Week Between the Cayes (Caulker & Tobacco)

Hi Everyone,
Sorry we're getting a bit behind. I decided we needed to catch up so I am hiding out from the ridiculous heat in the Air Conditioned Internet Cafe here in town (where all the tourists are). Carla is up at one of the local hotels relaxing at the pool. I'll be joining her in a bit after I catch everyone up on our activities.

Monday May 30th.
So in the last post we were coming back from our cancelled meeting with the Ministry of Health in Belmopan. I think Carla was in a rush when she finished that last one, so let me add a few details. First of all, a little geography.

Belize is small (about the size of Rhode Island). The largest city is Belize City (known simply as Belize to the locals) which is the former capital. About 2 hours West of Belize City is the current Capital of Belmopan. The Capital was moved inland some years ago following a huge Hurricane which wrecked Belize City and ruined lots of important papers like land ownership documents, taxes, etc. Nobody lives in Belmopan. The Capital consists of a few government buildings spread around a small tarp-covered market. There is very little of interest here. We live in Santa Elena and Volunteer in San Ignacio. San Ignacio is the second largest city but immensely more livable than Belize City or Belmopan. It is mostly populated by middle class Belizeans with a few ex-Pats from the UK or US scattered about. San Ignacio and Santa Elena are split by a little river which is very nice to swim in (except when the locals are doing their laundry, washing their cars, or washing their animals upriver from you). San Ignacio is about 45 minutes West of Belmopan and about 30 minutes east of the Guatemala border. Ok enough geography, back to the story.

We caught the water taxi (small Boston Whaler type boat) back from Caye Caulker and tried to stop by the Ministry of Health to pick up some papers they were working on for us. The papers were not ready, but the 5 minutes it took us to wait there, made us miss the Express Bus to Belmopan. This is critical, because, while the Express Bus is slightly more expensive, it is an Air Conditioned bus like you would see in the US, and not very crowded. The Local Bus, is a converted Bluebird School Bus (yellow and everything) which is packed with people and their belongings. I have not seen farm animals on this bus yet, but it won't surprise me when I do. We were able to get on the local bus to Belize, and still arrive in time for our meeting with the Ministry of Health. The local bus was pretty bad, but we got a seat, and the windows provided enough breeze to avoid suffocation.

When we got to Belmopan however, we called our contact only to find out that our meeting for 12noon was cancelled. We went back to the Belmopan Station and bought a pair of local tickets home (the next Express Bus wasn't until 6:30pm). As we wait, the bus pulls up to the station. We already have tickets, so we assume we get on and wait fairly politely as people pack it in. As we watch, we notice that people are jockeying rather aggressively to get on. We also begin to notice that other people, who just bought tickets, are pushing past us. Trying to remain polite, we continue to wait patiently, but when it is almost our time to get on the driver yells down, get off to the last 3 people in the doorway. He then proceeds to begin backing out of the station. Two more people come running up, throw their bags through the window to friends in back, and grab the doorhandle as the bus takes off. We're at a loss for words.

The bust station in Belmopan has become our arch-enemy. It is the Sith to our Jedi. No buses run on-time here because it is in the middle of the country, so all the buses have ample time to find a way to be late coming from the East or West. It is a fairly central location, because the road which extends to the Southern part of the country also leaves from Belmopan. We learned this while waiting for the next local bus.

We're told the next bus leaves in 1 hour, so when it arrives, we quickly jump on, before the push can begin. The bus takes off, and we think we're home free. That is until it turns in the wrong direction, East back to Belize City. Turns out this was the wrong bus, so we get off two stops later, and hike back to the station.

The correct bus ends up being 1 hour late, so we're waiting another hour at the station. There are a lot more people than the last bus waiting, so we're getting a bit worried. Determined not to miss this bus, we worked up a plan to get on. I will charge ahead with only my backpack and get on the bus to grab a seat and then take the bags from Carla once I'm on. Sounds foolproof, right?

The bus rolls up, and I am running alongside the door until it opens. About 5 other people manage to get slightly better position than I do, but I'm close to the door. The push begins! As I try to climb up, I feel a tug on my pack, and I hear Carla yelling. I turn to see that the bag of coconuts I had secured to my pack has been ripped off by rabid passengers behind me. It is now crowd surfing on people's shoulders. I turn in the bus doorway, grab the nuts, grab Carla's bag which she hands me, kick two people in the head to make some room, and climb on. (Ok, i didn't kick anyone in the head, but I wanted to). I get a seat up front, and watch as Carla tries to make her way on. I can see that she is taking vicious elbows from a couple of short fat, granny looking types, but she is slowly moving ahead. The most amazing part of this "Cultural Norm" is that it goes across age groups. The small children and old ladies push just as hard as the teenagers, if not harder. We finally get on, and limp home. That was by far, the worst day we've had yet.

The evening ended nicely though. We got back to our house and, Praise the Lord, the Red Sox game is on ESPN!!! This had been a great week, since we got to watch 2 of the three games against the Yankees over the weekend (Friday and Sunday) and now we were getting the games agains the 1st place Orioles. It could have ended better though, as the Sox lost 8-1. But that's ok, they had taken 2 of three from the Yankees over the weekend (I just wish I had gotten to see the 17-1 laugher on Saturday. I'm not sure who's doing the scheduling for ESPN, but they put on 4 Sox games in 6 days. I'm not complaining though, especially when I got to watch them come back and beat the Orioles on Tuesday night.

The week was otherwise un-eventful, just working on the volunteer project, until Thursday night. Thursday night I decided to go try to play basketball with Paul/Austin, the local guy who first introduced himself to us by playing his music WAY TOO LOUD. We've actually become pretty good friends since, and hang out with him and his girlfriend Melissa a lot. (Carla is at the pool with her right now). Anyway, this was the first time I had playedd hoops in a long time and my game showed. I think of my first 6 shots, 3 were airballs, two were bricks and then I finally got it to hit the rim. It was quite embarrassing, especially since Paul, who is 5-10, can dunk. We did ok in the bigger games though, but by the third game we were both dragging and Carla had arrived to watch with Melissa. We went back to the house, got cleaned up, and then went out for Annamalia's birthday. That was the week. Next stop, Tobacco Caye for the weekend to celebrate our 1 Year WeddingAnniversary!