Exploring Belize Continues

Caye Caulker Lobster Fest - Feel the Rock!

2009-07-02T23:53:00.001-06:00

Lobster Season is Officially Open!

Be Kind Belize

2009-06-09T14:18:00.026-06:00

Humane Education Ain't Just for the Birds You Know

This gorgeous shot of a Harpy Eagle was taken by Maya

Where have we been? Why haven't we blogged? How can we be living in tropical paradise and be so busy? Oh the questions.

We like to keep our blog supporters updated but we also want to make sure we have really interesting stuff to share. Of course we could rub it in constantly and report back on our wonderful friends, the sparkling Caribbean Sea where we walk our dogs and swim regularly. We could brag about the great fishing and how amazing it is to eat fish that we have caught ourselves, straight from the salt water onto our grill. We could talk about hanging out at beach bars with our feet in the sand, the breeze in our hair, a cold beer in our hand tapping our feet to stomping good blues music. We could revel in the barefoot beach lifestyle that we have grown to love, treasure and embrace. We could drone on and on about the interesting people we know who are doing all sorts of heart stopping, enthralling and magical things. We could, but we won't.

What we will do is tell you a little bit about why we are so busy. Here are some of the things we've been up to. We've been taking photographs for a fund raising calendar for the local humane society. Sounds easy eh? Well, first we have to coordinate times with everyone, which isn't so easy when there is something called 'Belize time', which seems to mean that appointments don't constitute any sort of commitment. A good example of Belize time is the recent announcement that the Belikin Calendar has been released for 2009. Um hello guys, it is June already. But for those of you who don't know Belize time, there it is for you. For those of you who don't know the Belikin Calendar, have a click and look. You'll realise that most of the guys who buy the calendar aren't making the purchase to check what date it is. (nudge, nudge, wink, wink)

Then there is getting the weather to cooperate. These pictures involve people and their pets. As anyone knows, who has worked in this field, trying to get an owner and pet both looking fabulous in the same shot is a miracle in itself if you are attempting anything resembling a posed picture. Then there is the tactful and time consuming task of making everyone look extra beautiful without looking unnatural. Fortunately Maya is a genius. We want to get this calendar out on time - not on Belize time and we want to make the local humane society a lot of money. Watch this space and wish us luck. The good news is that we have gorgeous pets and stunning owners and there will be a fair mix of boys and girls - so everyone should be happy.

In the midst of all of this we realised that we had better start earning some real money and so we set off on the task of writing a business plan and getting ourselves all excited about a new business. Then the economy sort of collapsed and we started to feel it in Belize. Not the right time to start the business we were planning and we have been disappointed to have to shelve the idea temporarily. Those that were involved are disappointed too, but such is life. We are moving forward with our next plan of action and things are going very well. We will be updating you all when we are ready to launch Conch Creative formally, but that is a hint. That is the name of our business.

Of course, you all know that Maya has been gardening and that combined with finishing our house has been a humongous task. Enjoyable and frustrating all at the same time.

Colette has been particularly busy. Everyone who knows her, knows that she is always up to something, she does a bit of writing, a bit of music a bit of this and a bit of that, but her main focus recently has been her humane education programme, Be Kind Belize. (website was designed and provided by the amazing and wonderful people at Belize Bird Rescue) After living here for sometime and trying to work out what she could do to give something back to this wonderful country that has been so welcoming to us, she decided to use her lifetime of
experience in animal welfare to develop Be Kind Belize.

Some of you might be asking, 'what on earth is humane education?'. Well, Colette sums it up by saying that it is the teaching of kindness in all of its forms.

A more complicated but detailed definition is provided by the all knowing Wikipedia.

"Humane education makes the acquisition of relevant knowledge, skills, and commitment to living ethically, sustainably, and peaceably on this planet the very purpose of education. It does this by infusing the curricula at all levels of education with meaningful information, inspiration, and tools for creating a safe and humane world for all.

Humane education examines the challenges facing our planet, from human oppression and animal exploitation to materialism and ecological degradation. It explores how we might live with compassion and respect for everyone: not just our friends and neighbors, but all people; not just our own dogs and cats, but all animals; not just our own homes, but also the earth itself, our ultimate home.

Humane education helps raise a generation that cares, that realizes that what we do matters, not just to ourselves but also to everyone our lives touch; a generation that understands the connections between both our personal and cultural choices and the fate of other people, other species, and the Earth, and takes responsibility for creating a better world. Humane education achieves these goals by inspiring people to identify the values that will guide them through life and by teaching them the process of embodying these values in the face of complex problems and needs.

Humane education promotes empathy and compassion towards all other species.

The birth of humane education as a national effort dates back to 1915. In that year, “Be Kind to Animals Week” was inspired Dr. William O’Stillman, leader of the American Humane Association. AHA’s primary goals were: visiting local schools to promote the development of humane education and publicizing the good works of the nation’s humane societies."

So, overall, it is a pretty good thing. Colette started designing this programme over a year ago and studied hard to ensure that her lessons tied in closely with the Belize National Curriculum. She then approached schools and was delighted to be invited to work with two - Holy Cross Anglican School and Island Academy - very different schools but both full of delightful children, who seem to love Colette's Be Kind Belize lessons and rather unconventional teaching methods.

The children have put on plays click here to see play. And they have written songs click here to hear them sing .

One of the most exciting things that Colette has done through her programme is the Kind Kids Adventure. Through the generous help and sponsorship of all sorts of individuals and businesses, she has set up an overnight field trip to the Belize mainland for a group of children from these two schools. Field trips aren't always particularly unusual but this one is different for a number of reasons. Firstly, the children are choosing which of their classmates get to go on this trip - only two from Island Academy and four from Holy Cross will be able to go as this trip is actually a prize for the kindest child. All of the children in each class get to use Kind Kid Coupons to identify and reward kind behaviour by their classmates. Through this system, which the children have to support by drawing a picture of the act of kindness along with a written description, which is then verified by the teacher, children will actually 'vote' for the kindest child in the class.

The children who are lucky enough to come on this trip will get the chance to visit a wild bird rehabiliation centre, Belize Bird Rescue, where they will learn about wild and domestic birds and see conservation in action. They will meet a real Belizean cowboy, who specialises in training horses with kindness and see him work with horses. They will visit a reptile conservation programme, the national Audobon society, get to learn about environmental technology, find out how to become a veterinarian in Belize and, on top of all of this, they will get a half day of cave tubing at Caves Branch . There are so many people to thank and Colette will be doing all of that properly and hugely after the trip, but the kids (don't tell them if you are reading this and you know one of them) will be receiving t-shirts, knapsacks, chocolate and all sorts of other amazing goodies donated by people from all over the world, who have heard about Be Kind Belize and want to help.

Fortunately, Colette has been in animal welfare a long time and knows how to do things on a shoe string. She also doesn't want to get into fundraising and the whole having to be on a committee, be terribly diplomatic (although she's never been known to have been diplomatic in her life really), do fundraising and all that malarkey, so she has kept costs down to a minimum while gratefully accepting practical donations.

But Colette isn't stupid either and printing costs a fortune down here, so she has set up a little Be Kind Belize Cafe Press Shop online, where you can purchase Be Kind Belize products and help out with the costs. You can also be incredibly fashionable, hip and rather sexy (there are even t-shirts for dogs). Or you can be a really a wonderful friend and buy items as presents for others. Either way, check it out as the logo is adorable and once you see it, you'll want one. The logo, was in fact, created by the talented and mysterious Maya.

For your viewing pleasure, here is a stolen shot of the now famous 'Flyin Mayan'. Taken by Ruth Verrals from the gorgeous Caribbean Villas

And another one which could only be titled (for those of you familiar with British Panto) 'She's behind you!' Or Maya's caption which is 'Jazz Hands'. Taken by Ruth Verrals from the gorgeous Caribbean Villas.

One little aside. We don't normally review local restaurants here because we are fussy buggers and we don't want to insult anyone, but in this case we'll make a little teensy exception. True to form, no review, just a comment. 'F'ing brilliant food!' Hummingbird Cafe.

To sum it all up boys and girls - We are busy. We are creating. We are doing. We are going to be launching soon. When we do, we will make sure you guys are definitely going to hear about it. We love you all. Colette & Maya

ps. This blog was supposed to be an interview with the great Drummer Dan and his talented friend Derrek. Unfortunately, the boys are rather slow at answering interview questions. So, if you see Derek, could you please give him a kick up the arse from us.

We will never forget you Mama Faye

2009-04-28T17:03:00.004-06:00

It is with great sadness that we learned of the death of Mrs. Faye Johnson, affectionately known as Mama Faye.

Mama Faye was Colette's grandmother by marriage. She was beautiful, fiercely intelligent, feisty and an inspiration to all. She will be greatly missed and never forgotten. Her loss is a loss shared my many and we share our sadness with her family, her community and everyone whose heart she touched.

Bats, Birds, Books ....oh and one little Agouti called Ben

2009-04-21T15:25:00.040-06:00

"Bats have no bankers and they do not drink and cannot be arrested and pay no tax and, in general, bats have it made."

John Berryman (1917 - 1972)

These adorable, but slightly menacing creatures are Pygmy Fruit Eating Bats. They have a condo in a palmetto tree outside our window. They don't live there full time, but hang around (ha ha) every two or three days. Maya has been standing on a pile of crates to get photos when we can. Catching them with their eyes open is difficult. Catching them with their mouth open is even more difficult if they don't happen to be eating at the time. The little grey ones are babies and we've been watching them grow. As mammals, they nurse and we have caught this happening and it is absolutely fascinating. Welcome to our world. We're bats about Belize.

This is Chilli. Chilli is a Red Lored Parrot who found his way from the rain forest near the Macal River, to San Pedro and then back to mainland Belize. He currently resides at Belize Bird Rescue. His wings had been cut back badly but after their expert care he is now free flying and they are hoping he will soon find a mate.

Belize Bird Rescue does more than rescue and rehabilitate birds, their kindness and hospitality attract all sorts of stray people and animals.

This is the rather inappropriately named, Hunter (the dog), with Ben (actually Benjamina) the Agouti. Ben was brought home as a newborn, with umbilical cord still attached, by one of their other gentle but giant dogs. Agouti are eaten as bush meat in Belize. Luckily no one has told Hunter that.

This is Colette helping with early morning feeding. Ben may look very cute and truly is scrumptious, but she is a wild animal. Having spent time at Belize Bird Rescue that might be difficult to believe, since Benjamina has full run of the house, which can be somewhat disconcerting as she has a habit of rearranging things, but she is free to come and go as she pleases and will hopefully mature and attract a mate herself.

Ben is becoming less dependent on her milk feeds and seems to enjoy solids, such as this juicy piece of mango. It is so nice to live in a place where you can pick mangoes off the tree. Have we mentioned that Belize truly is paradise on earth?

We need to get back to the bird bit though. Somehow the cuteness of Benjamina overwhelmed us and she got in on this blog much too early. Belize Bird Rescue has hundreds of birds, many of them chickens. This chicken and her little baby seem to understand that a chicken's place is in the hen house.

But many of the chickens don't understand that fact. This very handsome and rather large cock (sorry we couldn't help ourselves) practiced his crowing outside Colette's window every night. She claims it was reassuring but got back to San Pedro with big bags under her eyes. As she denies that she consumed far too much wine and stayed up far too late with her wonderful hostess Nikki, putting the world to rights, it must have been this very large cock that ruined her beauty sleep. (oh we really must stop with the childish innuendo)

Sometimes the situation became somewhat Hitchcockesque, as the chickens and the odd turkey settled for the evening. Trust us when we say that you didn’t want to be the first one walking down these stairs in the morning.

And the turkeys were definitely odd. This is the author Joan Fry (who incidentally should not really be mentioned in this part of the blog but she’s nearly as cute as Benjamina, so we’ll let her off) with her friend Lee and an odd, un named turkey.

Truly though, after this picture you might start to understand that there really are chickens everywhere at Belize Bird Rescue. And thank goodness for that.

Without them we would have no eggs as we are very fussy about eggs and there really are none better than those grown on a healthy diet, free range and organic. Big kudos to Jerry and Nikki for ensuring that we do not have an eggless existence.

Oh deer. Oh deer indeed. Somehow they’ve ended up with a pair of deer as well. Bambi you would think, but these are trained attack deer and Colette saw exactly what they were capable of, when she bravely threw Nikki under the pounding hooves of one very pissed off young buck. Fortunately there was a hose nearby and Colette can certainly hose a deer down in self defence....is there a song coming on here? Hose a deer, a female deer...Actually it was the male deer who attacked and he is scary and strong.

For those of you who prefer views to animals, this is the view you wake up to at Belize Bird Rescue.

And if you are really lucky, this fantastic cowboy (and he is truly fantastic), Alyson, will take you out for a ride in the rain forest. Colette and Joan Fry joined him. Difference is, Joan is a horse expert and gets to ride regularly.

Colette loves horses but doesn’t get to ride very often and embarrassingly actually managed to find herself hanging from her bra from her saddle. Her horse was very patient with her.

Now before we get to the book section, we have a few more gratuitous photos to add.

Gratuitous and indulgent still life and a saddle similar to the one Colette dangled from by her bra.

Gratuitous yet amusing picture of chicken in parrot cage.

