GERALYN DUCADY: So thank you
for having me here tonight.
So as Bob said, in June of
2016, I traveled to Belize.
I ended up gathering about
210 opinion questionnaires
from local citizens in each
of Belize's six districts.
So this isn't just
Maya people, this
is indigenous and
non-indigenous.
I conducted a number of
informal interviews as well.
So again, goals of the project
were to better understand
how citizens view local
archeology, their identity,
and their relationship with the
archeology in Maya heritage.
So again, in 1999, I was
a junior undergraduate
in Boston University,
student of archaeology.
And Dr. Patricia McAnany was
teaching at VU at that time.
And we did our study abroad
in Belize, our field school.
And so while there, we did
field school stuff like you
do in field school.
And we also had to
have a term paper.
Most of the students
would do something
like analyze the
Olympics, or analyze
the pot charge that came
out of excavations that we
were working on.
But I was really
curious because here we
were a group of American
students excavating and going
into town, hanging out
at the bar sometimes.
And I was wondering if
all these other people who
were living in the towns, do
they know that we're there?
Do they know what we're doing?
Do they know there are
sites in their backyard?
And what do they think
about the archeology?
So I decided I wanted to do--
as a budding public
archaeologist,
I decided I wanted
to talk to people.
So I did conduct a survey.
It was a term paper, undergrad.
It was about 50 surveys.
I conducted about 25 in
meeting people at the bar
that we hung out at.
And then, also, I took the
bus into the nearest city
of Belmopan and met about
25 people there, so just
meeting people in
the plaza, asking
if they wanted to talk to
me and doing it that way.
So fast forward, maybe
about three years ago,
Patricia McAnany,
now at the University
of North Carolina,
Chapel Hill, she
was a fellow at the John
Carter Brown Library here.
So of course, we had lunch
because I was working here.
And she said, hey, I remember
that term paper you did.
Have you ever thought
about going back and doing
a follow-up?
And I was like, no.
I was an undergrad.
It was an undergrad paper.
But she put that
little bug in my ear,
and we talked
about it for a bit.
And she suggested I go back
and do a larger project,
and don't just go
to Belmopan but go
to all the districts in Belize
and see what's going on.
In the meantime,
like Bob was saying,
she has been doing a lot
of outreach work in Central
America.
So she's been doing work
in Guatemala, Belize,
and in Mexico with Maya
indigenous communities
through her organization
called InHerit.
And they've done many things
working with communities.
They've done community
mapping projects.
They've done radionovelas,
programs with the school kids,
all sorts of things to
connect the communities
with their heritage.
So she was particularly
interested in having
me do this.
So I spoke to Bob about it.
He was on board.
So the Haffenreffer
Museum sent me.
It was, again, a
very small project.
It was a month long.
And so I will tell
you about that.
So this is my very low-key
map that I hand wrote on just
to give you an idea of
the places I went to.
So these are the six
districts of Belize.
And to give you a little
background about Belize,
for those of you who don't
know, it's south of Mexico,
east of Guatemala.
It's only 8,800 square miles.
It's slightly larger
than New Jersey.
It was the only English
colony, and it was called
British Honduras until 1973.
And it gained its independence
from Britain in 1981,
so it's national
language is English.
And it is broken up
into six districts.
So it's comprised of many
different ethnic groups.
The population will vary
district by district.
So Mestizos make up almost
half the population,
and they're descendants of
both Mexicans and Maya who
fled into Belize during the
Mexican Caste War in the 1800s.
Many are bilingual, English
and Spanish speakers,
with some only speaking Spanish.
Creoles make up the next largest
ethnic group at about 26%.
They're of mixed African
and white ancestry
whose ancestors were brought to
Belize during the transatlantic
slave trade.
Most speak English and also a
separate creolized language.
The Maya make up about
11% of the population
and are of two distinct groups.
There's the Kekchi Maya
and the Mopan Maya,
and they speak
different languages.
The Garifuna or Garinagu make
up about 6% of the population.
Their ancestors
were runaway slaves
from St. Vincent who
created a distinct Garifuna
culture and language and
are of African and American
Indian descent.
