The start of a Great Trip

I have so much to talk about, I don't know where to start! I am currently in a little internet cafe in the heart of Belmopan, Belize, and it is so hot here! I'm starting to get used to the heat, but it's still going to take some getting used to. I expected the climate to be very humid, like Florida in the summertime, but it's actually a lot dryer than I expected, so the heat is at least bearable. I'm not sure how hot it is, exactly, but it's got to be in the high 80's at least, probably more like 90's.

Anyway, I suppose I should start at the beginning... Getting of the plane, it was very apparent that I was no longer in the United States. I felt like I was in some Indiana Jones movie or something, because there was no connector from the plane to the airport, so we had to walk on the tarmac to get to customs. The Belize airport has to be the smallest commercial airport that I've ever been to. We were the only large plane there - at all! That was very strange, let me tell you. I took a few pictures getting off the plane, but I can't show you now because I forgot my camera cord. I'll be sure to make a picture post later.

After going through customs (which took a long time because of all the archaeological supplies Professor Harrison-Buck had to take along) we walked across the street to the stretch of car-rental places to find a good one for the next week before Prof. Harrison-Buck can buy a good one. This place may not be what you are thinking. Imagine one big building, like any strip-mall building but smaller, with ten or so car rental stores all smooshed together. Each store couldn't have been more that ten feet wide.  After some negotiating for the best priced vehicle, which seemed to take a long time, we finally picked a green Mitsubishi suv. We loaded it up with most of our stuff, and Harrison-Buck and one of the guys on the team went and got the truck that they allready own from January, and we loaded up the rest of our baggage and headed from Belize city towards Belmopan along the Western Highway (at least I think that's the one... there aren't many roads here).

All together there are 7 of us on this expedition (at the moment). Professor Harrison-Buck heads the group,  with the two other Archaeologists Sethuro and Adam. Then there's Harrison-Buck's two daughters Natalie and Eliza (Natalie is 1 year old and Eliza is 5) and their nanny Sarah. And then there's me! Two more UNH students are coming down next week, and one more Archaeologist, I think her name's Astrid, and her boyfriend are driving down (long way to go, if you ask me). It's a nice group, and I'm very excited to start the excavation process!

Ok, back to the story... We drove for a good half hour or so to get to a little open air restaurant and bar called Cheers (yes, where everyone knows your name) for a quick drink and snack (nachos and beer) before continuing to Banana Bank Lodge. It was a cool little place, one of two that the crew apparently frequent when in the country (the other place is called Amigos). We were there for around an hour, and then continued along the Western Highway to Banana Bank.

Banana Bank Lodge is nothing like I was expecting (though I suppose I didn't really know what to expect). It composes primarily of many little buildings (and a few larger ones) all styled in the really cool stuccoish architecture. It's hard to explain, so I'll just post a picture of it later. The building with my room is a small cabin that looks a little like something you would expect at a summer camp or something. It's divided into two halves, one of which is my room, and the other is the girl's room when they get here next week. The room is very long, and pretty empty. In fact, the only furniture in there is my bed! Because of that I had to unpack everything on the floor. It's ok though, because the room is rather spacious so I had room to spread everything out into nice neat piles. There are three big ceiling fans, so it stays nice and cool, and there are plenty of screens and bugs don't seem to be a problem yet (though I found a huge cricket living on my bathroom door last night, and there's a small frog living in the bathroom as well). I'll be sure to be on the look out for more bugs just in case, but I haven't even seen a single mosquito since I got here!

So that's pretty much in for the first day, though we also had dinner before heading to bed (I wont go into detail about the food on this post, but it's delicious!). The next day involved the guys going into town to get a lot of the supplies needed for the excavation, and me heading to the archives to start my research. The national archives building is a lot smaller than you might expect (though to be honest, everything here is smaller than you would expect) but it seems to have most of what we need for the project. I spent a few hours there looking up different land holders from the 1800's in the area that we are excavating. This was a very arduous task because there was really no way to search the specific locations in their database, so I had to be very general with the place names (Belize River, or Cayo District for example). I was sort of successful, though, and wrote up a spread sheet with a bunch of names from 1860 to 1902. This is a little late for the period we are looking for, but they didn't have anything earlier in the database.

After the archives we headed back to Banana Bank to pick up Professor Harrison-Buck because it turns out the guys couldn't use her card at the Home Depot-like-store without her present. We went back to Belmopan and got that stuff, as well as stopped at the store to get some more things we needed. We then stopped at a little connivence store to get some coke-a-cola. I spent money for the first time there, and got some plantation chips (They are made out of bananas, but taste a lot like potato chips and nothing like banana chips). I am so glad that you can use American money here. They exchange rate is 2 Belize dollars to every American dollar, so things are pretty cheap here.

We then went back to the lodge, eat, and went to bed (ish, but nothing really amazing happened here, so I don't really need to go into detail). Today I got up, had breakfast, and we set up the lab (which is really just a small square room with a few tables) and then Professor Harrison-Buck drove me into town to the archives. This time I focused my search on slavery in Belize in general, and spent most of the day reading from books that they had there. I took a break for lunch, and then walked down the street to this internet cafe. And vous-a-la! You are all caught up to date! After I finish up here I'm headed back to the archives for a little more research, and then Professor Harrison-Buck and I will head on back to the lodge at 5. I hope everyone is doing well back in the states, and I'll be sure to post some picture soon!

John DeGennaro

Preparation for the Preparation: Getting Ready to Get Ready

As silly as this title may sound, this is exactly the point in the game that I am at right now. Officially, the project that Professor Harrison-Buck of the Anthropology Department here at UNH and I have come up with doesn't start until May 15th. That means that I won't be doing my preliminary research until then. That  doesn't mean (sadly) that I have nothing to do. On the contrary, I have never been busier! First of all, I am very busy with school (I'm actually procrastinating as we speak by avoiding an essay) and have a lot to do in the academic department. Luckily everything is over on May 13th. Also, I have so much paperwork to fill out that I can't even comprehend it. The problem lies in the fact that I am technically going to Belize for two separate projects through the school. First, I am participating in the first ever UNH field school to Belize that Professor Harrison-Buck is heading up. This is a for credit program that will train me in the field methods of the archaeologist. The field school will be a great way for me to experience an excavation, and because there will only be three of us in the field school, we will get a lot of one on one experience. The other project that I am involved with in Belize is the REAP Fellowship through the Hammel Center for Undergraduate Research at UNH. The Research Education and Apprenticeship Program (REAP) is designed for freshman undergraduate honors students to get a first hand experience with undergraduate research, but to work closely with a mentor on developing said project. With this, I will be working on interpreting the findings we come across at 17th century British slave labor logging camps located on Professor Harrison-Buck's excavation area. Professor Harrison-Buck specializes on Maya archaeology, and that is what her study in Belize is focused on. Because of this, she would normally have not been able to fully look at these logging sites located on her excavation area. The Fellowship allows these sites to be fully analyzed and given the attention they deserve (mainly by yours truly!). Anyway, to get back to my point, because I am doing both of these projects at once, the amount of paperwork needed is enormous! Also, I just found out that my doctors office needs a special itinerary detailing the location of my stay and what I will be doing. Because a document like this doesn't exist, it looks like I'm going to have to write it (yay...). But minor complaints aside, I have never been more excited for anything! This is going to be one of the best experiences of my life, and it will be the determining factor of my career choice. I know I'm going to love it, and I am so excited to begin! I'll keep you all posted through the preparation process as I start my preliminary research on Belize.

Thanks!

John