End of October ... Already??!!

I cannot believe it is the end of October. What happened to July through September? The months are absolutely flying by. We hardly notice the passage of time because the weather never changes. Each day blends into the next as does each week ... month .. the year will be over before we are ready I'm sure. Anyway, here are the month end pics and stories for October:

Our first critter visit of the month was this green head snake. He was just hangin' out on our deck and moved to the palm tree when we all crowded around to see him. Don't you love the smile?

Can you find the frog in this picture? I think our eyes become trained after a while. When we first got here, I'd never have noticed this guy!

So we're hanging out at the Mayflower park with our friends Todd and Ashli and we were trying to sneak up on the resident crocodile. All of a sudden, this amazing, loud, end of the world type noise comes out of the bush. It was a howler monkey and he was MAD!! I wasn't, though, I got a great picture of him howling!

Chad, Dyan and Noah came to visit this month. Noah is the only person I've ever seen who had absolutely no problems getting into a hammock. Even the first time. Whenever he wandered off we could find him hanging (literally) on the beach.

It has been a month for lizards. We have seen at least one almost every day all month long. The male iguanas are orange right now trying to attract the ladies.

The other seriously important event of the month was Brynn's 15th birthday. (yes, I said 15) I am darn proud of her cake so I'm including a picture of it. Try and figure out how I did it without food coloring!! Go Sens!!

These next three pictures are my favorites for the month. The one is of the Sitee River, one is of the mayan ruins at Cahal Peche and the other is of the full moon over the Sea.

Lodge at Chaa Creek

Well, our first visitors have come and gone. From all accounts, a good time was had. The high point of the visit, for me, was the weekend we spent at the lodge at Chaa Creek. It is a lovely resort in the mountains - quite different from our beach resort. When she found out we were going, Kori exclaimed "I'm so excited I get to go to a resort!!" After we quit laughing, we explained to her that she LIVES at a resort. It turned out to be a marvelous experience. Driving down the Western Highway looking for signs we drove right past the turn off before someone noticed the small sign half hidden behind some other signage on the road. Then we drove down, what could be described as a 'country hick' type dirt road. It did not look like a promising beginning. At the end of the road, you find yourself in the parking lot for paradise. The reception desk is outside under a palapa. We were led to our cabanas and told about the free hikes included with our rooms and also the optional hikes and tours we could sign up for. We had three cabanas so Brynn and Kori had their own and so did Chad's family. Each cabana had two beds (and Chad's and ours had a third daybed) a bathroom with a huge shower and a door leading to a fully walled and private outdoor shower. Noah was especially impressed to be able to shower outside. (he's 5) That night we signed up for a night hike to look for nocturnal nature stuff. We each had a head lamp and we followed the guide for about a 1 km hike through forest and field. In the dark, the night critter's eyes glow and that's how you find them. The first thing we saw was before we even left the yard. A red eyed tree frog! I had been hoping to see one while we were here but didn't think I'd get the chance. I was thrilled. Then we continued on and it started to pour! The guide gave us the option of going back or finding shelter but we convinced him we wouldn't melt and continued on. The freakiest thing we discovered was that there must be about ten million wolf spiders living in every square inch of the forest. Wolf spiders have a very impressive name but really they are just little brown spiders - not even on this arachnophobe's radar. Our head lamps attracted lots of bugs and the bugs buzzing around our heads attracted lots of insect eating bats which flew a constant pattern above our heads. All the rest of the animals seemed to have taken cover from the drenching rain further in the jungle. We did scare up an opossum, which I was grateful for because Brynn and Kori had plans to leave food out in their cabana to bait the possums. Now they didn't have to and we were spared the chaos when the food attracted not only possums but whatever else was hungry out there. It was a fun hike and we were all happy to get 'home' and out of our dripping wet clothes. The next morning, we had signed up for a birding hike at 6:30 am. It seemed like a good idea at 4 in the afternoon! Luckily Alfred is more awake at 6:00 am than I am and luckily the bat decided to sleep in the 'cave' of Alfred's shoe instead of mine. I didn't even think to shake my shoe out before I put it on! The poor little bat that got shook out of Alfred's shoe looked some put out as he crawled off to find friendlier accommodation. Luckily birding can be done from under shelter with the aid of scopes and binoculars, as we had the same guide and the same weather as the night before. It was fun, though, and we saw many colorful birds including green parrots and toucans. I am now in total agreement with Kori - I loved staying in the resort!

