

It was a wonderful, relaxing, fun-filled Christmas Day, and it was such a joy to spend it with my parents. The only thing that could have made it better is if the rest of our families could have been with us.

Tuesday, December 10, 2013

Christmas Parade in San Pedro

Belizeans love parades. We have been to four since we moved here! On Sunday night there was a Christmas parade. It was scheduled to start at 6:00. We ate a leisurely dinner, hopped on our bikes, checked out the big Christmas tree in Central Park, took a few photos.
The the boys in front of the Xmas tree in Central Park
Then we walked down to Middle Street around 7:30, and the parade started about 15 minutes later. It was great! As usual, there were lots of LOUD sound systems pumping from the back of flatbeds, plenty of decorated golf carts, and lots of cute kids.
In the Caribbean, Santa's sleigh is pulled by dolphins
Dora is in *every* parade
Another Santa, with some elves

This was a huge, drunken conga line that wrapped around its float, they were having a great time

Some of the cute kids throwing candy to the crowd
My favorite aspect of the parade was definitely the seven guys dressed as Santa, every one of them brown or black. The boys caught a lot of candy thrown from the passing floats, and even though it was still 78 degrees on our bike ride home, it felt a bit more like Christmas than it did before we saw the parade.

Thursday, December 5, 2013

Water: Where does it come from?

Even though I make my living as a cartographer and GIS analyst, my collegiate and post-graduate education are in urban planing. I've always been fascinated by cities and how they work--where does the water come from? Where does the sewage go? How is the electricity generated and transmitted? What happens to the garbage? I know the answers to all of these questions when it comes to Seattle, but not with respect to our temporary home here in San Pedro. So I jumped at the chance when Laurie sent Amy and me an invitation to tour the Consolidated Water plant.

Our tour guide was Dee Dillon, the general manager of Consolidated Water Belize Limited (CWBL). Dee is a mechanical engineer and worked on water production and distribution systems in Southern California for 27 years before retiring to Belize. He came out of retirement to manage the CWBL plant. Although CWBL produces the drinking water, it is distributed by the Belize Water Service.
Dee giving us an overview of the plant before the tour begins
The town of San Pedro is located on the island of Ambergris Caye. The island is long, narrow, and low-lying, with very little in the way of freshwater. To produce drinking water, CWBL extracts seawater from two underground wells, one on the south side of the plant, and one on the north side. The wells are about 40 feet deep.

Dee explains how a device very much like an Archimedes screw brings the water up from the well (Laurie and Steve in the background)

The water exits the well at 60 psi

The north well
Where the water from the north and south wells is mixed and enters the plant
The water from the two wells is combined just outside the plant, where it is pushed through a pump/turbine combination that jacks up the pressure to 980 psi! This is extremely high-pressure--the way Dee described it, if that amount of pressure were to be placed against the steel entrance door to the plant, it would blast through anything in its path and end up on the reef, about 3/4 of a mile away (maybe we could get Mythbusters to test this?!) The high-pressure water is pushed into the reverse-osmosis filters, which form the heart of the plant. These plastic filters are formed in a spiral pattern, and although I didn't quite follow all of the chemistry and physics, essentially the high pressure in conjunction with the structure of the filters literally rips the salt molecules from the water molecules. They also remove all particles larger than 5 microns, which eliminates almost all silt, bacteria, protozoans, and any other undesirable components of the water.
Cranking up the pressure

The reverse osmosis portion of the process--the water entering the white tubes is at 980 psi!!

At the other end of the filters, fresh water emerges at 10 psi

The injection well where the briny sludge is pumped underground
The salty sludge ends up in the center of the filter, and is routed back outside the plant where it is injected back into the ground, about 90 feet below the wells that are pumping out the seawater.

Although the water is now fresh, it still contains hydrogen sulfide gas (which smells a bit like rotten eggs). The water is also too basic at this point, so citric acid is added in a mixing valve, then the water is sent into a tall cylinder filled with mostly hollow spheres that use a catalytic reaction to remove the hydrogen sulfide gas, which is vented to the air. Interestingly, over time the spheres form a snot-like substance Dee calls "jelly" that must be cleaned off about once a year.
Citric acid is added here to lower the pH level to somewhere between 6.5 - 7.5
The pH-balanced fresh water flows out of the building in the blue pipes to the top of the tower...

