How Did you Choose Monkey Bay?
Well, I like to say that God chose it for me as I had contacted many organizations, but this one just had something very special. The Director and I exchanged wonderful emails back and forth with a religious undertone to it all. She was from South Africa and lived on and off in Belize. She had taken part in many different fantastic projects in Africa and she is just an amazing woman.
Instead of just describing the project in a one pager, she sent me all the information she had on the community including their work with the priest and the needs of the community.
This was an under-priviledged community of about 2,000 Belizians, Spanish, and Indians and it had been suffering with poverty, drugs, violence, teen pregnancy, and little community support. In the 14 years this community had been around, not a soul had gone into work with them. The only main person running the community was a Ms. Raquel, the Superwoman of the community, who made sure things got done. She is the Health Director basically running a medical office out of her small house with 3 kids. She was on the Community board running schools drives, food drives, and structuring the community the best she can. It was clear that this woman needed my assistance and the community was in need of some real attention, acknowledgment, support, and caring.
Unfortunately, The costs for staying at Monkey Bay was out of my budget, it was not in the location I desired, and it was going to be difficult getting out to Honduras after. All these things did not matter as I knew I had to be in this place working with these people. God was calling me there was I had to go do it- it was clear.
The MH community was 2 kilometers away from Monkey Bay and I would be staying with my own private room at Monkey Bay. This was a campsite with many young interns and volunteers participating in research or environmental volunteer projects.
There were different cabin styles with the bathrooms outside. Hammocks surrounded the front near the veranda, which was a wide open field with beautiful moonlight nights and hot sunny days. People joke and say that is where the leopards sleep.
On site, there are various different bird species, medicinal plants, spice plants, fruit trees, and every kind of insect you could imagine. Spiders, lizards, iguanas, snakes, all kinds of flies, ants, lightening bugs, moths, butterflies-everything. It was quite an experience with all these bugs, but I just had to deal with it like everyone else did. The camp was located right near the Sibun River, which is one of the largest rivers in Belize and one of the most beautiful. It's another one of nature's beautiful spots.
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