Yesterday a couple of friends of ours decided to host a Christmas Party...there is this guy named Earl, he's a biker from the states and says he used to work in waste management (he was a prison guard) and he looks a lot like Santa does to these kids...he's not fat, he's not round, he's a sweet quiet kind of guy...In the states you might look at him and think he's dangerous but here, the kids seem to relate him to Santa...
The friends we've made here, Dove and Phil own Copperbank Inn.  They are like Charlie and I in that we don't want to be one of the "gringos" behind the gates that don't mingle and get to know the people that are here.  We are not here to start endowments or to change these peoples lives, we are here to enjoy them and if we can help we would like to make their lives a little easier.   It's not an easy life here, it requires a bit of work but it's something that you know that you have made a choice on a simpler lifestyle so you take the good with the bad....So, Dove decided to put out a Christmas party where all the kids got to meet Santa, get a picture of themselves with him and a cookie and/or candy cane was given to each of them.  We were late in starting but then it was amazing at how many kids did show up.  There was about 120 kids in this village and I think they all showed...and it was wonderful.
I am amazed though at how difficult some people find it to put themselves out there like Dove and Phil did and do something for this little community.  If you knew the history of Dove and Phil you would think it even more amazing but that's a story for another day,....They went all out and had pictures taken, gifted candy and cookies to these kids and the kids were just amazed by all of it.  They have so little here that something like that overwhelms them.  Some of the kids live in virtual shacks with no electric.  They have gotten by on that lifestyle and don't know they could have better so they are content.....
It makes me wonder at my own "content-ness".  I have so much and I am thankful for all that has been given to me,  my family, my kids, my husband and pets and friends and the materialistic things I have.  Sometimes I think about my lifestyle I had in New York and how it was about keeping up appearances and worrying about providing that new video game my daughters wanted or to have the money for the dance or singing classes.  As parents we all want to provide our kids with the best that we can.....I think about how after the party I came back to look at my internet and find out that 27 kids had died in Connecticut and how their parents probably wouldn't care right now what it took to provide those kids with what they wanted, they would just enjoy having them back for a small Christmas party like the one that Dove and Phil put on for the village kids and I wonder, are we so different after all?
Life in the states was hard too....It was mentally demanding as well as stressful to think about how we were going to keep up with the Jones and it makes me wonder if maybe the people here don't really have the right idea about life...it's not about what you have, it's about who you are and being content that maybe that is just fine.......Do you wish in this Holiday Season that life would slow down a bit so you could once again feel the power of the spirit of what made Christmas special to you?  Was it so much the gifts or was it the magic of the season that made it really special for you as a child?  Don't you think it would be great if you could go back to that time or see the magic of it shining on the face of the child in front of you as he told you he wanted a control car for Christmas and you know that his Dad the fisherman would do anything to get it for him for Christmas???  Isn't this what made us enjoy the wonder of it in our youth?.....hmmm

Conch Shells & Lobster

This afternoon our landlord, Roger, came over to give me a conch shell.  He is a fisherman and I had asked him the last time he went out what they did with the conch shells after they harvested the conch from them.   Conch is used in a lot of the recipes here, cerviche is a huge favorite… I am in love with conch shells, I think they are gorgeous with the creamy mother of pearl pink inside to the rough gyrations of colors on the outside and the horny tips they use for protection…to me it’s one of life’s great master pieces… I will include a picture of it on the blog…

As we went over and were talking to them and I am stumbling through my Spanish  (Roger’s wife Lolita’s English is as good as my Spanish so we can communicate very well)  and talking amongst ourselves we started to have a conversation with them and were talking to each other and Lolita spotted me talking to Charlie in Spanish and stated that he must be getting better at understanding Spanish….he said yes, he was picking it up here and there and it was then that she looked at me and said that he understood what I had said to him although he doesn’t speak Spanish.  Charlie was explaining to her that when we worked together in our office he never really had to say much, that we would communicate without saying much to each other….this is true, after being in an office together we had gotten good at reading each other’s thoughts without saying much…but to now do it in Spanish??

I had gotten a big compliment earlier this week from the Zapatoria in Corozal.  I came up to him and asked him if he had repaired my husband’s shoes and was describing Charlie to him and doing it all in Spanish (without even realizing it!) and my friend Donna was with me.  She just stared at me and then Benny (the Zapatoria or Shoe repairman) asked her in English how long she had been here.  Now, Donna got her residency about 3 months ago and has lived here for more than two years.  She answered him and then he looked at her and asked her when she was going to learn Spanish as well as I had….It was funny but until he said that I had not realized I was even talking to him in Spanish…I then told him I tried and that I had taken Spanish in high school….He looked at me and smiled and said even though it was supposed to be an English speaking country he was glad I was trying and that I spoke pretty well…hooray, maybe I will learn this language well enough some day to understand all the “signals” the Belizeans give each other.  You gotta hand it to them, they have learned both languages and switch back and forth fluently….

