Para una Bella Vista Mejor

COMMUNITY-WIDE CLEAN-UP
“For a Better Bella Vista”
“Para una Bella Vista Mejor”

Topic: Health and Sanitation, and on a larger scale, the Environment and Conservation
Events: Drainage cleaning, Road maintenance, Water tank cleaning and painting, Construction of 4 new parks, Park beautification, Health information distribution, Community movie night, Minister’s speech, Trash pick-up!

The purpose of introducing this topic is to bring to our attention some of the vital aspects of daily living that perhaps many of us take for granted. For example, trash bins. For another, the Earth. Where does your trash go? How do you dispose of it? What impact does it make on this planet?

We’ve all heard a lot about pollution, greenhouse gases, global warming, etc. But let’s take a step closer and simply look at the land, the streams and fields and trees (maybe there aren’t too many streams near you), around us. Also, let’s observe the physical make-up of our communities, the streets, the water system, the parks, the sanitary landfill. How does your city maintain an organized and safe way of life for people within its particular environment? What infrastructure is necessary for a city? How does it protect people’s health and the environment?

Where I live in Belize, the landscape is the typical gloriously tropical kind, with lush vegetation thickening toward the horizon in the west and toward the karsts of the Maya Mountains (Scott calls the separate mounds of rocky cliffs covered with jungle where he has put up an outdoor climbing route karsts; the people here call all of the terrain in the bush and the mountains, monte). However, the landscape is marred. The streams and the countryside around Bella Vista are filthy, littered with everything from baby diapers to Coke bottles to plastic wrappers to tin cans. Food scraps are quickly torn into by the stray dogs, which are plentiful and pitiful. There are no trash cans. No trash bins. No regular trash pick-up. No dump trucks.

As I said before, infrastructure is lacking.

The responsible citizens of Bella Vista collect trash inside their houses in the kind of small, flimsy plastic bags you get groceries in and then rake all of the trash in their yards together with the bags into a huge pile to burn. Kitchen scraps are either thrown to the animals or taken by them, or used for compost in the garden. Frequently, especially on weekend nights, the air is full of smoke from the burning trash piles behind every house. The smoke cloaks the village like a thick blanket with the humidity. Everyone in the community breathes trash during these times.

The less responsible citizens tend to toss their trash every which way at the outskirts of the village. The amount of trash along a path we ride our bikes on to the next village has increased at an astounding rate in the time we have lived here. It is stinky and strung out on the beautiful land and disgusting. Believe me, when your tires are splashing through puddles full of soiled diapers and rotting heads of cabbages, this is what you think: this is hideous and a despicable and senseless waste. The emotional reaction to littering is quite strong at that point!

Don’t worry, I have good news! There has been planned a community-wide clean-up and beautification project for this weekend. It is merely a first step, mobilizing, but at least a step in the right direction of bringing this need to the attention of the common person in Bella Vista. Changing minds and attitudes is necessary.

The village council and the Humana organization, also doing health projects, are coordinating with the big banana farms to use the equipment to clean out the draining ditches full of stagnant water, pressure spray the water tank and paint the outside, grate the bumpy dirt roads, build playgrounds for the children, and transport all trash to the dump near Mango Creek. I am coordinating with the health workers to have a health booth and first aid on site for the volunteers working and for the community at large. At the end of the day, there will be an outdoor movie, an inspirational one about a community changing for the better in El Salvador, projected in the main field for families to enjoy. I would say almost no one in Bella Vista has seen a movie projected on a big screen.

The entire event sounds phenomenal, but we will see how smoothly it goes. I look forward to letting you know the results!

A Few of My Favorite Things

My husband, climbing, and our dog! These photos were taken outside our village down a rad bike trail, al monte, toward the Maya Mountain karsts. Along the trail, a blue morpho, the vibrantly colored butterfly of Belize, fluttered beside my head. Scott found a treasure of a boulder and a wall, and we biked out to check them out together for the first time a couple of weeks ago. He also found the ideal swimming hole for us and bathing spot for Holly the dog. She is growing fast and able to keep up her pace on a fairly long bike ride, but alas, running the entire distance to the climbing wall is not within her limits of endurance yet. I brought her home in my backpack on her first attempt this week. She is such a sweet and patient companion that it is difficult to remember why I liked cats so much!

Our Counterpart

Her name is Joyce, and she is working as an administrator of health in the Independence area. She is a compassionate and well-spoken advocate for change, and we look forward to partnering with her in realizing health project goals in Bella Vista.