Dispatches
Belize Expedition: Day 7
January 14, 2011
Belize Audubon Society: Cockscomb Basin Wildlife Sanctuary
Just past the Guatemala-Belize border, our Guatemalan driver pulled over. “Aqui les dejo,” he said. “Buen viaje, nos vemos!” We got out, stretched our legs, and greeted Dirk, the driver of the van waiting to take us to our first project in Belize. “Hey mon, how was da drive?” he asked in a thick Creole accent.
We sure weren’t in Guatemala anymore.
Though Belize is tiny—it’s about the size of New Hampshire, with a total population of 300,000 people—it’s maintained its identity unique to the rest of Central America. Belize is the only country in Latin America with English as its official language, though Creole the first language of most. Power lines, colonial-style houses on stilts, banana trees, and paved roads—the difference between Belize and Guatemala was immeadiate and much more shocking than I thought it’d be.
Dirk’s “road mix” of Whitney Houston and Rihanna didn’t do much to assuage the shock, nor did his Rastafarian brand of sarcasm—turns out, “omg” is not a Creole word that means welcome (…it means the same thing in Belize as it does on an American teenager’s cell phone). Dirk is the publicity director for Belize Audubon Society, a non-profit that manages nine wildlife and nature preserves in Belize. They’re working to integrate conservation in Belize with local communities in a way that makes sense—to ensure the livelihoods of both wildlife and people.
Our destination tonight was Cockscomb Basin Wildlife Sanctuary, a 12,000-acre wildlife sanctuary–the first jaguar sanctuary in the world.