Gratuitous but somewhat heartwarming picture of Buddica and Maya.

Completely gratuitous shot of three stunningly gorgeous people. Kathleen, Colette and Andre. Now onto bookish things.

Joan's book signing in Belmopan sign with Joan and Jerry being propped up by a sign.

Joan dressed in her riding gear for a horse adventure. We're not sure we've ever seen anyone in Belize get dressed up so fancy to ride a horse.

Joan is interviewed on the Morning Show by Senator Aiden Salazar. Colette's behind the scenes version of the 'monkey dance' stopped them both from falling asleep. Early mornings are not Joan's forte'.

San Pedro welcomes Joan with a banner. (with very tiny writing)

Miss Tammy turns over her Hummingbird restaurant to cook some of the wonderful recipes from Joan's book, How to Cook a Tapir - A Memoir of Belize. Of course, the amazing Tapir is now an endangered species and we would never cook one, but the rest of the meal rocked.

San Pedro's Mayor, Elsa Paz, meets Joan and receives her own signed copy of the book at Page's Bookshop.

We'd like to thank everyone who made Joan feel so welcome back in Belize and all of our wonderful friends who continue to supply us with chocolate and bring us the little things that make life a little bit easier. Much love.

How Does Our Garden Grow?

2009-03-02T10:15:00.026-07:00

"Gardens are not made by singing 'Oh How Beautiful', and sitting in the shade"
Rudyard Kipling

Gardening keeps you busy. Especially if you are Maya. If you've been keeping up with our blog, you'll remember the pictures of our garden when we first moved in last year. The garden was barren, with huge crab holes everywhere. We picked up at least a quizillion nails and had to work out how to evict crabs, fill holes and level everything out. We had some really nice big Gumbo Limbo trees, Palmettos and some Tropical Almond trees but otherwise, the garden was a virtual desert. Things have come along since then and it is time to start sharing.

These elephant ears were tiny little babies when they were planted. They now dwarf the dogs and make the garden look quite jungley.

Buddica, the brindle on the left was the newest addition to our family, when we found her on the beach last summer. As you can see, she has grown into a somewhat lopsided but very characterful part of our family.

Midas, the little black one, known for her love of whine, loves her new playmate - if only Buddica wasn't scared to jump off the docks. We're workin' on it. Watch this space.

This picture of Colette is going in first, only because it suggests that she has some responsibility for the garden. The truth is, that while she doesn't mind weilding a power tool now and then, it has been Maya's blood, sweat and tears that has made our garden grow.

Oh, and what a beautiful garden it is becoming. Maya has discovered her amazing green fingers and has learned how to propogate Hibiscus.

We now have 30 Hibiscus plants in a range of 5 different colours. Maya has grown these all from cuttings and they are absolutely beautiful. They are all managing to mature, despite a repeated onslaught by Ocky, who tramples them in his effort to protect us from the rubbish truck.

Ah, there is Ocky, otherwise known as Octavius. He quite likes Buddica too, though he hates to admit it. Before Buddica came along, he didn't really know how to play with other dogs. His idea of meeting another dog involved lots of shouting, swearing and teeth.

Fortunately, Buddica is persistent, has a high tolerance for abuse and is always in a playful mood. She has slowly taught him that playing is more fun than fighting and he's been a much more relaxed and mellow dog ever since.

We love tomatoes. Maya, grew up in an Eastern European family and Colette grew up with a French mother. Both of us have a love for fresh tomatoes and we decided that they were going to be an essential part of our garden.

The first tomatoes were given to us as a gift by a lovely lady who cycles by our house. We've known her since we've lived here and she always stops for a chat. She gives massages on the beach and does hair braiding for tourists.

When Colette mentioned to her that we wanted to start a garden, she stopped by one day with threelittle plants in black bags.

We now have lovely and delicious tomatoes. We have about 10 plants going right now and believe it or not, we get what we call rogue tomatoes. They just sort of pop up all over the garden. We've got about 4 of them doing very well too.

We're not quite sure why this happens, but can only think that it is birds who are dropping the seeds. We dont' complain, we just water them and enjoy. We're also grateful for the seed care packages from our lovely friends Bill & Becky.

Of course it isn't just tomatoes we are growing as you can see from the photo, we've been getting some lovely melons too.

We had a good crop of watermelons last year, but this year the melons are popping up. This came from a tiny little baby plant given to us by Cindy. Cindy is another transplanted Brit, who made her way to Belize.

This is probably a good time to say that this sense of community is exactly what we were looking for when we came to Belize.

Maya has been very adventurous since she discovered her green thumb. The tree you see her with here is known as a Flamboyant Tree. For some reason, Colette insists on calling it a Fabulous Tree, but it is indeed Flamboyant and not Fabulous.

What is fabulous is that Maya has grown this tree from seed and it is already taller than she is.

What has been strange is that we had a real winter. We realise that is laugable to many of you, but for us, a huge drop in temperature is as cold as it is for you, even though our starting point is much higher.

Colette spent several days wearing jeans and a jacket, not dissimilar to the way she dressed in London. The weather was gloomy and depressing. We actually had weeks with only a glimmer of sunshine and when the sun came out, so did the mosquitoes. We even considered expanding our garden to become a free-range, organic mosquito farm, but we didn't see it catching on.

Colette doesn't honestly do too much in the garden except play with the dogs, weed a bit, pick up dog poops and complain about the ants, but she does make her own contribution by making Maya feel useful. Oh - and she deals with the serious creepy crawlies like snakes and scorpions. The most recent tarantula visitor escorted himself off the property before Colette had to intervene.

How does one do that, you may be asking. Cooking. Colette cooks and cooks and has to keep cooking.

Maya burns off an extraordinary amount of calories working in the garden in the hot sun and she shrinks really rapidly if she isn't fed enough. Maya's previous job entailed her sitting in a studio for 8-12 hours a day and having a chef bring her food on demand. She still never got fat. But now, she is suddenly spending several hours a day in the garden with a machete and a hose and as fast as she grows it, Colette cooks it.

You can just about see one of her home made olive oil and sunflower seed loaves in the background.

People are often curious as to what sort of plants we can grow on a piece of sand in the middle of the salty Caribbean. Well here is our trough, built by Maya and Bill. In this trough we have potatoes, cucumbers and radishes. We've just transplanted some lettuce into the trough and have some coriander (called cilantro here) growing at the other end that you can't see.

Of course, there are the plants you would expect, such as these bananas. We won't get any fruit off them til next year probably.

These were grown from tiny little baby chutes and are really big now. The fence is six feet high, so you can get an idea of just how quickly everything grows with sun, water and tender loving care.

Some of our friends have complained that their gardens haven't been so successful. The secret to our garden is attention. Every day, Maya goes out into the garden, checks every single plant. She waters them twice a day and we are planning to start a compost pile soon.

This is a Papaya tree. This will take about 5 years to fruit, but we love Papaya. Did you know that the traditional way to tenderise meat in Belize is to wrap the meat in Papaya skin. It really works and it is super effective.

This is the nursery at the moment. There are some orchids here, hibiscus an avacodo tree along with a few other plants. This is where they are hardened up enough to be planted in the ground.

The orchids are a type of air plant and are absolutely beautiful when they bloom and very interesting looking while they grow.

This is a different kind of air plant. Colette bought it last year on the mainland and we put it up on tree. As you can see, we now have two Bromeliads and they seem very happy indeed.

And so it isn't really true that Colette doesn't do anything for the garden. She shops for it. This was one of her early contributions.

More recently she went to Belize City to visit the shop where everyone goes to buy anything to do with growing things - Prosser.

This is Prosser Feterlizer and Agrochemicals. Somehow it doesn't feel that inviting from the outside, but the guys inside were more than happy to help by providing us with seeds that were tolerant to the local climate and coconut food.

Yes, we have about 10 coconut palms planted now although Buddica has done her best to reduce that number.

We really learn so much here every single day. Palm hearts are considered a delicacy by humans and are very expensive. Well, what do you think happens when a dog discovers a 'delicacy'?

We have had a couple of disasters, but we are finding an equilibrium with Buddica and so she has limited her damage to days when she knows we will feel guilty enough not to be mad at her if she trashes the garden. Strangely enough, those days coincide with the days we don't get her out for a decent walk. Noticing a pattern here?

We don't just spend time in our garden. We have a spectacular roof. We can see the Caribbean Sea, the Barrier Reef, the Lagoon and, of course our neighbour's houses.

I think we all spend time looking at our neighbour's homes. This is Miss Cathy's place, she lives sort of diagonal to us.

Well it seems that she watches us too!

This picture was in an email we got from Miss Cathy. She'd snapped our 'guard' dogs hard at work.

Meanwhile, on the other porch, Midas and Maya take a break from gardening.

Let's get back to spying on neighbours. This is our direct neighbour's house. His name is Wally. This is a woodpecker that lives in Wally's roof.

We've named him Wally's Pecker.

And finally, just to prove that we do leave the confines of our home sometimes, this is Maya on her bike (RIP) as we cycle into town.

This is the road that leads to our house, the lovely Mermaid Manor.

This blog would not be possible without the chocolates, seeds and other amazing gifts that our wonderful friends have been bringing us.

We're not going to name you all in case we embarrass ourselves by missing someone out, so please just know that we think you are wonderful.

2008-12-21T11:55:00.015-07:00

How to Cook a Tapir
A Memoir of Belize
by Joan Fry

Interview with the author, by Colette Kase

Five years or so ago, I joined an online forum about Belize. This was in the early days, when Maya and I were doing research on starting a new life and we had set our sights on Belize. It was through this forum that I met Joan Fry.

Joan is an award winning author. She has written several books about horses and it was this shared interest in animals that sparked a fascinating, fun, stimulating and wonderful modern electronic pen pal relationship. Joan and I would discuss her book projects, my writing efforts, our animals, our shared irritations and gradually developed a strong friendship.

It was a surprise though, when Maya and I were standing in Belize International Airport, waiting for our flight back to England after one of our reconnaissance trips to San Pedro, when I heard someone shout my name. I turned to see a familiar, yet strangely unrecognisable face approaching me with a big smile. It turned out to be Joan Fry. Fortunately, I am somewhat more recognisable than she is. We were both very excited to get the chance to meet, totally unexpectedly, and this only proved to strengthen our friendship over the years.

Joan is an amazing writer and I was thrilled when she really dug in and started to work on her most recent book, How to Cook a Tapir, which is a memoir of her time living in Belize in the 1960's. She had tempted me with interesting snippets about her experiences but I couldn't wait for her to put it all into print. I probably encouraged her to the point for being a nag, but I am just absolutely delighted to be able to help introduce this wonderful new book.

How on earth did you end up in Belize in the first place?

I married an anthropologist who was interested in studying the Maya. Actually he was my high school sweetheart--two years older than I was, and did he ever use that fact to his advantage! The early 1960's were "the good old days" when fathers and husbands always knew best. But--I digress. My husband had spent the previous summer living with a Kekchi family in Crique Sarco and had met the local priest, Fr. John Paul Cull. Father Cull promised me a teaching job, even though I was only a sophomore in college and not Catholic.

What did you think when you first discovered that you were going to Belize? Had you even heard of it?

The country was called British Honduras in those days, and no, I'd never heard of it. Nobody in family had either, except my grandfather. He'd been a sailor in his younger days and remembered taking mahogany out of Stann Creek. It was fun for me when I actually saw Stann Creek, although I was violently seasick at the time and couldn't properly appreciate it.

What were some of your preconceptions about Belize?

I didn't have many, although there had been a spate of jungle movies when i was a kid, and they inevitably featured tarantulas the size of toy poodles. I've always been terrified of spiders. The first time I saw a real tarantula was when I was washing my hair in a stone "shower" underneath the cistern in our boarding house in Belize city. I thought some of the stones were covered with black moss until I splashed shampoo on one and it moved.

What was the biggest culture shock?

I was one of the first white women most of the women of Santa Elena had ever seen, and they gawked at me nonstop--I was their entertainment. Being a blue-eyed blond who was taller than most of them made them even more curious about me. I was never alone. At least one person was always in the house with me, and if my husband and I walked to the Rio Blanco pool for a swim, half a dozen kids would follow us. That went on for months. Actually it went on as long as I lived there, although by the time we left, the people who visited genuinely wanted to visit, not stare.

Who was your first real friend in Belize and when did you realise that you had become 'friends'?

Her name was Lucia Bah, and she was a neighbor who spoke fairly good English. Her daughter was one of my students. I realized we'd become friends one day when she confided that she didn't like another neighbor's husband because he beat his wife and kids so violently. Yes, it was gossip, but it was also the first time a woman trusted me enough, and was interested enough in hearing my thoughts about something, to initiate a conversation. Lucia also taught me to cook. I owe her a lot. I wish she'd lived long enough to see this book.

Did your husband (at the time) prepare you sufficiently for your experiences or did he mislead you at all about what life would be like?

He showed me photos but made everything sound very romantic--and there's really no way to convey the humidity, the smells, the feel of the jungle through photos alone. I had done virtually no traveling (except to Ontario, Canada, which was like traveling to upstate NY), and was in no way prepared for any of it--the open sewage canals in Belize City, the caste system (don't forget, BZ was an English colony then), and particularly the poverty of the Maya. They were subsistence farmers--very few of them even used money. They bartered for what they needed. My husband insisted that I wear skirts and blouses because that's what the Maya women wore and wouldn't allow me to smoke because the Maya women didn't. He was wrong on both counts. Most women didn't wear blouses at all, and they smoked home-rolled cigars.

