update

For those of you that managed to get down to visit us, you should remember Shaquille. For those of you that spurned our hospitality, I will introduce you. Whether you've met Shaqu or not, you should enjoy the story. Shaqu is the same age as Kori and in Standard 6 (grade 8) at school. He is fun and friendly and probably the kid you don't want your kids hanging around. He comes to our house on his bike about twice a week to sell coconut crusts which his Mom makes and occasionally to play hockey with Brynn. We love him.

A little more background to the story: because of the aids problem in Belize, many places hand out free condoms. Judy and the clinic are the free sources in Hopkins. The problem is, kids here are sexually active very early in life but the young kids are often embarrassed to go and get the condoms. Not so our Shaquille. He is very outgoing and has no problem going and picking up free condoms by the handfuls. Being the smart boy he is, one day Shaqu looks around and sees an opportunity. He can get all the free condoms he needs and sell the excess to other standard 6 kids that are too embarrassed to get their own. He starts up his own little business at $1/condom.

Things are going well. Shaquille is pulling in some extra dough and the adults that know what he's up to, look the other way because this is actually a service to the kids and community. Here's where things start to get dicey. Shaquille's brain kicks in again and he realizes there is a large untapped market in the kids from infant 1 to standard 5 (preschool - grade 7). Thinking fast he begins to market his special 'balloons' to the younger kids. Well, it doesn't take long before one of these innocents shows his mom his new balloon. Mom pitches the expected fit and heads to the school. So the upshot is that Shaquille has been shut down and is now suspended from school. There's just no reward for ingenuity in this place!

No matter how hard I look, we just don't seem to have a great picture of Shaquille. This is the best I could find.