Belize is a small tropical country (about the size of New Hampshire) located on the blue shores of the Caribbean Sea. Its timeless beauty, from the oceans (the world's second largest barrier reef lies off its shores) to the lowland rain forests, to the mountainous southern area, makes it a favorite destination for many eco-travelers. In fact, Belize is so small and rural that the entire country has only three traffic lights!

Since 1996, I have led a party of enthusiastic and adventure-seeking college students (mostly from Duquesne and Pitt) who are interested in a more holistic approach to health care. This voyage of discovery offered them a unique opportunity to interact with some of the leading healers, shamans, mid-wives, snake-doctors, and doctor-priests in the country.

What kind of student goes on such a trip? Is it someone who apparently can't get their fill of heat, humidity, bugs, insects, and creepy-crawly creatures? Or is it the adventurous young health professional who has a need to interact with plant life (the rudimentary roots of 25% of all drugs behind the counter at the local pharmacy come from rain forest plants), and a biodiversity that encompasses nearly 70% of all the life species on the Earth. Or maybe someone who realizes that 3 out of 4 people on this planet take primarily plant drugs (and not modern pharmaceuticals) to treat their diseases and illness, and that the rain forest is not only the world's greatest pharmacy, but also the world's greatest chemical factory. Or the 22 or 23-year old who wants to visit ancient Maya ruins, swim in the pristine streams of the forest and snorkel in the crystal clear blue cays of the south, or camp out under the dense forest canopy and listen to the exotic sounds of the jungle at night. Probably all four. But for some unknown reason the student is likely to be female (nearly 85% of all participants are).

The Student Rain Forest Fund, a non-profit, educational organization was established to provide such a once-in-a-lifetime experience to college students. I am proud to be the founder of this precedent-setting group that has been the recipient of many generous individual and corporate donations, grants and voluntary efforts since it was founded. Each year we embark upon this green adventure to have students participate in a "hands-on" field study to explore the natural history of medicine, learn about plant drugs, prepare natural products, and interact with native healers. Nearly $20,000 needs to be raised each year for up to twenty students to go.

The primary reason that we go to Belize is to study under the tutelage of Dr. Rosita Arvigo, an internationally known naprapathist and healer who came to Belize in 1978 to have the freedom to practice medicine as she saw fit. Like many American alternative practitioners, she felt inhibited by the stringent rules that the American Medical Association has enacted on how, when and where healing and medicine can be practiced in this country. Surely we are aware that today thousands of alternative practitioners exist and thrive in the U.S. and help millions of patients each year. Back in the 60's and 70's it wasn't that easy. So in 1981, Rosita and her husband Dr. Greg Shopshire, established the Ix Chel Tropical Research Centre in San Ignacio, western Belize. The main research done at Ix Chel (the name means the Maya goddess of healing) encompasses the documentation, the studying, and the application of Mayan medicinal plants and healing practices. Rosita works closely with local indigenous shamans and healers, learning their knowledge, techniques, and wisdom (which has been passed down for many generations), that treat and cure many of the people of their country. For the past seven years Rosita has had a contract with the National Cancer Institute to collect plant samples that can be shipped back to U.S. laboratories and investigated to hopefully find natural drugs that can treat AIDS and cancer. The students get a hands-on field experience in collecting these plants in the wild. In the past ten years the NCI has collected and documented 1,500 different species of plants, of which more than 800 were collected with the help of local healers.

This year for the first time, the group had the experience of collecting plant samples at Terra Nova, the world's first national park and preserve strictly designated for the preservation of medicinal plants. This exciting project is in its infancy, and it is one that Dr. Arvigo, the Belizian Healers Association, and many of the world's leading plant scientists and ethnobotanists will be working at in years to come. Personally, I hope to also work with the international team that will be concentrating on this most worthwhile project for many years to come. In many ways it is a grand project to initiate the new millennium.

Dr. Arvigo teaches several classes to the students. Most take place in the field, or on narrow rain forest trails. Some of the main topics include: Maya medicine plants, massage, Maya healing prayers, women's health, aromatics, and basic rain forest ecology. Every student who has ever studied under Rosita comes away enthralled with the wisdom and timeless knowledge that she exudes. She would say that all Maya healing, no matter if it is a headache, a menstrual cramp, a tumor, venereal disease, arthritis, depression or the rigors of childbirth, (all treatments) must include prayer. It is the main healing modality among the h'mans (great spiritual healers or doctor-priests), as well as an integral part of the treatments a mid-wife might afford her patient. Certainly herbs, baths, massage, aromatics, fasting, and other treatments are utilized, but none are as important as prayer.