And some scholars consider
them an indigenous group.
Mennonites began coming to
Belize from Canada and Mexico
in the 1950s.
So they're Orthodox
Protestants, as you know.
And they speak a German dialect.
There's a very small population
of East Indians, about 4%.
Caucasians are about 1.2%.
1% Chinese, and 1.2% listed
as other or not stated.
And this is according
to the 2010 census.
So the total
population of Belize,
according to the 2010
census, is 324,528 people.
So pretty small,
not a lot of people.
Again, Roman Catholicism makes
up about 40% of the population.
It's the most popular religion.
But there are also other
Christian villages in the area.
I noticed that even in
the smaller villages that
had, maybe, 400
people in the village,
there were four churches.
There are Catholics.
There are Methodists.
There are other
types of religions.
There are also about 100
males to every 100 females,
so half-and-half.
And the median age is
about 21 years of age.
So I decided I needed to
go all around the place.
So some of the places
I circled are here.
I'll talk about why I
picked some of them.
I tried to pick some smaller
villages and some of the larger
cities.
Larger cities is not what
a city that we think of.
And I also tried to pick
some of the villages
that I knew were mostly Maya,
or mostly Mestizo, or mostly
Creole because I was trying
to get many different people
to answer my survey.
So I'm going to talk about the
experience I had in Aguacate.
So my very first--
and that's my face.
My husband tells
me he's sick of me
making those faces in pictures.
But I do it all the time.
So the first stop was
the Village of Aguacate.
And I went there first because
Patricia McAnany introduced me
to a former student of
hers who was, at the time,
working for her in the
InHerit organization.
Claire Novotny.
She did her dissertation
work in this village.
So there's a site right on
the very edge of this village,
an archaeological site.
And so she did her work there.
And she did a lot of community
involvement with them.
And the weekend
I was going down,
she opened a Heritage Center.
And so I wanted to see
the Heritage Center.
I wanted to see it's opening.
I wanted to talk to
the people and how
she involved them in that.
The village does a Homestay
program, and that's what I did.
So that's a means
of making money.
So, at the time the current
village chairman headed this
up, he was the only one
with internet access.
He lived down a hill.
He did it through
his phone, and people
could set up to stay at a home.
So I stayed with a family.
That's me grinding
corn for the tortillas
that we made that night.
And what was interesting was
I needed to get permission
to do surveys there, of course.
So Claire Novotny had
contacted the chairman
before we came down to see
if it was OK that I do this,
and he said, yeah, sure.
So we get there, and
he says, well, there
are elections this weekend.
I might not be the
chairman anymore.
And you really should
speak to the Alcalde.
So the chairman is the leader
as set up by the English,
and an Alcalde is the
traditional Mayan leader.
So most of these Maya
villages had the two leaders.
And they also had
a village council.
So he said, I had needed
to ask the Alcalde,
and and he wasn't
there that day.
But he would be there the next
day at the Heritage Center
opening.
So I'll talk about that.
So this is Claire at the
Heritage Center opening.
So first, we met people at
the archaeological site.
That's her showing
some students some
of the objects that are just on
the surface of the site, then
going up to see a cave
site, which some of you
might not know that Maya
left offerings in the caves
that they believed that was
the entrance to the underworld.
And then, this is the
Heritage Center opening.
Again, she did her dissertation
there working on that site.
So she left objects to be
at the Heritage Center.
And she left her reports, her
articles, her dissertation,
those kinds of things to
be at the Heritage Center.
I contacted her
recently for an update
since it's been so
long since I was there.
And she said, it's going strong.
People are using it.
They're looking for funding to
get solar panels because being
closer to the equator than here,
it can be dark by 6:00 or 7:00
almost all year around.
So they're looking
for solar panels
so they can have
some lights in there.
So we have this
lovely celebration,
and I meet the Alcalde there.
And I talked to him about it.
And there are some members
of the council there as well.
And they're like,
that's a great idea.
We like your project, but we
can't give you permission.