What is your favourite Belizean recipe and why?

Escabeche. It has a unique taste (each cook arrives at a different balance between chile pepper and vinegar), and to me, believe it or not, it's a comfort food.

Do you still eat Belizean food? What foods do you miss from Belize?

I still make escabeche from time to time, and I still like making and eating soup of all kinds. Especially when the weather gets cold. I love chili but hold the beans. I do miss tamalitos--green corn tamales--but the food I miss most is corn tortillas. They don't taste authentic even in the Mexican restaurants that have a token Mexican woman in front making "fresh" ones. As for corn tortillas you buy in the store--have you ever taken a look at what's in them? I'm looking at a package right now, ant it lists nine ingredients! What the hell is amylase? All they should contain is corn treated with lime (the mineral, not the fruit), and water. The best are incredibly fragrant with a soft, moist texture. I'm drooling!

You clearly have had a lifelong love for Belize since coming here in the 60's, what is it about Belize that has kept you enthralled all these years?

"Enthralled" is a good word. I've asked myself that question, and I still can't give you a definitive answer. I'm sure the Maya continue to fascinate me because they had a lot to do with forming my values. I was an only child and a girl and had led a very sheltered life in the States. But in Belize, I was alone a lot--my husband was always off conducting ethnographic studies. So when I had a decision to make, I only had myself and the Maya to fall back on. I made some bad decisions but more often than not I made the right ones, probably because there was no authority around to tell me any different.

Did you really cook a Tapir?

Yes. And it was delicious!

How to Cook a Tapir - A Memoir of Belize, by Joan Fry will be released in April 2009. The book can be pre-ordered from Amazon, which happens to be offering a great pre-publication price. To order click here.

Happy Holidays from Colette, Maya, Buddica, Midas and Octavius.

Politicians, Pimps, Punta and Pussycats

2008-11-14T14:48:00.017-07:00

This week we learn about the letter 'P'

Maya loves up her watermelon

The rain finally stopped and Maya was able to go out in the pouring torrent and rescue a watermelon. We grew a number of watermelons successfully and they were quite, curiously sweet and delicious. Why do we say 'curiously'? Well, we were not sure how they would grow in our garden and our limited cultivation skills meant it was a trial and error. Maya pollinated the watermelon flowers by hand until the bees discovered the patch and then it all went crazy. We probably had about 20 healthy watermelons before the rains, but sadly lost much of our crop. Not nearly as sad as the many people who lost their crops, homes and livelihoods on the mainland as the floods took hold. We send a big shout out to all the Belizean people who have suffered terribly during this national disaster.

Maya braves the rain like a superhero to save her watermelons.

Once the rain cleared it was time to be cultured, uncultured and everything in between. We'll start with the seriously uncultured and move forward from there.

Pedro's Halloween Party had a 'Pimp & Ho' theme. We couldn't resist and dressed ourselves up appropriately as Flava Flav and New York. Well, we did our own versions, which were good enough for Maya to win first prize. She has won a trip to the mainland, which means she'll be able to go and play on some of her beloved pyramids very soon. We probably haven't mentioned that Maya has been hit by a stroke of luck recently, winning the best prize at the SAGA Humane Society Halloween fundraiser. Maya won a skydive. No joke. Watch this space. We'll have pictures and hopefully they will be of her landing in one piece. The skydive is part of the Boogie in Belize event, which have faithfully avoided, due to sincere cowardice, since we have lived here. Now there are no excuses. Time for Maya to write her will.

Maya and Colette in their Pimp & Ho costumes.

Don't try this at home kids.

Since our title alliterated quite furiously upon the letter 'P', pussycats got a mention. That is because we had a little spot of pussycat trapping. Some kitties had started to breed out of control locally and along with our lovely neighbour Brad, Colette dutifully captured up those little cats and got them vaccinated and neutered at SAGA Humane Society.

Empty Cat Trap

Cat Trap Fully Loaded

Colette then decided that instead of rescuing cats, for a while at least, she'd rescue humans instead and went on a First Responders course held by Bandage International and the Belize Red Cross. Incredibly this two day course was absolutely free and it was really appreciated. Colette might also have enjoyed getting to pin people down and wrap them in bandage, but the less said about that the better.

Poor Anna at Colette's mercy.

Anna gets to return the favour.

Belize is full of surprises and there is nothing more surprising than a magical Belizean Fairy Princess turning up during a life saving course. But she did and it is lucky as some of the victims....umm we mean patients certainly needed some magic.

Some of the victims really needed some magic.

Belizean Fairy Princess.

We've done the pimps, we've done the pussycats, we've even thrown in a princess as a bonus. Now, to what you have all been waiting for - The politician!

We've had a bit of culture recently. Culture is something we miss out here in San Pedro. We love the handful of bands who play here every night of the week to earn their crust, but we really do like something a bit different now and again. Well, this week we got it. Firstly we were invited to a private viewing of a drama group who were visiting Belize from the USA. They were very good and they had performed at numerous schools around the country, warning them about AIDS and sending a strong message about safe sex. Their message was very powerful and there were a few tearful members of the audience. Unfortunately, people telling sad stories in front of a small private crowd, just doesn't make for great pictures, so we'll spare you.

But in the same week were able to see some of our favourite music played by the Garifuna Collective, made world famous by Andy Palacio (RIP). We've told you in previous blogs about our trips to Hopkins and also about Norman Cook, AKA Fat Boy Slim coming to San Pedro to record with Andy and the Garifuna Collective. Well, they really are fantastic, so it was a surprise and pleasure to see our own Senator Eiden Salazar, who also happens to be a TV presenter and owns the local radio station, turn up to show off his skills on a drum.

Senator Salazar on the right demonstrating his excellent

drumming skills.

Our lovely friend Walter was at the gig and as he comes from Punta Gorda and grew up with Garifuna music, he sang along to every song.

Colette can't Punta but she still loves to dance with Walter.

This is what the Punta really looks like.

Coconuts Hotel will be featuring The Garifuna Collective weekly. Hurrah!!

The wires pulled across this traditional Garifuna Drum give

it a unique snare like sound.

We'd like to thank Kerry, who works at the Waffle House, for answering Colette's international appeal for grits and bringing her a fine bag of authentic Waffle House Grits. Thanks Kerry. It was a truly heroic effort, made even more so by an explosion of grits in your suitcase. You're a star.

Ta ta for now from sunny San Pedro.

You are what you love.

2008-10-23T13:25:00.020-06:00

(picture courtesy of the Secret Museum of Mankind http://ian.macky.net/secretmuseum/)

"When we feel love and kindness toward
others, it not only makes others feel loved and cared for, but it helps us also
to develop inner happiness and peace."

The Dalai Lama

Aren't we lucky we can love? We eat, sleep, get jiggy with it and poop. Those things don't give us much to feel superior about as a species. But above and beyond all that, we love. Who and what we love probably are one of the biggest factors in who we are as individuals.

Colette has just come back from the USA and there is a lot of love going around there. People in the USA right now really love their political party, they love their candidate, they love their country and they love the fact that the cost of gas is finally going down. A lot of people love Tina Fey too.

But this blog isn't about that sort of love because love is a word that can be bandied around far too easily. 'I love my car' and 'I love my HD TV' are really strange but truly human expressions of love. 'I love my Mother' and 'I love you' are the sorts of love that make us feel much more fuzzy inside. Maybe some sports fans will disagree as I suspect that some people love their football team (and 'football' here is universally used to encompass both American and proper (ie British) football) almost more than life itself.

So, let us start with 'I love my Mum'. Colette and Maya both call Colette's Mum, 'Mum'. Well, 'Mum' right now is heroic with many people in her family and community depending on her; one in particular is Mum's CASA kid. 'What is a CASA kid?', you may ask. Well, CASA stands for 'Court Appointed Special Advocates'. This is a national non profit organisation in the USA, which does a remarkable thing. It gets volunteers from all over the country to become the champion of the most vulnerable children. Kids who find themselves thrust into the court system in the USA find themselves often the middle of battles between adults who all have their own agendas. Children have no legal right to proper representation in these circumstances and some of these children have been terribly neglected, abused and violated by those who are supposed to 'love' them. The CASA looks after the interests of the child and makes sure that they have someone fighting their corner. Mum is one of these. We love her and we just wanted to let her know.

So here are a couple of pictures we've scanned in tribute to our Mum.

Colette & Mum in France in 1972

Mum in Louisville in 1973 - Eat your heart out Victoria Beckham

So while Colette was in Georgia sharing in all the love, Maya was in Belize sharing in all the rain. Oh boy has it been raining. Parts of Belize have been declared national disaster areas. Here is a picture from our front porch of our neighbour's garden.

Is the laundry dry yet?

But of course, we had puddles of our own. This is Midas enjoying a waterfront home at last.

Now where did I bury that bone?

The rain didn't stop Maya from spreading her love to our wonderful garden though and in the short breaks, she tended to the plants that she has nurtured so tenderly. Of course the dogs all helped.

Oh for a sweet, sweet watermelon

That isn't my bone. Why do humans think that rubber toys are anything like bones?

Meanwhile in the nursery, Buddica hides the bone in a hibiscus

This is Avril the Avocado grown from seed

This is our baby jungle

This is a Flamboyant Tree grown from seed

Maya also managed to get a couple of great pictures of birds expressing themselves when the rain stopped.

This is weather for ducks, not a Kiskadee like me

If I had lips, I'd be pouting

While we all think of love as a great thing we need to remember that love, or the pursuit of love, can lead to serious consequences, particularly for the young. That is why Maya and Colette are involved with the San Pedro Aids Commission. Maybe some of you didn't even know that there is an AIDS commission for San Pedro. Well, it is part of the Belize National Aids Commission. The San Pedro Aids Commission has many accomplishments under its belt already including:

Teacher training
Educational materials for young people
Production of AIDS informercial
Production of AIDS awareness posters and billboards
Financial assistance for people living with AIDS and their families

They even managed to win 1st place at the San Pedro Lighted Boat Parade last year with their fantastic floating red ribbon.

To put it all in context here are some of the most up to date figures on HIV/AIDS in Belize

HIV/AIDS in Belize
3,400: Estimated number of people living with HIV/AIDS by the end of 2007
2.1%: Estimated percentage of adults (ages 15-49) living with HIV/AIDS by the end of 2007
59%: Estimated percentage of HIV cases that occured among women (ages 15-49) by the end of 2007
over 200: Estimated number of children (ages 0-15) living with HIV/AIDS by the end of 2007
over 200: Estimated number of deaths due to AIDS during 2007
Source
UNAIDS 2008 Report on the Global AIDS Epidemic. July 2008.

The San Pedro Aids Commission is sustained wholly by volunteers and community contribution and does a wonderful job. They are about to introuduce condom machines to San Pedro to be placed in 'useful' locations.

So a reminder - World AIDS Day is on the 1st of December. The weekend before World AIDS Day, the 29th of November, the San Pedro AIDS Commission will be excited, thrilled and quite beyond themselves to announce a Rock Fest for AIDS. Watch this space for more information.

We think the French AIDs poster below reminds us all to be careful where we seek love.

With much love and a sting in the tail from us both to you all - Signing off from San Pedro, Ambergris Caye, Belize.

Birds, Bees and Bromeliads

2008-08-10T11:08:00.018-06:00

What a busy month. We have loads to tell you. Let's see - It started with Colette deciding to rescue a parrot. Someone locally had just gotten a young Red Lored Green Parrot. These are native to Belize and we have learned recently that it is not legal to own any native birds. Many people do keep parrots as pets here and all of them (except for those imported legally under CITES - and there isn't many of them) have been poached from the jungle. This usually involves cutting down the tree and raiding the nest. These poachers then sell the young birds, often with their wings cut terribly, to people who want to keep them as pets.

Parrots are intelligent, engaging and entertaining animals and it is not surprising that they so many people want to keep them as pets. Unfortunately, the wild population is being decimated in Belize by poaching and by citrus farms, who consider parrots a pest and slaughter them (legally) by their hundreds.

Colette was lucky to have been in touch with the wonderful people from Belize Bird Rescue http://www.belizebirdrescue.com/near Belmopan on mainland Belize. They did everything within their power to assist Colette so that she could bring the parrot to their sanctuary for rehabilitation. So we'll start this blog by following one young Red Lored Green Parrot on his journey back to freedom.

This young Red Lored Green Parrot had found its way from somewhere near the Macal River on the mainland. It ended up with a family who was finding it difficult to care for it. They had only had it a few months.

Belize Bird Rescue sent Colette an appropriate carrying cage with a little perch in it. This picture was taken at the local airport as she was preparing to fly the parrot over to the mainland. Belize Bird Rescue were waiting for her at the other end and whisked her and the parrot off to their amazing facility near Belmopan.

Both of us love mainland Belize and Colette was thrilled to have this opportunity to spend a little time there. Little did she know that she was going to be visiting a magical place and spending time with some amazing people.