The nice thing about having a fisherman as a neighbor is that we had been doing some neighborly things for them and they paid us back today in abundance. ( at least in my humble opinion!)  Roger pulled out his chest with his catch and I got to see Conch, Crab legs (yes Emily, crab legs) Lobster, fish and octopus…..he told us to take what we wanted.  I made Charlie take some conch because I know how much he enjoyed a conch chowder that a friend of ours made here…he said it was very similar to the New England clam chowder and we took home some lobster…just because!!!

It kind of made my day though. Little things mean a lot more here than they did in the states.  Our truck is broke down again (fuel pump AGAIN) and although our mechanic  is a nice guy and a good mechanic (everyone speaks wonderfully of him, both gringos and Belizeans alike) it is a hassle.  But we are fortunate to have a bus line here.  A great many Women ride the bus while their husbands have the family vehicle (if there is a family vehicle) and I can imagine how hard it is to schedule doing something like going to the market when the kids come home for lunch generally…and the time is tight for anyone to fit in…so I like to give the people here rides if I know them and it doesn't hurt me too much…I might see someone from the village walking through the bush on the way to Corozal and will pick them up.  It’s hard sometimes to imagine a life without electricity but some of these people do not have electricity, they get by pretty well.  The majority of the Mayans still cook outside over an open fire and I can tell you that it makes sense to a certain extent because beans take forever to cook inside!

Think about your life as you know it, would it be so hard to live without electricity?  How well prepared would you be for survival without have that cable of power?  Is this a simple necessity and how well would you like to live on necessity only versus wants?

Tortillas and Chili

Last night we had a chili night and invited a local family to our house.  Their son, Cesar had been nice enough (granted he was drunk at the time) to invite us over to his house for his mother’s home made onion soup…..Escabeche ( SS-cab-e-che) with fried chicken.  It was unlike any onion soup I had ever had before and was very good.  At the time I said to them that we needed to have them over for Chili some night and they gave me a funny look.. I found out later that Chili to them meant the Chili pepper, like a seasoning and it didn’t occur to me that they never had thought of Chili con carne at all as a dish but as a seasoned meat.  (chili pepper with meat is the loose translation).

So we had invited the whole family over for dinner.  The family consists of Sarafina, Mario (parents) Cesar and his wife, Samuel and his wife, Sandra and her daughter, the daughter of Cesar, Julissa and then Sonria the daughter of Samuel….10 in total but Mario goes to bed early so he didn’t come and the youngest son that lives with him works at the sugar cane factory nights didn’t come either.  They all live in one house even though Cesar has his own house he wants to live near his Momma and that’s how these people are….. in total there was 12 at the table and we had Chili and salad (they loved my salad)

In the course of the night we were talking and I told them I wanted to know how to make the corn tortillas from scratch.   They had invited CJ to a birthday party the next day for Julissa who is turning 6 today and the mother, Sarafina told me if I came at 10 the next day she would teach me how to make corn tortillas.  Now, Sarafina is Mayan and does things the old Mayan way.  She cooks her rice and beans on a fire outside and the chicken is done the old Mayan way as well.  She is teaching all her daughter in laws (3 of them I think) how to cook and it was funny because the whole family gathered around to see if the Gringo could make a tortilla.  She explained that they had made the maize the day before,  that I could see it being done another time.  They take the corn and boil it in something she called Gata,  I think it was corn starch.  It must boil to a certain point, if it boils too long or has too much corn starch it will be almost a sour smell to it and be very yellow, you really want a more white maize.  After you boil the corn you grind it. They used to use a mortar and pestle type of method with a very round rock and an elongated stone bowl but the Chinese have brought them grinders and instead of using the old stone in the fire they now have a pan that they use that is flat.  The product that the Chinese sell here is something you would probably never see in the states, they would be allowed to sell their stuff because it’s too full of lead!

After the corn is ground it becomes doughy and is almost pasty.  You then roll it up into a ball and using plastic there are two methods to form the tortillas, the first by hand the old Mayan way, the other with the “Chinese” press.  The ones by hand are better but time consuming or as Sandra, the daughter puts it :  Mas facil.   More easier….  The shaping of the tortilla is an art and it must be practiced to learn the perfection of it.  The funny thing is that Sarafina is the mother and the chief cook.  She runs her kitchen tightly and has all the daughter in laws and the daughter doing exactly as she tells them to and they are all cooking different things at the same time but she is putting the whole thing together in the end so it becomes a fiesta.   I am now one of her students.  I feel like I was there on a tolerance test and I wasn't found wanting.  Although my tortillas look like something the kids made they are edible and we will see how well I do when Sandra comes to my house in a week or so to make beans.