You have to do it in
front of the council
because it's the community
that needs to decide this.
It's like, I'm here
for three days.
So then, the next day
was the elections.
And they invited me to
come to the elections
and to ask permission
to survey people.
And so I did that.
And it was very
interesting experience
because some people,
about half the people,
were very upset over the
results of the election.
So I'm coming into a
room of angry people.
They're all men.
And the Alcalde introduces
me in Q'eqchi Maya
so I'm not really
sure what he's saying.
He seems happy.
Some of the people who
are talking to me the day
before were trying to
explain my project,
and then, they let me
explain it in English.
And then, there were some
arguments in Q'eqchi Maya,
so I didn't know what
they are arguing about.
Then, they explained
it to me in English.
They did not give me permission
to talk to people in town
because, a few reasons.
One-- it was interesting
because they were used
to Claire Novotny being there.
And she was doing her
work for her dissertation.
So they understood
that she was doing
her work for her dissertation,
but I wasn't a student.
So they didn't understand
why I was doing this.
They said, you're just a worker.
You just work at a place.
But the biggest reason is
they're really over studied.
So I realized that
after I got to Belize,
and it wasn't just here.
There were so many
university students,
almost in every town I went to,
who were studying the people.
So I think people
were sick and tired
of that, very understanding.
And so they were wary of that.
They appreciated that I
came and got permission.
They said some people don't.
But they were wary of that.
They see people come
in, do their work
and leave, and then never
share the work with them.
And then, they don't know what
people are saying about them
to the public.
I'll try not to spend the
whole time talking about this.
So I'll cut it
short, but I didn't
get to do any surveys
those first four days.
So I'm only here for a month.
So I'm a little
nervous because I
didn't get to do anything
those first four days.
But it was a really
great experience,
and I did get to talk to
some people about the site.
When we were
looking at the site,
we did find a looters hole.
So somebody pulled me aside
and was like, this is awful.
Claire's doing all
this work because she's
trying to get people
to appreciate the site
and to not loot it.
And he's like, I bet it's
somebody from another village.
And this is our history.
This shouldn't happen.
So I did have some little
side conversations but nothing
official, I should say, there.
So then, after I
left the village,
I went around to a bunch
of the larger cities.
I won't to tell you
everything about every city.
I did have a blog if
you wanted to see that.
So this is Punta Gorda.
This is Dangriga, which is
in the south, mostly Garifuna
community.
This is Belmopan Market.
And then, this is the
market in San Ignacio.
So in the larger cities, I
went to public spaces, markets,
or plazas, or up and down
places where there were shops,
and I approached people there.
And then, that's when I
finally got the surveys going.
So I did collect a
lot in these places.
Some people fill them
out on their own.
Some of them wanted me to speak
to them and fill it out myself.
But I did get going there.
And I stayed in an Airbnb
in Belize, in the city.
The Airbnb's actually
in a Creole village,
and the host helped me talk
to some of her friends too.
So I got them some
that way as well.
Another quick,
interesting experience
was in a village, San
Antonio Rio Hondo.
This is in the north of Belize.
You have to cross a
large river to get there,
and it's an island in the
middle of a larger river.
It's a Mestizo village.
This was also an Airbnb.
So there is a gentleman
in the village who
worked with this family to
build this little cabana,
so they can make money
off the tourists,
so they can send
their kids to college.
So I stayed there.
And I was hoping again,--
I'm giving you some failures,
I guess some lessons learned.
But I was hoping to get
some surveys in this village
as well.
But as you can see, that
day was pretty nice,
but then, it started pouring.
And it poured and poured,
and so nobody was hanging out
in the public spaces.
So I got a few surveys
from the host family,
and from another family
I had dinner with.
But then, I ended up going--
the closest, largest
town is Orange Walk.
In town there, the
shops are still open.
So there's still people at the
markets and things like that,
even in the rain.
So I got some rain
soaked surveys there.
But I didn't have much
luck in the village itself.
But it was still interesting
to spend time in the village.
And one more quick story
of a place I visited,
was Crooked Tree.
