Location: San Felipe, Belize
We slept like a log last night. A real bed with sheets, and a shower can immensely improve any situation. We both woke excited to meet our host family, Juan and Abilena, the cacao growers and owners of Ixcacao.
ProWorld, the volunteer organization that we are working with, has been amazing. Last night Nicole, the program director, took us to a sweet little restaurant that had a thatched roof and a funky deck built over the water. We dined on barracuda, coconut rice, eggplant and greens - washed down with a nice stout I might add. The breezes off the ocean just added to the magical experience.
We woke up early and decided to take a morning stroll thru the town. Most of PG (Punta Gorda) is barely paved streets with dilapidated albeit colorful buildings. At first glance it looks as if everything is deserted, but a closer look shows small businesses, mainly eateries operating behind faded signs and rotted out buildings. After just an hour walking around we were drenched again by the heat and humidity. By the time Nicole arrived we were hungry and looking forward to breakfast. Nicole took us to the restaurant below the ProWorld hostel and office, called The Driftwood Cafe. Want to hear a coincidence? A couple of weeks ago Ned and I were selling chocolate at the Harvest Shindig Festival on The Ridge. We struck up a conversation with someone and she told us if we are ever in Belize "go to the Driftwood Cafe, tell our good friends Jill and Emmett that Kate and Monkey say hi." Yeah, it's the same cafe. We had a great time with the owners and one of the customers, Thomas. Everyone was so friendly and Thomas even bought our breakfast! Nicole shared the chocolate we gave to her as a gift with Jill, Emmett and Thomas. Emmett is a well known drummer and he showed us his drums and played a bit. Again, an experience we'll never forget.
Next in order was meeting our host family, Juan & Abelina Cho and their children Henry and Lucretia. Nicole drove us out to the Mayan village of San Felipe and along the way gave us our orientation about the area and safety, i.e. tarantulas are safe, scorpions just sting a bit, snakes are dangerous and be sure to wear long sleeves, long pants and boots when working on the jungle farm.
Juan and Abelina grow their own cacao, make their own chocolate and various other cacao by products - wine, soap, lotions, cocoa powder, etc. How do I even describe their home and operation? By US standards everything is extremely primitive. Basically they live out in the open. Their kitchen, dining room and basic living area is on the second floor of an open area covered by a thatched roof. The sleeping area, both for them and us, is in a separate building again open and with a thatched roof. Yes, there is running water but only cold. When you use the kitchen sink (only sink in the place) the water runs out of a pipe and into the yard. There are chickens, pigs and dogs running around. This area is in the jungle and is surrounded by amazing foliage. Juan gave us a tour and named off several trees, some of which I knew and others that were completely new to me - avocado, cacao, guava, coconut, lime, ginger, jackass bitter (used for malaria), cowfoot (licorice flavor used to wrap fish for cooking), papaya and many more.
We spent several hours getting to know them and trading chocolate stories.
They enjoyed tasting our chocolate, especially trying out the different origins. I wish you could have seen the smile on Ned's face as he shared the chocolate made by him with the Mayan chocolate queen and king. Priceless!! They shared a lot of their chocolate with us as well. They use the Criollo bean but add things like coconut, ginger, orange, etc. in them. Their chocolate drink, which is shared with anyone who visits them, is more like a chocolate tea. It's not sweet and has some spice to it. This is the original Mayan drink made for about a thousand years...really! Lunch was a traditional Mayan meal of chocolate chicken, coconut rice, stewed pumpkin, cochollo (not sure of the spelling but much like our collard greens) and sliced cucumbers. We also drank their chocolate wine. We brought them a bottle of Nevada City Zinfandel and had a great time tasting them. The wine was served in souvenior shot glasses that said Las Vegas, Finger Lakes, Elvis, etc. Pretty cute.
Juan, Abilena and their children speak several languages including English, Creole, Spanish and two Mayan languages. Lucretia goes to school 6 days a week and takes 9 subjects. Henry is in high school and studies long hours as well. Dinner this evening was papaya, pineapple and oranges. I can't describe how absolutely delightful it was to sit around the table for several hours as everyone told stores and laughed. The children are so open and engaged. We laughed so hard as they tried to describe different fruits indigenous to their area that we had never heard of. They would name it in Kek'chi (Mayan) and then try to translate the word to English. We were no help because we have never heard of half of the fruits we were describing. Juan has jerryrigged a wireless system, but it doesn't work if there are clouds. It also takes a lot of shutting down and restarting. I don't think it has the bandwidth to upload pictures so for now you're just going to have to put up with my writing and descriptions. I'm writing in bed listening to the sounds of the jungle, mainly insects. Juan tells me that the birds in the morning are amazing and will wake us up. Abilena says the rooster will get us up. And Henry tells me that the corn mill in their village has an alarm that goes off at 5 am. Needless to say, I think we'll be up in time to start work at 7. They are expecting a large tour group coming in so there's a bunch of prep work to do. What a day!!
