earthquake II

No, not another earthquake, although news reports claim there have been aftershocks. It lasted longer and did more damage here than I had realized. It actually lasted more than a minute - confirming my feeling that it went on "forever", although I assumed my feeling were an exageration or reality. Bradley thinks the house was moving back and forth one or two feet - I don't think it was that much, but think it was up to a foot. I've been in California during earthquakes that did not do damage, and this was multiple magnitudes above those. The house wasn't bouncing, it was moving. And it was very frightening.

In Placencia, primary damage was to the water system, not only to the tower, but breaks in underground pipes in 5 or 6 places. Here are a couple of pictures of the tower.

In Independence, across the lagoon, the water tower collapsed, and reportedly 7 or more houses were damaged or destroyed. About 10 miles down the coast in Monkey River Village, 27 houses met a similar fate. Earthquakes make the ground very fluid, and most of the houses there are on stilts (as are many along the coast). The stilts sank into the ground, in some cases 7 or 8 feet.

We're finally getting some wind again, which drives away the bugs, and creates some natural cooling.

Finally, last weekend Bradley went fishing with a couple of other guys on two different days (I didn't go because I don't fish and wanted to work on my boat) and came back with a lot of fish, primarily barracuda and grouper. This is a cropped photo of the catch that is practically abstract, at least to me.

Learned how to set the clock on this blog so it reflected the actual time I post, and your comments now post here as well as arrive in my e-mail - good to hear from you, Tim (Beth&Phil), Val and David!

earthquake!

2:30 AM. It was scary. I woke, in the dark, to my bed shaking, wondering why it was shaking, and then who(!) was shaking it. I then became aware that the whole room was shaking, and leapt out of bed and stood in a doorway in the little hall by the bathroom, figuring it was the safest place. The shaking continued, with some very strong motion, for what seemed like a long time, but was in fact probably 10 to 15 seconds. Rattles of glassware and then a crash in the kitchen. Too dangerous to go look, and what could I see in the dark? Suddenly the power went out, so what little light there was, was no more, and there was no moon. I was in a concrete house. Would there be a trembler so strong it would collapse the building onto Bradley’s family downstairs? If it collapsed would I survive the collapse. But all I’m wearing are my sleeping shorts! Damn, I wish I had saved my computer, and my musical instruments. When will this shaking stop?

And then it did. Very tentatively I moved into my kitchen area and felt around for my flashlights. Found them. What fell in the kitchen? My round pizza stone, which was on the floor on its edge between the fridge and the counter, had rolled out onto the floor, and fallen flat. No problem. I looked around for cracks in the ceilings and walls, there were none. Will there be another trembler? I went back to the bedroom and put on my shorts. Went up on the roof to see how widespread the blackout was. I could see lights in Big Creek, Placencia Village, and Maya Beach, so the blackout was primarily in the Seine Bight area.

I could hear Bradley and Rilda talking downstairs, and Maddie crying. I went downstairs and joined them for a few minutes on the front veranda. Rilda’s cousin Rob arrived on foot. I decided to go back upstairs, and went and got a shirt, my sandals, and sat in a chair out in the central area where the breeze would keep me cool. With no power for the fans, it was getting hot in the bedroom. All the dogs in Seine Bight were barking. Lots of people were calling to each other in the dark. The many fireflies reminded me of my youth.

No more tremblers. I decided to go back to bed, but left my shorts on, and my shirt and sandals in a doorframe by the bathroom. I put on my watch and glasses. I went to sleep.

4:15 AM. I woke to the sounds of the fans starting up, and saw all the little lights on my various electronics glowing blue, red and green. Went to my computer, turned it on and went to the CNN site to find out what had happened. Quake was centered under the Caribbean 25 miles north of the island of Roaton off the Honduras coast. (Later I plotted the epicenter at about 100 miles north-northeast of us.) 7.1 on the Richter scale, there was a tsunami advisory out for Belize, Guatemala and Honduras. Then the power went out again. My radio required 8 “D” batteries, I had 7. I went back to bed.

