Our March Update.... also WAY late!

Well, hope everyone found some of what happened in February interesting.... it's all just so exciting down here. Believe it or not we actually do a little work down here too! Keri is evaluating all the members of her organization with the intent of creating a base line before they are trained in capacity building. Depending on the needs of the group, this could be financial reporting, strategic planning, record keeping, leadership, or the like. In March, Keri went out and visited some more Co-managers to assess them. Before we go into that, let's first give you a brief schooling on how national parks and protected areas are run here. While there is a National Park service here run by the Government of Belize, it consists of only 4 park rangers and a budget of approximately BZ$50K. Nowhere near the manpower to manage and patrol over 43% of the country that is parks! So the government signs co-management agreements with locally based groups who in turn monitor, maintain, and run the protected area.

Anyway, Keri visited with Mr. Lewis from the Friends of Gra Gra Lagoon in the Stann Creek District in March and learned about the issues they are facing in managing their area. On the same trip, she met with the managers of Mayflower-Bocawina and Billy Baquideer. She actually later worked with all of these groups for a big event on Earth Day in April.... more on that later!

So the other big news was our first visit from a friend while we have been in country. Amy is having a pretty tough time in the states, so she decided to come see Belize (and us) to get her mind off things. We managed to show her a pretty good representation of Belize in the 9 days she was here including the 3 "R's" of Belize.... Ruins, Reefs, and Rain forests! We started out with a trip to the ancient Maya city of Lamanai, then out to Caye Caulker where we snorkeled the reef and swam with sharks, a few nights in Cockscomb Wildlife Sanctuary, and ended up in Placencia to chill on the beach. It was great fun.... even though Amy did get WAY TOO CLOSE (8 inches away) to a Fer de Lance (one of the 10 most deadliest and aggressive snakes in the world!). But really, take a look at the following videos to get a good picture of how things went!

So as you can see, we had a blast! It was great to see Amy and hang out in all those cool places! So really guys.... if you want to come visit, we will make sure you have a good time no matter what your budget is! Next thing you know, we will be back in the USA.... still can't believe we have been here for almost 9 months. Can't wait to hear from you all and read your comments!