Lobsterfest!

My discussion of the ethnic groups here in Belize will have to be continued on my next post because this weekend was the Placencia Lobsterfest! So this post will be primarily photos, unless my brain and fingers decide they want me to enter lots of words! Before that though, I find the little map to the right that indicates the location of visitors to this site quite fascinating, since I don't know anyone in Sri Lanka, Scotland, Germany or South Africa, to my knowledge. I suspect those folks found this site the same way I see others, by clicking the "next" blog button at the top of this page. What I've found interesting, and exciting, is that there seem to be considerably more blogs originating outside the U.S. than in. Of course, this search tool doesn't include blogs that are not google based. Back to Lobsterfest.

This is an event put on every year at the end of June by the local tourist board. It used to be held on the point, but I think it has grown, and is now on the beach. There are big tents set up as well as smaller ones by smaller vendors.

As I mentioned in my last post (I think) the lobsters here do not have the big claws the way they do in Maine, and they are caught by divers who break the tails off and discard the bodies when they catch them. I've never seen any signs indicating that they are prepared by boiling or steaming. Today I had a grilled lobster tail for lunch, with rice and beans, and cole slaw. The lobster tail wasn't nearly as tender as I had been used to.

I had a shrimp kabob yesterday. There are huge shrimp farms here, I think the biggest one in the country is just inland from the peninsula. (The farms are in man made ponds.)

I was there as part the Rotary booth, and we were teamed up with the Volunteer Fire Dept, which our club started several years ago. Here's a picture looking from our booth, past a vendor selling wood carvings toward the water.

And here's a photo looking down the beach, showing folks sitting in the shade of the palms.

Our Rotary club raised over $1000 for the Fire Dept. by having a duck race. We have 396 plastic ducks, all numbered, and people buy tickets with corresponding numbers for $5 ea. We dump the ducks in the water

and the first 5 to reach a rope we extend along the beach win cash prizes, starting with a top prise of $250. The Fire Dept is supported entirely by fundraising and donations it is a major and important source of revenue. Here's a picture of the fire truck for Placencia:

It carries a high volume pump, suction hose, and about 150 feet of 2" canvas fire hose. A major portion of Placencia Village is wooden structures on the beach with no road access, so this "truck" allows the VFD to get the pump to the water, and then run the hose out to the fire. At this time there is not enough hose to reach everywhere, so that is a priority. Another issue is that it is appropriate for Placencia Village, but can take a while to get the Seine Bight, the next village 5-6 miles up the peninsula. So there is effort to have a station there as well, and I will be getting involved in that. Here's a picture of the fire chief, having a good laugh.

I'm told she is a good fire fighter and a good leader. The Fire Dept has a thing people can stick their heads through to have their picture taken, so here's a picture of Jim taking a picture:

Jim is a Rotarian as well as a volunteer fire fighter. I think he is a retired doctor who took advantage of Belize's liberal arrangement for retirees. Here's one of the pictures I took:

Our booth was at the end of a tent, and next to the entertainment tent. That was OK when the steel band was playing :

but when the band wasn't playing, the DJ was playing Caribbean rock very loud, and six hours of it, I really liked the quiet of home. My last photo here is of my grand daughter Maddie, who was especially photogenic today when I got home.

So that's it for tonight. It is always a pleasure hearing from those of you following this! Those contacts help me justify spending an evening working on it.

Be well...

Who are Belizeans?

Belize, formerly known as British Honduras, has a very ethnically diverse population, in large part because of its history as part of the British Empire. Current ethnic and/or cultural groups include: Creoles, Mestizos, Garifuna, East Indian, Chinese, Lebanese, Mennonite (German), Hispanics, Mayan, and a mixture I'll call Ex-Pats. I'll write about each group here, which will necessarily include a bit of history. I'm not going to do it all at once, because it will take to much time and space to do it in one posting.

I'll start by saying how nice it is to live in a society where race is a non-issue. At the same time, there is cultural pride with some of the populations, and a desire to maintain cultural identity. This desire manifests itself in music, land ownership policy, settlements, and food. Before discussing these groups, I should mention that there are more Belizeans living in Los Angeles than in the country's biggest city, Belize City. There are also significant populations in Chicago, New York and Texas. Like other peoples of Cental America, they go to the U.S. in search of greater opportunity, and the money they send back to Belize is an important part of the nation's economic picture.

I want talk first about East Indians, because although only 3 or 4% of the 300,000 population of the country, they are close to home for me in the form of Bradley's wife Rilda. Before I load the pictures, a little history. Africans were brought to the Caribbean as slaves by successive dominant European powers, ending with the British, who abolished slavery in 1838. A result was a shortage of labor, and between 1838 and 1917 the Brits brought over 500,000 people from India as "indentured servants" - under contract to provide labor in exchange for passage+. Especially early in this period there was a drought and extreme hardship in India, making this a method of escape from those conditions. They were referred to as "Coolies". Early in that migration they were not allowed to intermarry with other groups by the British administrators, causing some friction with the African cultural community.

In 1857, 3000 East Indians migrated from Jamaica to Belize due to the expiration of their contracts. This group included 382 who had been born in India. This group is responsible for the East Indian population in Belize now. What follows are pictures of Rilda and family members, taken at the wedding when she and Bradley married in 2005.