Woke again at 5;30, and 6:00, and 6:30, or so, with power coming on in fits and starts. I was hot and sticky, and wanted to take a shower before coming to work. At 7:15 the power came on again and stayed on. I got up, showered, and came to work, where I am writing this. Here in the village a water main had broken, and there were cracks in the walls to the building where our office is. Amazingly, cracks in the dirt in the parking lot. Word is that in the village of Independence across the water tower collapsed. The Placencia water tower, a concrete structure which has no triangular bracing, has broken at the joints.

So we’re all safe, but a bit shaken. When I go to bed tonight, I’ll leave clothes in the doorway in case I have to make a nighttime hasty retreat.

Those of you who read my blog may have clicked on Tom Barnett's blog link here on the right side of this page. I first heard Tom give a presentation at the Poptech conference in Camden, and was really blown away by his analysis of the US role on the planet, and much more. You can see his 40 minute presentation several years later at PopTech in 2006 if you go to http://www.poptech.org/ and drill through to the popcast archives. If you go to his blog at www.thomaspmbarnett.com/weblog you can click on a link to his presentation at the TED conference on the left coast. I say all this because I just finished reading his most recent book, Great Powers, America and the World After Bush. I agree with his assessment of how the U.S. should conduct itself for the good of the planet, and the dangers associated with some common world views, and urge you to read it.

I finished it, and then in about 8 hours over our holiday* weekend read a delightful book called How to Cook a Tapir. It is by a woman named Joan Fry who right out of college in 1962 married a cultural anthropologist, and headed into the forests of Belize on their honeymoon so he could study the Mayans. She was in way over her head, and her recently written recounting of the year spent there is really a delightful read. So if you go to Amazon.com, get her book too, I guarantee you won't regret it!

Then I started another book in my collection, The Black Swan. I'm far enough into it that I expect it to be a good read as well, though more in line with Barnett. I bought the Fry book from a weekend neighbor who is involved with the national museum of Belize, and since it cost me $30 USD( you can get it for $16 US on Amazon) I think she might have felt bad that I blasted through it so quickly. Yesterday she sent over an interesting book from her library called Home Cooking in the Global Village - Belizean Food from Buccaneers to Ecotourists by Richard Wilk. It is about the globalization of the food supply, which has been going on for hundreds of years, using Belize as an example.

A friend asked a while back why I chose to leave the US and move to Belize, and although I am still formulating my thoughts about it, there was a really good paragraph in the first chapter of the book that I quote here in full:



"To be honest, Belize initially attracted me not because it was typical of anything, but because it seemed such an unusual place - an English-speaking country in the middle of Central America, a melange of multiple ethnic groups who somehow peacefully co-exist. But as I have learned more about Belize, I have learned that underneath a unique local flavor and unusual history, it is connected to the world in exactly the same ways as all the other Latin American and Caribbean countries that surround it. Belize is therefore the perfect place to see the contradictions of globalization, to study the general and widespread processes that produce uniqueness. Even within the country, we can see the same paradox, since Belizean ethnic groups and subcultures always seem to be completely distinct and unique, while at the same time they are always connected to each other and thoroughly mixed. Somehow the traffic between groups, just like the constant globalizing traffic between countries, does not eliminate or destroy the boundaries and borders that keep the cultures apart and maintain their unique character. Distinction and commonality revolve around one another."



So aside from coming here because I had a family connection, it is a wonderfully diverse community, especially here in Placencia where there is a large community of ex-pats also in the mix of Garifuna, Caribes, Maya, Chinese, and others. Had dinner with a woman tonight who was originally from Vancouver, and was hitchhiking around Central America 16 years ago, stopped in Belize, and never left. Current president of the Rotary Club.


On an entirely different subject, we have definitely had a change in the weather. After several months of nearly unceasing winds of 10 to 20 knots, it is much quieter now. That has two effects: there are more bugs around, making the geckos quite happy, and it is hotter without the cooling wind. I finally got a remote control to operate the AC in my bedroom, but haven't used it and don't know if I will. It is nice to lie on top of the sheets and sleep unencumbered. Current temp is 86 degrees. That's it for now - time to lie on the bed and listen to music...

*Belize has lots of holidays. Yesterday (Monday) was Commonwealth Day, which I believe is celebrated throughout the British Commonwealth.

Life in the slow lane, and in the clouds...

I hope I haven't frustrated those who have been checking this blog to see if I've posted again, and I certainly had expected to post again before now. Problem is....I'm in the slow lane....

