C H A Y A ! D IN N ER W ITH TH E M AYA .

CU R ATED B Y: AN ABEL FORD

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from a University of Belize student, a home in Belmopan, and the residence of the Governor General

**Figure 9.** The Opening invitation to the Exhibit of the cultural Institute of Mexico in Belize. Credit: Mexican Embassy Belize. **Figure 9.** The Opening invitation to the Exhibit of the cultural Institute of Mexico in Belize. Credit: Mexican Embassy Belize.

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**Figure 10.** Contemporary Place Settings with Tradition Maya Kitchen in the background. Credit: Adma Chuc. **Figure 10.** Contemporary Place Settings with Tradition Maya Kitchen in the background. Credit: Adma Chuc.

The storytelling in the exhibit resonated and led to a major partnership with the Director of the Museum of Belize, Alexis Salazar. He envisions a new exhibit on archaeology and environment that links to the new Belize heritage education curriculum. El Pilar is the model they identify to develop educational materials to enrich learning for students and teachers, with emphasis on "Transformation and Connections: The World of the Ancient Maya." This is a strand of the Belizean Studies Project that incorporates geography and history, both pre-Contact and recent. The Museum of Belize staff are developing their exhibit with the El Pilar team. Plans to create the didactics and build a virtual introduction to the forthcoming exhibit are underway. *4.3. Community Partnerships*  Our relationships with rural and urban leaders in the community are strong. As the education The storytelling in the exhibit resonated and led to a major partnership with the Director of the Museum of Belize, Alexis Salazar. He envisions a new exhibit on archaeology and environment that links to the new Belize heritage education curriculum. El Pilar is the model they identify to develop educational materials to enrich learning for students and teachers, with emphasis on "Transformation and Connections: The World of the Ancient Maya." This is a strand of the Belizean Studies Project that incorporates geography and history, both pre-Contact and recent. The Museum of Belize staff are developing their exhibit with the El Pilar team. Plans to create the didactics and build a virtual introduction to the forthcoming exhibit are underway.

#### outreach moves along, changes in the dynamics, the reshuffling of advocates, and the incorporation of greater diversity support the expansion outward from Cayo to the rest of Belize and beyond. We *4.3. Community Partnerships*

have found a new groundswell of interest in the forest garden based on mutual respect, which builds on a long-standing alliance with the Institute of Archaeology that began with Harriot Topsey's vision [36]. This foundation has brought in the endorsements of the San Ignacio Hotel, the Governor General, the National Library Service, the Mexican Embassy, and now the Museum of Belize. Our growing partnerships are widely recognized in the region through participation in events, projects, and activities beyond Belize. Private sector engagement has been remarkable, with funding and support from the Belize City Rotary Club, Belize Natural Energy, BRC printing, and Belize Electric Company Limited, and the San Ignacio Resort Hotel. Who would have imagined that paying a courtesy call to the Governor General would result in a fund-raising event to support school Our relationships with rural and urban leaders in the community are strong. As the education outreach moves along, changes in the dynamics, the reshuffling of advocates, and the incorporation of greater diversity support the expansion outward from Cayo to the rest of Belize and beyond. We have found a new groundswell of interest in the forest garden based on mutual respect, which builds on a long-standing alliance with the Institute of Archaeology that began with Harriot Topsey's vision [36]. This foundation has brought in the endorsements of the San Ignacio Hotel, the Governor General, the National Library Service, the Mexican Embassy, and now the Museum of Belize.

gardening? Our growing partnerships are widely recognized in the region through participation in events, projects, and activities beyond Belize. Private sector engagement has been remarkable, with funding and support from the Belize City Rotary Club, Belize Natural Energy, BRC printing, and Belize Electric Company Limited, and the San Ignacio Resort Hotel. Who would have imagined that paying a courtesy call to the Governor General would result in a fund-raising event to support school gardening?

We regularly appear on radio and television shows to promote our mantra on the benefits of forest gardens in rural and urban areas, in private and public spaces. We applaud the Cayo Town Board for the vegetables planted outside their town hall. Fruit trees and home-grown crops are planted as the traditions tell us, to heal the landscape, shade the soil, build fertility, conserve water, and care for people. Lectures and presentations about the Maya forest at schools and clubs, with students, teachers, and the

general public, raise the question of what we can do for our world. AF and CET have been keynote speakers at several local and international events to raise awareness of these issues. CET has promoted El Pilar and forest gardens at the Department of Education Principals conference and the convention of the National Credit Union League, where she shared the podium with the US Ambassador to Belize. AF is active on the international front, including UNESCO panels on Exploring Frameworks of Tropical Forest Conservation [37] and the Max Planck PanTropica workshop [38]. Her work on Maya forest gardens and the domesticated landscape involved her with the Indian Institute of Technology Madras interdisciplinary workshop on the Republic of Plants. All our presentations highlight the wealth untold of the forest by increasing visibility and participation at all levels [39].