As she got near to Rock Farm, where Belize Bird Rescue is located, she recognised a landmark from previous visits to the mainland. This is a huge Christian radio station that sticks out eerily high up on a hill, rising up out of the jungle. The drive was spectacular as always but she wasn't prepared for the beautiful place that Rock Farm is.

It is an idyllic place, clearly built with love. Almost like something out of a children's story book or fairy tale, where animals are everywhere, happy, healthy, friendly and living their lives to the max. Horses, ducks, geese, guinea fowl, chickens, turkeys, parrots, dogs and even owls are all over the property.

Colette says that it was like being a kid again, collecting freshly laid eggs, horseback riding or walking down a path to find this engineering feat of a watermill. This watermill is completely driven by water and is just made of pipes and wood. It provides fresh water for the whole farm.

So while the little parrot settled into his temporary new home (above) and got to know some of the other parrots, Colette wandered around Rock Farm.

This is the next stage for parrot rehabilitation. Once their cut wings grow back - and sadly that doesn't always happen - they can relearn to fly in this luxury aviary with six full sized trees.

But there are plenty of other trees at Rock Farm. Here are some bananas and a Breadfruit tree in the forefront.

Here is a close up of a Breadfruit growing on a tree. They are thinly sliced and fried like crisps.

Colette went horseback riding and while there are no embarrassing pictures of her on horseback, you can see what a wonderful place Rock Farm is for horses.

These are locally known as 'stingless bees' although I understand that they can sting. They were just hanging around and doing their bee thing.

There isn't a place at Rock Farm where there aren't any animals. This cute grotto is a happy place for ducks and chickens.

And there are chickens everywhere. They even came upstairs and would hang out on the balcony with the people and dogs.

Of course none of our blogs are complete without a dog picture. Here are two of the pack of six that prowl Rock Farm. Bad guys beware. Good guys watch out - you might get licked to death.

Colette had the opportunity to get some lessons from the Bird Rescue Belize people in how to groom a Cockatoo. This extremely endangered but magnificent Moluccan Cockatoo certainly enjoyed the attention. These birds are not native to Belize and this bird had been brought into the country by someone who had no idea how to care for it. As a result, he has been so lucky to end up with Nikki and Jerry who run Belize Bird Rescue, but they make it plainly clear that they are not pet bird keepers and that it breaks their heart that this bird can never be returned to the wild, nor will he ever meet others of his kind.

There were just so many things that reminded Colette why she loves the jungle in Belize so much. Flowers like these were all over the Rock Farm property, just growing wild.

You couldn't turn a corner without finding another beautiful tropical flower. When you see them in flower arrangements in the USA and Europe it is hard to imagine that they just grow wild some places. Belize is one of those places and there is a great flower story coming up later in this blog.

Here is the orange orchard at Rock Farm. It was such a beautiful place, Colette didn't really want to leave.

But this owl, which had recently been rehabilitated by Belize Bird Rescue, did indeed want to leave. He is now free flying on the property and will soon be heading back off into the wild.

Owls move so quickly and quietly it is a real challenge to get a picture of them flying, but Colette just managed to capture this one as he flew away to freedom.

Colette did have to return home and she misses San Pedro like crazy when she is away. But before she did, she went to visit our lovely friend Chap, who runs Junglewalk books in Belmopan. It really is the cutest little bookshop, run by the cutest guy. Love ya Chap.

Meanwhile, Maya was at home getting our garden started. It may look a bit bleak in this picture but those are baby palm trees that you can see growing. Some of them will provide us with coconuts when they get bigger.

Knowing that the garden is Maya's baby, Colette went and bought her the plant that you can see above. It is a pink Bromeliad. The picture above is of it where we placed it up a tree, where they grow. They are, in fact, air plants of sorts. It will grow onto the side of the tree but take no nutrients from it. Colette bought this at a great roadside restaurant on mainland Belize called Cheers http://www.cheersrestaurant.bz/. They sell all sorts of beautiful orchids and bromeliads. They promised Colette that this one is salt tolerant and will do well on the island.

Here is a close up of its magnificent flower. You can just see the little smaller purple flowers that are starting to sprout. When Colette brought it home we heard a strange croaking coming from it. We discovered a little stow away tree frog that still sits in it now and chirps loudly every night. A bit sad really because no one ever chirps back.

Maya works really hard in the garden every day, which is pretty evident if you look at her arms. She deserves some rest and relaxation with Buddica. But Colette decided to try to get some action in a completely new style (for her anyway).

Those of you who know her will be shocked, but believe it or not, Colette tried windsurfing. Here she is is trying to get up on the board. Yes that is her in the brown bikini. She no longer has that blonde hair.

Now she is getting the hang of standing up. That is difficult for Colette when she is sober and standing on land. This is a challenge.

And thar she goes. She is actually standing and moving. She didn't do too badly and really had a great time. She got this lesson compliment of Sailsports Belize http://www.sailsportsbelize.com/

Thanks for that. Maya is going to give it a go next time.

While all this was going on, ACES, http://www.freewebs.com/ppinpg/the American Crocodile Endangered Sanctuary, from mainland Belize had been busy preparing 'Debbie', a crocodile recently rescued from San Pedro, for release into their sanctuary habitat. When Debbie was captured in a pond, about 200 meters from our house, she was found to have suffered a number of injuries at the hand of humans including a bullet hole, spear wounds and broken ridges. She was also harbouring a nasty bacterial infection. Marisa Tellez, the zoologist working with ACES, makes it clear that the American Crocodile has the most powerful immune system on the planet. If Debbie is suffering from an infection from the water, then the human community needs to start worrying about what is in that water.

Debbie settled into her new home without any serious fights with the others, much to everyone's relief. Debbie was lucky. Two other crocs from San Pedro have died in recent weeks. One was clearly killed by poachers and had its head cut off. The other ACES had attempted to rescue after locals had captured it but a hook that someone might have tried to catch him with had caused internal injuries to the croc and he died.

But it isn't all bad news for the animals. Colette helped out at this SAGA fund raiser in Central Park, San Pedro. The charity raised a wonderful $2500BZD. Congratulations to everyone.

So, lots of thank yous from us to Jerry and Nikki at Bird Rescue Belize for being lovely people and for welcoming Colette into their home and family. Thank yous to ACES for doing work that isn't hugely popular because Crocs aren't very pretty, but very important. Thank yous to everyone that helped raise money for SAGA, http://ambergriscaye.com/sagasociety/

Blog Gone to the Dogs

2008-07-10T13:17:00.012-06:00

WARNING

THIS BLOG MAY BORE THOSE WHO DON'T CARE FOR DOGS

Dog Days in Belize

Buddica

Those of you who read our blog regularly will know that Buddica is the newest addition to our family. We now have three dogs and so much of our life revolves around them that we felt that we should dedicate this blog to our dogs and some of the dogs we know.

Midas

Midas came with us from London. Her mother was a Staffordshire Bull Terrier and her father was a Hungarian Puli. For those of you unfamiliar with those breeds, here are a couple of pictures.

The dog on your left is a Staffordshire Bull Terrier. This one looks very like Midas's mum. The dog on your right is a Hungarian Puli, sometimes called a 'rasta dog'. Anyone who knows these breeds and knows Midas realise that she is much more Puli than Staffie.

Midas's pedigree was in the free advertising paper in London called LOOT. She was born on a council estate in Peckham, South London and she seemed so sweet when we collected her. She quickly became known as 'Feral Sheryl' and 'Prawn of Satan'.

Years later, we bundled her into a plane and flew her first to the USA, where she spent some time on St. Simons Island getting used to the heat and used to the sea. Then we brought her to Belize. She stayed with us at the remarkable Jungle Dome near Belmopan, where there happened to be a couple of dogs that also came from South London. They taught her the ropes and then we brought her to San Pedro.

Midas rests after a hard day

Midas is the spoiled one in the household. Her life revolves around hunting swimming, diving off of docks, finding dead disgusting things to roll in or eat and catching crabs and lizards.

She sleeps in our bed at night and generally gets what she wants. If she doesn't get it quickly enough, she whines and whines and whines until you start to understand why people shake their children to death.

Midas's favourite spot for catching ticks

Midas entertains tourists and locals alike by jumping off of the docks and into the Caribbean Sea. She is fearless and often swims alongside sting rays that are much larger than her. Sometimes we swim with her and she loves that. Midas is very friendly, sweet and obedient and extremely irritating. She often stinks and has to be hosed down every day. She is weirdly intelligent and often looks like she is trying to form words. That can be frightening.

We don't just want to bore you with just our spoiled dog's lives, so we want to tell you a bit about how other dogs live here. Most of our neighbours have dogs. In our small neighbourhood of about 12 houses, there are just as many dogs. Some of them are kept under control, but most roam the neighbourhood turning over rubbish bins, fighting with other dogs, getting run over, shitting everywhere and mating with anything that will stand still long enough.

Many, in our neighbourhood, are owned by foreigners (not Belizean), who seem to think that this is OK. Obviously, we have moved here from a country obsessed, anally retentive and ridiculous about its dogs to a country where people value other things. We have no doubt that most people here can't quite believe how we behave with our dogs. We pick up after them, keep them on a lead near the road, brush them and walk them regularly. But there is defintely a change we have observed about the way many people keep their dogs here and if the local grooming parlour is anything to go by (it is called Pampered Paws and it always very busy) then people are starting to change the way that they keep their dogs here. There certainly are a bunch of different breeds appearing here. We saw an adorable pair of French Bulldogs just the other day. We've seen Weimeraners, Pit bulls, Boxers, Sharpei, Chows, an Elkhound, Pugs, lots of Chihuhuas unsurprisingly, a Visla, Greyhounds, Italian Greyhounds, German Shepherds, Rottweilers, Dobermanns, Schnauzers, Yorkies, a Schipperke and a whole bunch of other dogs since we've lived here. The local cross breed is known as a "pot licker'.

There are two dogs that live at the Town Board lot, which is very near to us. They follow the garbage truck every day on its rounds. They must be two of the healthiest, handsomest dogs you'll see on the island. They run, eat and shag all day. No doubt they have fathered hundreds of puppies. It doesn't appear that anyone owns them, they sort of have a symbiotic relationship with the garbage men it seems. They guard the truck at night and get to follow the truck all day.

They may not have very long life spans as heart worm is virulent here. Dogs, in general, don't live long and not many people know about or can afford heartworm treamtent. In fact, Octavius, our first beach dog, had a bad heartworm problem when we took him in.

Octavius

Octavius looked like he was 10 years old when we first met him. He didn't move much and slept all curled up on the doorstep of one of the beach condos we were living in at the time. They seemed to leave food and water out for him. The tourists that had been living in that condo turned up on our doorstep on the day before they left and asked us if we could feed him. They pushed $50 in to our hands and we weren't about to say no.

Once we started to feed him, we began to realise what a mess he was. All four legs were red raw and sore from some sort of skin problem. His ears were being eaten by flies and he seemed generally unwell. We were living in a small one bedroom condo - for you brits who aren't familiar with condos, it is just really another name for a flat - with our dog Midas. We were not in the position to take on another dog. But we also knew that the local humane society, SAGA http://ambergriscaye.com/sagasociety/ , was under a great deal of strain. So we decided that we would pay to have him castrated, get his vaccinations and then put him back on his beach.

We'd done some research and discovered, much to our surprise, that he was only about 18 mths old. He had been brought to the condos as a puppy by one of the security guards. He and some of the maintenance staff sort of watched him and did everything they could to encourage him to be a guard dog. Much to their dismay, tourists started feeding him. In their eyes, this made him useless and he was pretty much abandoned to make his own way with the tourists.

Many dogs here are excellent beach ruffians. They know exactly where to go to be fed and which swimming pools are easiest to drink from. They know which security guards to avoid but most of all they know that all local men on bicycles must be driven off of their beach by any and all means possible. The cutest of these dogs get adopted by tourists and flown home to whatever country they are visiting from. Some less fortunate and perhaps less attractive dogs, such as Octavius, just don't have the energy anymore to be charming.

Cycling along the beach here can be a hazard. Colette has been bitten on her bike and we often have to deal with dogs chasing us. Belizean workers, who cycle every day back and forth to work, are at war with the stray and beach dogs. The dogs attack them and chase them and they in turn, either develop amazing cycling techniques to avoid being bitten, threaten violence or use violence. We watched one of our next door neighbours puppies grow from a newborn, timid, sweet little thing that wouldn't say boo to a goose into a certified, paid up, expert bicycle chaser. We often here the kerfuffle as she attacks passing cyclists, sometimes followed by yelping as the biker hits target with a kick or a stone. We hope she doesn't get chopped by a machete as this often happens to dogs here that chase bikes.

We discovered that Octavius, who used to be known as Blackie (but somehow we couldn't bring ourselves to walk around calling our dog Blackie), had also been a top cycle chaser in better days. He didn't seem to have the strength when we met him.

Octavius is a handsome beast

It took us several weeks of feeding him before we could get him into the house. We ruined the process slightly as we had to put drops onto his ears to stop the flies from eating them. Well, Colette managed to get the drops on once and he wouldn't come near her for days. We tried to get him onto a golf cart but he panicked and he screamed if we tried to put a leash on him.