...where it is filtered through thousands of these spheres to remove the hydrogen sulfide gas

After the gas is removed, chlorine is added to ensure the water stays free of bacteria as it makes its way through the Belize Water Service (BWS) distribution network.
The de-gassified water is passed over a series of weirs, where the chlorine is mixed in

The water is regularly tested for bacterial contamination, and Dee said they have never found fecal coliform bacteria in the water--which is a good thing! The fecal coliform bacteria is very common and is not harmful in and of itself, but its presence indicates that conditions are right for the nastier forms of bacteria to reproduce.
Culturing samples

The whole system is powered by a pair of diesel generators. Dee explained that the plant was originally powered by an electric motor, but the electricity supply to the island is so unreliable that the motor would frequently shut down, wreaking all kinds of havoc on the equipment in the plant.

Hard to convey how LOUD these suckers are
The plant is currently producing about 600,000 gallons of fresh water a day (that's about 7 gallons every second), 420,000 of which is being consumed. The balance is being routed to the million-gallon CWBL tank, to be used during high season in December and January.
One MILLION gallons
Dee said the plant is running at or above capacity every day, and he is a vocal proponent of conservation. I asked him how San Pedro's water usage compares to the US--he said that even compared to California, one of the most water-conscious states, residents here use about four times LESS water. However, until additional capacity is added, we'll all have to make do with a little less as more residents and visitors come to the island.

It was a fascinating tour, and quite obvious that Dee is really good at what he does and loves his job. We are lucky to have him in charge of producing our water.

Monday, December 2, 2013

Palapa Bar

Yesterday we rode our bikes north of Boca del Rio to the Palapa Bar. As the name implies, this place is a bar, built into a two-story palapa right over the water. They have inner tubes rigged up alongside the dock so you can swim, float, sip your Belikin, and enjoy the good vibes. Or do cannonballs off the dock, as our boys did.
Palapa Bar!
Cannonball time
Swimming with my boys
The Palapa Bar has a fun tradition of encouraging graffiti--every flat surface (and most of the curved ones, come to think of it) is covered with names, drawings, places of origin, favorite sports teams, etc. They have a huge stash of sharpies at the bar for the patrons to use, so naturally we added some of our handiwork to the mix.
Amy and Loki enjoying their beverages

Now he'll know where to sit next time
L.J.S.!!
Nautical graffiti
After a fun swim and a round of rum punch and Shirley Temples, we biked back home. On the way we found a dead boa constrictor, and after Amy washed it off in the ocean, we posed for some photos with the local kids.
It was a pretty good sized snake

After some initial trepidation, the local kids jumped right in

It was a good day.

Saturday, November 23, 2013

Garifuna Settlement Day in Punta Gorda

Last weekend we traveled to Punta Gorda, in the far south of Belize, for the Garifuna Settlement Day celebration. Punta Gorda is literally at the end of the road--to continue south into Guatemala you either have to hike through the jungle or take a boat.

Garifuna Settlement Day is a national holiday celebrating the arrival of the Garifuna people in Belize. The Garifuna are a distinct ethnic minority in Belize, with additional substantial populations in Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua. They came in to existence when a slave ship crashed on the island of St Vincent in the 1600s, and the Africans intermarried with the native Arawak and Carib peoples. They were forced from island to island, until they settled along the coast of Central America in the early 1800s.
The mural at our hotel reflects the ethnic and racial diversity in Punta Gorda

The clock tower in the central park in Punta Gorda

 Punta Gorda is still undeveloped relative to the rest of Belize, and they're still sorting out how to cater to tourists. This is a bit of a double-edged sword, in that visitors can enjoy a lot of authentic cultural experiences, but it can be difficult to figure out when and where they are occurring. For example, we knew there would be many events during the four-day weekend we were in town, but we could not find any information about them--what, when, where, how much, etc. So on our taxi ride from the airport to the hotel, I asked the driver if there was anything we should check out. She recommended we attend the Battle of the Drums on Saturday night. Apparently this is a world famous competition, with drumming teams from Belize, Honduras, and Guatemala participating. Tickets were available at a particular market in town, and we purchased them as quickly as possible.

But that left all day Saturday open, so we tried to schedule a last-minute snorkeling trip. In San Pedro, that would have been a snap--we would have called around until we found someone with an open full-day or half-day trip, and then we'd be off to the races. So I started calling the local guides listed in our trusty Lonely Planet guidebook, only to find the numbers disconnected, phones turned off, voicemail, etc. Eventually I got in touch with Kate at Blue Belize, and she said it was normally very difficult to schedule anything at the last minute, but she'd try calling her guide. She phoned back with good news--her guide Dan was available, and would pick us up at the dock in front of our hotel in 45 minutes.

