SCD 2: We discuss, we tour, we eat cheese.

The week of Sustainable Community Development part 2 brought us more field trips, and more fun extracurricular activities.  Joined for the week by professor & CCSP Belize alumnus Brandon Hoover (Ursinus College), who brought his wife Meg and young son Paxton, we had quite an enjoyable time inviting them into our community. 

Academically, we grappled with topics such as food security, tourism, community-based initiatives, social capital, and agriculture (to name but a few).  This can be weighty and complex stuff, but Brandon did a fantastic job keeping the students engaged, thinking and discussing.

To inform some of our discussions we visited the cruise ship terminal in Belize City (providing a healthy dose of reverse-culture-shock for our students), Chaa Creek (a locally-staffed resort that specializes in eco-tourism), and Central Farm (a government-funded center for agricultural research and development).  Everyone asked plenty of questions, we had to excellent tour guides, and were given much to think about.

Paxton taking mental notes while strapped to his dad during the Chaa Creek tour

Resource redemption at Chaa Creek: a waste receptacle made of used
plastic bottles

Taking a break for coconut water during our tour of Central Farm

Also during the week we threw in two events that are brand new to CCSP Belize this semester: the Cheese Festival, and New Zealand Day.

We sampled copious amounts of "artisan" cheeses (fancy cheese is difficult to find in Belize), tried our taste buds at guessing what types they were, and even got a ricotta-making lesson from our neighbor Avril whose family runs a dairy farm (and from whom we regularly purchase yogurt, milk, and of course cheese).

Part of the spread.  Photo by Meg Hoover

Guess the cheeses!  Photo by Meg Hoover

Avril instructs Dorothy (Dordt College) on how to stir
the ricotta.  Photo by Meg Hoover

For our first ever New Zealand Day, we coordinated with our sister campus on the other side of the world (CCSP New Zealand, who celebrated a Belize Day around the same time).  Over there they were eating rice & beans and dressing as toucans, while here we spoke in kiwi accents, played the NZ national anthem (one of them), learned some NZ lingo, and ate stewed lamb.  Our lamb came in a slightly less convenient form, and our sweet potatoes are not orange (like NZ's kumara), but at least the stewed carrots were authentic, and our homemade mint sauce was amazing!

Brandon & Alex try to surmise the best way to serve the lamb

Joshua tries to figure out how to eat the lamb

We were even able to arrange a short Skype date with our comrades down under, who were impressively dressed up for their Belize Day!

A low-quality screenshot of our lovely kiwi counterparts