Day Five: January 11, 2015

Patricia's Blog
Waking up at BFREE with the howler monkeys as our alarm clocks. The monkeys sounded, for me, to be literally right next to my bed and the other on the opposite side of the bunk house; what a wake-up call. Now daylight I can freely go to the bathroom thats like a mile away (just exaggerating), however there's always a spider in the stall which freaked me up. 

Sitting in the river, hailing to the sun

At BFREE, the weather was nice, so after lunch we all decided to go and bathe in the river. We had to take advantage of this warm day, since rain is all we were getting. The river was a bit high tide and warm. Getting into the water felt so refreshing and made me relaxed. However, we couldn't swim since the river was only a bit higher than our ankles, so I sat in the river and started collecting rocks of different size and actually piling them up and created a rock skyscraper (the architect in me). 

LUNCH

First design presentation

Lunch time, after we got ready and dried a bit from our river bath, we walked to the dining hall and had a great lunch provided by Maya one of the cooks. Now it was time to start measuring the dining hall and have an overall idea where everything is lay out and start coming with ideas. We all collaborated in measuring different portions of the area and coming together to have a general idea on how tall the space is, the post heights, wall distances, furniture length, etc. From here all the way until dinner, we spent our time designing ideas on how we see the dining hall changing to try and provide a bigger kitchen and potential new space for the hangout area. Two spoke to Maya, interviewing her what she would like to see the kitchen and what she needs added. Papers all over the table with dimensions and sketches; we all sat down and started brainstorming different designs to give a presentation after dinner. Another productive day in BFREE!

The Legend of Walkiria's Bag 

Day 5 

Sometimes it felt like the Howler monkeys were right on the door of the bunk house so around 3 am when I had to use the rest room and I heard their beautiful noise I made the courageous decision of going to use the bathroom. I grab my headlamp I grabbed toilet paper and I was on my way. I was so afraid there were spiders with reflective eyes on the floor, I heard noises I never heard before and, and the howler monkey noise sounded like it was by my ear. I literally just wanted to run! I used the bathroom and went straight to bed.. In a few hours I woke up again this time around 6 enough daylight to not be as scared as I was when it was 3 in the morning. I got my clothes ready, grabbed my towel and my soap and took a shower. The cold water is already normal for me so I finished my shower, got dressed and waited for the other girls so I can go to breakfast with them. We went to go have Breakfast by 10:30 it started getting sunnier and we noticed that the air was not humid. We thought that'd be a perfect time to dry some clothes that had gotten wet the day we came in from our hike when we got to BFree. Also we took that opportunity of warmth and sunshine and decided to bathe in the river. 

Dani was cold she's a trooper! 

Patricia enjoyed the current

We've had enough of water but Lia loved it ! 

Is she modeling ? 

 At noon, we got out the water and got ready for Lunch at 12:30. After Lunch we had to measure the dining and Kitchen space to get a rough estimate to sketch more or less how we intend the new proposal can be. Some of us come up with ideas such as building up, building out, Expanding the existing. In the night, at dinner we were going to present our ideas for our first project to the client to understand what his needs and requirements were. We had to speak with him and also speak with Maya, BFree's current cook (Who by the way cooks all the 

amazing food breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner).

It is important to know what Maya might want

different in her kitchen because she is the one 

who is mostly there. 

We had an awesome time at the river 

Baljinder's Blog:

Sunday January 11, 2015. We all got ready as usual, and headed for a Bat Demo at 7:00 am, unfortunately no bats were caught for the demonstration, so we went straight for the hammocks until breakfast was ready at 7:30. 

After that we went down to the Harpe House in which Jacob showed us how some houses were built in BFREE. 

After the Harpe House, Prof. Lia, Dani, Walkiria, Patricia and I went to the tower to take some measurements. On our way Dani spotted a turtle walking along our path. We informed the the rest a few feet behind and Prof. Lia thought it was an endangered Hicattee turtle that might have escaped. So Walkiria and I headed back towards the main kitchen to see if we could find Jacob and see if he could identify the turtle. 

Five minutes later we found him and he told us it was just a mud turtle based off or descriptions and photos taken. So a little excited and disappointed we went back to the trail going towards the tower and we found the rest of the ladies by the Hicattee pond and told them we had to let the mud turtle go. We bid farewell to the turtle and headed back towards the Tower. 

Dani, Walkiria and I headed up the tower to take some measurements, we were also very excited about going up. Patricia and Prof. Lia stayed on the ground and measured the foundation because they did not want to go up. 

Once measurements were done, Dani, Walkiria, and I headed back down after taking some selfies and pictures of the structure. We took some pictures of the foundation before we headed back to the kitchen to sketch what we remembered and took notes on. 

When we were a little tired we thought we would take a break by bathing in the river. 

Dani did most of the bathing while the rest of us just enjoyed the water. We even brought our clothes so that they would dry in the sun while we had it.

However, my sock left me stranded with a missing pair when it decided to drop in the river while my hands were full of wet clothes. Our clothes hadn't dried from the first day that we were at BFREE, and they were starting to reek. 

I guess my sock didn't want to dry anymore and wanted to be apart of the river. 

Once refreshed we headed back to the kitchen to work on some design, and then were invited to go on a short hike to the "Blue Lagoon" after lunch. It wasn't as blue as we thought it would be and Jacob called it the "Brown Lagoon". Dani, Walkiria and I examined some of the precious rocks by the river guided by Canti who had also come with us. Patricia had stayed back to work on more design. 

By the time we headed back to the kitchen, it was time for dinner. 

We had some amazing brownies. 

We presented a little more of our designs to Jacob, and narrowed down some ideas.

Then it was time for a mini hammock break before we went to sleep. Dani starting adding some lyrics together and made up he song called "The Legend of Walkiria's Bag". We were really excited about our designs as well. Marcelleno had stayed back to listen to our stories while everyone called it a night a little while before we headed off.

In the midst of our laughter I thought I spotted a worm by the the toad that was in the room for quite a while. But when I examined closer, it was moving away really fast, Marcelleno took a look at it and told us it was actually a small coffee snake. The toad hopped away, upset that we disturbed its dinner. 

After watching the snake go back to its habitat, we put our shoes on and headed to sleep.

Not to mention, Walkiria found a spider in her shoe.

Sleep.

Dani's Blog

Apparently Howler monkeys took the time out of their morning to wake everyone within a 10 mile radius, but fortunately I slept like a rock. After breakfast Jacob toured us around the quality and building style of the structures on site at BFREE and eventually we made our way back to the observation deck for measurements (and skyline touring part 2) 

After all the hard work of looking out on the Belize forest reserve, we rewarded ourselves with a brief river break. At the recommendation of Aurora's reading back at the Maya Center, I performed a personal ritual of bathing in the river, and after splashing around for a bit we headed back to the dining hall for lunch. 

We made a little more headway on design before being invited on another "short" hike to the Blue Lagoon. Since it hadn't stopped raining for more than 6 hour intervals once we found ourselves in Belize, it was safe to say we were perpetually soaked (yes to warm weather) and the river temporarily renamed to the Brown Lagoon. 

Since the hike was so "short," it was dinner by the time we got back to BFREE. After dinner and a brownie (or two) we whittled down on some of the things Jacob wanted for the Dining hall (still no "clear" direction, but all a part of the experience!) After a brief but well deserved hammock nap (and some baby snake excitement), we headed back to bed for the night.