When Dan arrived, the boys immediately noticed the name of the boat--Xavi, the same as one of their classmates. We noted the coincidence, but didn't think much of it. During our ride out to the islands in the Gulf of Honduras, we talked with him about his guiding business, and he explained that he does snorkeling trips, fishing trips, and does conservation work with the Wildlife Conservation Society. Our friend Rachel Graham works for the WCS and runs the Caribbean shark and ray program out of San Pedro, so I asked, "Do you work with Dr. Graham?" Dan laughed and said "Yes, she's my ex." It turns out Dan is the father of Xavi and Gabe, the boys' classmates at Island Academy! We were all surprised by the coincidence.
Heading out to the islands on a glassy sea

Henry explains how the reserve works
View from the tower

We arrived at the ranger station for the Port Honduras Marine Reserve, where we met Henry. He gave us an overview of the reserve, explained the different management designations, and let us climb up to the top of the observation tower to have a look around.

We left the ranger station and arrived on the beach at West Snake Caye. There are three 'Snake Cayes' in the reserve, so named because they are all literally crawling with boa constrictors. The boys interest was definitely piqued, and after we got off on the island, Dan said "you guys hang out on the beach, I'll be back in a bit." About 15 minutes later, he emerged from the forest with a 4.5' boa constrictor! The boys were so excited, and they each got to hold it.
Liam and boa constrictor

Lochlan, Dan, and boa constrictor
Lochlan enjoying a coconut that Dan cut open for him
After putting the boa back into his habitat, we went to the first snorkeling spot, just to leeward of the caye. Because of all the torrential rain over the previous two weeks, there was a thin lens of freshwater on top of the ocean, which had the effect of making the coral and fish below a bit blurry. However, by diving down just a few feet, the water became much clearer, and we were amazed by the colorful corals, abundant (and large!) fish, and overall variety of all the sea life. Both boys did amazingly well diving down below the freshwater lens. We saw queen angelfish, spadefish, a spotted moray eel, and most impressively, an enormous goliath grouper. Aside from the nurse sharks and rays, this was the largest sea creature we've seen in Belize. Dan was a fantastic guide, and pointed out many fish and coral for us while we were in the water.

We had a nice lunch at anchor, and then visited a second snorkeling spot (with equally impressive sea life) before motoring back to Punta Gorda. Unfortunately our waterproof camera bit the dust a few weeks back and we have not yet received our replacement, so I was not able to take any underwater shots. However, I did find a few pictures taken by others in the same area that illustrate the types of corals and fish we saw.

Queen Angel fish
Goliath Grouper
Spadefish
Spotted moray
The Battle of the Drums took place at the Multipurpose Center, a giant shed covered with palm thatch near the airport. The competition was scheduled to begin at 7:30 and we were instructed to arrive by 7:00 if we wanted a seat. This proved to be good advice, the place was standing room only by 7:30. Around 8:15 the introductions began, and they took FOREVER. I'm sure many people worked very hard to put the event together, but I've never heard an announcer thank so many people. The groups participating in the competition were also introduced, and not only did the announcer name every one in each group, but the groups also played their drums and sang and marched up and down the aisle in the audience, before taking the stage, playing a bit more, then retreating back stage so the next group could repeat the process. We were sitting on the aisle, so we had a pretty good view during the introductions.  By the time the actual competition started, it was quite late, and after the first two groups finished their performances, the poor boys were falling asleep in their chairs, so we left. What we did see was very impressive--the music was energetic, the costumes were colorful, and the enthusiasm of the competitors was contagious.

The next day we had reservations for the boys to be "Rangers for a Day" at Ya'axche Conservation Trust. Unfortunately all of their trails were literally under water due to the aforementioned heavy rains, so we improvised and rented some bikes in town from PG Bike. We rode out of town to Hickatee Cottages, a beautiful spot with some short trails through second growth jungle. We saw several beautiful butterflies, but (surprisingly) not a lot of birds or other wildlife.
Pedaling to Hickatee Cottages

ENORMOUS owl butterfly
That afternoon we pedaled out to Warasa, where the boys had a drum lesson with Garifuna drummer Ronald Raymod MacDonald (he goes by Ray). The boys were a bit intimidated by Ray, but he was such a patient and kind teacher that eventually they warmed up to him and really started getting in to the lesson. It was fun watching them get the feel of the sometimes tricky rhythms that characterize Garifuna drumming.
The boys learning some rhythms from Ray

There was more drumming scheduled for that evening at a spot called Walucas, but again, it didn't start until after the boys bedtime, so we decided to skip it in order to catch up on sleep.

The next morning we arose early, had yet another delicious breakfast at Grace's, then caught the 8:00 am James Line bus out of town to meet Juan for our tour of Nim Li Punit and the Ix'cacao chocolate farm/factory. 