In the interim I feel as though I have passed a major mark in acceptance. It is hard because they are really united family groups in this town and to be accepted is “mas deficil”  very difficult.  Have you ever wanted to be accepted by a group and knew that since you were the outsider you needed to pass the test?   How did you feel when you finally felt like you had made a step in the right direction?

Traveling Walmart....

So, here's the thing....Belize is a second rate country! By that I mean that we get second hand stuff from other countries, like the states.  Stuff that Walmart couldn't sell and has given up on.   Anyways, I had earlier posted how important it was to be able to get the Belikan Beer Guy to stop so you could buy water, juices, coke, sprite, and other things.   When I was talking about this I thought it was good because at gas almost $13 BZ per gallon it would have been difficult for many of the people to go into shop, they would have to pay for the bus but then sometimes even that is too expensive because if you have to pay for the trip there and the trip back then you've spent money that you probably needed for the articles you wanted to buy.  I found out today that there is a truck that drives around with an assortment of articles for sale....like a traveling Walmart!!!

Traveling Walmart!

So, it was kind of neat to watch this guy travel down my road very slowly so all the people could flag him down if they wanted anything...

This reminded me of the days when Montgomery Wards would travel around delivering packages and selling articles off the truck, like maybe in the 40's.....So the real question here is....HOW advanced truly have we become as a society with our split level super malls?

The other thing a group of us were discussing today was the gringo's from Calvary were back in town....By that we mean that some Canadians that come down once or twice a year to "fix" things were back.  It's amazing how truly smart Belizian's are because they do accept the help and are not judgmental of this couple but quietly don't let them in on any of the real goings on....These people make me angry because they come down once or twice a year and say they are "helping" by bringing things like computers or books but they aren't here for the long haul....I mean the day in day out concern I have for some of the Belizian's and knowing how hard it is.  It's like putting a finger in the damn and knowing the whole thing could blow any time.  This couple were acting like they are all it and they are beloved endowments and they OWN the people.....it made me mad because I am here all the time and helping out in small ways but that these people were giving Gringo's a bad name...and I'm one of those gringos!!!

These people do not need someone to tell them how to make their life better, because truly they do have a good life here.  They do not need people to tell them how to do things, they can figure that out on their own. They just need a chance to be given the knowledge of things.   And if you come down here with a "Hail to me,  I am almighty" attitude what you will get is quiet people who will give you a smug look when your back is turned......truly, they have an amazing idea of what it takes to live and live well and they are resilient enough to figure out how to create a traveling Walmart....Wouldn't you give them kudo's for that???

I know I would!

Wouldn't you want to go without a Walmart once in awhile???

Frozen Veggies....

So, it’s passed, Thanksgiving is gone and I made it through it without a complete and utter break down like I normally do because I miss the folks so bad.  I thought this year would be harder still because the girls weren't around but the key to not letting a holiday get to you I think is to keep busy.  I think Mom would have appreciated how busy I've been keeping myself…..my body has been aching because I don’t sit as much as I used to and I like that to an extent…my feet have been protesting which tells me I need to take it easy on them….

Today, after church, we did what we've been doing lately and went to the market to try and buy enough fruits and veggies to get through the week.  Now this is really sad,  but one of the things I miss the most from the states I think is going into Wegmans and not having to think about what type of veggie to get, knowing I could put it in the freezer (I always bought the poly packs of veggies that are frozen) and then when I was rushing around in the rat race of life in NY I would simply throw a bag of frozen veggies in the microwave and be done with it.  Not so here!  Everything is fresh, you buy it fresh from the farm and you eat it quick before it goes bad. I've had stuff go bad and you feel the pain of it, thinking that you wanted to use it and then because of the heat here (they say it’s warm here but not much so to me anymore) everything goes bad quickly.   (Also, I didn't bring a microwave down here, why should I?  I am trying live simpler)

After my visit last week with my girlfriend Donna to Orange Walk and the Peoples Store and looking at the real deal as far as grocery stores I got to be thinking about how it’s so nice to eat fresh but knowing that sometimes when you buy something it will be going bad soon enough.   Like a head of cauliflower or broccoli, it doesn't take much and I love those two veggies and sometimes they are really hard to get.   So, today after Church when I was in the market I saw a full head of cauliflower!  I decided then and there I would buy the whole thing (usually they cut off how much you need) and I would “put some up”.   Now, we haven’t bought our property here yet so I haven’t started the garden and the lifestyle I want to attempt (trying to live as much self sustaining as possible)  but this small gesture could work to maintain my feeling that I would be more able to handle the care of produce and make it so I could live my words.   I bought some carrots as well (a staple down here and I think a healthy one, in church I was looking around and a lot of people here don’t have glasses, I think it’s because they eat so much carrots! ) and broccoli.  I put up a frozen bag or two of the veggies I brought and kept some aside for during the week. 

