Quanita Choudhury: Student Report from 2016 Alternative Spring Break in Belize
When I arrived at UT in fall 2014, I set a personal goal to break out of my comfort zone and create new experiences. What better way to accomplish this than to go abroad without my family for the first time to a new country with a group of students I had never met before?
Needless to say, I was a bit nervous at first. In addition, I wasn’t sure what exactly I would gain from this trip to Belize. But now that I’m looking back, I realize that one blog post isn’t enough to describe just how beneficial this trip has been for me.
Our host family, Nancy and Jaime, started the orphanage that we would be working on. When Jaime was giving us a tour the day before we started working, I was surprised at just how much thought was truly given to this project. The design of each structure on the site was meant to keep the interior cool while minimizing the cost of construction. A majority of the land was devoted to growing various fruits and vegetables so that the site could be as self-sustainable as possible. There were even peacocks on the property to provide a type of therapeutic aesthetic for the residents. When completed, this site will help older girls who have outgrown the orphanage system in Belize.
Our job was to advance progress on the root cellar that other UT students started building last year. This was done by creating a mix of dirt and lime, adding the mix into empty large bags, and stacking the bags like bricks. We also placed lines of wire on top of each completed row in order to maintain the framework of the root cellar. The physical labor behind this process, in addition to the extreme heat, amounted to intense workdays, but this enabled us to come together as a team by devising systems to increase our efficiency and putting in more time and effort than Jaime had initially asked of us. As a result, we were able to complete the framework for the root cellar – started by UT, finished by UT. That alone made this trip worthwhile, but there was more.
On the days that we didn’t have to work, we explored the area. We enjoyed Belizean cuisine at local restaurants, visited iguana and baboon sanctuaries, and explored the Mayan ruins in both Belize and Guatemala. Nancy and Jaime were also incredibly kind and gracious to us; we enjoyed a mix of Belizean and American dishes and fresh juices at their home, and they genuinely viewed us as extended members of their own family.
This trip to Belize has been the most rewarding experience of my life so far. I met some incredible UT students, immersed myself in a new region and culture, and contributed to a project that will have greater, farther-reaching benefits than anything I had ever taken part in before. Personal goal to create new experiences? Check.