Fish

I'm sorry ... I'm sorry ... I'm sorry! I know I have been neglecting you. Blame it on Chad, Dyan and Noah. It's hard to find time to blog when one has company. Also, I've been running short of material. Same old, Same old.

So - not really my story but very cool. Chad, Dyan, Brynn and Kori went snorkeling yesterday. As they were boating from one spot to the next, the guide says "eagle rays. you can get out if you like" (not big on long convos is Lloyd!) So they jump into the water and swim with the eagle rays. Brynn and Kori get close enough to touch them but didn't. These things are HUGE! This is the info on them from the net: The spotted eagle ray reaches a maximum length of 8.2 feet (2.5 m) not including the tail, with the total length including an unbroken tail reaching close to 16.4 feet (5 m). The maximum disc width is 9.8 feet (3 m) and maximum published weight is 507 pounds (230 kg). Everyone on the trip says the rays they were swimming with were definitely this big. Here's a picture of one. (Also from the net. Sorry. Chad got pics but I don't have them.)

Now that was an experience I'm sorry I missed! I was home babysitting.

My fish story isn't nearly so exciting. I finally got my hands on some fresh fish! Barracuda! The only problem was, it wasn't cleaned. So I go home and said "who wants to teach me how to clean fish?!" Surprisingly, no one did. Alfred did come with me next door to ask Gary (a guy Alfred works with) to help. So I stood in the sea and Alfred stood on the shore and we watched Gary, in his work clothes, scale and clean the fish. I wish I had had a camera just for the pic of Gary in his nice clothes with scales stuck to his face! Well, at least I now know how to clean a fish ... act helpless and ask Gary! Then you have to perform the ant test. Some barracuda are apparently poisonous. The way to tell is to toss a piece of fish outside and see if the ants eat it. They will only eat it if it's not poisonous. So I tossed the tail out the back and the ants loved it! So did I. Lovely non-fishy taste with really big bones. And we all lived so the test must have been accurate!

Horns of Plenty

In honor of thanksgiving I have decided to blog about horns of plenty but maybe not the thanksgiving kind you are used to. In North America most of us are somewhat judicious with the use of our horns. We save them for moments of extreme frustration or danger. We hesitate to use them for fear of waking the Road Rage Monster. And with good reason. If we accidentally bump the horn and it blasts, we mouth 'sorry's to all those within lip reading distance. In Belize, the horn has an altogether different purpose. The horn is used as a method of communication instead of a method of agitation. For example: if you are driving down the road and you pass the house of someone you know and you honk your horn, the people that are home feel loved and remembered. So here is a crash course in the art of Belizean horn honking:
As already mentioned, you honk your horn as you pass the house of friends, relatives or acquaintances to say 'Hi! I'm just passing through!' Carrying this a little further, if you see someone on the street that you know, you can honk your horn to say 'hi' and then wave when they look your way. Or, if you see that friend wave just a second too late to wave back (you've all been there) a quick honk on the horn says 'I see you. Hi back'.
Driving in Belize, as has been touched on in past blogs, is an exercise in avoidance. To make it easier to avoid ... walking people, biking people, stray dogs, stray kids ... honk twice as you approach anyone/thing that may not be looking your way. The first couple of times it happened to me, I jumped a mile and guiltily tried to figure out what I had done. Then, one day as I was barreling down the Southern Highway at about 105 km/h, a man on a bike swerved out right in front of me. I slammed on the brakes and almost lost control of the car trying to avoid him. Now I am a dedicated 'I'm right behind you' honker. This is not 100% guaranteed, however. Lucky was in a bad accident after he honked and the kid swerved out in front of him anyway. It helps if the one-to-be-avoided isn't deaf. Also, animals may or may not know the purpose of the two honk get-out-of-the-way.
The only situation in which I have never heard a Belizean honk their horn is if they are angry at the driver in front of them. They may glare. They may swear. But they do not honk. That would be like yelling 'good morning' with a smile on your face. Not terribly effective in that situation. Somehow I think the Belizeans have it all over us on this one! Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

September month end

Ok, so this has become my favorite time of the month. I love showing off all the pictures that haven't fit anywhere this month but are cool. This is our September in 'photos.

Let's start with hurricane Felix. This is what it looked like when it finally got here as nothing more than a blustery day. And what were Brynn and Kori doing during this dastardly storm? Swimming of course!

