Wet and Wild

As the title suggests, this was a wet and wild weekend. I'm going to mix things up a little and start with the wild. On Saturday we went out to our first big social occasion since coming to Belize. One of the men Alfred works with had invited us to his daughter's wedding. It was to be on a beach on some property the family owned and was going to be a small family event with a few friends included. He was quite insistent that we attend and, although we thought that we'd be rather uncomfortable and out of place, especially considering the size and makeup of the guest list, we agreed to attend. The wedding was to start at 3:00. The thunderstorms started at 7:00am and continued through the day. (The, heretofore absent, 'rainy season' had apparently decided Saturday was an auspicious day to begin) As we drove into, what was later described as, the parking pond at 10 before three we were congratulating ourselves on being neither too early, and therefore conspicuous, nor too late, also a conspicuous problem. We found a seat at a table in the back and proceeded to take a look around.

Very colorful and the sun had agreeably come out which boded well for the beach ceremony. We watched as more and more people arrived ... and more and more ... and more. The bride and groom were from the same extended family (third cousins or something) and the extended family was a very close extended family. We continued to wait and watch as more people yet arrived - none of whom seemed to be the bride or groom. The 3:00 wedding was quickly becoming a four o'clock wedding but no one seemed worried or even to notice. We amused ourselves by chatting and drinking little water as we hadn't seen a bathroom advertised. At 5:00, one of the other guests informed us that this was Belize and the wedding would start sometime after the bride and groom arrived. By 5:30 the father of the bride had arrived and there was a glimmer of hope. The wedding may happen before the flower girls all fell asleep. Finally the guests were directed down the beach for a beautiful sunset ceremony.

This is one of the five very adorable flower girls. There were also 5 bridesmaids and one maid of honor. All the men, groom, groomsmen and male family members wore copies of the same clothes: panama hats, white or off white button down shirts untucked, white or off white loose cotton pants rolled at the cuff. Apparently it is some kind of family tradition but it made it difficult to distinguish one from the other as there was also a strong family resemblance. As a testament to my tan, people kept coming up and introducing themselves to me thinking I was somehow related and I would then introduce them to Alfred at my side and explain that he works with Johnny (the brides dad). After the ceremony, the sun felt it had given enough of it's precious time to this occasion and turned the time back over to the rain. We had a lovely buffet supper of bbq chicken, plantain, breadfruit and rice'n'beans. I guess the guests had decided they had done enough waiting for the bride and groom and, immediately on returning to the tents began to line up and eat. The MC kept trying to get everyone's attention with the mike but no one seemed to care. So we lined up. The coolest thing was that, as we went through the line there were tables set up with every type of candy you could imagine. There were small paper bags at the first table and, as you went through the line, you took a few candies here and a few there until your bag was as full as you wanted it to be and you had reached the buffet. (Brynn and I both suffered terribly from candy induced tummy aches for the rest of the night!) When we left to go home at about 8:00pm, the bride and groom were still waiting in line for their food and the music could be heard for many miles!

As indicated already, the wet part of the weekend was the start of the rainy season. We decided to go for a sunday afternoon drive and showed our ignorance. The rainy season is not the best time to go for meaningless drives. Here are a few pictures of the road we ended up on without hope of turning around.

As we drove, the road got wetter and wetter and it started to pour. Creatures were literally swimming alongside the truck. We raced lots of crabs, a snake and an otter. Finally we looked ahead and there were two men and two boys wading toward us through waist deep water. They informed us that they were stuck some ways down the road when the water got too deep for their car. We had already been through water that had risen above the running boards on the side of the truck and had been pushing water for the last few miles. We decided that we needed to turn around before it got worse and we also got stuck. As per our adventure traditions we had left home without a cell 'phone, survival kit or telling anyone where we were going. We did have the ever present first aid kit. Unfortunately it doesn't include a rubber dinghy. We did manage to turn around before we ended up in too much trouble and decided that our afternoon excursions from now on will be confined to paved roads and roads we know the condition of.

So that was our weekend. Hope you had a good one, too!