by Gordon Scott of Northland College
We awoke at the Golden Stream Corridor Preserve to bright and sunny weather matching our moods about the day to come. At the time, the group was collectively quite stressed due to being in the midst of studying for midterm exams and hard at work completing assignments from the first round of field excursions in Bladen Nature Reserve. Thus, a break in the form of meeting with the Maya Rose Women’s Group to learn more about the rich Mayan culture was more than welcomed by all.
In the morning, we all eagerly loaded into the van and headed to the small village of Golden Stream where the home of the Maya Rose was. We were already acquainted with a few of the Maya Rose women, Marta and Rosaria, who had been cooking unbelievably good traditional Mayan food for us during our first week at Golden Stream field station. Upon exit, we washed our hands and entered the first building where the kitchen was. The Maya Rose women were happy to greet us with traditional music, dancing, and warm chocolate drinks (pure cacao mixed with water, sometimes with sugar added) in cups made from the outer shells of calabash fruits, of which the insides can be used as a medicine for asthma. A vessel for deliciousness and a cure for asthma symptoms – what a useful fruit. Next, we went outside to a table full of beautifully weaved baskets, threads, and leaves of a common jungle plant we were familiar with, jippijappa – the younger sprouts of which we had been eating in Marta and Rosaria’s cooking. There are two types of leaves, dark and light, which are used to make basket thread and binding string, respectively. The women went around the group giving us leaves to strip thread and string from, which was much harder than it looked when they did it with graceful speed and little effort. We also attempted to weave the baskets ourselves, which we had about as much skill with as splitting leaves – not much.
After our leaf splitting and basket weaving, we were shown how fresh cacao pods are split open and the beans extracted. This we were quite excited about because we already knew what was to come from our previous visit to a cacao farm – the making of fresh chocolate the traditional way and as a bonus, tasty cacao flesh. We moved over to a table with a stone grinder, and calabash bowls of both cacao and coffee beans. We observed the Mayan women crushing roasted cacao with the grinder and got to try some fresh and roasted cacao. Next, we got to see how they made coffee. First, the beans are extracted from the small round fruits in which they reside, which take about ten to eleven months to ripen, and then are sundried for about two weeks before being collected and put into a large wooden carved receptacle. The beans are then crushed with a large stick, much taller than I and made from rosewood, an important but critically endangered tree for construction of houses for local peoples. A few of us including myself took much pleasure in testing out this large crushing stick, with a variety of techniques and results. After crushing, the grounds are placed in a bowl with small holes to separate the outer shells. Following this, the grounds are ready to make coffee, some of which we got to drink once again out of calabash cups – it was delicious.
Following the coffee and chocolate making, we walked over to a giant wooden rolling press with handles on both sides. Nearby was a small clay stove made specifically for roasting cacao beans. It looked quite new, and to our surprise when we asked, we were informed it was made less than a week prior. Next to the press was a large bucket with sugarcane stalks inside. There was also a small bowl of sugarcane cuttings set out for us, which we quickly devoured. Next, we were asked to step up and try out the rolling press to crush sugarcane juice. It required four of us to operate and was a ton of fun but hard work to use. Each sugarcane section was crushed three times to ensure that all the juice was squeezed out into a bowl under the press.
After a few crushing sessions, a pot was brought out and put onto the small fire roaring inside the clay stove. The sugarcane juice was strained through cloth into the pot and heated to a rolling boil. From here, the juice can either be boiled into a syrup that’s perfect for sweetening chocolate and coffee among other things. Alternatively, it can also be boiled down further into rapaduro, a nearly solid, crystalized morsel of sugary deliciousness. Luckily for us, the women had some prepared for us to try while the juice we crushed boiled down. From our faces in the below photo, I’ll let you decide how tasty it was.
After the sugarcane extravaganza, we were led back to the table where we crushed cacao and coffee beans which now held a clean grinder as well as a bowl full of local corn of three kinds – purple, yellow, and white. With the help of the women, we separated the kernels from the cobs and crushed them with the same grinder used for cacao. This crushed corn would then be used to make the dough for corn tortillas, which we were then led inside to make. We also got to try premade tamales with the corn dough and beans inside which were amazing. After making corn tortillas and eating our fill of tamales, we ventured outside to an enclosed platform meant for dancing. The girls in the group were fitted with beautiful traditional Mayan skirts that would be instrumental in the dances performed, and the guys waited for our turn to enter. Sadly, no skirts for us, even though we asked. We danced for a while with the Mayan women, which was a lot of fun and provided some great entertainment to Ya’axché team members Nathaniel and Ramon who were laughing at us pretty much the whole time. After dancing, we went inside to a dining room area and were treated to caldo soup with chicken and vegetables, some jippijappa sprouts, and copious amounts of corn tortilla. For dessert, the Mayan women prepared chocolate cake for us with freshly made cacao which was amazing. Following lunch, we went outside and bought some baskets and other items the women produced and bid them farewell. Though I enjoy field time in the jungle the most, today was a true highlight of the entire Belize program that I will remember for a long time.