Then, on the 7th, Alfred and I celebrated our 16th anniversary with dinner out. These are the flowers he managed to scrounge up for me. It was an amazingly beautiful bouquet!

Here are some of my favorite wild animal pics for the month. If I've posted any of them before, just enjoy them again.

This guy was sunning himself on the road and was kind enough to pose for me.

And here's a pelican in Belize City. I just love pelicans. They are so awkward looking and they fish by diving head first at top speed into the water. It looks like they should break their necks but so far I haven't seen that happen.

Now some pics of the not-so-wild animals from our zoo trip.

The locals call these animals 'squash' but I think the official name is 'coaties'. They are kind of like Belizean badgers. Really nasty. I have heard of one squash killing a german shepherd dog.

This is a scarlet maccaw. In a few months we will take the trek to Red Bank and see hundreds of these in the wild. They stop every year here on their way to or from wherever they go.

And what do we do when the kids get bored? We take them outside to torment the crabs, of course!

Hope you all had a great month too!

It's a Whole New World

Belize is an English speaking country but it is still a foreign country. There are a few idiosyncrasy's to Belizean life that you may find interesting.
1) Acceptable greetings: Good Morning is appropriate as a greeting from sunup until noon; good afternoon is the greeting used from noon until about 3:00 in the afternoon; good evening is used from about 3:00 until sundown (about 6:00); good day is appropriate all day long; good night is not equal to good bye, it means hello after sundown. It has taken awhile but I am finally comfortable saying good night when I enter a room after dark. When you see someone you know on the street, it would be rude to ignore them. You must either yell their name as loud as you can, or point at them, wave or nod. If you are in a car, honking the horn is also a polite ‘hi’.
2) Meals: Breakfast is breakfast but it is a hot meal as are all the meals in Belize culture. One of my cookbooks has a recipe for a great breakfast that includes boiling a pigs head with garlic and other spices. Yum! Our new favorite breakfast is Letu: Boil 6 ripe bananas until soft and tender (I do it in the microwave) then mash them up. Add 1 cup coconut milk, 3Tbsp sugar, nutmeg, cinnamon and vanilla to taste. Stir it all together. It is great!!; Dinner is the mid-day meal and is the largest meal of the day. To accommodate this, the schools have a 1 ½ - 2 hour lunch break. The last meal of the day is tea and is a lighter but still hot meal. Most local women cook over open fires either in pits in the yard or fireplaces in the house. Some do also have gas stoves. For snacks, if you can get hold of kids with 5 gallon pails they will have lovely pastries most of the time. The coconut crusts are my kids favorite and they buy four every afternoon from Shaquille for a dollar a piece.
3) When it becomes necessary to go to someone’s house and ‘call’ on them, there are definite protocols to follow. Never go to a door and knock! If there is a fence and gate, stand outside the gate for a few minutes and see if anyone notices. Usually they will and will come to the deck to talk to you. You still do not go inside the gate unless invited. If no one takes notice of you you do what you need to to get their attention. Honk the horn or yell. Some one will come. If there is no gate, you may approach the stairs and yell. Someone will come out and talk to you. Do not go up the stairs unless invited. One of the things that has been hard to get used to is to go out when we see someone hanging around the stairs of our villa. Some people will stand out there for a very long time waiting for you to notice. Even though some of the workers here know that door knocking is OK in our culture, they will come up and knock and then go to the bottom of the steps to wait for us to answer the door.
4) The society here is very matriarchal. If someone wants to know how many people are in your family, they will ask how many kids your Mom has. Most of the mothers I deal with are very protective of their kids, especially the daughters. I hold a youth group activity for the girls in our branch every other Saturday. Even though the activity is scheduled and I talked to each girl’s Mom at the beginning, I still have to go to each mom and ask if the girl can attend before each activity. If one of the girls wants to bring a friend, she will tell me and take me to the house of the friend so that I can meet the Mom and invite the girl. It is very time consuming and many of the moms don’t speak English. The girls translate which makes me wonder why I’m there since the girls could be saying anything and neither the mom nor I would be the wiser. But it seems to keep everyone happy and the attendance at our activities keeps going up so it must be working.
There are more that I can think of but this post is getting really long so I’ll leave you with that for now. I hope it satisfies Mom’s interest in knowing more about daily life for us here in paradise. Keep the comments and questions coming. It really helps when I’m trying to come up with something to write.