Taking to village life

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Jeff Frank is a Manchester native working and living in Belize. He joined the Peace Corps this summer and will be in Belize for the next two years, teaching computer skills to Belizeans and helping them get a multi-language radio station off the ground. Jeff went to Maranacook High School, and then he graduated from the University of Maine this past year with a degree in Economics and Political Science.

By CHRISTIAN S. MADORE

Manchester resident Jeff Frank's morning goes something like this: Wake up every morning at 5 in a hammock, put some coffee on, flip through a couple of pages of the latest book he's reading then chomp down some freshly picked papaya.

After graduating from the University of Maine in May, Frank, the son of Steve and Monique Frank of Manchester, joined the Peace Corps. Though he majored in economics and political science at the university, the corps offered him a job teaching computer skills to Mayan children in the village of Blue Creek, and he volunteered to get their multilingual radio station going.

In Blue Creek, he lives four hours from a highway and can only communicate by Internet once a week. Villagers there live in small, wooden homes with thatched roofs on dirt floors, he wrote last week.

The school he works at is called Tumul K'in, which means "New Day" in the local language, Mayan Mopan. The school was founded in 2001 by Belizean Filiberto Penados, who received funding from the United Nations for the project.

Frank said that there are about 60 students in five grades at the school, and they range from 12 to 20 years old.

It is different than other schools in the area, Frank said. While most train youths for work that will take them away from their villages, he said Tumul K'in trains them for those things they can use locally, such as farming and various trades.

"The difference in education is that students at Tumul K'in learn everything from mathematics and science to agricultural practices and how to raise livestock," he said. "The idea is to help maintain the Maya lifestyle of village living and help it to be passed on to the next generation."

At the same time, the school wants Mayans to get to know computers. But teaching technology to people who live four hours through the jungle from the nearest highway -- and have never seen a computer -- can be daunting.

"The students I teach have never seen computers before, and we begin with the very basic concepts of what a computer is, what it does, where it came from and why we use them," Frank said.

As for the radio station, Frank said the effort is part of a program originally funded by the U. N. Development Program that never got off the ground.

The radio station has been named "Ak' Kutan FM," or "New Day FM" in Mayan Q'echqi.

It will broadcast health information, such as where people can go to get tested for HIV, as well as report local and national news, he said. For most, it is the first interaction with the global community that Mayans in this remote village will have.

"I can't stress enough how little contact many villagers have had with the outside world," he said. "Many have never left their village nor seen something like a telephone, refrigerator or even a world map."

Everything on the radio will be broadcast in English, Spanish, Mayan Mopan and Mayan Q'echqi.

Frank only speaks English, and he said learning the local languages is a challenge because they all sound so different.

But because the Peace Corps is teaching him the languages, he has started to pick some of them up.

"It's a mix of incredibly relaxed English and innovative guttural tones," he said. "When I speak it, I try to imagine that I have bulldozed flat all the consonants and enunciations in my words."

For an example, a question such as, "Where are you going?" would be, "Weh yu gwaain?" he said.

Language isn't all that's different. The Mainer said he's had a rough time getting used to the climate.

"Belize has two seasons: Wet and dry," he said. "Both are extremely hot and mercilessly humid."

While he used to love piling on layers of clothing to do things such as getting the mail when he was in Maine, in Belize, he is constantly sweating.

"It's like being locked in your insulated attic during the middle of the summer and someone telling you, 'Well, good luck with the volunteering; see you in two years,' " he said.

Most Belizeans don't sweat, he said, so to them he looks like he needs medical attention.

"Everyone says that my body will adjust. But if I know my body -- and I don't -- it is just starting to get ready for winter, when it will really overheat," he said.

Belizeans are generally not familiar with the idea of winter -- or seasons. He recounted how a 6-year-old boy in a host family he was living with wanted to know what seasons were.

"I didn't know what to say," Frank said. "Having come from Maine, where we have four strong and unforgettable seasons, I felt like this little guy had somehow been robbed of those great seasonal experiences I grew up with.

"I quickly found a magazine with some winter scenes and tried to explain, but his face remained confused."

Even though the residents of tiny Blue Creek live in mud and thatched huts four hours from what Americans might call civilization, Frank said they are content beyond expectation.

Even though most residents fall below the poverty line by American standards, they have everything they need.

"They harvest their own food, they raise their own livestock and they typically have whatever it is that they need and are quite mentally satisfied," he said.

Knowing that Belizeans feel so at home and comfortable in their setting has helped him form better relationships with the residents there.

"It's that process of trying to understand that the people around me look at this village, this river and this setting the same way I look at canoeing on Lake Cobbossee or skiing at Sugarloaf," he said. "From that angle, I think it's easier to gain an understanding for this way of life and create more honest relationships with those in my village."

Though Frank did not go to school to be a teacher, he said that, in a way, he has joined the family business: His father is the principal at Winslow Elementary School in Winslow and his mother is a fourth-grade teacher at Libby-Tozier Elementary School in Litchfield.

"It is truly a craft, and those who can do it well should be awarded and thanked a lot more than they currently are," he said.

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