Belize

When we signed up for a farm I thought, “Okay we will wake up at the ass crack of dawn, get dirty with some vegetables while also getting into shape. This is half of what is happening.  We first arrived the 28th of March. After spending a sketchy night in Belize City we started to worry the farm may not be legitimate and we were possibly walking into a tourist trap of some sort. I think a  part of us wanted to go back to Guatemala and get the Hell out of this anomaly of a country. Since there is only one bus per day that goes out to the small town of  Rancho Dolores and it is at 5pm, Matt and I decided to hangout in the only cafe of the dirt road city.  Finally it came time to catch our bus and it was EXTREMELY crowded. After an hour and a half on the bus we arrived to a fork in the road. This was our bus stop. We got out of the bus along with one other single white male. He turned out to also be a  WWOOFer(Willing Workers On Organic Farm stay) going to the same farm as us and just as confused as to what we were supposed to do. As the sun started going down a local man, Alvin, decided he couldn’t leave us at the side of the road and walked us a few kilometers through a tunnel of dense dark jungle foliage, where there sat a lone house with a lantern burning in the window. By the end of the walk we were sure he wanted us to pay him but the farm manager’s boyfriend Justin suddenly arrived in a big American sized Toyota truck and gave him a ride home instead.


The farm manager,  a 27 year old blond girl named, Broks (pronounced Brooks) drove down to Belize with her boyfriend, Justin, and dog, Caden, to this farm to live in a palapa and learn how to become self-sustained. The first year they lived on the farm they functioned separately from it. However, after their first year trial at this lifestyle the farm’s manager was fired and a new one was needed. Broks got the job. Justin kept his job from the prior year which is a remotely based  Graphic Design company that makes websites. You might wonder how someone on a self-sustained farm can work on his computer all day making websites.  Solar Panels, and satellite internet.  All their electricity is powered by the sun. Is that awesome or what? I think so.  It was strange seeing someone so young out here in the middle of Belize managing a farm and her local Belizean crew. However, we learned the next day during garden work that she is just plain Badass. 

Back to the night of arrival. Broks took us to our sleeping palapas and the common area where the kitchen and bathroom are located. The cleanliness and community feeling put our minds at ease. There was another couple that had arrived the day before us and the other young guy that came on our bus.  We quickly found out that we all finished school in the past few years and all in our mid-twenties. Great start.

 The first few days on the farm we sorted out chores amongst the 5 WWOOFers. Christian, the single young man was put in charge of feeding the two pregnant sheep, the only other girl, Molly, was put in charge of watering flowers and making juice for break time, her boyfriend Joey was put in charge of watering the vegetable garden, Matt was put in charge of feeding the chickens and collecting eggs and I was put in charge of feeding the horses. These chores are all to be done before 7am when we start gardening.

Gardening has included so far, transplanting, planting seeds, weeding, building bamboo covers, tearing down the compost and then rebuilding a new one and so much more. We usually do these things until 11am when it’s time for lunch.

After lunch and a few hours of break during midday heat we start back up with afternoon projects. This is whatever we want to do. Matt and I built a possum trap for a sneaky fellow that continued to eat the chickens (it was shot yesterday…and our trap almost successfully caught the farm dog Cashew…but still failed) and other random projects around the farm.  Most of which are WWOOFer ideas on how to  improve the farm.

As great as all this sounds so far, I haven’t even gotten to the most enchanting part of this place. Fridays. Fridays are not really farm days. We do our chores and bit of extra cleaning but then we leave the farm and do community work. The first Friday we were here we got to partake in a life changing event. One of Brok’s friends from home works for a nonprofit organization that donated eight computers to the local school here in Rancho Dolores.  We got to help deliver them. These kids and teachers have either never seen a computer or have seen one but never touched it. They didn’t know how to turn the power on, use the track pad or any other part of the appliance. Matt and I, having been teachers the past two years, were asked to do the honors of teaching the kids and teachers how to use the computers. As our evening project we have been going to the school and giving classes. Matt is obviously the head teacher since I’m slightly computer illiterate so I am his proud co-teacher. Though we are both a bit warn out on the teaching side of things, these students all speak English or Creole (a somewhat strange form of English, Spanish and tribal languages) so it makes class a lot of fun. One student came to me after class and whispered in my ear, “Please come back so I can learn to use the computer.” Such a simple and sweet statement that anywhere else, especially in the US, would be taken lightly. Here however, I was extremely touched because we got to share a pivotal part of their life that they will always remember.  This short interaction with this student here was more powerful than anything I had felt with my students in Korea.

But now it’s time to run off for the numerous checks that  we have to perform each day; egg check, water check, pregnant sheep check, horse check, chicken check, and our favorite, tick check (Matt is leading the count with an impressive 21 ticks removed as of this morning - all in exciting and wonderful places).

So now this post comes to an end. The rest of our time here has been spent cooking, eating, sleeping, reading, playing games, fishing and just plain relaxing in hammocks. Three weeks at this farm has made an impact for a lifetime. The five of us WWOOFers here and Broks have had a tremendous time together and we are already starting projects that will be continued long after we are back in North America.