There were some communication difficulties between Amy and Juan in determining where exactly we were supposed to get off the bus. We passed a sign for Ix'cacao, but Juan had told us to take the bus all the way to Lim Ni Punit. I was starting to feel a bit nervous that we were way past our intended drop-off, so I called Juan, and he said "Where are you?" I looked out the windows of the old American school bus, and saw...jungle. Some thatched roof huts. A few chickens. I said "Ah, I don't really know. Let me hand the phone to the bus steward." So I handed the phone over to the guy who collects the money from the passengers, and after a rapid fire exchange with Juan in kriol and Spanish, he whistled to the driver to stop the bus. He handed me the phone, said "you guys get off here", handed us $6 BZE, we got off the bus, and they drove away. We looked around, and realized we had no idea where we were, or what we were supposed to do. There was no cell service. I laughed, looked at Amy, and said "well, you wanted an adventure!"

We started walking south along the highway. We saw more thatched roof huts, jungle, chickens. A few parrots flew overhead. After about 15 minutes, Juan pulled up in his van, rolled down the window, and said "AMY! I FOUND YOU!" We got in the van, and headed off to Nim Li Punit.

Nim Li Punit is a very cool Mayan site. It is not the biggest, oldest, or most architecturally significant, but they do have several Stela that are quite large and very impressive. Juan described the Mayan system of writing numbers, and walked us through the messages on a couple of the Stela before giving us a tour of the balance of the site. It was very interesting, but the boys were champing at the bit for the main event, and after an hour, we got back in the van and headed towards one of Juan's farms.
Juan explaining the Stela

In front of the pillar of the sun

We walked through the cacao plantation, and the boys each got to pick a cacao pod. The orchard is intermixed with enormous trees that provide shade to the cacao trees, and there are coffee, banana, and plaintain trees intermixed. It was a very diverse orchard, and Liam managed to catch several lizards and frogs as we walked through it.
Lochlan and cacao pods

Liam harvesting a pod

We headed up a hill at the edge of the forest, where we saw the tracks of some sort of cat, most likely ocelot or margay, as well as gibnut and armadillo. We hiked by several lines of leaf-cutter ants, and saw a very impressive line of army ants motoring across the trail in perfect formation.
Cool track!
Harvesting sugar cane

Pressing the cane

Eventually we made it to the top of the hill, which is covered with sugarcane. Juan harvested a few stalks, busted them open, and handed them around to us. We sucked on the cane, and not surprisingly, it was very sweet! We walked through the cane until we came to a press set up in a clearing with an amazing view of the Toledo district. The boys helped Juan press cane to extract the juice (the farm grows all of the sugar they use to make their chocolate), then we headed down the hill, where he showed us all of the various edible plants along the way. One of these is called Jippy Jappa, a type of palm, and the heart of new leaves can be eaten. It tastes a bit like artichoke. We got back in the van, and drove to the Ix'cacao 'factory'.

Juan's wife had prepared an amazing Mayan buffet for us (including sauteed Jippy Jappa!) which we shared with Juan and Giovanni, an American of Jamaican descent who runs a catering business in New York. After lunch, Juan showed us how to make chocolate.
Delicious Mayan food
He began by cutting open a pod and showing us the seeds (sometimes called 'beans') inside. They are covered with a white, slimy, sweet fruit, that must be removed before the beans are dried and roasted. Juan provided us with some dry roasted beans, which we shelled, and then he taught us how to grind them with a stone metate. After the beans had been ground by everyone in the group, we added some unrefined sugar, mixed it all together, popped it into a mold, and placed it in the freezer.
Believe it or not, this is where chocolate comes from!
Learning the process
Yours truly, grinding away
Juan gave us a tour of the rest of the factory and showed us several machines he's invented to help process the beans into chocolate. During the course of the tour we learned that Ix'cacao is one of the suppliers to Theo Chocolate, the chocolate factory located in our neighborhood in Seattle! We bought a bunch of chocolate, then all piled into the van for the drive back to Punta Gorda.

One of the events we had most been looking forward to is the re-enactment of the landing of the Garifuna. They use traditional canoes, wear their traditional clothing, and load the canoes with the crops they brought to the coast of Central America. Unfortunately, the landing happened at FIVE IN THE MORNING. We did not wake the boys for this, and perhaps we should have, but we didn't want to have two exhausted kiddos on our hands for the trip back to San Pedro. I think this was the most frustrating aspect of our otherwise wonderful trip to Punta Gorda--all of the settlement day activities were either late in the evening or super early in the morning, so we missed most of them. I understand that the events are for the Garifuna, and not for us, but it sure would be nice if some of the events were better publicized and perhaps scheduled in a way that would make it easier for families with youngish kids to attend.

Overall, I would definitely recommend Punta Gorda for a visit, but be prepared for an adventure!