Students from UA lend hand in Belize
Posted on Sunday, July 8, 2007
Annette Porter was glued to the window for the threehour drive from the Belize City airport to the coastal town of Dangriga.
It was her first time out of the country, and she was struck by the lush tropical landscape with its large trees and pristine beaches.
“I just had my eyes wide open the whole time just trying to absorb everything and see everything,” said Porter, 20, a junior civil engineering major at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville.
The Jonesboro native arrived May 20 in Belize, a small Central American country bordered by Mexico and Guatemala, with 53 other students participating in the first UAsponsored service-learning program.
Students from various majors spent four weeks conducting volunteer projects in Dangriga and surrounding communities.
The Belize Project is a collaboration of UA and Peacework, a nonprofit international volunteer agency based in Blacksburg, Va., and headed by 1977 UA graduate Stephen Darr.
Projects this summer include developing a small pepper farm for an elementary school, working with families to improve literacy and installing a water filter for a small, rural village. Students also laid the groundwork for an 80-acre nature park, taught math and science, advised small-business owners and hosted educational sessions on social issues and growing tourism.
The goal is to help improve conditions in Belize’s Stann Creek District, a region coping with poverty, high unemployment and poor infrastructure. UA has committed to working there at least five years. The first summer of the project went smoothly because of planning and the devotion of UA’s partners in Belize, said Jennie Popp, a UA agricultural economics professor. Each student paid $ 3, 600 each plus UA tuition to cover transportation, lodging, weekend excursions and basic supplies. “It was great,” Porter said. “It was really fun to help start something that I think is really going to make a difference. “ It was pretty exciting. It was hard, though, because you didn’t know what to expect.” RAINY SEASON Students filled three of Dangriga’s four hotels, which lack air-conditioning. Temperatures averaged about 100 degrees, Porter said.
“Going from spring here is a major shock to your body,” said Nilda Burgos, UA professor of crop, soil and environmental sciences.
Additionally, several students felt ill occasionally.
“Pretty much all of us had stomach issues at one point or another,” Porter said. “But we still managed to get our work done.” Belize’s rainy season started about a week after they arrived, and the weather shifted suddenly.
“It was like a light switch had been turned off,” said Misti Clark, 21, an agricultural business management and marketing major from Prairie Grove.
Porter said she awoke several nights to gusts of wind and rain and loud crashes of lightning.
“It was like a monsoon,” she said. “It was very loud and very bright. It was cool to watch.” Clark was one of eight students who started a small farm for St. Matthews Elementary School in the town of Pomona. They cleared stumps, roots and other vegetation and tilled the stubborn soil to build seven beds measuring about five feet by 110 feet, Popp said.
Students installed a fence and built a catchment system to hold 400 gallons of rainwater for use in the garden. It took just two days for rain to fill the tank.
The UA group planted about 250 pepper plants, of 490 total, and made arrangements for the school to sell the chilies when they are harvested this fall, Popp said. The school plans to expand the farm to raise other vegetables and possibly small animals.
Weather posed some difficulties as students worked 10-hour days on the garden.
“There were some pretty heavy storms while we were down there,” Popp said. “We battled the mud.” As many as 20 volunteers came to help daily from Ecumenical College in Dangriga, the local agriculture office, women’s groups and St. Matthews.
“They’re really friendly,” Clark said. “All we had to do was ask, and the community was more than willing to help and give time and resources. They made the project.” Students from the elementary school also came out to help. They cleared dirt and debris, and boys used machetes to cut roots and logs, said Laura Sossamon, 20, a senior agriculture business major from Ozark.
“That was really unexpected — how excited the kids were about the garden,” Sossamon said. “The first day we broke ground, there were probably 50 kids there with rakes. They worked and they worked hard. Every opportunity they had, they got in and helped.” Eight engineering students spent their days in a jungle building a sand filter to clean water for Steadfast, a rural village of about 1, 000 where water-borne illness is common, said Thomas Soerens, UA civil engineering professor.
Villagers showed up at the work site every day to help install three 500-gallon black tanks. For the filters, about a third of each tank was filled with sand, which filters the water as it passes through.
The jungle was hot, and vegetation was dense. Students swam beneath a nearby waterfall to cool off, Porter said. There were many large, colorful insects, and she occasionally heard howler monkeys in the distance.
It was hard and fulfilling work.
“It was a lot of physical labor, a lot of heavy lifting,” she said.
In their off time, students went to the beach, snorkeled and scuba dived, visited the city of San Ignacio and toured Mayan ruins. On one trip, they walked and swam through a cave containing Mayan artifacts dating to 900 A. D. Professor Burgos said the trip was a success. “We started something that we hope will flourish,” she said.
To contact this reporter: cpark@arkansasonline. com
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