I first noticed the phenomenon with waitresses, who are attentive enough, it's just that they glide through space without appearing too rushed. To the observant, this extends out to include most people who are going from one place to another, but generally without undue haste. This does not include the cadre of ex-pats who are out getting exercise by walking on the road in the morning, North American style, or the bus drivers who drive like bats out of hell. There are other drivers who also drive too fast, although once in the village, the combination of speed bumps, bicyclists and pedestrians in the road keeps everyone quite slow. I heard the other day that only one in six Belizians has a car, which does not surprise me, many who don't have cars have bikes.

At any rate, I find that I rarely exceed 40 MPH on my drive into town, although the newly paved road would allow it. I'm walking more slowly as well, and enjoying the more leisurely pace. With all the things I plan to do here, well, some of those are progressing slowly, if at all. I plan to start painting again after a hiatus of 43 years, and b(r)ought everything I needed, but haven't gotten to it yet. I certainly went to a lot of trouble getting the boat here, but am just getting started on the work I have to do to finish preparing it to put in the water. I've done a little on the keyboard with my lesson program, and am probably more driven to get going on that than the others because I've been listening to my entire CD collection for the first time in 6 or 7 years, and really enjoying it. At this moment I'm listening to Miles Davis' Sketches of Spain album. The bottom line is that I am enjoying myself, so why feel I need to pursue all my interests at the same time?

Work is going well - although I am finding I have to accept, or at least learn to work with, the local rather casual way of handling money. I was thinking tonight that it is a subtle culture of casual fraud, in a way. The top government officials get caught in major shenanigans every now and then. We're dealing with a local (Ricky) in setting up a new bus service between Placencia and Dangriga, and although I've designed an easy-to-use trip reporting form to track riders and cash flow, he hasn't used it fully. In this case we have an outside investor who has put $40K into the business, so tomorrow morning we'll have a sit down with Ricky to have him do what he says he is going to do. He seems to be like the Mexicans in that respect, he'll agree wholeheartedly to do whatever you want, and then neglect that agreement and do what he wants to do. Some (new) friends bought a restaurant (actually they bought the rights to operate a new restaurant in a space where there had not been one before) from head of a local bookkeeping service, and part of the deal was that she was going to set up their books and train them to use it. It's done in QuickBooks, and what I saw does not allow them to produce the critical reports necessary in running a business, like P&Ls and Balance Sheets. I'm sure I'll be talking about all this in the future, so now I'll let go of it and talk about....

clouds!

When I first got here it was the dry season, which lasts from November through May, or so. Hot, sunny days, hardly a cloud in the sky. We are now on the cusp, clouds rolling through, with occasional cloudbursts - and that is a fitting word for it. What is really wonderful is the clouds, big cumulus clouds - all kinds of clouds - I'm going to have to take a refresher on cloud identification. Being able to go to the roof of the house, and to see horizon to horizon, gives a great opportunity to see them, and to photograph them. So I'm developing a folder of cloud/sunset photos, and end this post with some of them. Yes, I've used filters, camera settings and software to enhance the colors. Many of this group were taken today to illustrate this posting. Enjoy!

Carl

Keila

Been battling "technology" for the last week, and it is improved, but still ongoing. Did not have internet connection at home over the weekend until last night, although I did do some photo management, moving my nearly 10,000 photos onto a portable hard drive so they wouldn't clog the laptop, and loaded the latest version of Adobe Photoshop Elements. I use that program to edit and manage photos, including reducing them in pixel size so I can post them here.

This photo is of Keila, the young woman who works for us converting the architect's designs into "bills of quantities", or lists of everything, and I mean everything, that is needed to build the designs. At least, that is one of the things she does, and probably more.

She has a two year degree from a college in Belize City in architecture, and would like to go to architectural school in the U.S. or Canada. Interesting background - her grandparents migrated to Belize from Honduras, and she lives in the village of Cowpens 7 or 8 miles off the Southern Highway on the mainland. ( It is almost due west of Seine Bight, and google maps doesn't show the road, and the village is under clouds in the satellite picture) It is an old village of people of Honduran ancestry. There is no electricity or running water. To get to work she catches a ride or walks to the main road, then catches a bus to Mango Creek where she takes the Hokey Pokey water taxi across rhe lagoon to Placencia. She has a baby boy that is several months old, while at work her parents take care of him. Her husband works at a chicken processing plant in Spanish Lookout in the northern part of the country.

