The Wedding

One of the major highlights of the past year or me has to be the wedding of my daughter, Trina, to Arun Ramamurthy on July 7, 2012. Trina and Arun are both first generation Americans with immigrant parents. This whole first generation of Americans especially those of with Asian ancestry is a result of a major immigration reform championed by President Johnson in the early 60’s. Prior to this reform, very few people were allowed to enter the United States from the Eastern Hemisphere as the majority of visa quotas were allocated to the Western Hemisphere. The reform opened immigration to anyone, and was mostly based upon qualification and not country of origin. This reform made it possible for South Asians, Filipinos, and others from eastern countries to start a new life in America and be part of the great “salad bowl” that the America was to become. Arun’s father and I both came to the States about the same time in the late sixties/early seventies and coincidentally, we both lived in New York City, but didn’t know each other then. Who says politics doesn’t matter or affect people’s lives??? A good reminder to everyone in the Presidential election year!!!
  

Music brought them together. Trina and Arun are happy and are bonded by the creative energy of music. As most of you know Trina is a musician and lives in Brooklyn. She has done well for herself as a musician and continues to expand her professional career through teaching music and a variety of performances, individually and through her band Karavika (www.karavika.com). Arun is a Technical Operations Manager at QualityHealth, an online service for health related questions and queries and is doing well. But his heart is in music. Arun, an accomplished violinist specializing in Karnatic, South Indian Classical music, has made a name for himself in the New York area by promoting and exposing New Yorkers to this genre of music.

When I left the States for Belize in March 2011, I had planned not to go back to the States for the 27 months that I am supposed to be here in Belize. Instead I wanted people to come visit me from the States. Things didn’t quite work out as I had planned. I ended up going to the States twice in the first year: once in October 2011 for the engagement party and then in July for the wedding. While both the trips were short and hectic they were exciting and fun.

The engagement party was primarily for family and a few friends to musically celebrate the engagement of Trina and Arun, which had already taken place about a month prior, at a sea side resort in Newport, Rhode Island. It was a weekend getaway, carefully planned by Arun but the purpose of the trip was a complete secret to Trina. Arun popped the proverbial question at the Brenton Point beach with beautiful golden light as the sun was beginning to set and I assume Trina said yes. So a simple weekend gateway turned into a romantic getaway. Still remember getting the call from Trina that night all excited and talking about her beautiful ring. The follow up party was held at the home of Arun’s parents in Marlborough, New Jersey on October 15^th and it was a huge success. The dinner was delicious; the Ramamurthys had arranged for a dosa maker to come to the house and make dosas to order and had a whole array of South Indian delicacies. Dosas are a kind of South Indian crepe with or without spicy potato fillings served with coconut chutney and sambar, a special lentil soup. After dinner, a few announcements and a couple of congratulatory speeches the music started. Trina and Arun both have a group of friends who are extremely talented and very accomplished musicians in New York. As the night grew, the music became more and more spirited and it was such a wonderful way to celebrate the engagement of two musicians.

About ten months of nonstop planning, frantic shopping, anxiety filled days finally paid off and everything came together like a charm on a Sunday July 7^th 2012. Thanks to Trina and the Ramamurthy family who made sure that everything was thought of, all the details were attended to and kept track of everything on excel spreadsheets. The family members started to arrive during the week preceding the wedding, which was filled with a variety of chores for everyone, a number of preneptual ceremonies, more shopping, and opportunities for us to get to know Arun’s family, who came from all over the country and some from India and probably outnumbered our family by at least 20 to 1.  These wedding days were just as perfect as they could be, despite the record heat during that week. Divine music and the warmth of all those gathered for the occasion made it such a rich and memorable event that not only was something special for Trina and Arun but for all who were present to witness and share the joy.