So I went here.
This is a Creole village.
Again, also in the middle of--
there's a river you have
to cross to get there.
And then on the other
side, there's a lagoon.
And it's the home of the cashew.
And the reason I
wanted to go here
is because there is another
archaeologist, Dr. Alicia
McGill,--
and I forget where she teaches.
Here it is.
She teaches at North
Carolina State.
When she was a student, she
worked with Dr. Anne Pyburn
of Indiana University.
And there's a site--
and I'll show you pictures
of me going to the site--
close to the village but
really far to the village.
It's the closest village that
Dr. Anne Pyburn excavated
at in the 90s and
the early 2000s.
And so Alicia McGill
was her student then.
And then, she returned, and she
did a lot of community work.
So this is not Alicia,
this is her student
of public history, Lisa.
And they're putting a
community exhibit together
at the Audubon Society building.
So when you cross the river,
the Audubon Society building
is right there.
And the whole village is
the wildlife sanctuary.
So there are people
living there.
It's very popular for birders.
Obviously, it's Audubon.
You go there and you have
to still buy your pass,
if you're not a resident, to
be able to go into the village.
And all the streets
of the village
are the Audubon Society
trails, if that makes sense.
So they did a lot of work.
They put this nice
community exhibit up.
Over a few years, they
worked fairly closely
with the community to
figure out what they
wanted to see in the exhibit.
It's the history
of that community.
Again, it's a Creole
village, but they're also
looking at the Maya history
as well because there's
that site near there.
Unfortunately, again, I
contacted Alicia in preparation
for this talk to find
out what's going on.
She said the opening
was successful.
There was 100 people that came.
There's not even, I don't think,
100 people in the village.
She also worked with
another village nearby.
People have been using
it as a community center.
The Belize Audubon Society
started training people
to be tour guides
as a means of income
for all the tourists that
come in for the birding.
And unfortunately, there
was a festival recently,
and someone burned
the building down.
So it was a nice success,
but now it's gone.
She says she has the
labels and everything
electronically and images.
So they're hoping when
they rebuild a building,
they can do a panel exhibit.
So that's a sad story to learn.
I learned that last week.
So while I was there, I
wanted to visit the site.
And I had to hire a guide
because it was a two hour
horseback ride to get there.
And this is the lagoon
that's on the other side.
So when I was there, it
was the very beginning
of the rainy season.
It was actually a drought.
So we were able to cross
the lagoon by horseback,
usually you would
have to take a boat.
This is the site
in the distance.
It's a hill.
And then, this is it here.
So I wanted to show this because
some people in the audience
maybe have only seen the nice
cleaned off sites that you
go visit when you're a tourist.
But this is what they look like
when you first come upon them
and not rebuilt.
We also found a looters
hole here, unfortunately.
The gentleman who
brought me out was
one of the people hired
by Dr. Anne Pyburn.
So when you're an
archaeologist in Belize,
you have to get a permit.
And you have to hire local
people to do the work with you.
So a lot of the locals, when I
did the surveys in this town,
were talking about, we wish the
archaeologists would come back
because we had work
when they were here.
And now, we don't have work.
But then I heard from Alicia
that the Audubon Society was
trying to train
people so, hopefully,
that will change things there.
But one of the other
things with the site
is you can't monitor it after.
It's too much.
So I guess, initially, they
did have people on two week
stints staying out there.
But then, they stopped doing it.
And he was telling me his friend
was hearing things and hearing
ghosts and seeing
things and got spooked
and didn't want to
go there anymore.
So it's just really hard
to monitor the sites
after they've been discovered
to keep them from looters.
I also visited
some tourist sites
to compare them with
the other sites.
One of the things I
talked to people about
was if they get to visit sites.
So a lot of the people, and some
of them who live near sites,
they said they went when they
were kids on field trips,
but they haven't been since.
Others say they've never been
to an archaeological site.
So here are Belize
citizens who have never
been because all these sites are
really geared towards tourists.
The Institute of
Archeology decided
to leave all the
artifacts in C2,
so for those of you who
don't know that means,
that means you leave
everything in place.