She has ten siblings, eight are in the U.S., most on visas, which allows the bearer to work and are good for 10 years. I think the rule is that they have to come back to Belize, or at least leave the U.S., every now and then. One of her sisters went to great effort to get her parents green cards, which require that the holder stay in the U.S. for 6 (?) months every year. Unfortunately, her folks don't like the U.S., but because of the daughter's efforts, feel they must go to the U.S. and comply with the requirement, because the green card will be voided if they don't. Keila applied for a visa before she was married or pregnant, and was turned down. She thinks they were afraid she would stay in the U.S. We are very fortunate she works for us, she is smart, has a good sense of humor, and is a lot more attractive than Bradley or I!

Still struggling to get my magicJack internet based phone to work, and to get my computer to talk to the printer at the office. Must sign off now to work on that.

my temporary abode

Here are some pictures of my current housing. It is an apartment in my stepson's house, with a separate entrance so I don't have to intrude on their lives, and vice versa. "Current" because by fall I have to find an alternative as Patti may be coming for an extended stay. The apartment has two primary rooms, a kitchenette/living area and a bedroom/office, connected by a short hall that has a storage area on one side and the bathroom on the other. The "inside" door opens onto the central area, and the "outside" door is to the exterior stair that leads to the ground or the roof. This first picture, that I took last year, is of the west side of the house; the apartment is on the left on the second floor, with the open central area that is such a delightful place to be. That door you see is the open door into the apartment.

When you enter that door, after a short hall that has a shallow closet with shelves, you enter the kichenette/living area. I stood on a stool to take this photo over the 45" high counter. You're looking toward the back door, the fridge has lots of magnets, a microwave and my laptop or on the folding table I brought with me. I use the laptop there in the morning to read the NY Times online. I'm glad I brought the little oriental type rug because it helps define the space.

This next picture was taken from the left corner not seen in the previous picture. My kitchenaid mixer, breadmaker and juicer are on top of the fridge. You don't see the little stove, which to my chagrin has no way of regulating the temperature of the oven. It is a butane fueled stove, and it's hard to slow cook on it. You have to turn off the fans when cooking, a definite disadvantage. The stools are too low for the high counter, so just take of space, unless used for plops.

Here's a photo taken from the back door looking back, you can see the little stove, with my dishtowels hanging on the oven handle. There is less space than I need for storage, so my cookbooks and knife track are on the top, my spices are under the lip of the counter, everything is fit in. I have a clip-on light for light on the stove and another at the sink. On the far right you can see a table I bought locally with a small bookcase holding my coming reading.

Going down the short hall mentioned above, you enter the bedroom/office. Those are the two windows that face east, and the road, and that gathered lots of dust until they paved on Saturday. On the right is the foot of the bed, in the center the keyboard I'm learning to play, and a pedestal fan I bought during the last heat spell.

This is a picture of the king size bed, which is too big for the space. There are closets on the right, and a little stand with a funny lamp on the left, the side I sleep on. The temperature on most nights is in the 80s, so I sleep on top of the bed, or with just a sheet, and just shorts, with ceiling fans going and sometimes the pedestal fan. Until I put the curtains up last weekend, I would usually wake with the sun at 5:30 - this morning it was 6:30! There is a bus to Dangriga that arrives in Seine Bight, the adjacent village, blowing his loud horn for an extended period, at 6 AM, so that's when I wake for sure.

This next one is take from the side with the funny lamp looking back toward my folding table desk. On the left is my stereo cabinet with the CD player, amplifier, DVD player, and topped with the small flat screen TV I brought and my Sirius radio. Behind it are a couple of CD cases. I look out the window, and watch iguanas climb into the tree. The off center painting on the wall covers an electric panel.

So that's about it - the grand tour. I now have to set about looking for an alternative place to live, hopefully with more of a kitchen, although I think Bradley's vision is for me to live in an apartment he would build as part of a facility to house several businesses he has in the works. That would provide security for him and give me a place to live. But that won't happen before Patti comes, so I have to find an alternative. That's it for tonight, and Beth, I'm glad you liked the road series!

Lots of photos..