The wedding was conducted in the Vedic tradition by Dr. Srivanisan, an Indian priest from Connecticut. Dr. Srinivasan was great and made the whole, otherwise long boring, ritual very fun, participatory and meaningful. He was definitely well experienced to perform such weddings before a culturally mixed group as he made sure that all the steps were kept simple and explained the significance of each step to the audience. There were beautiful musical interludes in flutes, cellos and drums during the whole ceremony giving that extra touch and creating that “wow” factor to the whole event. The ceremony was capped off with an elaborate Indian buffet lunch.

No sooner the lunch over, it was time to get ready for the reception. The evening reception started with more enchanting music by the musician friends of Trina and Arun, delicious hors d’oeuvre and an open bar. Everyone was elegantly dressed. It was time to see and catch up with family members and some of the old friends and discover those surprise connections, common friends between the two families unbeknownst to anyone. There were a number of speeches, some shorter, some longer, some trying to be funny like me and some were really funny like the one by Arun’s brothers who did it as a tag team. Following dinner and more drinks there was a huge surprise. After Arun gave a thank you speech, Trina and Arun pulled their violins from under their table and stated playing their adaptation of Ravi Shankar’s melody from Satyajit Roy’s movie Panther Panchali (a diary of the road). There was a standing ovation following that spellbound performance, a unique experience at a wedding.

For some the real party was about to start. The DJ with his double bass voice and the latest Bollywood stuff kept the placed energized and everyone moving. At some point all two hundred and eighty some guests were on the dance floor, not quite sure doing what, but they were there. As it was getting late and the party louder, some of the older folks started quietly slipping out. The party went on till very late and I am told at some point the hotel security had to intervene and no one remembers what happened.

It was a magnificent day and everything went without a hitch. I think all the good music, positive energy and genuine goodwill set the tone for how Trina and Arun's relationship will blossom. As a parent, what more can I ask for other than the happiness of Trina and Arun together? May god bless them and give them the love to help them grow together. 

  

Wedding photography credit: Binaryflips Photography

Finally an update

Where has the time gone?? It’s just over a year ago that I arrived in Benque. I think the last blog I posted was when I moved into my own house after couple of months with my host family in Sucootz and it seems like just the other day.

It is really surprising how fast the first fourteen months have passed. Everyone says the second half goes even faster. I am not sure if that’s good or bad. Without being over dramatic about it, it simply has been an exciting and a busy year which has been fulfilling in every aspect. It definitely has not been a vacation for me, in fact, I think I am working as hard if not harder than I have in the States and without the support staff that I had in the States. I ventured into a new territory of tourism here and learned quickly how to pretend to be an “expert”. I have gotten the support from the Town’s Mayor, tourism professionals both at local and national levels and the community at large, which made my learning and being able to help a lot easier and meaningful. A lot has happened in the past year, but I will start with my assignment, the whole reason why I am here and then talk about other stuff in the future blogs. I will make sure this time it is not another year before I post the next one.  

I am happy to say that with the community support a lot has been accomplished and a lot more is underway. When I came to Benque, Town already had two other volunteers, one from Peace Corps and the other from Japanese International Cooperation Agency (JICA). Roger German, the Peace Corps volunteer had almost completed his term and left shortly after I arrived. Kota Murakami, the JICA volunteer had just started his two-year service about ten months prior to my arrival. Roger, a journalist turned contractor, was a tall handsome “gringo”, charming, well spoken, guitar strumming, “matured” with life experiences, a mid-westerner that could almost walk on water and was an object of fantasy of every woman of all ages in Benque. Too bad for them, Tracy, another Peace Corps volunteer had him on her "corner". Kota is a friendly young architect who enjoys drinking Belikin (local beer), kinda “green” professionally and is taking full advantage out of his stay in Belize. They both had started a number of projects notably a local Market, a Tourism Map/Brochure and an Entranceway into the town, all of which, in my personal assessment, needed some push and direction to get them done. Roger was focused on wrapping up his term and on his main project, a monthly town newsletter “El Chiclero”, which kept him busy full-time and Kota needed a lot of guidance to get these projects completed.        