So, the vet offered to come over and put him under at our place so that we could load him onto a cart and get him into the surgery. We'd put some weight on him and he was looking better, so he was ready for surgery. This was all planned with military precision. Oh well.

Octavius disappeared. A week went by and we were sad and giving up on him when he reappeared. He was thinner than he'd been before. He was covered in wounds, one in particular completely punturing his top lip, but he seemed strangely content. Clearly there had been a bitch in heat somewhere and he'd had a good week.

So, we set about getting him back in shape for surgery and the day finally came. He went to the vet with balls and came back with none. He spent the night in the condo and then he seemed to want to stay. He wasn't a very attractive dog at the time, with oozing sores, missing teeth, a wonky eye and very bad breath and we really didn't want another dog. So we told ourselves that he should go back to living on the beach and we'd keep an eye on him.

What we hadn't reckoned on was that now that he was strong and healthy, he was more than capable of taking on any cyclist or jogger that happened to pass. And the more time he spent with us, the more this territorial behaviour began to extend to any situation we found ourselves in. He followed us everywhere, for miles, waiting for us for hours outside shops and restaurants. He was quickly becoming our dog and he was a huge liability. Even if we didn't want him to be our dog, anyone who saw him with us who had a complaint about him reckoned that he was ours. After all, we fed him - that pretty much makes you a dog's owner in Belize.

Eventually after complaints from neighbours and our own common sense kicking in, we realised we had to make a decision. Either he was our dog or he wasn't. Now that he was known as a cycle chaser, we knew they'd have problems finding a home for him at SAGA, so we resigned ourselves to keeping him.

Putting him on a leash and keeping him in the condo exacerbated his aggression towards certain types of people and his territorial behaviour, but we decided that managed properly, it would be very good security for us. His reputation was well established and he could be frightening and formidable.

A not very scary, sneezing Octavius

It has taken some time, but he is now an absolute babe. Other than the white hair everywhere, he is a perfect house dog. He is a very frightening watch dog and we know he will bite. Now he doesn't have to be put away when our friends come round. The new house and big garden have relaxed him and given him confidence. Either way, having a good guard dog is not a bad thing. Dealing with the heartworms was unpleasant and worrying, but after coughing up blood and worms for a few months, he shows no symptoms anymore. The bad breath is about the only thing we have to suffer.

Octavius - From Homeless to Housepet

So we're just settling in to our new home and Colette arrives with another dog. This one, covered in ticks, scrawny and hyperactive, seems to be the dog that she fell in love with. It is easy to work out why.

Buddica shows off her 'flat' command

Buddica has now been spayed and has all of her vaccinations. She is learning how to walk on the leash, but she is so strong that we are using a great tool called the Halti Harness. She is learning the basics but has shown a great propensity and enjoyment for trick training. She is extremely smart and takes great pleasure in working out how to do the things she is being taught not to do. For one, she isn't allowed in the bedroom. So she slowly works her body past the boundary to see how far she can get.

One paw in the bedroom

She is not supposed to get on the furniture.

Does this count as furniture?

The other dogs are supposed to be acting as role models.

Were you trying to relax?

But her new tricks are so cute, that she is hard to resist. (and for those interested, Colette is using a clicker for the tricks)

Buddica attempts tap dancing. Tightrope walking is next.

Buddica demonstrates enthusiastically how to do two tricks at once

Praying and waving

For those of you who haven't seen a dog pray before, here is another chance

For those of you who prefer waving, here is another chance to see that

People often ask us if the dogs get along. Having a puppy in the house has been great for all of them. They all play for hours in the garden and wear eachother out. It is hilarious to watch and gives us endless entertainment and laughs. Buddica does steal the toilet paper and she rearranges the garden every night, but the pleasure that we and the other dogs get out of her balances it all out.

Midas and Buddica putting the world to rights

Three dogs and eleven coconuts

But we must remind you that our dogs are loved, beyond reason and cared for. Not all dogs in Belize are so fortunate. Below is a picture of a little dog saved by the SAGA Society in San Pedro. Unbelievably, the people from whom she was rescued wanted her back. Obviously that never happened. So, if you are ever feeling like helping, get in touch and we'll tell you how you can help dogs in Belize.

It's a Jungle Out There

2008-05-29T08:53:00.009-06:00

"The cockroach and the bird were both here long before we were. Both could get along very well without us, although it is perhaps significant that of the two the cockroach would miss us more." -- Joseph Wood Krutch, (1893 - 1970) US naturalist, conservationist, writer

We now have a yard; land that we own outright. It feels different. It feels good. It's a bloody jungle out there. But before we get to that, we'd like to introduce you to Buddica, our new family member.

Colette was on the beach walking our other two dogs, Midas and Octavius. This pup came running over. Octavius can be an old grump at times, particularly as this beach used to 'belong' to him. Colette asked some tourists to hold the pup until she passed but then had second thoughts. Colette is one that believes in love at first sight with dogs and it seems this is what happened here.

Buddica a brave warrior princess

Not long before we left the UK, Squidge, the doggy love of Colette's life died of a rare brain disease. He was a handsome chap. She has missed him greatly and it looks like this new pup may fill the void.

Squidge - Gone but never forgotten

Buddica had clearly been neglected and was infested with literally hundreds of ticks. We've never seen anything like it. Honestly, it was like a horror movie. She laid down on the tile floor and they started evacuating her body. Hundreds of them. Before we knew it they were climbing the walls, small black specks all over the walls and rapidly moving upwards. You couldn't walk without hearing a noise like bubble wrap as they popped under your feet, leaving blood stains behind.

We were frantic, killing them individually, spraying them, sweeping them into piles for mass slaughter. As Midas has already had one bout of Tick Fever here (also known as Erlichosis), we were particularly concerned. For those of you who have pets and are thinking of bringing them here, Tick Fever is something you need to educate yourself about. We know of several dogs that have been brought from abroad and have succumbed to this disease because their owner didn't catch the symptoms early enough. You can get some basic info here http://www.familyvet.com/ehrlic.htm

Anyway, the horror continued as we discovered that her tick infestation was heaviest in her ears. Maya bravely tackled the ear ticks but there were so many that it was soul destroying, so we decided to take the pup to the local grooming parlour, Pampered Paws. This is run by a lovely woman, Kathy, who has become a friend. We'd also like to thank Sharon (aka Shazza) for lending us her golf cart for emergency puppy issues. They cleaned her up beautifully and she came home with no ticks, but covered in scabs left behind. She perked up amazingly.

Of course we made sure that the grooming parlour/petshop and the local vet/humane society had a picture of her in case anyone had lost her, but so far - no one has claimed her. She's now had her first set of vaccinations and will go in to be 'fixed' as they say around here in a week or so more. More pictures will come in future blogs.

You can never expect the expected in Belize. At least that is what we've discovered. Buddica slept through her second night here and I woke up to find a very happy, proud puppy next to the carcass of a beautiful green iguana that had been living in our trees. Here was the most recent picture of him.

RIP Mr Iguana

Colette was very sad but wanted to dispose of the carcass before Maya woke up. She got a shovel, put it out of the gate and then broke the news to Maya. We were all sad, but Maya went to get on with gardening, arriving back into the house 10 minutes later explaining how she had found the iguana's stomach. Colette had thought the puppy must have eaten the stomach so didn't look for it when she disposed of the rest of the carcass, but poor Maya found it.

Then about two hours later, Colette hears Maya scream from the garden 'GET THE DOGS INSIDE'. Not knowing what was going on, Colette gathered the dogs inside and went back out. Maya says 'There is a huge snake out here'. Colette thinks 'Maya is scared of snakes and exaggerating'. So she wanders down in her bare feet and dressing gown to find this:

Oh dear, this snake is rather large

No exaggeration. This was a big snake. Colette has worked with invertebrates in the past and has handled snakes and lizards and wasn't very frightened. So she pulled the planks off the snake and he suddenly looked even bigger.

What on earth are we going to do with this?

The thick piece of wood next to him is a 4x4 to give you some idea of his thickness. Anyway, Colette has a look at the snake closely and it doesn't look too well. Probably in slough - about to lose its skin. During this period, snakes are vulnerable and blind during part of the process.

Closed eyes and dry skin

We were pretty sure that he wouldn't survive our dogs and anyway we were worried that the area is getting pretty built up. Many Belizeans are understandably scared of snakes. Given that Belize is the home to one of the most deadly snakes, called the Fer de Lance, locally known as the Tommygoff it is hardly surprising. Apparently there are none on Ambergris Caye, but the fear runs deep amongst Belizeans and rather than wait to discover whether a snake is deadly or not, they tend to just 'chop' them all. Machetes being the weapon of choice. We also have a group of horrible little kids (these being exceptions as most children we know in Belize are wonderful) who chase down wildlife in the neighbourhood, torment and kill it. Bored little boy behaviour. So, we thought it was better for the snake if we rescued and relocated him. We're not sure what the snake thought, but by this time, he was getting seriously pissed off and started hissing.

It is amazing how hissing has such a strong primeval effect. It makes your hair stand on end and gets your adrenalin going. Maya is genuinely scared of snakes, so this was going to be very interesting. The first thing Colette did was get a big dog kennel.

Welcome to your temporary home

Then, in true Crocodile Dundee style, she wrangled the snake with a long piece of wood, head first into the crate.

Arrghh he's coming back out again

He was a big snake, he was an angry snake and it was no easy task. Finally Colette managed to get the rest of his body in. Colette did all of this in her dressing gown.
Gratuitous picture showing Colette's lovely Gap dressing gown (thanks to Smiley and Kate for the gift)

We then carried the crate into the office. Maya was nearly having a heart attack. So, Mr. Snake went to live in our office for the next few days for observation and Colette got some advice from people in the know.

You would think that was simply enough excitement for one day. So did we. But at about 9 at night we heard the puppy yelling in the garden as if she had been hurt. She was also barking like crazy. So out we go, at this time of night in our underwear and bare feet. Out into the dark.

Puppy has cornered one of our Giant Blue Land Crabs. These buggers are big and very aggressive. They are also rather comical. When we moved onto this land, we were aware that there were 20 - 30 large crabs living here. They dig big, deep burrows, which are a nuisance. Otherwise, they aren't much trouble. We had been talking to people and gathering advice for dealing with them. Our Belizean friends told us that they were good to eat. Some told us to wait up at night and shoot them with a pellet gun. Others recommended digging them out. And yet other advice said to fill their holes with water forcing them out. Maya had taken on the rather passive aggressive method of filling their holes every day to make their lives difficult.

So now it is night time, we have three over excited dogs who all want to earn their bravery awards by taking on a crab. Eventually we decide to use a shovel. So between Maya and Colette screaming at the dogs to back off, giggling hysterically, shrieking ocassionally it must have been quite a sight to behold. Colette finally got the crab onto the shovel and then flung him over the fence. Upon doing so, both Colette and Maya covered their heads as Colette has notorious bad aim and we both expected the crab to land on us. Fortunately the technique worked. It was only afterwards that we wondered if we had thrown the crab into our neighbour's truck. Whoops.

Actually, they are interesting creatures and here is a good story about them http://www.nieworld.com/special/endangered/story07.htm. They are eaten commonly here but unfortunately we are two scared of them to try to get one into the pot.

Well over the past week, with the new pup developing her killer crab hunting skills, we have evicted another four crabs. Last night we scored two. One of them was the biggest crab in the universe. We are sure of it. He was so big that the shovel method wouldn't work as he was too big to sit in the scoop. So Colette had to get him to grab the shovel and then quickly fling him into the mop bucket. Unfortunately, the mop bucket was not big enough to allow us to get hold of the handle without being attacked by the vicious land crab - who we had been alerted to by the puppy's pained shrieks as she bravely fought him. So we had to use the shovel to get the bucket out of the gate. Here is a picture of a crab caught earlier this week in the daytime, to give you an idea.

The poor puppy now looks like we enter her in dog fights. She's got little pincer wounds all over her face. She seems ever so proud of her new vocation though and we have committed to going down whenever we hear her bark as she is very reliable. Once we got rid of the gigantic monsterous crab, the dogs discovered a gigantic monsterous toad. Toads can be toxic here and dogs can die if they eat them. So we had to escort Mr. Toad off the premises. Trying the shovel method proved pointless as the toad just jumped off, clearly higher on the evolutionary scale than a land crab. So we employed gentle toad herding methods that seemed to work. For those of you reading this and worrying, we won't mention that we haven't evicted our resident tarantula as he seems to be able to stay so still when the dogs are around that he is virtually invisible. If they discover him and start bothering him, he'll have to go too.

In between all of this, we monitored the snake, who seemed to improve although he never shed his skin. We decided that since he seemed stronger, we would relocate him. Our lovely neighbour, Wade, used his truck to assist in the project. Yes, this is the same truck we thought we had landed our crab in earlier in the week. Wade confirmed that no crab had been discovered. So we're safe. Although we're sure we hit our other neighbour's house with one last night as it was flung over the fence.

So, we covered the cage, loaded it, hissing loudly into the truck and then drove to a heavily wooded area near the dump. We thought that a dump would be a place teeming with rats and that this would make our serpenty guest very happy.

Colette says soothing words to Mr. Snake

We tipped him out of the box and then stood and watched as he slithered into the woods looking back and hissing at us for effect. Just for those who don't know, Boas can and do bite when threatened. They are not venomous, but can cause a nasty bite with fangs at the back of their mouth, designed for holding prey in place.

