Belizean Sands

This awesome tidbit was passed on from a friend (thanks Glenn Rehberger) and is so perfect for Tobacco Caye.  Water is definitely at a premium here, the classic water water everywhere conundrum.  Rain water catchment is the source of most fresh water on the island which is great during the wet season (now) but can be problematic in the drier months when they have had to ship very expensive fresh water in from the mainland.  Already they have to do this in big jugs for potable drinking water.  As this little boy would be quick to tell you, there is no fresh water to spare for excretion control.  Instead the toilets use salt water, which has to be pumped up, or dumped from a bucket in a pinch.  It’s definitely an adjustment being so much more involved in the water process.  We see it when it falls, then we fill a bucket from a tap at the bottom of the catchment tank to do our laundry.  We ride on the boat with the 5 gallon bottles of drinking water, then we go to the kitchen and watch as the water level in those bottles dwindles with our consumption.  We swim in the ocean and watch it lapping around our cabin, then noticed that our shower drains directly into it and learned that many of the septic tanks are without bottoms.  Water quite literally surrounds us but its scarcity also permeates our daily lives to the point that even the thought of shitting on what we could be drinking makes me want to go home and build a composting toilet.