Belize on Ice

I don't know if this is just in Belize or in all Caribbean countries but here ice is tantamount to a national treasure. If the mint quits printing money, I'm sure ice will be the legal currency. All Belizeans are ice-obsessed. At girls camp we dealt with girls being where they shouldn't be, when they shouldn't be, with those they shouldn't be, but there was no issue greater than the ice issue. It was the one on-going, hardest fought war. The girls were sure there was not enough ice, ever ,and the leaders were hoarding it for themselves. The leaders were insistent the girls had enough ice and should stay out of the ice chest. I know there are those of you in North America who order drinks 'without ice' when you go out. Here that would be a total sacrilege. They have dealt with the 'not enough pop if it has ice' issue in the following way. If you order a Fanta, the waitress brings a glass full (literally full) of ice, opens the bottle and pours in the 2 oz, or so, that fit around the ice and then she leaves the bottle. Just like one of you might order more hot water if you needed it for another cup of tea, here you ask for more ice and the waitress will bring another glass of ice for your drink. When we were visiting the Mennonite village of Springfield (where there is no electricity) the one thing we took to leave with them was ice. They were thrilled. You could probably trade a cooler full of ice for a 50 lb bag of potatoes and everyone would come away happy. The other day I wanted to buy some water bottles at the bakery. When she discovered there were none in the freezer (yes, here it is good to buy frozen water bottles), she didn't want me to buy any. She felt bad that I was buying warm water. She even tried to figure out how to put ice into the bottles (not possible - for reference) I really had to talk to get those water bottles! On the flip side, it is almost impossible to find bags of ice to buy. You can't usually get them at the grocery store or gas station. You have to know where the ice is sold - and no one advertises. Ironic that, in countries where 'ice water' equates to a glass of water with one or two cubes of ice in it, there are bags of ice to buy on every corner but in a country where ice water equates to a glass of ice with water squeezed in around the edges, there is no ice to be bought. There's probably some philosophical life lesson in that but I'm not going to look for it. I'm going to get myself a glass of ice and then toss some liquid in for good measure - stay cool!