Mabil Ha

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We had learned what we could at the remote Belizean village. We had collected water samples and measurements from the beautiful spring a mile and a half from the school. We had done the same at the hand pump across the track where the women were collecting drinking water in five gallon buckets. We had looked, to no avail, for the village council chairman and the judicial alcalde. Now it was time to leave.

As we turned the rented Jeep around on the rocky track – you could barely call it a road – two men stepped out of the jungle in front of us. Both were short, compared to Americans; both carried long machetes and wore calf-high rubber boots into which they tucked grey trousers; both had now familiar smooth honey-hued complexions and angular Mayan features. The older and stockier of the two, carrying a large bundle of firewood on his back, approached the passenger side. Our Mayan host and guide lowered the window and opened a verbal exchange in rapid Kekchi.

We learned that the man in the blue t-shirt with the small “Best Buy” logo was the chairman and had invited us to his house for a meeting. We walked with him a short distance to a well maintained rectangular wood plank building. It had a tall peaked roof thatched in cohune palm fronds like most in the village.  He invited us onto the small porch by the front door. The younger man, his son, used a handmade broom to sweep it free of loose debris, while the father gathered from inside the house four epoxy deck chairs in forest green and blue, just like we would find in any state-side WalMart.

We explained that we represented Living Waters for the World and were interested in working with the village to find a way for them to provide clean water for their village for a generation; so that his son’s son could grow up always drinking safe water. The conversation proceeded, mostly in English, but with occasional rapid-fire exchanges in Kekchi between our guide and the chairman, as we discussed a range of issues involving how often kids missed school because they were sick and whether the community of subsistence farmers would be willing and able to pay a small amount for safe drinking water.

About midway in the conversation another young man rode up to the house on a sturdy bicycle with fat tires. He got off the bike with a big grin, and greeted our guide effusively in Kekchi. The alcalde, our guide explained, and the conversation resumed in an animated mix of English and Kekchi. I occasionally glanced past the chairman into the house and saw other family members, one with a baby on her hip, making corn tortillas with a press and cooking them on an open hearth in the bare dirt floor area at the back. At one point the chairman’s son graciously offered us, as honored guests, what looked like Tang in clean plastic cups. Our guide quickly intervened and asked if the water had been boiled. When the son said no, I smiled and said that we gringos had weak stomachs and couldn’t handle water that wasn’t boiled. Our guide took one cup and offered the other to the alcalde.

As the conversation wound to a close, we asked about how reliable the water supply was in the hand pumps nearest to the school: did they run dry at any point in the year? This prompted an extended conversation in Kekchi between our guide, the chairman and the alcalde. I listened intently to the cadence and the color of the language, hoping to catch the occasional English word that might provide a clue to the conversation. To my surprise, the words I heard from the chairman were ‘climate change.’ I watched our guide nod knowingly as the conversation continued and later the alcalde repeated ‘climate change.’ Finally the three of them reached a consensus and translated for us: the wells, and even the spring itself had dried up once during a drought four years earlier. But they were concerned about the effect climate change was having on their rain patterns and couldn’t be sure that they wouldn’t have more frequent dry periods in the future. Whatever decisions we made would have to take that into consideration.

I was astounded. In this remote village in the Belizean jungle, two hours from paved roads, where an eighth grade education was about all one could hope for, the villagers spoke knowingly and with grave concern about the implications of climate change on their way of life. Meanwhile, US presidential candidates speak derisively about whether we should be wasting our time in Paris climate meetings.

We concluded our discussions, promising to stay in touch through our guide and host as we work out possible approaches to partnership for providing clean water. As we drove slowly out of the village on the rocky one lane track, and back to our paved version of civilization, my mind swirled with the paradox of the powerful in the first world, whose mantra seems to be ‘more’ and the simple wisdom of the village with an eye toward self-sufficiency and ‘enough.’