Bye bye Mr. Snake. Have a great life.

So, special thanks to Mother Nature for keeping us busy and entertained.

Belize, our new home.

2008-05-18T11:34:00.008-06:00

"A little Madness in the Spring is wholesome even for the King."

- Emily Dickinson

Our house is finished, except for some finishing and repairs. We've moved in and it is glorious. We still might be a bit mad many seem to think. Two and a half years ago we had two properties and successful careers in London.

Now we have one house in Belize. Right now, we are spending all of our time and energy on the house, meanwhile trying not to spend too much money. It is amazing how quickly a project like this can swallow cash.

We have some pictures of the inside, without our furniture, before we moved in. I know that many of you have asked us to put up pics of the inside with furniture, but blogging is an interesting thing in terms of your home and privacy, so all you'll get here are pics before we moved in. If you want to see it now, you'll have to drop in, or email and ask nicely for some private pics.

Entrance and Kitchen

Doors to back porch and dining area

Bedroom

Shower tiling

Super cool Jetsons style lighting

We have to be honest and warn everyone that we don't have a guest room. The house has one bedroom and a bathroom upstairs. We have an office and bathroom downstairs, but we didn't finish work on the bathroom so that we could spend money elsewhere in the house. We do not have a sofa bed.

So, if you want to come and visit and stay with us you'll have to bring an air bed or a tent. Camping on the roof might be quite fun. In fact, our roof can be seen from this aerial picture, taken by Colette when she went to Belize City to collect our shipment from England. All of our worldly possessions.

A free Belikin to the first one to spot our roof

Colette had to go over to meet our trusty customs broker George. He really is wonderful and did a brilliant job. Message us if you need a good customs broker in Belize. Once we have cleared customs, our items are shipped by boat to San Pedro. Our shipment arrived in two big crates and they had to send a little Bobcat forklift truck to help get them off the truck. We had been moving house and emptying boxes all day. When this arrived at 5:30pm when we were just about to relax, we nearly died. But we piled in and emptied the crates by 10:00pm.

All our worldly goods

May is Mothers' Day time. In San Pedro, the Mothers are treated like queens for a day with a huge Mother's Day Extravaganza held in Central Park. Food, drinks and entertainment were laid on by San Pedro Town Council for nearly 800 mothers. Colette was honoured to have been asked to assist. She worked as a server along with other volunteers. She managed to drag along her friend's son, Junior as he was visiting San Pedro from his home in Ladyville on the mainland. Most of the volunteers were highschool kids from San Pedro High and Colette was supposed to organise the serving of food and drinks to a table seating 70 women. Colette had Junior and two lovely helpers from the Highschool. Colette has not served a table for over 20 years so she spent a lot of time apologising and offering to get napkins for various ladies.

Delightful Miss San Pedro welcomes Mothers

'I love you Mom' Gifts for all Mothers

Preparing for a whole lot of Mothers

On the other hand, the kids from the High School were on the ball. Junior and the two girls (yes Colette's team of servers consisted of four) were amazing and it was apparent that all of the Mothers had a wonderful evening. When the Mothers arrived they were greeted by Miss San Pedro (we apologise for the deterioration of photo quality but Colette's little digital has nearly died) and given a gift. They were then seated by a local dignitary. Meanwhile, the servers went crazy taking orders and bringing drinks. After over 750 were seated, with extra tables and chairs having to be found because so many attended, a turkey dinner was served. Then the tables had to be cleared in preparation for dessert. Meanwhile, there were various prizes and competitions involving Mothers jumping up and running around a lot. Hilarious, absolute chaos but organised and everything went smoothly.

The High School Boys give the Mothers a treat

But just for a moment, think about organising a meal for over 750 women, with unlimited alcohol available to them, using only teenage volunteers and it all going off without a hitch. Unbelievable. We do love our little island and what it can accomplish.

How many Mothers?

On that note, we've been observing our local elementary school develop. They are called Ambergris Caye Elementary School and we think they are great. We know a lot of the kids and their parents. The school is adorable, run incredibly well, the kids are very well behaved and happy and they have just installed this fantastic adventure playground for the kids.

School is not available for free to children here. Many churches run schools, which subsidise the costs heavily to make an education available to most. There are also a number of other private schools on the island, Ambergris Caye Elementary being one of them. Just because it is private does not mean the children have wealthy parents. Many parents work two and three jobs to keep their kids in school and have high aspirations for their children. Things are changing and the quality of the schools are improving. Also, many children are supported by wealthier members of the community, local charities and the schools themselves through scholarship programmes.

A playground worth screaming about and do they scream

Now that we have our precious belongings, we've been able to go through our old photo albums. We thought you'd enjoy seeing these old pictures of us. Can you guess which one is Maya and which one is Colette?

A few other things before we sign off. We'd like to thank our friends for their amazing patience with us during this house building project. We have been no - shows at so many parties that we're sure we are now on the Z list. We love our friends here on San Pedro and abroad and really appreciate your support.

We'd like to thank the lovely Capt Jeff yet again for allowing us to fill our freezer with fish. He is a great fisherman, friend and we love him.

Finally, we'd like to thank The Tudors for being the sexiest, most beautiful and dramatic show on TV for a long time. If you haven't watched it - do!

The tawdry and terrific Tudors

February Retox and March Madness

2008-03-23T09:53:00.009-06:00

Home is Where the Heart is

This amazing series from the Lunar Eclipse on the 20th of Feb 2008 was taken by Maya

Life has been a whirlwind recently. Colette had to take off to London for two weeks in February and that threw us all out of sorts. Both of us were dreading it. Colette, because traveling always makes her ill and the weather was freezing in the UK and Maya because she was going to have to deal with the house project all on her own.

We both had our adventures in those two weeks. Maya of course, fished. Big thanks to the wonderful men in our life, Bill and Capt Jeff, for making the these fishing days possible. The deep sea fish with Dilzon was an absolute adventure with swells of six - ten feet. Maya says the boat literally kept going straight up at a 90 degree angle and then WHAM, it would hit the water again. Colette was pleased she wasn't around to experience this particular day out.

This is Maya holding Bill's Wahoo (does that sound rude?)

This is Maya holding the Jack that she caught.

This is what Jack steaks look like.

Meanwhile Colette arrived in London and stayed with her great friends Anna, Pete and Vanessa. It was very hectic and full of entertaining social events. Just after Colette arrived, Anna had a brilliant success with her PR campaign for Litter Kwitter. Oh yes, we must share with you about this interesting product. It assists you in teaching your pussy to poop on the pot. If you really want to see this amazing device, check out http://www.litterkwitter.com/en/index.php . She actually somehow got Ricky Gervais to plug it on the Richard and Judy Show. Hilarious.

Anna watches a cat using the Litter Kwitter on TV

Within two days, Anna had roped Colette into appearing on an daytime TV show - for those Brits reading this it was the Alan Titchmarsh Show. Colette was helping her to plug another amazing animal invention called the Paw Plunger, http://www.pawplunger.co.uk/ . The world is full of these amazing things that you just can' t live without.

Some of Colette's mates organised a surprise drink in town. That was the beginning of the end for her liver. Almost every day, friends organised drinks. Tons of them. Mostly red wine. Colette sends her love and thanks to all of her wonderful friends for helping to keep her drunk throughout her stay. Petey, Anna, Vanessa, Smiley, Sam, Carolyn & Caroline, Roger (the lingerie idea is a winner), Chamois, Ingrid, Hilary and everyone else who will probably now be offended that they weren't mentioned. You guys are true British heroes. Well except for Ingrid, who is a Spanish hero.

Colette reports that London is still cold, grey and dirty although traffic seems to have definitely improved. The weirdest thing was that no one spoke English. A huge influx of Eastern Europeans and people from other countries has made London feel like a foreign country. Not necessarily a bad thing, but it can be quite difficult when you asking for directions to the Post Office and no one can help you.

While Colette was away, the house continued under the careful supervision of Maya. It will be weeks before we move in. We can finally unpack. Both of us have come a long way. We can't wait.

Stucco day at Mermaid Manor

The living room looking towards the kitchen.

The bedroom.
The screened porch.

Back of the house

The Magnificent Mermaid Manor.

Maya finished another one of her paintings. This one is of the fish god.

Fish God

Colette arrived back from London and went straight into the Belize International Airport restaurant. She ordered Stew Chicken and smothered her rice and beans with Marie Sharps, so much so that the waitress warned her to go easy. Home truly is where the heart is and our hearts are in Belize.

Politics but no Political Correctness

2008-02-10T08:47:00.000-07:00

Politics but no Political Correctness

Belize February 2008

Carnival

This week, Belize got a new Prime Minister, Dean Barrow. This is after 10 consecutive years under the PUP Party. Belizeans showed clearly that they wanted change, with a landslide victory for the incoming UDP party.

Outgoing Prime Minister of Belize, Said Musa, on the left and new Prime Minister of Belize, Dean Barrow, on the right

The build up to the election included hard hitting TV advertising, parties, banners, t shirt wearing and flag waving. Pretty much like an election anywhere else. There certainly were no holds barred with 'Musa Abusa' (Musa being the outgoing Prime Minister) as a slogan for the UDP opposition and 'Dean Barrow is Dangerous for Belize' as a slogan for the PUP Government.

Musa Abusa

For Lower Electricty and Telephone

All A We Da One

Fi U, Fi Me, Fi all o We

During the same week as election was Carnaval on San Pedro. We were extremely priveleged to be invited to participate in the old San Pedro tradition of Comparsa. A Comparsa is a dancing and singing group, which travels from home to home, performing and collecting money for charity.

Dancers looking fresh on Day 1

Naughty songs in Spanish - 501

Gringa Mestiza

Comparsa at it's finest

Pretty Mestiza

One sexy Mestiza

Each night, each Comparsa has a different theme. We were in Miss Rosa's Comparsa group. We had to dress up in character and learn a new song each night. The first night we were 'Modern and Sexy Mestizas'. We were all dressed in traditional Mestiza outfits. Some of the members shortened their skirts or added IPODs to the outfit. Our song was all in Spanish. The Mestizo culture is strong and vibrant in San Pedro as the island is actually just an extension of the Yucatan Penninusla, cut off by enterprising Maya folk a thousand or so years ago so that they didn't have to boat all the way around to the end of the penninsula.

The second night is when political correctness went out of the window. Fortunately, Belize has not been scourged with self censorship. I wasn't 100% sure of the song, but I know it had orginally been written by a local musician. The Comparsa had changed the lyrics. Most were in Spanish, except the chorus, which was in creole and went like this:

White man have nothing to do
Black man ony smoke di weed
Chiney man da fu cook di cat
Spanish man baila Carnaval

Ole, Ole

We sang loud and proud dressed up in our various costumes. I was the lazy white man (understandably white men are considered lazy here as they all have workers do everything for them). Several women, some black, some lighter skinned, blacked up when necessary and with fake rasta dreads, were dressed as black man. They all carried huge gigantic, fake joints - sucking and puffing as they danced along. Another lady dressed as a 'chiney'. This is what Chinese people are called in Belize. The 'chiney' lady carried a metal wok and stir fried a cat in it, bravely represented by a stuffed Garfield.

The song caused a great deal of mirth amongst the homes that were visited. We must point out that part of Comparsa is about making a fool of yourself and being ridiculous, so our toughest competition were a group of local men, dressed as women and singing crude songs, dancing and dry humping eachother all the way down the road. Now, let's put this celebration in perspective for you.

The groups dance every night for about 5 hours solid. Each group is led by a truck with some sort of sound system. There are children's Comparsas, which tend to be raising desperately needed funds for their respective schools are held earlier in the evening. When the adults come out, they have a free supply of booze coming from the back of the truck. On our pick up truck there was a man and a keyboard set along with speakers, a big cooler full of ice and booze, a bucket full of rum punch, 5 gallons of water and about 10 children. Fortunately, children here learn how to mix a rum punch very young and they love getting adults drunk. So they were very keen to make sure the rum was always plentiful.

Getting grown-ups drunk

Rum keeps everyone dancing

Comparsa ladies have beautiful hair

What the kids really want to do at Carnival is paint. San Pedro has a unique element to Carnaval, which doesn't exist anywhere else. On the day that Carnaval starts, the Town Board cover the park with sand. Businesses cover their signs with plastic. And the Town Board provide all of the children with bottles of water based paint. The children (and quite a few adults) run around for the next few nights painting eachother. Paint does get everywhere even though the kids are pretty respectful and don't paint those who don't want to participate. It is surreal to see gangs of hundreds of children flocking down the roads, all covered from head to toe in paint.

Da Girlz show how it's done

After three days of dancing, everyone was broken. Colette couldn't walk for two days and still cant ride her bicycle. Maya was in charge of making sure that we could plug into each house, so she faithfully followed the truck carrying a pile of extension cord, dashing in every house to find an electrical outlet. She doesn't hurt quite so bad.

Meanwhile, life goes on for us on the domestic front. Our house is nearly finished. After all of the warnings and bitching we heard from everyone about what a nightmare building a house would be, we've been so lucky. The house is a bit bigger than we anticipated and somewhat overwhelming.

