Northern Belize: Friday PM

Friday morning saw me trying to check out of the Bullfrog Inn. I needed to be on the road by 7AM to make it to Orange Walk in time for a 9AM meeting. At 6:50 the office/bar/restaurant was still locked up tight. I had been assured the night before that someone would be available for checkout in the morning. I knocked on the glass door and Emma abandoned her coffee making duties to let me in. When I asked for the 10% discount offered us when we reserved the room, she asked if I could wait until the regular desk clerk came in at 7:30. I said I couldn’t, and she called her cell phone to walk thru applying a 10% discount. Higher math must not be part of a tourism major in Belize. At 7:04 I was on the road, heading east on Western Highway, munching on a breakfast of Fig Newtons and trapped behind a panel truck full of agricultural workers.

I pulled up next to the New Life Presbyterian Pre and Primary School at 8:50 – way early by Belizean standards. Leogardo Catzim was sitting on the porch in front of the school, waiting for me. He introduced himself as a pastor in the Belizean Presbyterian Church with joint responsibilities with congregations in San Jose, San Pablo, and here at New Life. He ushered me in to see the water system they intended to transport to the San Pablo church. It was kinda nostalgic, seeing the inscription on the plywood panel dated February, 2003 when the system was first installed, and then updated August 17, 2009 when it was refurbished and converted to a Reverse Osmosis system by Pat Montgomery’s church from Cody, WY.

We met Ismael Vallejos as we left the building. He’s the in-country Director for Mac Kelton’s Belize Project (google it), a micro-entreprenurial support ministry in Northern Belize. Mac and I met last May and again in July in Franklin before a LWW meeting. He coerced me to enlist Dave in schlepping about 80 pounds of children’s books to Belize in our luggage. Ismael and Leogardo and I made our way to San Pablo, about 15 minutes north of Orange Walk, where we explored the church and promising places to put the water treatment system. We decided it could be done, and it would be best if Pat’s team returned to help move it and set it back up. We also agreed that it would be best if I could put them in contact with another team in southern Yucatan that was successfully operating a Reverse Osmosis system, so they could see how it’s done. I took two water samples, one at a well on site, and one from the community water supply. They were both extremely hard with high TDS. A RO system is definitely called for here.

Next stop: Cornerstone Presbyterian High School. I drove to the school with their new science teacher, a young man who I guessed might have been in his early 20s. He was polite and curious; we talked water chemistry most of the way. He’s also a graduate of the High School. On arriving at the school we discovered that the principal was teaching a summer school class, so I took the opportunity to take another water sample, and take advantage of a teachable moment for the science teacher. Expecting numbers similar to San Pablo, I was surprised to find hardness and TDS within the range treatable by a standard water system similar to the one we installed at Yalbac.

A long conversation with Albert Zantingh, the principal, highlighted his concern for making sure his ~100 students stayed hydrated and his interest in developing a school lunch program. We talked about designing and building a kitchen that included space for a separate water treatment room; about doing a blind taste test on the water from the well to see if the community would be willing to buy and drink it, and about the possibility of creating a part time operator’s position that might partially fund a night watchman’s salary. He was intrigued but cautious about the possibilities, and definitely intended to proceed decently and in good order.

Ismael encouraged me to consider a quick dash up to Corazol, his home town, only 20 minutes further north. I was tempted; Corazol is the only major population center in Belize I haven’t visited yet. But I calculated that I had just about the right amount of time to make it back to Belize City to drop off the car and get to the water taxi for the late afternoon trip to Ambergris Caye to rejoin Dave and Douglas. Lunch was more Fig Newtons in the car as I sped south to Ladyville. I turned in the car and made it to the ferry terminal with 10 minutes to spare.
- dan