It is so easy to “Put away” veggies, I've been reading up on it and it doesn't require a whole lot of work, just general preparation.  You cut up the vegetable that you want and you par boil it in salted water and then put them in plastic bags and freeze them.   It was good because now that we are down to three people eating, buying one of those big bags wouldn't work anymore.  I love the fact that I could fill the bags with only as much as we would need for a meal.  Hey, this wasn't so hard!!!  And I was recycling too, cause I would keep using the same boiling water and just swap out which veggies I was boiling down….and then I used the boiling water to heat up my dish water (I don’t have a kitchen sink here, just two tubs, one with dish water and one with rinse and bleach)  and I felt good.  Then I figured something out…..In NY it was a rat race and I would race around like crazy working my butt off to make sure we brought in enough money to make it through another week,  here I am thinking things through and trying to live as cheaply as possible, it’s all about survival!  No matter where you are in life and what you do with your life you are trying your best to survive in that lifestyle that you feel is necessary….

What have you done lately to make your “survival” more successful?

Thanksgiving and Orange Walk....hmmm

So I've been down.   I get this way every Thanksgiving but maybe a bit more so today this year because I know I won't be like a lot of Americans, going to family and having this huge feast and while I cook watching Macy's Parade (It puts me into the next Holiday) then watching football and enjoying having the family around.....(Or not enjoying, whatever the case may be)  Thanksgiving has always been a hard Holiday for me simply because I am a busy bee....I love to cook and share  and this is one of the things I enjoy is cooking for my family....Mom always loved the stuffing and I would make it like she loved with plenty of sage and lots of spices.  Dad always competed with my father in law on the mincemeat pie and I think the girls loved the mashed potatoes, gravy and pies (Not necessarily the pumpkin, that was my favorite) and it was always a big preparation and planning time for me.  Not a reflection time like this year seems to be.

It's harder still on me because this is the longest I've been without seeing my girls.  I have 4 daughters and they've all grown up and gone on to their own interests and even if I was there for Thanksgiving I doubt they would be paying much attention to me.   Emily would be walking up to see her friend Garrett, Joanie would be in the kitchen for part of it but mainly her head would be on talking to her friends or boyfriend on Facebook and Heather has her own family and Holly was always going south to her friends.  Our "family" had grown and flown the coop in my mind, leaving Charlie and I staring at poor CJ ( our youngest) who felt he had to fill in the gaps.  My parents had died in recent year so that just made the last Thanksgiving horrible to us.  It had turned into an empty holiday.

Anyhow, thanks to some friends I think I am looking at Thanksgiving differently this year.....We are going to friends that have helped us to settle into our new life.  They have been so supportive of our decision to move here...knowing how hard this is to do.  They have filled in the blanks in our lives, given us information about the people here, shown us how this world is different and how we need to re think our lifestyle. It's funny that we are watching this old TLC show that my folks had on DVD called "Into the West" and it's like looking at how settlers and their movement into the creation of our nation and we are "settling" into a new country...I think I know the feelings from that time period.....

Today to kick off the Holiday "blues" I asked my Canadian friend to go with me to Orange Walk.  Now Orange Walk is a good hour to hour 1/2 away and a bit of a drive but it has some interesting shops and I wanted to check it out.   We went to this shop called Boundary which reminds me of a big Volunteers of America....it has lots of new to you stuff and I wanted to try and pick up Pie Pans because there isn't that many around here without paying a fortune for it.  We found the pie pans and I also found a dress across the street for a little girl that lives next door...I thought it was the prettiest dress and that she might like it and I bought it for her....(Made me feel good)

Then as we were walking to this fabric shop I liked called "Casa Economica"  which has cloth and lots of stuff that goes along with sewing I saw another shop that sold Tortilla's.  I've never been in one of these but this one looked so busy I decided to shop.  It was funny, I walked in there and you could see how everything was made, the machines they used and the fresh tortilla's coming out of there  (both flour and corn) and how they smelled so good!  I bought some taco chips,  a pound of Mesa (corn batter) and a pound of flour tortilla's just made (they tasted so good!) and the total for all this was $3.50...I looked at all the work it took for these people to make this and they only charged $3.50?