Mermaid Manor grows

Aerial view of our 'hood'

We try to take advantage of our wonderful surroundings every day. Maya is getting to be quite a good nature photographer. All of the nature pictures here were taken either from our garden or a neighbour's garden.

Jesus Lizard

Roseate Spoonbill

Upside Oriole feeding from Hibiscus

Birds like to party too - Wading bird gathering

In the midst of all of this, we went to Belize City to look around. It is a very run down city and there is a lot of crime, so we don't recommend it as an overnight destination except for convenience. Nevertheless, it is the old capital of Belize and has a rich history. We went to see the Museum of Belize and it was really fascinating. It is built in what was originally the old prison and that in itself is a fascinating story. The photo here is of St. John's Cathedral. It is frequently referred to as 'the oldest building in Belize', which we find ironic as Belize is one of the best places in the world to see Maya pyramids. It is though, the oldest Anglican Church in Central America and is also very cute.

St. John's Catherdral, Belize City

Belize continues to enamour us on a daily basis. There is so much to do here and so much that we want to do that we are excited continually. So, to our friends who are living in the rat race, who get up every morning to take the same route to work, to do the same unfulfilling, but well paying job, to come home the same way, get drunk on Friday, recover Saturday, see friends on Sunday and then start all over again on Monday - think about this. Getting up naturally early every morning because the birds are so lively and enthusiastic about the new day, going out to your own garden to pick fresh fruit looking at the dozen different colours of flower growing around you, smell coffee roasting at the coffee maker down the road and drink your coffee knowing it was roasted yesterday, walk down to the beach stopping to chat with neighbours and friends, walking along finding interesting items washed up on shore, watching sea birds hunt, spotting interesting new marine life, then head home to cycle into town, taking your time as you meet so many friends along the way, do some work, head home for lunch, make your way back into work, maybe walking the beach this time, then come home to grill fresh fish and watch the sun set, listen to spanish music and reggae drifting on the breeze, watch the wildlife and think about how wonderful tomorrow is going to be.

Feeling trapped?

Just fly away.

Then and Now

2007-12-09T11:21:00.000-07:00

We've been getting nagged about not blogging for a while so we'll begin with excuses and then get on with the blog. Firstly, Colette was away for ten days in October. This threw us out of kilter a bit but she had a really good time with her family in Georgia. When she came back we finally went ahead with our plans and our house is finally being built. Oh, had we mentioned we'd bought some land? Since she has come back, we've been just a little bit busy. So now that things are relaxing again, here we are to update you with all of our antics.

So, off Colette goes and abandons Maya to hang out with her Mum and her family in Georgia in the USA. Colette spent much of her childhood in Georgia and so it brings back fond memories. The first place they stayed was at the country house called Long Pond. It really is something out of a movie. It belongs to the family of Colette's Mum's Husband and we both love staying there. You feel like you are stepping back in time when you are there. Meanwhile, Maya finished one of her wonderful paddles.

Longpond is an amazing pre civil war house

Look at the size of those Oak trees in Georgia

Colette did some shopping for us as some things are quite difficult to get in Belize. Egg cups. She had a really hard time getting egg cups so that we can eat our boiled eggs and soldiers in the morning, but that was one of her little successes on this trip. The biggest one though was buying Maya a brand new fishing rod. You see, Colette organised a visit with her lovely friends Bill and Becky. They met at the amazing Bass Pro shop in Savannah, Georgia. Bill and Becky came all the way down from South Carolina for this excursion and much fun was had by all. Bill is such a sweetheart, he offered to bring the rod down on his next visit as a big surprise for Maya. He even bought an extra large rod carrier. It is very difficult at this stage, not to make rude jokes about rods, so we'll leave that to your imagination. We must also mention that Colette now knows she does not like Bison burgers.

Colette wonders where the batteries go

Bill and Maya's Big Rod (Special thanks to this special man for bringing this and many of his own gifts - We love ya!)

Colette really enjoyed picking her Mum's brain (actually, you have to wonder if this was an exchange of ideas or just an excuse to drink excessive amounts of wine) about ideas for our house as we had just bought some land before Colette left. Colette's Mum has just finished building her own house and understands the stress involved with the experience (time for more wine). They spent a night on St. Simon's Island at the family's beach house and Colette always says this brings back memories of her childhood. St. Simon's Island is very beautiful and very memorable.

The amazing Live Oak streets on St. Simon's Island could inspire memories even if you didn't have any

Upon Colette's return we proceeded with building. We are extremely lucky to be working with some excellent people on this project and everything so far has gone very smoothly. We will update the blog with pictures of the build as it goes along, but just to give you some ideas here is the build up to today.

Our lot before we started major clearing

Major progress with clearing

A gate appears in our massive fence

These are the pilings being made that will hold up our house

And this is a piling after it has been put in the ground

This is our septic tank for our poop

These are the foundations for our downstairs office

This is what the lot looks like now. Don't worry we are already growing new plants

We've also been doing little projects here and there. The first you might like to look at is The Cave Diver. This is a promo trailer for a programme that will be submitted to National Geographic. Maya directed it and Colette did the voice over. http://youtube.com/watch?v=LgF_WAbpCho . We worked with some really lovely people on this and it is just another reason why we are sure we have made the right decision. We have so many friends who are still in the rat race and not enjoying it. Get out! Get out now! There is so much out there to do and see and live. Don't waste your lives being miserable, doing the same thing week in and week out. Follow your dreams.

Another project that we've worked on are posters for World Aids Day. The local Aids Commission asked us to put together a couple of posters based on their ideas.

On top of all that, we brought out a set of Christmas Postcards for San Pedro. They've been very popular and are now being used by the Town Council as their official Christmas card.

We are often asked what we miss in San Pedro. What do we miss from our previous lives? We don't miss much. Probably a bit of culture would be nice. We only have live music on the island and there is not much variety. No comedy or theatre or anything else like that, well unless you enjoy laughing at sunburnt tourists and drunk local gringos. But to be honest, our lives are so full, rewarding and fun why would we look back. Obviously we miss our old friends and extended family, but not enough to go back. Just for your sakes, we have and here is a quick photographic look at our previous life. Enjoy looking at it. In the meantime, think about us as we are just off to go on a sunset cruise with a bunch of friends.

Our house in London and Colette's old 4x4, which lovingly is still in the 'family'

Our Ikea kitchen, which was lovely but nothing like the custom hardwood kitchen we will have soon.

Evey single day we saw our local shopkeepers. We'd buy our morning papers here on the way to work

Every morning we would take the Tube to work. This is our local station, Blackhorse Road.

This is Knightsbridge in Central London. Busy and grey

In the evening, we would buy our papers from the news stand. It is different going from two papers a day to once a week.

There were some places to get peace and solitude in London and the Serpentine was one of them.

But our favourite little oasis in London was our wonderful garden.

Flags and Flags - You work it out

2007-10-07T09:45:00.000-06:00

After the hurricanes and then moving back into our house, we have been recovering. It has been a very hectic month for us, but a very quiet time for San Pedro. We have two seasons here – high season and low season. These are determined by the number of tourists that visit and the number of tourists that visit can be severely affected by the number of hurricanes that visit us. Whether or not the weather is nice, low season is very low here. We love it, but we don’t have a business to keep running. Every year at this time, most of the businesses close. Restaurants and hotels shut up shop and their staff gets time off. Some places shut for the whole of the season. This time of year is a struggle for everyone who depends on tourism. The beaches are empty, the streets quieter than normal and crime goes up. We don’t have a lot of crime here, but desperate times call for desperate measures. That said, two women we know have been victims of crime in the last month or so. One of them scared the burglar so badly with a butter knife he ran away and left his bicycle behind. The other one grabbed the mugger’s hair until he had to bite her to get her to let go. He got caught of course and her stuff was returned. So, advice to all of the bad guys – us girls on San Pedro are tough. Don’t mess!

Speaking of messing….once we moved in, Maya had to face the dreaded bodega. A bodega is a name for a storage shed. This shed had been used for storage for a long time without having ever been cleaned. Rats had been living in it as well as a 3 foot long iguana. Colette removed a dead rat, nearly threw up into her hand and refused to set foot into it again, so it was left to Maya and she was truly heroic. We now have a clean a fully functioning bodega for all of the junk we have collected in our short time in Belize.

Even though it is quiet season, we all find plenty to keep ourselves occupied. There have been a number of parties, including our own. We had a combined birthday party with about 8 other people. We’d all had our birthdays ruined by the storms and decided to have one big birthday bash. This was on a Monday night at the Roadkill Bar. For those of you who haven’t been to San Pedro, the Roadkill Bar sits on a road junction. It is outside of a nightclub called the Barefoot Iguana. It consists of a bar, an 8 foot gap, and a fence to keep you from falling into the road. On Monday nights, they play bluegrass music. Our lovely friend Drummer Dan was recovering from a gallbladder operation – more on that later – and a local accountant (who really does look like an accountant) took his place. We were all a bit stunned to see him setting up the drums and he did a damned good job as well. San Pedro is like that, people surprise you all the time. Drummer Dan did turn up to show his face and his belly to all and sundry. Here are a few pictures of one of the fundraisers – this was a yard sale, which in San Pedro tends to involve the recycling of junk like the stuff in our bodega – that ensured that Dan was able to pay for his surgery. Just another reason why we love living here.

Of course we don’t have pictures of our party because we were too busy having a good time. And while we were having a good time a golf cart full of stunning women went by. By stunning, I mean they were dressed up like glamour goddesses, made up like drag queens (maybe that should have been a giveaway) and they received plenty of hoots and hollers as they putted by. Given that this was the most rocking place in San Pedro that night, they turned around, came into the party, danced, posed for pictures and disappeared into the night. When they left, many men had smiles on their faces as women here don’t often dress up in sequence, high heels and mini skirts. We found it amusing that most of these guys didn’t notice (or did they choose not to notice?) that this was a group of women who averaged about 6’6” in height. Still not getting it?

Ok, we’ll have to crack and get to the point. 150 gay, lesbian and transgendered divers spent a week in San Pedro. They were from all over the world. Aussies, Brits, USA ‘ers, Dutch etc. They belong to a group called Diving for Life that does a big dive trip annually to raise money for HIV and AIDs charities. So far they’ve raised over half a million dollars just by organising dive trips and having a bloody good time. They made a substantial donation to the local Aids charity, spent a lot of money on the island, tipped (from what we hear) extremely generously and generally brightened up low season on San Pedro to no end.

On their last night, they held a costume party and of course, we were invited. Now some of these guys and gals brought a whole suitcase just to hold their costume. So, we were certainly not disappointed. We have to admit, our birthday bash was great, but this party was fantabulistic.

We mustn’t forget that during September is Belize’s Independence Day. Everyone is very patriotic and flags fly from every golf cart and house. We examined some of the flags and found them to be rather odd. Belize’s flag is the only flag in the world with human images on it. So that makes it kind of unique. The two human forms are supposed to represent a Mestizo person and a Garifuna person, but the flags that arrived from wherever they were making them cheap and in bulk, made it look like they were both Chinese, just one coloured brown and one coloured yellow. We did some research into the flag of Belize and discovered that the Latin phrase, sub umbra floreo, on the flag means ‘in the shade we flourish’, which is very apt we think. Have a look at some of the flags we saw and if you really want a giggle, log onto the Belize Government’s home page and note that the flag is backwards for some reason. Obviously, we wouldn’t want to comment on the politics of our host country or make any comment on the backwardness of the flag on the Government website, which by the way is http://www.governmentofbelize.gov.bz/ .

We want to dedicate this blog to John, Krista and Gerrard. They have gone back to the freezing, icy cold of Canada and left us here. John was Maya’s best fishing friend forever fishing buddy. We miss you guys!

Also, a big shout to Capt Jeff. Always a wonderful host and a great friend.

San Pedro's new roving reporter - Maya Meets

2007-09-09T08:04:00.001-06:00

The storms are over and we have some lovely weather now here in San Pedro. We are all trying to recover from the whole post hurricane come down even though we still are wearing shoes because the beach is still not completely safe for bare feet. So yesterday we went to our friend's 'surprise' birthday party. Of course, surprises are pretty tricky to organise here and this was no different. It was a great day on the beach. There was pot luck, BBQ, some funky drumming and of course, the most important ingredient, a bunch of fun people. Check out Taco Girl's blog for pictures (it is on our links list). Because it had been a surprise, another party had been planned for later at Pedro's Inn. For those of you who don't know Pedro's Inn, it is the closest thing we have to a British style pub on the island. It has everything you would expect at a Brit pub - a pool table, low ceiling, dark smokey atmosphere, loud music of the rockish kind, excellent cold draft beer, lots of drunks behaving badly, an adorable bar maid and a grumpy landlord. It does have one unique difference - Walter. Walter is the our favourite rasta pizza chef and he has to have a big chef's hat to hold in all those dreads.

We had received an invitation earlier in the week to go along to Pedro's on the same evening to meet the new British High Commissioner for Belize. Britain doesn't have an embassy or Ambassador in Belize, they have a High Commission. So here is a picture of Maya meeting the new High Commissioner, John Yapp. He seems like a pleasant chap. Poor guy took up his post right in the middle of the hurricane chaos. The second picture is of Colette with our friend and neighbour, Jim Mohammed. He is the head of our local National Emergency Organisation and has proved, yet again, that his background, personality and training make him the best man for the job.

