Just when you thought the messages from Belize had come to an end... Sorry for the length. It's what happens when you put a pen and paper in front of someone on an airplane with too many thoughts and too much time...
We've boarded the plane from Belize City to Houston. We're sitting on the tarmac, making the psychological transition back to the first world. It's hard to believe that the adventure is over. And it's hard to imagine it having gone any better. Some credit for that goes to our pre-trip prep work; some to the tremendous support of the congregation; some to Pastor Kerra's efforts in preparing the devotional booklet that we used religiously (sorry) twice a day.
Given the importance of each of those components, I can't say enough for the facilitation and support provided by Katie Frankhauser and the rest of the staff at Jaguar Creek. Katie was with us almost constantly, becoming a de facto member of our team. She met us at the airport and ushered us though customs. She ate breakfast and dinner with us every day, and lunch with one of the service teams when she wasn't too busy ferrying team members from place to place. She even MADE (or at least served) breakfast for us on the days when we left camp before the kitchen crew arrived. She participated in all our devotions and worked with Dale to pull off two very moving worship events on Maundy Thursday and Good Friday. She worked behind the scenes to coordinate our worship participation in the Spanish Armenian service on our first Sunday in Belize and in the Ecumenical Sunrise Service on Easter. And sometimes she spent an hour or more late at night coaxing a cranky modem into sending our email missives back to Oak Ridge. Our experience would have been profoundly different without Katie's enthusiastic support in everything we did.
The only thing Katie wasn't able to join us for was the final departure trip back to Belize City. We said our goodbyes at the bus at Jaguar Creek. Katie was there along with Percy, the camp manager. Tono the construction manager (I'm making these titles up!) was there, along with Matteo and Carlos who do security at Jaguar Creek, and also helped us on the laundry project. It was not a tearful goodbye, but it was heartfelt all around. There seemed to be an implicit understanding that our relationship with Jaguar Creek and with Armenia was not ending, but merely beginning. I made Tono promise to have Katie take pictures of the laundry site to send to us as Tono and his crew make further progress on it.
As we pulled out of Jaguar Creek, it began to drizzle, the first rain we'd seen since arriving in Belize. Bob wrote a poem likening the rain to tears from the sky at our departure. The rain let up as we stopped briefly in Armenia for Chuck and Doug to take some pictures of a well head where we may do a future water purification project. Jordan and Dale also hopped out to get some pictures of typical Armenian houses off the main road. While they were gone, an Armenian boy about 8 year old approached the bus with a plastic bag of hand woven baskets. When we proved to be a receptive market, his mother -- a young woman with a baby on her hip and another in her belly -- boarded the bus with more baskets to sell. By the time we were ready to leave she had pocketed about $50 Bz, or $25 US. Daniel said "Wow, that's probably enough to feed her whole family for a month!" Probably a slight exaggeration, but not by much.
We pulled back onto the road, headed for Belmopan. The rain started again. As we pulled into the open air market in the capital city, I noticed that the rain had stopped. We wandered the fruit stands and food shops and souvenir shops for 45 minutes -- far longer than was needed on this Monday morning that was still part of the Easter holiday. I was on a quest for Marie Sharp's hot sauce, a local carrot and habanero pepper concoction that many of us developed a taste for at Jaguar Creek. I was disappointed to find only two varieties: HOT and FIERY HOT. Back at the bus, Elizabeth told me she'd seen more varieties at the Chinese grocery next to the bank across the highway earlier in the week. Sarah and I checked it out, and added MILD and BEWARE to my collection.
We pulled out of Belmopan and turned east on the Western Highway, named for the direction it heads from its reference point in Belize City. This was the same road on which we'd turned west two days earlier, at the beginning of our day long dirt road adventure to the Mayan ruins at Caracol, the cave at Rio Frio, and the pools at Rio On.
This time, headed east on an air-conditioned bus, the temperature was about 20 degrees cooler and the skies began to rain once more. Almost like clock-work the rain stopped as we pulled the full-sized school bus into the tiny gravel parking lot of the Belize Zoo. The zoo, although small, lived up to Katie's advanced billing. [NOTE: you can check it out at: http://www.belizezoo.org/] It contained only animals native to Belize, in a natural jungle setting, with kicky signs hand painted on rough cut tree planks. Belizeans have no problem with taking themselves too seriously. We saw some magnificent toucans, including the keel-billed national bird of Belize and a pint-sized toucanette who hopscotches his way across his perch. We saw half a dozen different kinds of parrots and a majestic endangered Harpy Eagle named Panama. We saw black and spotted jaguars; a jaguarundi about the height of a house cat and twice it's length; coatimundis; tapirs; spider and howler monkeys; and a variety of pecarries (pigs). On my way through the gift shop I spotted more Marie Sharps. I picked up a green salsa version that Katie had told me about and an orange-based version that wasn't available at Jaguar Creek. I also added NO WIMPS ALLOWED to my collection. Unfortunately, I was still unable to find a bottle of COMATOSE to round things out.
When I got back to the bus, Gilbert -- our driver -- told me that Percy had called for me from Jaguar Creek and would be calling again in a few minutes. He relayed a message from Jan in the church office that we MIGHT be rerouted through Honduras and MIGHT need to spend the night in Houston. When I passed this message on to the team, the teens were, of course, horribly disappointed. Yeah. Right.
We pulled back onto the highway headed for Belize City and the airport. The rain had ended for the day, but the skies remained overcast and the temperatures were pleasant for the first time since our arrival. As we checked in at the Continental desk, Sue verified that yes, we would be diverted through Honduras, and yes, we would need to spend the night in Houston. 5 minutes later, I decided it wouldn't hurt to verify that information as Sarah and I checked in. This time the answer was no, we would fly on schedule directly to Houston and make our connection tonight to Knoxville. When pressed for more detail, the counter attendant explained that they had finally been able to locate fuel and a tanker truck to refuel our plane and eliminate the need for a refueling stop (!) in Honduras. The two hours in the waiting area passed quickly, with our surroundings looking more and more first-world. Shops and people with gaudy tshirts; Visa and Mastercard accepted here; sunburns and jewelry and world-weary faces ready to return from a vacation interlude. Finally we walked across the tarmac in the Belizean humidity we had become so familiar with and re-entered the air conditioned technological haven of our 737. Experience transformed into memory and almost immediately began to fade. I hope this journaling will keep it from fading too much. It's an experience I never want to forget.
Dan Terpstra
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