The next place we went to was this store called "The Peoples Store".  I had heard it was a good grocery store to go to but I was amazed....I walked in there and it was like going backwards in time....It was a store like they have in the states.   I looked around and my friend and I were exclaiming about finding things like chocolate cream cheese, nuts, Lays Potato chips, lemon in a bottle and Pedigree Dog food.  I saw Belizian's who live in Orange Walk staring at us and I was thinking how backwards I was...We were from the "bush" and living a meager lifestyle and I had been were they are, living in a city with a real grocery store that had things like Hershey's and other things.   We looked so backwards!!!!

It made me think of the thousands of times I would go grocery shopping in Wegmans and that I demanded a certain level of customer service and wouldn't accept anything less.  But in this store I didn't care about customer service, I only cared about the abundance of product....I think about how thanksgiving day is about how the pilgrims celebrated their abundance of harvest and how hard it was to live in a new land.  They were being Thankful for the people (American Indians) who helped them settle in the new land and how they were shown how to live in a new world and they had survived and all of the sudden Thanksgiving became something more than the yearning I had to see my girls or the loss of my parents or the wish I had to cook and please so many.   It was a bout celebrating having made it...hmmm, maybe God wanted me to look at the Holiday a little differently and decided this was the way to teach me.....

So, what do YOU think this holiday is about?  Do you think it's about time as a person you looked at the Holiday a little differently?

Feeling good...

So, today I am trying to explain (in Spanish mind you) what Thanksgiving means.

I went to a store that I found out later on I wasn't supposed to go to..(Something about the American Government and the war on Drugs and there was a warning issued that I never saw) to buy some pumpkin.  Now I have been all over Corozal looking for pumpkin of ANY kind for our Thanksgiving.  I am not doing a big one this year, a small group of us gringo's are getting together to celebrate the day.  I bought the turkey from the butcher's last week, got the potatoes (both white & sweet) and I even found olives! But darned if I couldn't find pumpkin anywhere!  So my friend Donna, who is Canadian took me to this store that I won't name and I found the pumpkin and lot of other things you can't find around Corozal ordinarily....hmmm
Anyhow, we had gone to a barbecue for our neighbor's son, Alex, because he needed to do a fund raiser for school.  If you ever get invited to a barbecue in Belize, go!  It's really great food. I had talked Donna into going with us and she took me to the store.  I felt good taking her with us because she doesn't get to go on her own often and we found some stuff she wanted.
At the barbecue we sat with our neighbors, something we hadn't been able to do because of all the things going on in both our lives right now.  It felt good to get together with them and just share some time...I even found out their daughter Narina has her birthday on the same day as CJ's!
On the way home I saw a woman walking with her child, a little girl.  We pulled over (something we occasionally do around her, but we are picky who we will do this for) and offered her a ride to Copper Bank, she was on the way to Chenoix (Pronounced Che Nu Ish) which is the next town over from us.  But we would take her at least as far as Copper Bank.
When we got to the ferry there was a guy broke down who needed some help and we helped him with getting something done under his vehicle, so he was up and running.  It felt good to know that we were able to help because it meant that we now knew what tools to carry with us for just such emergencies!
When I went to get off the ferry there was some issues with the ferry (the water is low right now) where I got stuck, that same guy that we helped helped us get out of the small ditch that was there.
After getting back to Copper Bank we dropped off Donna and then went to our house where Charlie jumped out of the car and took the groceries in and told me to go ahead and take the woman the rest of the way to Chenoix....It felt good going down the road speaking in Spanish and trying to explain to her what Thanksgiving meant!   The air was cooler than normal and the sky was a pretty color of pink and her daughter was so cute, with a shy little smile telling me how she really doesn't like her brothers (what a shocker) and that she want "una regalada" for Navidad...I said only 1 present?  She said yes, because she didn't want Santa mad at her for asking for too much!
On the way back from Chenoix I was thinking...Geez, I feel good!   It's one of those days that make you feel good...like you did something for your neighbors and still came out and enjoyed each other.....Don't you find when you work together that it feels good?

By the way, on the way to Chenoix we got stopped by some Gringos who pulled us over to ask for directions.  Because I had been speaking Spanish with the woman he looked at me and asked me "Do you speak English?"  I didn't realize I had been telling him directions in Spanish! When I answered him with a straight face "Un Pocito"  and said, "You do see my NY plates on the car, right?" he laughed!  Another feel good moment!