As the visibility of the heritage of the forest gardens grows, we attract more individuals from many walks of life. The story still unfolds as the journey continues. The impact of the pandemic in Belize highlights the urgency for gardening, and this new situation has brought a greater appreciation for the importance of food sovereignty.

#### **5. Sustaining Partnerships and Lessons Learned**

The combined networks of AF and CET attracted supporters to the El Pilar education outreach programs, which are sustained by guiding principles and accumulated experience. It is essential to develop reciprocal partnerships and to build on lessons learned from events and activities. As the collaboration evolves, we continue to recognize one another's strengths and strategically leverage support for our endeavors. The resilience of this relationship is based on mutual respect and common concern for the legacy of the Maya forest. The passion that emanates from this collaboration draws attention and inspires engagement among more supporters. We see success as measured by the achievement of clear goals and building of trust rather than acquiring prizes and trophies, and we realize that determination, honesty, and steadfast commitment are the most important elements of our proposed community projects.

Partnerships develop with experience, and the narration here is based on extensive outreach efforts. Our prior experience facilitated the launching of several community projects, and we found there was still much to learn. We are aware that themes evident to our team need to be made clear and unambiguous to partners, and through this process of clarification, we discover and recognize our underlying suppositions. Assumptions about existing knowledge must be reviewed and common ground explored to achieve productive ends. We obtain strength from developing models that influence existing paradigms and honor cultural diversity. For example, global themes of climate change and biodiversity relate directly to our work with Maya forest gardens, providing reference points that people and institutions recognize. By connecting to this prominent issue, we have gained support from a wider cross section of the populace.

Our experience demonstrates that trust can be gained by listening without judgement and creating safe spaces for experts to express themselves. This approach expands potentials for reciprocity to meet mutual objectives. Through staging celebratory events, participating in local activities, and collaborating with community programs, we have been able to demonstrate inclusiveness and formally engage to recognize our partnerships in the community. Such an inclusive agenda provides a platform to establish relationships with collaborative projects and memoranda of understanding, and we have developed a resource database of individual and institutional contacts by building on this dynamic.

From our experience, we identify nine fundamental components that help to establish and sustain vital community relationships:


Learning lessons is a continuous process as a project engages in adventurous new undertakings. We have found that respecting partners, and validating their diverse knowledge and experiences, is critical to successfully building an inclusive project. This means striving to honor the opinions and backgrounds of others by giving them space for expression. We also must identify controversies, both obvious and subtle, that arise from the meeting of different perspectives. Listening to our partners' perspectives, and attempting to distinguish common ground among all participants, have proved to be simple yet invaluable strategies to address such issues. We meet challenges with facilitation, exercised with patience and timing, to negotiate objectives, and we remember that acknowledging mutual aims draws in people and resources. As events and programs evolve, new supporters emerge, and we must constantly remind ourselves to recognize who we can work with and trust our accumulating intuition. We see the emphasis on the participation of youth advancing a sustainable future. Self-assessment is an ongoing process involving relationships, goals, and the relevance of activities, and this reflection provides an opportunity for team members to express themselves and shape the direction of future endeavors.

Based on the guiding principles of interaction, we have determined nine basic lessons to consider as we promote the community model:


The application of these principles and lessons are a continuing work in progress, as every step in building relationships requires constant reassessment. With each innovative event, every new activity, and all collaborative programs, we must evaluate the principles and appraise the progress and challenges that brought the endeavor to fruition. We see the only way forward as involving constant diagnosis and reflection.

## **6. Results: Recognizing the Past, Valuing the Present, Embracing the Future**

This review of our efforts in the Maya forest is an example of how education outreach projects are invigorated with local collaboration. Shared goals and intentions are essential. When the priorities of archaeological projects include diverse entities and individuals, new horizons and unanticipated achievements can be reached. Local and international interests in tangible heritage loci and intangible cultural traditions create the platform for interactive development of relationships and the identification of common ground. We show here that archaeological projects in the Maya area are in a special position for creating unique partnerships. These projects derive from the academy, articulate with the government, bring appeal to heritage attractions, and have associations with the communities where they work. Required elements to build community partnerships include the recognition of specific valued tangible heritage, a formal information outlet, an education link, and an honored cultural tradition. Each provide fertile ground for cultivating collaborations.