So therefore, you have to go
with a licensed tour guide.
And it's a long dirt
road to get there,
and you have to go
with a licensed tour
guide on a licensed tour bus.
And the guide has
to monitor and make
sure people aren't stepping
on things or taking things.
And obviously, they're
selling adventure
because you have to swim
into the cave to get there.
Again, like I said, the Maya
leave offerings in the caves.
So this cost me, I
think, about $85 US.
So obviously, a local
Belizean citizen
is not going to be able
to take a trip like that.
So they may not ever get
to go there, unless they're
the tour guide, which is also--
there were a lot of
tour guides around.
This site was easy to get to.
So this was near
Corozal, which is
in the northern part of Belize.
This is the cleaned
off site that I
was talking about that looks
different than when you really
stumble upon it.
Cleaned off, rebuilt. This
was on the very edge of town
in Corozal, and so people
there were like, yeah,
we've been to Santa Rita.
They do programs there.
So they've been
able to visit this
because it's right in town.
It's easy to get to.
Marco Gonzalez Maya Site.
I went down there.
It's on one of the islands
of [INAUDIBLE] Ambergris.
It's on the southern
end of the island.
So the main tourist
city is San Pedro.
So even those who are living
near the main tourist city,
it's quite a drive
to get down there.
So it's not easy.
A lot of Malaysians don't
have vehicles to get there.
It's about $10 US, but if you're
a citizen, it's $10 Belize,
which is about half the cost.
And it was a very interesting
site because it's not
like one of the large
tourist temples,
and things are just everywhere.
All the artifacts
are just scattered.
They have these displays
in the park where
I was amazed because all the
artifacts are just on a table
and then there's a
label pointing to them,
labeling them.
And I was just amazed that all
the pieces were in the spot
that they're supposed to be in.
I don't know how they do that.
I don't know if someone
goes and rearranges it.
But being exposed
to the elements--
there weren't guards
standing there,
so I don't know how people
aren't just taking stuff.
But I was amazed at that.
Cahal Pech I visited.
I was going to a
conference that day,
which is why I was
dressed like that.
But I changed my
shoes to go see this.
So this is on the very
edge of San Ignacio, which
is also a city.
And it's right in the city,
so it's easy to get to.
But you do have to, again,
pay the $10 to get in.
You have to walk through
a museum to get there.
And this is another
cleaned off, large site.
I went to the Archeology
Symposium while I was there.
The reason I'm
bringing this up is
because of something
someone else says later
that I'll tell you about it.
So to the actual
surveyed results.
My goal was to get 300 surveys
and get 50 at each district.
Obviously, that did not happen.
So in some places I was
more successful than others.
I only ended up with 210 total.
And then again, I wasn't able
to get a lot in certain places.
So I wasn't really able to do
a cross district comparison,
so most of my results
are over all what
I was learning from people.
So some of the questions.
I won't go over
every question here.
If you're really
interested in everything,
I do have a chapter coming
out in a book next summer.
So you can read all
those results there
if you want all the statistics.
So I only ended up with seven
surveys that were in Spanish,
so I didn't really reach a
Spanish population very well.
And I had a difficult time
talking to the Mennonite,
so I didn't really
get any Mennonites.
And I think I only got one
person who was Chinese.
But it was mostly Creole,
Mestizo, Maya, and Garifuna.
And I had a couple of Caucasians
who are citizens as well.
So I'm looking at my
time, deciding what else
to skip here.
So one of the
questions I asked was,
do you feel you have
a personal connection
to local archaeological sites?
So I wanted to ask this
because the other thing that
was going on is the Belize
Institute of Archeology put out
a culture and heritage report
right before I went out there
where they were encouraging
people, all citizens of Belize,
to look at that archeology,
that Maya heritage,
as everyone's heritage, not
just if you're indigenous.
But it's everyone's heritage.
And I was wondering,
well, do people
connect to the Maya history
if they're not Maya?
Do they really believe that?
Do they believe
these sites are part
of their collective heritage?
