A New Update At Last

Apologies for the lag time between my last post on December 30, 2007 and now. My latest four months can be briefly recapped as periods of frustration while waiting for things to happen, things starting to move forward (not always as quickly as I would hope) and a recent fantabulous vacation made possible through visits from my two special daughters and their sons, my three extra-special grandsons.

My last blog update ended with a recounting of Christmas in Belize. It was very quiet over the holiday and I took the opportunity to make a second leisurely visit to the Belize Zoo. If you ever come to Belize, it is not to be missed. Albeit small, it is a fun experience. The setting is tree filled and the animals feel very close and in a natural setting. This time I found all of the jaguars, who can be elusive, and thoroughly enjoyed the holler and spider monkeys. As you may have guessed those are my two favorite type animals at the zoo.

New Year's Eve in Belize was pleasant and sedate. I spent the evening with my host family, Carolyn and Marlon, Miss Jane (Carolyn's mom), Anne and Shay. They all offer excellent company. Marlon had purchased fireworks, as do many people in Belize, and the evening was spent enjoying food, music, good conversation, a bit of New Year's cheer and fireworks. At midnight the fireworks at our house were part of the Sosa Street display of fireworks with contributions by the Sosa Street neighbors. The City of Belmopan set off a few fireworks as well to contribute to the display. When the fireworks subsided, there was visiting with the other neighbors to exchange New Year's good wishes, hugs included.

Following the holidays normalcy (or more accurately routine) briefly resumed at NAVCO. A board meeting was scheduled to take place in January, the first meeting following NAVCO's election of a new President, which had taken place in December. However, the board meeting never happened because around January 7, the Prime Minister of Belize scheduled national elections. This announcement had been expected as the 5-year term for the Prime Minister and the National Assembly was ending. Belize has a Parliamentary form of government similar to the system in Great Britain whereby the people vote for representatives from their respect districts for the seats in the House of Representatives (a total of 35 seats) and the party obtaining the majority of the seats establishes the government. The Leader of the winning party becomes the Prime Minister and he and his party appoint the various Government Ministers and some of the members of the Senate (which is an all appointed body). The Opposition Party also gets to appoint 3 members to the Senate. At any rate, unlike the U.S. which allows campaigning to go on forever, the campaign lasted 30 days and the election was held Thursday, February 7.


During this period, NAVCO was very quiet. The Managing Director took a leave of absence and ran as a candidate for area representative in Benque, which is in the Cayo District of Belize. She ran as part of a slate of candidates offered by one of the independent parties. The two major parties in Belize are the PUP, the government in power when the elections were called, and the UDP, the opposition party. Also, a number of the NAVCO directors were involved in campaigning for their parties of choice and/or their favored representatives. Their campaigning was done in their individual capacities as NAVCO maintains neutrality given its quasi governmental role in representing the rural villages throughout Belize. The campaigning was active, but did not seem as pervasive and consuming as in the U.S. The local newspaper carried a lot of articles and posters were put up around the towns and villages. Also, the parties held rallies and candidates went door to door to meet people and convince them to vote. Radio carried a lot of candidate news, but Belize TV is limited primarily to nightly news programs on two channels. TV is predominately American channels that are part of the cable programming here. The Peace Corps got very nervous about safety, probably influenced by the riots in Kenya and the fact that the rhetoric was a bit heated regarding widespread corruption allegations. Just before the election, the Peace Corps instituted a emergency action plan whereby many of the volunteers were required to travel to Belmopan and all volunteers were ordered to standfast (specifically, to remain indoors beginning the day before the election until notified otherwise by the Peace Corps). The election proceeded without incident and the UDP won 31 of the 35 seats and thereby became the party in power. It was rather interesting to learn Belize's voting method. Voting is by paper ballot, but the safeguards implemented to prevent fraud are pretty extensive. The Carter Center sent election observers and found no evidence of fraud during the voting process. Paper balloting is feasible here because the population of Belize is quite small, about 300,000 residents. The election results were announced the same day, at about 11 p.m. election night.

The day after the election, I finally was able to move into a place of my own (well not quite my own, the house is owned by the Peace Corps and rented to me). That day was a long time in coming, longer than for the vast majority of the Peace Corps volunteers in my group. One of the difficulties in Belmopan is that rents tend to be high and housing is hard to find. The Peace Corps owns several houses and duplex units and I had to wait until one opened up. Originally, I had been led to believe by the Country Director in place last year, that a house would be available around mid December, but upon talking with the Peace Corp volunteer occupying the house, I learned this was not accurate. He advised that he was not leaving the country until January 15. I subsequently got a call from the departing volunteer who apologetically reported that the paperwork in Washington had mistakenly listed him as leaving service at the end of January and he and the Peace Corps officers here had decided that it would be too much trouble to try to correct the date. Hence, he stayed until the end of January. Next, I was advised that the Peace Corps would need a few days to do some cleaning a repair work before I could take possession. This process was slowed down by the influx of new Peace Corps Belize Officers - a new Country Director, Assistant Country Director and Training Officer came in or were going to be coming in during this time. Also, the elections were going on. Due to all of these events, I wasn't able to move until the day after the election, Feb. 8. Fortunately, Carolyn and Marlon were in no hurry to have me move out and have remained friends that I regularly visit since the move.