Since we've been here, we've known a local young man named Kenny. He was 18 when we first met him and we have seen him go through the normal frustrations that all young men experience at that age, but of course this is compounded by the fact that he is from a developing country, where a good education and hope for the future can be elusive. Earlier this year, he enlisted in the Belize Defence Force (the Belize Army), known as the BDF. He just got his first proper leave and came to find us. Bless his little cotton ones - he had heard it was our birthday and brought us this painting. We don't know where he got it or who the artist is, but it is a very nice Belizean painting and we were hugely touched. Thanks Kenners!

We get a lot of feedback about our blog from people all over the world and we wanted to get back to you on some of it. Firstly, the most hilarious feedback we have had recently: We bumped into a local businessman who was off of the island during Hurricane Dean. He thanked us for our blog and told us that he had noticed a picture of one of his properties that we had posted when we were showing how people were preparing for Dean. He noticed that things weren't as they should be and phoned his staff. He told them that he could see that some things needed to be tidied up. They asked how he knew, so he said that he could see everything they were doing on Google Earth. They believed him and freaked. We are still lauging about that one.

Better than that, two wonderful regular visitors to San Pedro brought us chocolate and champagne. What a treat. Chocolate that hasn't melted 25 times and isn't white on the outside. That is a novelty here. But these were spectacular, gourmet style chocolates. Thank you Leah Ann! We haven't drunk the champagne yet. Anyone who knew us in the UK knows that we are huge fans of champagne, but of course it is not too expensive in Europe. Over here, it is way too expensive to justify. We just haven't been able to bring ourselves to touch it yet. We just keep it in the fridge and look at it. Sandy and Ed, you guys are too sweet. These guys brought us the champagne at the very beginning of their holiday and then they had to evacuate for Hurricane Felix. Hurry back!

On one final note. We had a comment on a previous post asking why we didn't go somewhere safer? When a cat 5 hurricane is heading for Belize, we don't think there is anywhere safer than where we are unless we leave the country, which just isn't practical. To the person who posted - if you have a helicopter or private plane and contacts with immigration and the agriculture department in a 'safe' country so that we and our pets can get out, please come and pick us up the next time a hurricane comes our way, it would be greatly appreciated. Otherwise, we'll listen to our local experts. We trust their advice as they have been through a good few hurricanes here. Their advice is that if we have plenty of supplies and a strong concrete place to stay, staying put is probably the safest thing we can do.

After Hurricane Felix

2007-09-05T15:02:00.001-06:00

Because Belize was mentioned so frequently in the international news reports on Hurricane Felix, many of our friends and family were very concerned. Some had complained that we hadn't written of our survival on our blog, so we felt compelled to post this picture, taken last night, to prove that we are fine.

The picture below was taken by the Hunter Aircraft that flies into the eye of hurricanes to get important information to help us all know what is going to happen. The pilots that fly these planes really do risk life and limb and the trip into Hurricane Felix was reportedly a very frightening experience for them. Luckily they got out OK and took this spectacular picture of the moon rising over Felix's eye wall.

We are now so grateful for a lull in the hurricane threat, that we decided to post one more picture hat has nothing to with hurricanes. We are sick of hearing about them for a while. So, the picture below was taken outside of our bedroom window. Green iguanas can be hard to spot as they aren't common in our area. Green iguanas are known throughout Belize as 'Bamboo Chicken' and are hunted for their meat and eggs. It is not uncommon on mainland Belize to be driving along with young men standing on the side of the road holding up tethered green iguanas in the air for your inspection. They are now a protected species as they are endangered in Belize and there are iguana breeding programmes being spearheaded all over the country. Belize is such a beautiful and awe inspiring place to live.

Hurricane Felix Tests Us

2007-09-03T15:01:00.000-06:00

Everyone we know is pretty drained and frazzled. We were all trying to get back to normal after Hurricane Dean. Despite all the reassurances that everything was fine here and the fortunate outcome that no one was seriously injured or killed, these storms take their toll.

Every day we still have constant reminders of how 'lucky' San Pedro was after Hurricane Dean. Most of the docks remain twisted and broken, with pieces of them floating and bobbing in the sea. The beaches are different and it is less tempting to walk barefoot on the sand because of the debris remaining. We also know, from our friends and neighbours who retreated to Orange Walk and Corozal that there was a lot more damage than anyone realised at first. The government reckons 100millionBZD of damage. Money that this country can ill afford. Many jobs have been lost in the fruit industry. So sad.

But it is more than the obvious and the structural. Preparing for hurricanes is emotionally draining. While everyone is buzzing on adrenaline, the side effect is that we are all more irritating and irritable. We work together to help eachother prepare and all strengthen our support networks at the same time, we are all worried for ourselves and eachother. With Dean there were definite moments of terror and we don't know anyone that didn't think that there was a risk of serious injury or death for just a moment when it was bearing down on us as a full Cat 5 with the news commentators screaming about it's record breaking power.

There are emotional highs and lows and then, following the storm, exhaustion and an attempt to regroup and recover. Unfortunately, we have not had that luxury. All we can do is try to maintain some semblence of normality while watching the Caye empty again. The roads are quiet, the beaches deserted, there are no boats on the water and the shops are full of people, some grim faced, some joking and laughing with borderline adrenaline pumped hysteria.

Friends and relatives again phone and email, imploring us to leave, warning us of all the horrible things that might happen and if you are staying you have to grit your teeth and stick to your guns while still letting them know how genuinely important it is to you that they care that much. How disappointed we would be if our friends and family didn't care that much. Lets hope we don't disappoint you with our decisions.

We are tired. Hurricane Felix is now not as threatening as he was yesterday. We are not letting down our guard and we know that if we don't get hit, some other community will and that community may not have concrete buildings and safe places. We don't wish this on anyone and we don't want it ourselves. All we can do is use this as an opportunity to reflect on what and who is truly important to us. Hurricane Felix is testing us in many ways.

Here We Go Again

2007-09-01T17:31:00.000-06:00

Felix is on his way. Right now, we are expecting him to hit on Wednesday as a Cat 3 Hurricane. This may sound a lot less ominous than Hurricane Dean, but Felix is predicted to hit us dead on. Belize seems to be the bullseye. We'll keep everyone updated as best we can.

Our story

2007-08-27T12:31:00.000-06:00

Well this month has been a bit muddled up. Usually August is party month because both Maya and Colette have birthdays, but this year we got blown away, literally. Since we have kept you all visually stimulated with tons of pictures, we are now going to tell you our hurricane story. We have received so many emails from friends, loved ones and a few we're not sure about how they got our email address, but never mind - that we wanted to write a little bit more than 'we're fine' and tell you about the experience.

So, we'll start by setting the scene. Colette had not had a birthday because our life was chaos. On the day of her birthday, we ordered pizza and had some wine. We sat under scaffolding in our new livinig room where the builders were coming every day to put in a new ceiling. Now don't get us wrong, we are grateful for a new ceiling as it means insulation and coolness but two dogs (one of which hates all builders), us, scaffolding and up to 3 or 4 men in a small, very hot space is hardly conducive to having a party feeling. Our friends all think we are miserable bores, but the living conditions we are currently in mean that we lay low. We can't cook, so we eat out every single day. Sounds decadent? Well, Colette thinks she might be growing a second set of boobs from all the steroids in the cheap chicken she's eating. Chicken beans and rice, Chicken rice and beans, Chicken with white rice, Fried Chicken, BBQ Chicken and Chicken soup. Before we moved here, some friends who live on the mainland said 'The Mennonites(who produce most of the poultry in Belize) won't even eat the chicken they sell because of all the steroids and chemicals'. We have no idea if it is true, but it makes you wonder.

So in the midst of this, Hurricane Dean starts looming. At first we all joke nervously, and as the days pass, the joking becomes planning, shopping for a hurricane kit, trying to get information, wondering if you've got enough and for how long it will last you. We needn't tell you that the hurricane kit for the dogs had been prepared months ago. Ours wasn't bad but we still needed lots of extra stuff.

We are very fortunate that we have a lovely friend, the wonderful Capt Jeff, who allowed us to use his condo in case of a hurricane. This was the time to take him up on it. Capt Jeff's place was boarded up properly and in a complex that was built to withstand serious hurricanes. Even better is that the local head of the national emergency services is a neighbour (and hero). Even better than that, he built this complex. Even better than that, he was staying and that indicated to us that we would be as safe as we could be.

It is hard to explain the way you feel when there is the possibility of impending doom. Life threatening situations, fortunately, are not common to us and there is no doubt that this was potentially very life threatening. Particularly if you were listening to CNN, who dubbed the Yucatan Penninsula 'THE KILL ZONE'. The funniest thing is that while we were watching the news updates on the Hurricane, we were wondering how many of our friends know that we live on the tip of the Yucatan Penninsula. This must have been very confusing, because if you listened to the newscasts, Belize pretty much did not exist. They hardly mentioned Belize during all the news items we saw. They were very interested in Cancun though. Can't imagine why?

What was amazing was how everyone in our neighbourhood worked together to make sure that everyone who could be protected, was protected. Our little wooden rental house was boarded up safely. We were appalled though that the hardware shops had doubled the price of plywood in the few days leading up to the storm. Now when a hurricane is coming and you live in a little wooden house and all your furniture is brand new, you do not leave anything in there that you care about. So we had to move out our sofa and our new mattress. We reckoned that the hardwood bed would survive anything and piled everything we could in the loft and onto the bed. Everything else was moved out.

Then to Capt Jeff's. Now his place is a truly luxurious hurricane shelter. It even has a jacuzzi and we were glad of this because we filled it up with water to ensure we had enough water for washing and flushing. In fact, the whole condo was filled with buckets and bottles of water. Colette tried a bit of the cheese from our hurricane kit (it has never been near a cow) and announced that she will have to be starving before she can eat it again. Our great friend JohnnyB had all our fish stashed away from our last big fishing trip with el Capitano. So, we invite all our friends to share fish and chips at Banana Beach. Their restaurant do a great job battering and frying up the fish for us. Everyone was tired and emotional and drinking. This made for an entertaining evening, especially as we had an uninvited gate crasher turn up. So while we were much too cowardly too ask this person to leave, our drunkeness meant our inhibitions were down and sarcasm was the rule of the evening. Very entertaining for us if for no one else. Tee hee.

No matter how luxurious the insides are, it is tough when you are completely boarded in. No natural light. Makes you a bit crazy. So, we're in, we have as much hurricane kit as we can muster. Neighbours who are evacuating come round and bring us their flashlights and other useful stuff. By this time we are wired on adrenaline and exhausted.

Capt Jeff has some icecream in the freezer. Knowing the power will go off, we distribute the icecream to our neighbours, make a few social calls and then go home to batten down the hatches. We've been warned the storm will start at about 8pm.

We had power for most of the night and we watched with horror, trepidation and poop in our pants fear as the record size Hurricane Dean headed our way. One little bump north or south would make all the difference. The forecasts on the television were horrendous. People were telling stories about 50 foot waves, someone mentioned 195mph winds, they said the barrier islands (us we presumed) were going to be wiped out and we were sitting up here genuinely wondering if we were going to die. We did have life jackets and ropes, but we only had one dog life jacket, so we were even trying to work out how to strap the other dog to us. All sounds crazy now, but when you have been exposed to all the tsunami and Katrina footage, nothing seems unbelievable. This storm was as big as or bigger than Katrina. We are on a tiny pile of sand, twenty odd miles off the coast.

So, we keep waiting for the storm to hit. Colette decides that there are so many people on message boards trying to get information about the place and their loved ones that she would stay up as long as possible and pass on info. Maya keeps sneaking out to take pictures and video. It gets windy and the waves lap at the steps. Suddenly the pressure dropped. Both of ears popped and it felt very strange. You could feel it all over our body. Other friends have reported opening bottles of Coke at that time and have them explode. Hurricanes are very low pressure. The power goes out and we both fall asleep, to be woken at 4:30 am by Colette''s mother phoning asking if we are OK. We presumed we were, but hadn't been out, so we went out straight away. Damage, but not devastation. Not for us anyway. North of the island got hit much worse, as did North Belize and some small villages on Mexico's coast. No one died here thankfully. Our house didn't float away.

Would we stick it out if another Category 5 storm came, would we stay? Hell yes. This is how much we love San Pedro.

21st of August - Images from San Pedro after Hurricane Dean

2007-08-21T17:29:00.001-06:00

The next series of pictures are courtesy of our lovely friend and neighbour JohnnyB.

20th of August - Last images of Hurricane Dean from San Pedro

2007-08-20T19:03:00.000-06:00

These are the last shots of the day as it is now dark. Dean is now Cat 5.

Yes those dots in the sea are people surfing!

20th of August - Images from the approach of Hurricane Dean

2007-08-20T13:40:00.001-06:00

19th of August - Preparations on San Pedro for Hurricane Dean

2007-08-19T14:54:00.000-06:00

Between doing our own preps and helping neighbours, we went around the residential areas to see what is happening. This is what we saw.

For emergency information on friends and loved ones, please go to the ACER Friends and Family Tracker at http://acerfriends.blogspot.com/