Winds of Change

As hurricane Dean passed over this place, a new purpose and sense of being was dropped in my lap. The year of struggle, adjustment and waiting was swept up and carried away, leaving in its place another 11 months of hope, promise, and action. Tears of excitement approach each time I think about what I have to look forward to. Here is why.

Blue Creek, my home, has a cave (just in case you’re just tuning in to this adventure). That cave is spectacular, people love to visit, swim, and bask in its mysterious wonder. Unfortunately, one person wanted to guard that cave as his own, charging visitors to walk across “his” land to reach the cave, refusing to share with his own community. The community knew that this was wrong, riverbanks are public access and caves are national monuments, but where to begin? Without money to pay for the trip to the capital and the knowledge to protect their rights, Blue Creek allowed this person to continue his selfish practices. Until now.

The village council approached me and sought my advice on this issue. Of course, living there for a year I had tons of opinions and advice, but had not offered it up yet, waiting instead for them to come to me. They had some information, but needed more. I promised to do what I could while I was in the capital before I was collected and planted there for the hurricane evacuation. Two days of free time, waiting for a storm, was spent emailing, calling, walking, meeting, and sweating – here is what I now know:

* Blue Creek Cave (Hokeb Ha in Maya) is an archaeological site has already been identified as a potential Community Co-managed Protected Area. Basically, the Institute of Archaeology was waiting for someone to come to them and offer to assist the village creating a protected area to be managed by the community (that would be me).
* The village will be able to collect fees and will receive training with all the money going back to the village.
* They will be able to get up to $60,000US in grant funds to build a visitors center, buy safety equipment, and support the women’s craft center.
* The private land owner will no longer be able to collect fees.

THIS IS BIG. Not only is this the kind of project that I am passionate about, this is something that will have a major impact on the community. Eleven months is such a short time, where have the past 14 gone?? One year ago I could have never imagined this, and here I am, scared of running out of time, scared of leaving this place too soon