Moving was a bit of a hassle. My possessions had expanded beyond the two suitcases that I had packed last June 2007. Also, I had to address furnishing my little house. Stove and refrigerator typically do not come with rental units, nor furniture. Fortunately, I was able to arrange to buy a number of these items from the departing Peace Corps volunteer, plus I found other sources for used goods, such as a bed and mattress, a coffee maker (I decided I couldn't leave without fresh brewed coffee), a blender some dishes, drinking utensils, flatware, etc. Since I like to cook and bake and intended to make most of my meals (it is far too expensive to eat out regularly on a Peace Corps stipend, plus there are few restaurant choices here), I bought a few small appliances and baking pans and utensils. At any rate, the items I had acquired, plus miscellaneous books and the like, all had to been transported to the new place. With lots of plastic and paper bags, a few boxes and the help of Carolyn's brother, all my goods were transported to the house that Friday. I also stopped off during the moving process to pick up some linoleum like floor covering for 2 of the rooms to cover up the hideous splotchy, pitted concrete floors in those two rooms.

The house is certainly a step down from my living arrangements at Carolyn's and Marlon's house, but it is nice to be in my own space and regularly do my own cooking. Pictures of my little abode will be posted on this site along with zoo and vacation pictures once I upload the pictures from the camera onto my memory stick or burn a CD. The stove is not exactly what one would call modern. It is powered by a propane gas tank (which ran out a day after I moved in and which I had to then refill). It has 4 burners, a compact oven with one shelf and a oven dial that simply lists notches 1 thru 5, no temperature settings in degree format, and no broiler. The refrigerator is about 3 ft high and the freezer section is about 6" high but only freezes items that sit no higher than half of the freezer height. It has to be defrosted about once every 3 weeks. I bought a washer, and it works fairly well, but is quite different from the automatic washer which I used at Carolyn's house. One has to push the unit into the bathroom, fill the left side of the washer from the shower, set the dial and let it wash, then use the hose to let the water drain into the shower, then refill it to rinse the clothes, and then move the clothes in two batches (because the spinner is compartment smaller than the washer compartment) to the spinner side and then hang the clothes on the line outside to dry. I have a whole new appreciation for the washing routines used in earlier times, but I also keep in mind that this is far easier than washing clothes in the river or scrubbing them by hand in a wash tub on a scrub board. I also keep in mind that I have an in-door toilet and a warm shower. In short, I have nothing to complain about. I also have a few unexpected luxuries for which I can thank Carolyn and Marlon and their niece Ann and my sweet sister-in-law in Connecticut. I have a TV and cable which is needed if you want to actually use your tv (cable runs only $27.50 Belize a month here). Ann had a TV which she had used in her bedroom that didn't work and offered to get it fixed since she had other TVs in her house which they primarily used. I took care of getting it fixed and fortunately it did not require major repairs and borrowing the set for the duration of my stay. My news junky self can now watch CNN (the only cable news channel besides Fox), John Stewart and Bill Maher and catch movies on HBO, Showtime and Starz. Marlon was kind enough to lend me speakers, because the speakers with I had bought from the former occupant of the house died, and my sister-in-law sent my a new replacement disc player when the disc player which I had bought used from the former house occupant also died. Thus, I now have music as well.

Thanks to my sweet daughter and an Belizean shipper living in Los Angeles, I also received two boxes of books which affords me lots of good reading material. I access the Washington Post on line for free and other news sites. And I have space to do jig saw puzzles and needle work to amuse myself when I want to huddle in my little house.

NAVCO and the Institute of Archaeology keep me busy most week days. The NAVCO Board has had a meeting since the election and the Legal Advisory Committee had its first meeting shortly before Easter. The seating of the new government gives lots of opportunity to address legislative and regulatory issues. I am doing a lot of research into how the legislative process works in Belize and have undertaken some preliminary drafting of amendments to existing legislation and regulation related to rural villages. At the Institute of Archaeology, I am helping gather information from their library regarding various caves that have been explored at different times and updating their data base with descriptions and findings in those caves. There are over 300 caves in Belize, many of them used by the Mayans during their history and I am learning a lot about early Mayan life and hope to learn more. I also get easier access to some of the Mayan sites here in Belize. I am helping the Institute a bit but really getting access to some fascinating studies. I also have been asked to study up on antique glass bottles and help them with cataloguing and describing some of the bottles in their collection. I've started preliminary readings on the topic.

The last bit of news to relate is a recounting of my wonderful vacation. My younger daughter Tonya and her boys arrived on Good Friday. I found out that everything shuts down here in Belize and Good Friday and it was quite an adventure making my way by bus to the airport. There were very few buses that day. We picked up a car at the airport and began our adventure on Easter Sunday after introducing them to Belmopan and my humble abode. First, we traveled to San Ignacio and our activities included a horse back riding trek to Xunantunich with a tour of the Mayan site and cave tubing in a series of caves used by the early Maya. Next we set off for Lamanai, another Mayan site, in Orange Walk and stayed at a lovely lodge nearby. We climbed the temples the first afternoon and went back the next morning and saw parrots, toucans and other birds and a set of monkeys that were frolicing in the trees. We also heard a group of wild pigs scurrying and two of them crossed the path ahead of us. Fortunately, they had no interest in us. From Orange Walk we returned to Belmopan and then picked up my older daughter Yvonne and her son from the airport, exchanged the car rental to a slightly bigger car, and took off for Dangriga. In Dangriga, which is south of Belize City we picked up a boat to Tobacca Caye where we spent 4 days and 3 nights. There was snorkeling, swimming and fishing and lots of bird sightings. The pelicans and split tails would come in and roost and feed every afternoon by the Lodge and our cabanas. We also made trips to the zoo and my older daughter, her son and I also went cave tubing on their last full day here. It was sad to see them go, but time for me to get back to work. It was also quite a luxury to have access to a car for a couple of weeks, but alas it is back to biking and riding the bus once again.

That's all for now folks. Hope everyone is doing well out there. Sorry that the winter throughout many parts of the country was very harsh this year, but I must admit I was not sorry to miss this Chicago winter. I will try to be more diligent in future in posting updates and I will post pictures soon. I promise!

Best wishes to all.
Liz in Belize