INDIAN CHURCH, BELIZE -- Dr. Helen R. Haines has a special place in her heart for the ancient Maya.
After interviewing this enthusiastic assistant professor with Trent University Oshawa for a few stories, including one on a dig she and her students did at Henry House in Oshawa, and another on how she believed the world was not going to end in 2012 as many believed the ancient Maya had predicted, I jumped at the opportunity to join the archeologist and her students on a Mayan excavation at her field school in Ka’Kabish, Belize.
Since the small village in which we stayed, Indian Church, has very little documentation online, I didn’t know what to expect.
In my first two-and-a-half hours on bumpy roads -- Ontario’s worst roads have nothing on these -- driving through remote village after remote village and lush jungle, not a fast-food restaurant or shopping mall in sight, I have a pretty good idea that my week in Belize will be quite different from what I’m used to at home.
Once we get to Indian Church, in the truck affectionately known as Junior (since it’s only 15 years old, much younger than the other two used by the field school), we drive around for a tour of the village -- it takes all of five minutes.
Roosters are crowing, chickens are clucking, dogs are chasing one another and children are lying in the hammocks in front of their houses with school books in hand. A young girl apologizes when my room isn’t ready; her mother is stuck at her second job and hasn’t prepared it yet.
After my first meal at the local restaurant Las Orquideas, at which the students eat all of their meals -- we had a special Sunday meal of spaghetti with meat sauce and cake for dessert -- Dr. Haines and her colleague, Northern Illinois University adjunct professor Dr. Kerry L. Sagebiel, take me to the guest house I’ll call home for the week.
The room is clean and simple, yet still and stifling, and the sweat is pouring off of my face and onto my notebook as I take some initial notes. It soaks right through the cotton clothing I’m wearing.
When Dr. Haines and Dr. Sagebiel later bring me a fan to use for the week, I could kiss them. I also thank the Mayan gods that the guest house in which I’m staying has solar panels, thus, electricity for me.
The constant swatting of bugs, roar of the howler monkeys, crowing of the roosters and the cold water that shocks my system the first time I turn on the shower give me a glimpse of the different world I’m going to live in for the week.
That Dr. Haines has already been living in it for more than a month, and does the nearly three-month stay every year, gives me an idea of just how much she wants to uncover the lost history of the Maya.