Tropical Depression?

It's been a soggy week in Belize. Unrelenting rains from Tropical Depression #16 have blanketed the country, causing widespread flooding. Even in the face of last year's Hurricanes Dean and Felix, where I live in the west we saw very little damage. This time, however, parts of San Ignacio town have been sitting under more than a foot of water since Friday. The fruit and vegetable market, recently constructed on the banks of the Macal River, is under water, and one of the two bridges that grant access to the Western Highway (and thus the rest of the country) is nowhere to be seen.


Many villages have been cut off due to road and bridge flooding, and people are being evacuated by the National Emergency Management Organization. School in the Cayo District has been canceled since Friday, and probably won't commence until at least this Friday, and businesses are losing out due to closures and a lack of travel and commerce. As the rivers out my way flow eastward to empty into the sea, the Belize District will continue to see rising water levels. On a personal note, my house has escaped the flood waters, though the water from my taps is now coming out brown. I'm thinking maybe it's time to spring for that 5-gallon jug of the bottled stuff.

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Fun (?) With Cats

An excerpt from a letter recently written to my former down the street neighbor and fellow PCV Ashley:

So, I just buried one of my neighbor’s million and a half cats. I came home from work thinking, “Ah, its Friday. I have a three-day weekend laid out before me. Why not stretch out in the hammock with a stout and some Gabriel Garcia Marquez, and enjoy the moment?” So, I cracked open a Belikin (OK, not cracked, it was a glass bottle) and walked out to find... a dead cat in the storm drain directly outside my patio. No sign of a violent death, but attracting enough flies to have me worried about how long it had been there. I stood over it for a few minutes, cursing and wondering what the fuck to do, before decided that I at least owed it to the venerable cat lady to let her know that one of her brood had passed on. But the woman’s 92, after all. I’m not even sure she understood what I was trying to tell her. So I trekked over to DePaz’s son’s vet clinic, only to find that he was down in Stann Creek and wouldn’t be back for a few hours. What the hell does one do in this sort of situation? Next stop – Linda and Gustavo’s jewelry stand. They’ll know whether there’s a Friday night emergency dead cat pickup service, right? Mmm…. consensus is I’m going to have to take care of this myself. But Gustavo, bless his heart, decided to lend me a hand. I led him back to my place and handed him the fork my mom purchased for our nonexistent garden (which has been completely yanked up, by the way). I proceeded to wrap my hands in plastic bags and extract the deceased feline from my gutter. Not 15 minutes later and the job was done. I thanked Gustavo with one of the two stouts I’d bought anticipating a nice, quiet Friday night, and proceeded to get into a conversation with him about homosexuality. What a random start to this Pan American/Columbus Day weekend. And now there’s a dead cat under my backyard.



Sidenote: this is Linda and Gustavo's daughter Fabiola, who is in no way related to this story, but is adorable, and thus needs to have her picture posted.

September Celebrations

OK, I realize I’m a little behind, but I thought I’d wish Belize a happy birthday! September is a month of celebrations countrywide. It’s kicked off with Carnival, a slightly scaled down version of the festivities found in many Caribbean countries, and is followed up with parades, fireworks and various other festivities celebrating St. George’s Caye Day (September 10th) and Independence Day (September 21st). 2008 marks Belize’s 27th anniversary as an independent nation, so independence fever runs strong.

I started the month’s celebrations at Carnival, in Belize City, trying not to get run over by floats or poked in the eye with feathers from the variety of outlandish costumes. Here's the Peace Corps Carnival crew hanging out on the median in the middle of the street, waiting for the parade to arrive. Unlike in the States, where people start showing up HOURS in advance to get prime seats, we were practically the only people around when we arrived an hour or so before the parade was supposed to start. Who knows when it actually started, but several hours later, when it did actually arrive, there was a packed crowd to welcome it. They call it Belizean time... But it was well worth the wait.



The next day I sat on the sidelines to cheer on my more masochistic fellow PCV’s, some of whom decided to brave the punishing tropical sun and filthy Belize City shoreline to participate in the Lionman triathlon.

A week and a half to rest up, and then I headed north to Corozal to ring in Independence Day with Matt, Rebecca, Jackie, Marcel and Rebecca’s sister Katie at a dance party by the sea wall. A good month was had by all.