ProWorld, the volunteer organization that we are working with, has been amazing. Last night Nicole, the program director, took us to a sweet little restaurant that had a thatched roof and a funky deck built over the water. We dined on barracuda, coconut rice, eggplant and greens - washed down with a nice stout I might add. The breezes off the ocean just added to the magical experience.
We woke up early and decided to take a morning stroll thru the town. Most of PG (Punta Gorda) is barely paved streets with dilapidated albeit colorful buildings. At first glance it looks as if everything is deserted, but a closer look shows small businesses, mainly eateries operating behind faded signs and rotted out buildings. After just an hour walking around we were drenched again by the heat and humidity. By the time Nicole arrived we were hungry and looking forward to breakfast. Nicole took us to the restaurant below the ProWorld hostel and office, called The Driftwood Cafe. Want to hear a coincidence? A couple of weeks ago Ned and I were selling chocolate at the Harvest Shindig Festival on The Ridge. We struck up a conversation with someone and she told us if we are ever in Belize "go to the Driftwood Cafe, tell our good friends Jill and Emmett that Kate and Monkey say hi." Yeah, it's the same cafe. We had a great time with the owners and one of the customers, Thomas. Everyone was so friendly and Thomas even bought our breakfast! Nicole shared the chocolate we gave to her as a gift with Jill, Emmett and Thomas. Emmett is a well known drummer and he showed us his drums and played a bit. Again, an experience we'll never forget.
Next in order was meeting our host family, Juan & Abelina Cho and their children Henry and Lucretia. Nicole drove us out to the Mayan village of San Felipe and along the way gave us our orientation about the area and safety, i.e. tarantulas are safe, scorpions just sting a bit, snakes are dangerous and be sure to wear long sleeves, long pants and boots when working on the jungle farm.
Juan and Abelina grow their own cacao, make their own chocolate and various other cacao by products - wine, soap, lotions, cocoa powder, etc. How do I even describe their home and operation? By US standards everything is extremely primitive. Basically they live out in the open. Their kitchen, dining room and basic living area is on the second floor of an open area covered by a thatched roof. The sleeping area, both for them and us, is in a separate building again open and with a thatched roof. Yes, there is running water but only cold. When you use the kitchen sink (only sink in the place) the water runs out of a pipe and into the yard. There are chickens, pigs and dogs running around. This area is in the jungle and is surrounded by amazing foliage. Juan gave us a tour and named off several trees, some of which I knew and others that were completely new to me - avocado, cacao, guava, coconut, lime, ginger, jackass bitter (used for malaria), cowfoot (licorice flavor used to wrap fish for cooking), papaya and many more.
We spent several hours getting to know them and trading chocolate stories.
They enjoyed tasting our chocolate, especially trying out the different origins. I wish you could have seen the smile on Ned's face as he shared the chocolate made by him with the Mayan chocolate queen and king. Priceless!! They shared a lot of their chocolate with us as well. They use the Criollo bean but add things like coconut, ginger, orange, etc. in them. Their chocolate drink, which is shared with anyone who visits them, is more like a chocolate tea. It's not sweet and has some spice to it. This is the original Mayan drink made for about a thousand years...really! Lunch was a traditional Mayan meal of chocolate chicken, coconut rice, stewed pumpkin, cochollo (not sure of the spelling but much like our collard greens) and sliced cucumbers. We also drank their chocolate wine. We brought them a bottle of Nevada City Zinfandel and had a great time tasting them. The wine was served in souvenior shot glasses that said Las Vegas, Finger Lakes, Elvis, etc. Pretty cute.
Juan, Abilena and their children speak several languages including English, Creole, Spanish and two Mayan languages. Lucretia goes to school 6 days a week and takes 9 subjects. Henry is in high school and studies long hours as well. Dinner this evening was papaya, pineapple and oranges. I can't describe how absolutely delightful it was to sit around the table for several hours as everyone told stores and laughed. The children are so open and engaged. We laughed so hard as they tried to describe different fruits indigenous to their area that we had never heard of. They would name it in Kek'chi (Mayan) and then try to translate the word to English. We were no help because we have never heard of half of the fruits we were describing. Juan has jerryrigged a wireless system, but it doesn't work if there are clouds. It also takes a lot of shutting down and restarting. I don't think it has the bandwidth to upload pictures so for now you're just going to have to put up with my writing and descriptions. I'm writing in bed listening to the sounds of the jungle, mainly insects. Juan tells me that the birds in the morning are amazing and will wake us up. Abilena says the rooster will get us up. And Henry tells me that the corn mill in their village has an alarm that goes off at 5 am. Needless to say, I think we'll be up in time to start work at 7. They are expecting a large tour group coming in so there's a bunch of prep work to do. What a day!!
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