So one of the
questions I asked was
if they felt like they
had a personal connection
to the archaeological sites.
Most did say, yes.
Well, I should say, 87
said yes, 80 said no.
So I wouldn't say most.
And then, 36 weren't sure.
And some of the no's were,
because I'm not Mayan, I guess,
because I've only been
to two sites in my life,
in a lifetime of living here.
And I'll talk about
that a little later too.
It came up in one of
my other questions.
When I asked how people feel
about foreign archaeologists
working on sites
in Belize, 47.7%
answered positive
or mostly positive.
And the reasons for
positive were the belief
that foreign archaeologists
have more education.
They believe the
archaeologists help them
learn about their heritage.
They believe that archaeologists
then tell the world about them,
and that they provide
jobs for locals.
So again, they have to hire
people to work on the sites.
The negative reasons.
There weren't too
many negatives,
but there were a few.
And some were that they
believe that archaeologists
steal the artifacts.
They don't trust them.
Or that archaeologists
do the work
for their own
professional benefit.
So they come, do the
work, they leave.
No one ever hears about it.
This was a given.
I figured most people
would say, yes.
But I liked some
of the answers they
said, that the site--
yes, they believe
it is important to preserve
sites because those sites
are who we are, and they're
for the benefit of our children
and our children's children.
And tourism came up a lot
in a lot of my questions,
which I'm not going to
go over every question.
But a lot of my questions,
tourism, and the economy,
and money came up a lot as the
positive for the archeology.
So is it OK for
citizens who are not
archaeologists to
take artifacts?
Luckily, most said,
no, which was expected.
And they said, well,
most people take them
because they want to sell them.
And if they do that, then we
lose that component of history
that we could learn from.
We should put it in a museum
for all humanity to benefit--
of course, I picked
the best quote--
especially local people.
There were a few
no's and, again,
that was because the
archaeologists removed them.
Anyway, so if they can
do it, why can't we?
I get a distrust of some of
the foreign archaeologists.
How often do you visit
archaeological sites?
The answers were once a
year or less, or never.
Nobody ever said frequently
or more often than that.
And their reasons were
no time outside of work.
It's too expensive.
There's no transportation.
So again, I showed you
some of the sites that
are right on the edge of town.
When I was driving
around, there'd
be a sign on the side of
the highway that said,
archaeological site
this way, 15 miles.
And there's this dirt road,
and even me, in a vehicle,
it was like, I don't have
time to go down this dirt
road 15 miles to see this site.
So I imagine it's really
difficult for other people
to get there, especially
without public transportation
to something like
that, and if they
don't have their own vehicles.
As a lot of people
said they've only
been when they were a
kid on a field trip.
And a couple of people said
when they have visitors in town,
they might bring them
to a site that's nearby.
How have you learned about
the past cultures of Belize?
So the biggest answer
was through school,
and then, internet,
television, radio.
And then, I asked, how have you
learned about new discoveries
in Belize?
So the biggest answer
there was television.
The Institute of
Archeology does a great job
getting the word
out through the TV.
So while I was there, there were
a couple of new discoveries.
It was on the news.
And when I was talking
to people, they're like,
I just heard of
about it last night.
It was on the news that
they found this new thing,
and I'm [INAUDIBLE] to you.
So that's their biggest
way of getting information.
And then, I was asking what
kind of outreach programs
about history and archeology
they'd likely participate in.
The Institute of Archeology
does a lot of outreach.
They do archeology fairs in
some of the bigger town centers.
And they do lectures
and workshops.
But a lot of people said they
were interested in tours.
They would love to
go to the sites,
but they can't get there.
But they are interested in that.
Some informal conversations
I had with people,
aside from the survey--
so I did ask some questions
in the survey that's
trying to elicit how
people identify themselves
and how that identity
reflects with how
they work with other people.
And it didn't come out
so much in the survey,
but when I was
talking to people that
came out a little bit more.
So a Garifuna man
actually refused
to take my survey
because he says,
he knows it's all about the
Maya and everything is Maya,
Maya, Maya.