There are many nationalities that make up today's Belizian society. Of the 250,000 inhabitants many are of black African, especially East African descent. There are East Indians, Creoles, Mestizos, and a mixture of European and Southeast Asian peoples. The most prominent citizens of the western part of the country are the Maya. These very short, square-jawed and gentle people are the indigenous natives whom are direct descendants of the American Indians. During its zenith, the Maya civilization was one of the greatest ever to exist on Earth. Their civilization was established 1,000 years before Christ and lasted until around 900 A.D. If we know anything about the Maya it is that they were highly sophisticated in mathematics and science. They accurately charted the course of the night stars, and they invented the number zero. They were affixed with the numbers nine and thirteen, and their temples were built always with nine levels to the "underworld" and thirteen levels to the "upper world."

Now there is a story of the great Maya calendar and the dawning and waning of the great Maya "age" and how it has particular relevance to the tumultuous events occurring in the world today. In the next issue I will recount this fabled tale and tie it into modern events and circumstances.

Certainly a trip of this magnitude cannot be all serious learning, so we made adequate time for fun and frolic. The group visited three ancient Maya ruins (there are nearly eighty in Belize) and climbed to the top of majestic, weather-worn temples that evoke the magic of the civilization that once ruled all of Meso-America. The largest Maya ruin in Belize, Caracol, lies a few hundred miles to the south of our camp. The journey of a few hours offers an individual a panorama of the breathtaking topography like few places on earth. From the steamy rain forests we transverse to the Mountain Pine Ridge, a sprawling mountain of pine forest that looks very much like our western Rockies. Down from the heights lies the pristine Macal River, that cuts like a crystal jewel to the mostly deciduous rain forests on the other side. Caracol is one of the three greatest Maya cities of all antiquity. It was once the cultural and cosmopolitan center of all Central America. Xuantunich is a favorite destination. This smaller ruin contains the single highest temple in Belize. From atop you can see for miles in all directions, clear to Guatemala. The breeze that you feel at the top is both comforting and rejuvenating to the body and the spirit. You can almost envision the ghosts of the ancient astronomers who charted the courses of the stars from such a vantage point.

Other tourist pleasures abound in Belize. We visited the famous Belize Zoo that houses all the animal and bird species of Belize in a somewhat natural environment. We all tube rafted the Mopan River, and cascaded down nearly a dozen small waterfalls that exist along a five mile stretch of the river near San Ignacio. We canoed and swam in the river near Chaa Creek, where we stayed in two-man tents camped underneath the forest canopy. Shopping in San Ignacio is quaint, with moderate selections, but enough to interact with the local people, buy a few good beers (Belikin – the brew of the Maya), and even spent a night dancing at the town's disco.

In all, the students got a wonderful exposure to herbal and natural medicine and alternative therapies practiced by the indigenous people. I am not implying that this unique exposure to rain forest remedies will or could or should be seriously adopted by Western medicine. But I truly believe that we have a lot to learn from these people and an integration of their time-tested knowledge can play a part (albeit a small one) in the development of new drugs and possibly a new thinking on healing the body's "dis-ease" more naturally and not from the current model which equates fighting disease to fighting a war. For me the main joy was to watch the wonderment and awe on the faces of these young people who come away with practical knowledge that could never be learned in a classroom. It is my hope that as they become tomorrow's doctors and pharmacists that they will approach medicine in a more holistic manner, tempering their educational knowledge with a more rational and compassionate manner that does not judge what is "right" or "wrong," nor what is "accepted" and "unaccepted," but fosters a healing of the body, mind, and spirit by impartial and non-biased acceptance of ancient wisdom and modern technology.

Dan Wagner, R.PH., M.B.A. is the owner of Nutri-Farmacy, a natural pharmacy in Wildwood, PA near North Park, in addition to his extensive travel and work with eco-pharmacists and ethnobotanists to help preserve and document the traditional wisdom of the shamans and indigenous healers that live in the world's few remaining rain forests. Dan can be reached at (412) 486-8595 or (412) 486-4588.



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