My primary assignment, as you may recall, was to develop a sustainable tourism master plan for Benque that celebrates its culture, heritage and history but also creates additional economic opportunities for all Benqueños. The Mayor gave me a free hand to do whatever I needed to do to get the stuff going. I literally spent about two months trying to talk to as many people as possible and trying to get a sense of where the community is at. We got started with a stakeholder group consisting of a variety of local stakeholders appointed by the mayor and invited a number of national tourism industry representatives including the Ministry of Tourism. In a record time, in less than six months, we delivered a Tourism Action Plan, which was well received by the community, tourism professionals and the industry.

 The implementation of the Action Plan started almost immediately. We have been busy finishing up on a number of projects, including the ones that have been languishing, such as renovation of several neighborhood parks, a visitor map/brochure, an entrance feature to the Town and a local market which is about to break ground next month with full funding from European Union. Additionally, we have completed couple of conceptual studies for the revitalization of the historic downtown and for a Riverwalk. Thanks to a bunch of Ohio State students. Earlier this year I had arranged for a group of Ohio State Architecture, Town Planning and Landscape Architecture students come to Benque for ten days during their spring break to work on a downtown revitalization plan and a master plan for a Riverwalk along the Mopan River from Benque to the Xunantunich ferry in Sucootz. It was an unforgettable experience for the students and a great booster for the community.  In the next few months our goal is to have a self-guided walking tour of the historic downtown in place, a sixteen page travel guide completed and a travel website (www.discoverbenque.com) up and running. For the remainder of my stay here, I will be busy putting together proposals for a few long term catalyst projects that are extremely critical for the successful implementation of the tourism plan in Benque.

Entranceway from western border heading towards Benque. The landscaping is now fully grown.

It has been very gratifying to be able to guide the community to create a strategic action plan and get the implementation of the plan underway. The Ministry of Tourism and Belize Tourism Board are very pleased with our progress and have generously supported some of our initiatives. They have informally adopted and are promoting our process as a national model for developing local community tourism plans. As a result I have been invited in a number of other towns to assist them with organizational, planning and or urban design issues.

These out of town projects and any project other than your primary assignment are considered as secondary projects in Peace Corps. I have several other local groups that I help out with from time to time. One of my other secondary projects involved occasionally taking photographs for a local conservation group. The most exciting assignment was a flyover the Chiquibul National Park. 

Colors of Chiquibul

The Park is about 264,000 acres with an additional Chiquibul Forest Reserve of about 148,000 acres of hard wood forest bordered by Maya Mountain Range on the south and east and stretching to the Guatemala border to the west. Approximately, 26,000 acres of Caracol Archaeological Reserve sits along the Border and surrounded by the Park. These areas along the border are “invaded” by Guatemalans regularly to carry out a variety of illegal activities such as logging, slashing and burning for farming, stealing of Xate, a plant used for medicinal and various other commercial purposes and more recently gold panning. Most of these areas along the border are inaccessible from the Belize side. There are a very few ranger stations along the border and it’s a 3 to 4 days of hike from the field station to get to one of these remote ranger stations. We were trying to document the effects of these incursions by the Guatemalans. It is really sad to see how a strip of about one to two mile of this park along the border is slowly being deforested and destroyed by these illegal activities. The photographs I took were used to raise the awareness at the national and international levels. It is really a national priority to address this issue and I am glad that in some small way I was able to help. The photographs were taken from a single engine five-seater Sesna, flown by an American nonprofit group Lighthawk and flying at about two thousand feet. I have no doubt I will stay very busy and enjoy the reminder of my stay. I just hope that I can make enough time to see the Country a bit before I leave. There are some images that you can see on my website www.subratabasu.com and look up Belize gallery. 

More later.... 

Looking towards Guatemala. See the "bald spots" as signs of logging activities.

Slash and burn 

Logging

Logging

Slash and burn