Even when I lived in
the states, that's
all that was promoted
about Belize was the Maya.
That's because that's
where the money is.
So he's alluding to the tourism.
But he went on and talked
to me a lot about how
there are Garifuna sites.
And when I went to the
Belize Archeology Symposium,
it was Maya, Maya, Maya, Maya,
look, there's a Garifuna site.
Maya, Maya, Maya.
I think there were two people
who talked about something that
wasn't ancient Maya at that.
So there was one person who
talked about Colonial era,
and one person that did
speak about a Garifuna site.
So he's interested in
seeing these other things.
A Creole man, again, he
believed the Maya in Belize
are not indigenous to Belize.
He believed they moved there
from Guatemala or Mexico
during the Caste
Wars, and are not
connected to the ancient ruins.
And that's something that came
up from even Caucasian people.
In 1999, I heard that.
They're like, they're not the
Maya that build those temples.
There's no way they did that.
A lot of racism there.
I had some Creole women who
were alluding to they lived
near another Mestizo village.
And again, Mestizoes,
mostly Spanish speaking.
And they said, we
go to the market,
and they're speaking Spanish.
And if their
Belizean, they should
be able to speak English.
So I don't know why
they're speaking Spanish.
They shouldn't do that.
A Rastafarian man
mentioned that he
was afraid to go
to a tourist town
because people might
take me for something
violent because of the way he
dresses and the way he looks.
And then, I had two Caucasian
men in two different places
talk about how the
local people were lazy,
all they wanted were handouts.
And they don't want to work.
So some racism came up there.
So again, I didn't go over
every question that I asked,
but I did see some trends in the
answers that I got from people.
And based on that, I
have some recommendations
that will maybe help me answer
some of the concerns that
came out of the trends I saw.
So again, I mentioned
before that people had
difficulty getting to sites.
They can never go.
They were interested in tours.
So my recommendation is
grants for the government.
So the Institute of Archeology
is a government organization,
so grants for them to be
able to host community
tours of the local sites.
So maybe get money to
have a bus pick people up
at a town center on a Saturday,
and go to a site that's
a little off the beaten
path and visit that instead
of just having a fair in town.
Yes, that's a lot of money.
But perhaps, there's
something other
that they can make that happen.
These foreign archaeologists
who are coming in
should include
community involvement
in their research proposal
when funding applications.
So they're not just coming in,
doing their work and leaving.
They're coming in and doing
something with the community
while they're there.
And again, the
Institute of Archeology
already makes it a requirement
that you hire local people.
Perhaps, they can
make a requirement
that you do some kind
of community involvement
as well that's not
just hiring people,
but also educating
and letting them
know what's going on
in their community.
Create formal
training opportunities
at local universities
and apprenticeship
opportunities at sites.
There is the college
in Belize City.
There's two current
archaeologists there
who are Belizean, and
they went to the states
to get their education
and came back.
And then, all the
other archaeologists
that were at that conference
were all from the United States
or from Europe, a
few from Europe.
So my suggestion is make it
a major at this university.
Maybe you make an incentive for
archaeologists in the United
States to come teach a
semester or two there
to try to train people, so that
you can have more people who
are local who are
doing this work
and not relying so much
on foreign archaeologists
to come in.
Or apprenticeship,
having people apprentice
with the foreign
archaeologists at their sites.
Or have scholarships
to send students abroad
to study archeology
and then come back
and do the work in Belize.
And also, incentives to
study topics and sites that
are under research.
So incentives for
archaeologists to come and look
at the Garifuna sites, or
look at the Creole sites,
or look at more of the
Colonial era sites as well.
So that's some of
my recommendations
after looking at some of
the trends in my survey.
And I think I'm done.
So if anyone has questions--
So again, there's a lot
more detail in the chapter
I have coming up, more detailed
of the statistics that I did.
And I also have a blog that,
I think is going to come back.
It looks like it's
dead at the moment,
but I hope it'll come
back where I did talk
more about what happened at
different places that I was at.
I could have talked
for three hours,
but I had to cut
some things out.
But I can answer questions.