Let's try this again, and I hope I don't bore you - if you don't like the road stuff, scroll further down....

Like I was saying last night, the road has been paved, which has greatly reduced if not eliminated the dust which permeated everything. Today I left my windows open, and unlike the past, there was no layer of fine dust covering all surfaces when I got home from work - a good thing because yesterday I cleaned all the screens and windows, and did a thorough cleaning inside. But about the road construction methods....

After initial grading, they put down a layer of brown gravel with lots of fines (dust) in it, as well as fist size rocks. Here's a photo and a closeup:

This photo of the dust being raised by a vehicle doesn't really show the true impact of this type of surface...

Then they cover that with a gray layer of crushed stone with the fines left in it, and this was the surface in front of the house for weeks...

There is usually a stiff breeze coming off the Carribbean that carries the dust long distances. I'm not sure how people tolerate walking along the road or riding bikes in the face of this, but they do, probably of necessity.

When it is time to pave, they put down a layer of sandy gravel, water it liberally, and roll it to a hard surface. They then put down a thick layer of liquid tar, and cover it with a uniform size of crushed stone, and roll it. (All this happens without interrupting traffic flow). Cars, trucks and busses then continue to use it for several days, further compacting the stone into the tar. Here's what it looks like, and a close-up:

After several days they come back and sweep away the excess stone that hasn't been embedded in the surface. As it is driven on, the surface gets harder and harder, here it is after a few more days, and a close-up:

And a couple of more photos as it gets more and more compact from use..

They pave about 1/10 of a mile a day, with day to day traffic doing most of the compacting. Bradley says they will be putting another layer on some time in the future, painting lines, installing reflectors, and 40 (that's forty) speed bumps. Speed bumps here are not your Stevens Ave raised humps. They are bumps that can't be taken at more than 5 mph. Will keep you posted.

The road hasn't been paved for a half mile stretch closer to town, and by the airport.

If you got this far in this post, here's the fun stuff:

The road gets to the airstrip, which goes from lagoon to ocean, and goes down to the end of the runway and around it. I neglected to heed this sign, and was buzzed twice by airplanes taking off just as I rounded the corner. I look now. What's amazing is that Belize has two competing airplines; Maya Island Air and Tropic Air. The former is more capitalized, and is building a new planning to build a new airstrip at the northern end of the peninsula and offer small jet service to Cancun and Guatemala City, among other destinations. For now, here are the terminals:

And here's a closeup of a typical aircraft in use. If the 12-20 passenger seats are full, a passenger can sit in the co-pilots seat. Done it!

A neighbor, Kathy, across the street from us in Portland had a bumper sticker on her car that said:"What if the Hokey Pokey is what it's all about?" (or something like that). The Hokey Pokey water taxi here is a scheduled service connecting Placencia with the village of Mango Creek on the other side of the lagoon. The 15 minute boat ride saves an hour long drive up the peninsula and down the mainland. It's a small boat that probably holds 20 or so at most. High School kids use it to go to school, and others commute to work here in town.

Here's a photo of the Post Office, taken on Sunday morning, when it was closed. There are no boxes, you just ask the clerk if you have any mail, and he looks through one or two stacks of 50 or so envelopes and pulls out yours, if you have any. I got a birthday card from my sister today, and because she had tucked in the flap instead of sealing it, the PO in Belize City had deemed it damaged, put it in a manila envelope, and I had to sign a form saying it was ok. This PO is a big step up from the former location, a very small room above the fish market.

The police station is a new facility as well... some times they have a sign in the middle of the street saying STOP, but no one does unless they come out of the station and stand in the road to check insurance or whatever..

I took all these on my way to my AA meeting on Sunday morning - more about that later. I'll end this post with a picture I took from the roof at the end of the day. Tomorrow, pics of the apartment!

the road is paved!

It is hard to dscribe what a big deal it is that they finally paved the road in front of our house (by several hundred yards) on Saturday. The road reconstruction is multi-layered process. When I visited in the past the road was dirt, and characterized by lots and lots of pot holes. It's been re-graded for the entire 20 mile length, and a layer of what I would call boney, or rocky, gravel has been applied and graded.

I have a lot of photos of the road, as well as photos from the village, but there are some blog issues tonight preventing me from loading them, so I'll try again tomorrow.