Imagine riding in a truck with jarring suspension over a potholed road that makes several of your fellow travelers sick just to ride on. Now imagine living on the other end of that spine jolting road, several miles away from the nearest town.
I got to visit that little area, riding in that truck on that road, during a recent research trip to Belize.
I recently returned from the University of Indianapolis-sponsored trip to the little Central American country, where we got to see different parts of it, traveling from the north to the south. The northern part of the country is flat and touristy since Belize City it the tourist capital of the country.
Most of the area is developed and the roads aren’t bad.
It wasn’t until we entered the southern Cayo District that I noticed something. We entered a small village called San Antonio, a.k.a. Little Texas, nestled away in the mountains to visit a women’s group where we learned how to make traditional Mayan food and pottery.
Most of my classmates got sick on the way over and back from the women’s group because the only way in and out of the town was a pothole-ridden dirt road.
Most of the women were at the center after leaving a domestic abuse shelter, learning to make this red clay pottery to sell at the market, as a way to create a stable lives for themselves and their children.
The only way to get the pottery to the market is to take it via the dirt road. It’s an hour to get to
San Ignacio from San Antonio and the only means of transportation is a Toyota Land Rover. The suspension on a Land Rover isn’t the best for taking pottery down to the market. It isn’t the best for people either — it’s what we rode in and why so many people got sick.
As a result, many pots and larger vases break during the trip and the group cannot make the money they need to keep the group going and support the women.
On our return trip and we all loaded up with our own pottery, I thought about the work I’ve been doing with the Basic Utility Vehicle (BUV), and what a difference it would make here. With its truck bed and good suspension, the pottery would make it down to the town more easily, and more pieces would be intact. The vehicle is relatively inexpensive and it is easy to repair and drive, which makes it ideal for the village and the women’s group.
It was interesting to see another country and actually see a place where the BUV would be helpful.
As an American, I never thought I would actually see an area where something like the BUV would be needed, and it was a humbling experience to see just how good we have it.
