Chaa Creek

Today the Environmental Education Trainees attended part of the Summer Teacher Institute workshop, which was put on with the help of two current Volunteers. Belizean and American teachers attended. The purpose of the project was to help teachers incorporate environmental education into primary schools of Belize. The major themes presented were ecology, archeology, and tourism in Belize. The program, which was a week long, was held at Chaa Creek, a private preserve and jungle lodge. It is an amazing place and has received numerous Ecotourism Awards.

We began the afternoon with a tour of the rainforest medicinal trail. Beautiful scenery, situated next to the Mopan River. Our naturalist guide Geovanni was an encyclopedia of knowledge, but I was easily distracted by the sight of a Blue Morpho (Morpho peleides). I had no luck photographing the butterfly, however it is the same as the animated one on my blog. A Mayan healer, Don Elijio Panti from the nearby village of San Antonio, was renowned for his knowledge of plants and herbs used in traditional medicine practice. The knowledge of Don Elijio was preserved when an American doctor, Rosita Arvigo began studying with him. Today Dr. Rosita continues traditional medicine and has her business close to my home in San Ignacio. In talking with my host family, natural medicine is still used and probably more so among the older generation. One relative in the family prefers traditional medicine over what his doctor prescribed for diabetes.

In addition to medicinals, the trees and plants have many other uses. I learned much about the Cohune Palm (Orbignya cohune) in an activity building session with the other teachers. We were asked to prepare something that could be used in the classroom after reading a short background article about the palm tree. My group performed a drama scene in which we transformed into a cohune palm and each presented a short dialogue about the different tree parts and their uses. The leaves are used for thatched roofs, the heart of the palm and the nuts are edible, the trunk is used in drum making, and etc. The cohune palm is probably the most important tree to the Mayans. Pictured here is the Mayan ruin Xunantunich, notice the large cohune palms on the right side.