Gales Point, Belize

View from the school bus window on the two- hour-long ride from Belize City to Gales Point. 

Hot and humid ride on the first day of my trip. 

A passenger in a passing truck looks into my camera lens on the road to Gales Point. 

Fallen coconuts under a tree overlooking the sound at Gales Point Manatee Lodge.

Mother dog tied to a chain at the entrance of Gales Point Manatee Lodge. She barks ferociously every time someone steps onto the property. The owner of the lodge, Nancy, says, "people here take pride in how mean their dogs are". 

A young local who assists in the turtle tracking process. 

Ms. Gentle, her husband, and their daughter run Gentle's Cool Spot, the hotspot of the village where people come to enjoy traditional creole food and beverages, including Belikin, the official beer of Belize, and homemade wines.

Mr. Gentle at Gentle's Cool Spot.  

A group of friends enjoy a beer and chat outside of Gentle's Cool Spot.

Enjoying a beer at Gentle's Cool Spot. 

Nigel Welch smokes a cigarette while he assists his buddies in making a net to use for fishing.

Because Gales Point is surrounded by water on three sides, the main source of food for locals is fish.

A common traditional creole meal is fish prepared like this and served with rice and plantains.

Fish, rice, and plantains. 

Traditional dinner at Gentle's Cool Spot. 

Local woman making bread from cassava that grows in the village.

Coconut tree in Gales Point, Belize. 

The Gentles' daughter talks with visiting students from Marymount University. 

Coconuts grow everywhere in the village of Gales Point. They are used in every single way possible by using the insides for cooking purposes and the husks for crafting.

Liston Meyer is one among many friendly and welcoming villagers in Gales Point. Even though he has one prosthetic arm from being hit by a careless driver in Belize City, he still gets by on his earnings from crafting and selling souvenirs to tourists.

Local dogs, Hercules, left, and Survival, right, nap on the property of Gales Point Manatee Lodge in Belize. Dogs are very common in this area because there are not many resources for spaying and neutering. They are most often used to protect homes and eat the scraps of the locals.

Hercules and Survival cuddle in the sand. 

Hercules and Survival come running every time they hear a whistle because they know it means peanut butter crackers and head scratches from Hannah (me).

Friends, Cousins, and Siblings. Many of the people living in Gales Point fall under the same family tree but if not, they still treat each other like blood. Josephine, bottom right in the pink shirt, walked with me through the village and pointed out her relation to each person we passed along the way.

Josephine poses for a photo on her grandmother's front porch steps in Gales Point, Belize.

Sisters playing outside in Gales Point, Belize. 

In nearby Dangriga, the capital of Belize's Stann Creek District, a young teacher poses for a photo while class is still in session inside the schoolhouse.

Girls jumping rope outside of their school in Dangriga, Belize. 

A group of young boys pose for a picture while on their lunch break. Some of the students choose to walk home and come back after they eat, but others like these guys, decide to stay and hang out with friends.

Student poses for photo in exchange for me joining in on a game of kickball. His friends teased him the whole time this was being taken.

This young boy was shy but still wanted me to take a photo of him so we compromised by letting him cover half of his face.

This photo shows the backyard of a local household in Gales Point, Belize. The structures pictured are an outhouse, shower, and a sliver of the shed that's used as a kitchen where the family cooks over an open fire.

Dogs roaming the yard in Gales Point. 

Stray puppy in Gales Point.

From the shade of her front yard in Gales Point, Belize, retired principal Alicia Parks watches Marymount University students learn how cashew seeds are roasted. Alicia suffers from chronic knee pain and describes her husband as "sick with stroke." She declined my offer of cashews because she no longer has the teeth to chew them.

Mr. Parks.

Once the pastor's house, this property has long since been abandoned. No one knows where the car came from or how it got so damaged. 

Local woman stands on her porch with a huge smile on her face as she shares all of her plans for the restaurant that she hopes to one day fill this space with.

Local store owner gazes out her front window. Her store is the only place in the village to sell such a large variety of foods.

Young girl leans against the counter of her family's store with her mother close by as they wait for more business to come in.

These images were taken during the two weeks I spent studying abroad in Belize in June, 2017. At night, I tracked Hawksbill sea turtles with Dr. Rimkus' biology class on marine life and conservation. During the day, I interviewed, filmed, and photographed the locals of Gales Point with my Marymount University film professor, Barry Erdeljon. 

Gales Point Manatee is a small village located on a peninsula with an official population of about 500 people--though it seems like far fewer people actually live there. The people in Gales Point live off of fishing, farming, and selling handmade goods to tourists who mostly visit during the dry season. Gales Point is located in the Southern Lagoon, a Manatee reserve directly connected to the Caribbean.

I spent a lot of my time at the local restaurant/bar, Gentle's Cool Spot, as well as hanging out with the dogs and kids I met while staying at Manatee Lodge. The people were friendly and welcoming, the neighborhood was close-knit and communal, and the pace of life was slow and relaxed. The weather was hot and humid with rain most evenings. My legs became covered in unknown itchy bugs bites, though the locals seemed to not even notice when bugs were biting them.

Locals in Gales Point have limited access to clean water, medical and dental care, veterinary care, and the more modern goods and services offered in places like Belize City. Most families have very limited electricity and dirt or wooden floors with no heating or air conditioning. Some kids go to Belize City for better schools because the Gales Point Government School is pretty small and stops around age 16. They use Belize dollars in Gales Point but many locals told me that if they didn't have money, they were able to trade and barter for goods and services. Fishing, crafting, cooking from coconuts, traditional drumming, building, working on sea turtle conservation, and making homemade wines from local cashews, cassavas, and mangos are all big parts of village life.