Arenal

The morning was very nice, relatively cool. I went to run, and enjoyed seeing people go to work. I saw several birds, including after checking my bird book, a kiskadee. We had breakfast with the mission crew. The food was good, pancakes and fresh fruit. It reminded me of Jaguar Creek, but not quite as good. Father Dan was busy for the morning and he needed to introduce us to the people at the other prospective sites for water installation. We decided to visit the nearby Maya ruins. We went to Cahal Pech, the oldest known Maya site in Belize. It was interesting, much smaller than Caracol. I saw an Arakari ( kind of toucan) there. We went on to Xunantunich, a very elaborate site with some beautiful friezes. I saw a Trogon there. We had to cross the Mopan river to get to the site, which we did on a small ferry that carried us across. All passengers had to get out of the car while it was loaded onto the ferry so if the car went off the ferry or unbalanced it only the driver would go in the river. Motive power was a crank that turned a truck tire rim with a cable from one side of the river to the other wrapped around it. There were a number of large Iguanas on the river bank.

After lunch we embarked with Father Dan to the village of Arenal. It was several miles down a very rocky, dusty dirt road. The village reminded us very much of Armenia. There were many small thatched house, many stick houses. We found a small health clinic, which is open once a month. The village is about 600-700 people. There is a police department and a fire department. The village is on the Guatemala border and is in fact split down the middle between Guatemala and Belize. There is electricity and water on the Belize side and there are water pipes into homes, but not on the Guatemala side. Unfortunately, the major and the person in charge of water were not available. The mayor was on strike because of some ongoing political unrest and the water person was out of town until the end of the week. Father Dan was able to speak to one of the village women who was knowledgeable about the situation. She was interested in the idea of clean water, but she told us that she thought that the water was chlorinated before it was pumped into the water tower. The water is drawn from the river and pumped into a water tower which is high on the hill above the village. Father Dan’s mission runs the village primary school and they are building a new one in the village. Ms Sanchez, the village woman Father Dan talked with said that there are plans to extend the water system to the Guatemala side. We decided to collect a water sample at the site of the new school and returned to the mission to test it. The results were interesting. Our testing system detected no residual or free chlorine. The water was very hard and high in alkalinity. We are waiting on the bacteriological results. An incubator to keep the sample warm is definitely not needed.