Our project recognizes four educational pillars that revolve around the heritage of the ancient Maya. We have identified the protected area of the El Pilar Archaeological Reserve for Maya Flora and Fauna as the principal pillar of community identity with its unique feature of Archaeology Under the Canopy [20]. We have emphasized the wealth of the Maya monuments, yet there are more recent connections to lumber and chicle camps. Much of Cayo's historic wealth was based on wood cutting and chicle bleeding, activities that continued into the 1980s. The wealth of the Maya forest—the product of ancient Maya creativity—is much more than this lumber and chicle.

The Maya forest garden is the wealth untold that underpins our four education pillars. It is found at the El Pilar Archaeological Reserve and is celebrated at the urban Cayo Welcome Center. It is revealed at the *Chak Ha Col* outfield of Master Forest Gardener Narciso Torres and is the vision of the rural *Känan K'aax* School Garden. The Maya forest is the result of ancient Maya land-use practices that still link to traditional forest gardeners from the villages all over the region today. Creative outdoor education opportunities are guided by these traditional farmers and provide young and old with the chance to explore the nexus of culture and nature.

We share the narrative of our work in progress as we continue to discover the legacy of the Maya forest garden and the riches of El Pilar. The illustrious Maya civilization has been exalted but disconnected from the heritage on which it was founded. People have been taught that the Maya disappeared! Alfonso Tzul, a Maya historian and Master Forest Gardener from San Antonio village in Cayo, puts it succinctly and dramatically [40]: You are talking to one!

Belize is developing a new education program that highlights heritage focused on "Transformation and Connections." The aim is to increase understanding of how people's interactions with each other and the environment have and continue to shape Belize (http://www.belizeanstudies.com/). The four pillars of El Pilar figure significantly in this new evolving agenda and will be the core of forthcoming exhibitions with the Museum of Belize that explore peaceful ways of knowing and being.

This is our way forward with lessons that will prove to be useful for Maya anthropological archaeology. Through our growing education outreach activities we sustain mutually beneficial partnerships with citizens. We are creatively envisioning local education and tourism based on the intangible heritage of the forest garden by way of exhibits and field trips. This showcases heritage land management as a conservation and development strategy from the home to the archaeological setting. The project engages with Government and Non-Governmental Organizations with cosponsored projects, programs, and events that bring attention to new ways of knowing and being. The Cayo Welcome Center presents a meeting place for tours that introduce the public, citizen scientists, and international researchers to the value of community participation. These processes reveal the logistics, the practicalities, and the nitty-gritty considerations that play out on the ground.

Where is the wealth and the heritage of Belize? It is on the path of discovery, and we see our program as a catalyst. We recognize that it is in the local traditions that have a cosmopolitan and eclectic source from the deep historical past of the Maya. Building on this creative pre-Contact foundation come adaptations by the Garifuna, and later the gardens of the new Belize with North Americans, Europeans, Chinese, Indians, and Central Americans as contributors, creating a complexity that provides a rich source of different ways of knowing. From the diversity of Belizean heritage, a global forest garden emerges with different sources of knowledge generating a vital base for health and well-being. The distinctiveness of Archaeology Under the Canopy models ways in which we can learn from nature. As we recognize the past and value the present, we invite ourselves to embrace a future guided by forest gardeners and sharing the gifts of the Maya from nature.

**Author Contributions:** All three authors contributed comparable to the whole. C.E.T. composed and governed themes and substance, A.F. contributed general historical content and bibliography, and S.H.III was instrumental in formal organizational development and overview. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

**Funding:** This education outreach project received funding from Exploring Solutions Past: The Maya Forest Alliance, National Geographic Society, and the New England Biolabs Foundation.

**Acknowledgments:** Our decades long engagement with Belize archaeology has been enabled, supported, and encouraged by the Belize Institute of Archaeology and the National Institute of Culture and History. Our community outreach has been supported by National Geographic Society and the New England Biolabs Foundation. Pilot education outreach supported by Education Foundation of America. Collaborative exhibits with the Belize National Library Service and the Mexican Embassy were essential in the development of our research with the Museum of Belize and Belizean Studies Committee. We thank the community and forest gardeners as well as all the individuals who have help to make the education outreach a success.

**Conflicts of Interest:** The authors declare no conflict of interest.

## **References**


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