This is a cute picture of Rilda. She and her sisters wore saris (sp?) for the wedding.

This one of Rilda's brothers. All her siblings are attractive.

I think this is one of Rilda's nieces. I've taken thousands of pictures - this one is a favorite!

Another picture from this generation - Bradley and Rilda's son and my grandson Peter.

I'll stop here - it's 10:30 and time for bed!

trucks, food and clouds

For those of you who are regular visitors to the blog, please accept my apologies! I think is the longest I've gone without posting - and hopefully I'll get back to writing here more often. Part of the reason for my lack of posts is that my life has settled into a bit of a routine, and it doesn't seem like there is much to talk about. Hopefully what follows here isn't too mundane!

I invested a lot of $ in getting my 17 yr old truck ready for the trip to Belize, and was grateful the truck and I made it without too many problems. A few weeks ago when I left work it would not start because the battery would not turn it over, and someone gave me a boost. Got home, and decided that my battery needed to be replaced. Got a battery, installed it, drove to work, and at the end of the day it barely turned the engine over. Hmmmm. Spent the next week or two disconnecting the battery every time I parked, and charging it with the battery charger I fortunately kept and brought with me. Finally took it to the local mechanic who specializes in electrical issues. He has no garage, but has a frame with tarp, a palm tree, and a small container (truck type) to hold tools and supplies. Told me he could fix it in a giffy. This was a Friday afternoon. When he took it apart it was clear my alternator was causing a short circuit and needed work. He replaced some elements - a surprise to me that he even had them, put it back in the truck and it still wasn't generating enough. This all took two to three hours, and during the last hour he revealed his role as a preacher of literal interpretation of the bible. A little hard for me to take, especially when he would stop working on the truck to make a point.

Since it didn't work right, we agreed I would take it home for the weekend, and bring it back Monday, and leave it with him for the day. I did, and he put another alternator in, and now it works fine. Why I've told you all this? The charge? $100 Belize, which is $50 US.

When I lived out in the country in Maine, especially before chain auto parts stores moved in, mechanics would take things like alternators apart and repair them. If this had happened in Portland (Maine), the mechanic would have replaced the alternator with a new or rebuilt one, probably for several hundred dollars, plus the labor cost for an hour @ $90. This is not an affluent culture here, and one of the results is a willingness to use things, particularly vehicles, until they are "used up". Re-use is the purest form of recycling, and things get re-used. You can't buy a can of soda or beer. Beer is only in refillable bottles, and although soda is available in plastic bottles, I think the vast majority is sold in refillable bottles. I buy soda water by the case (@ $2BZD/bottle), and mix it with a very small amount of lime, pineapple or grapefruit "squash". This is a concentrate sweetened with sucrose, produced here in Belize.

As a baker, I've been a bit frustrated that the small gas stove here in the apartment has an oven, and the control has numbers 1, 2, 3 and 4. It has no thermostat. I was able to order one from the local grocery/hardware/homegoods store and measured the temps tonight. The dial doesn't go lower than 1 - which is 375 degrees! 2 is 400, 3 is 475 and 4 is 550 - so baking is going to be challenge. I'm very glad I brought my bread maker, because I've been making individual loaves of wheat or amadama bread for myself that are much better than the breads that are baked and sold locally. Speaking of food, I currently reading a fascinating book called "Home Cooking in the Global Village, Belizean food from Buccaneers to Ecotourists." It is a scholarly work that is a history of Belize and by extension a history of the British Empire and the Caribbean, with a focus on food.

When I sat down to write tonight what I really wanted to write about is the sky. We are moving into the rainy season, and if it remains like it has been for the last week or so, it is going to be wonderful. Unlike Portland (Maine) where a rainy spell means an overcast sky with no real definition of the clouds, here there are big cumulous clouds that boil up thousands of feet, and perhaps other clouds at lower levels. There is enough open blue sky that you can see them, and watch them change and grow. We had thunderstorms last night, and one passed nearby today, giving us the gift of a full double rainbow. These clouds give us some spectacular sunsets, which I've posted here before. It is especially neat to go to the roof of our house, where you are above the treeline, and can see the whole sky. It is almost as if you are in a huge puffy sculpture. Although photos only capture a small segment - I can't help myself, and take pictures almost daily. So I'll end this posting today with a selection of my cloud pictures.

earthquake III

Kaboom! I think I levitated a foot off the bed, realizing at the height of levitation that it was not another earthquake, but was a close and massive clap of thunder. Looked at the clock, and it was 11:30. It seemed as though the lightning and thunder continued throughout the night, with lightning jumping from cloud to cloud and filling the sky. Rain finally came at 5:30 or so, and lasted for a few hours. Even the night sky is wonderful, either clear and full of stars, or when there are broken clouds back lit by the moon. Working on developing an ability to photograph the wonder of that sky.
People still talk about the quake - and in Placencia Village the water problems continue. Some time ago I posted pictures of Placencia's sidewalk "street". It is amazing to see breaks in the sidewalk with two parts an inch or more apart, or T joints that now have a substantial gap where there was none before. Apparently in the village of Monkey River, just south of us, which sustained the most damage in Belize due to homes on posts sinking into the ground, the saturated ground turned liquid, and water and mud boiled out of the ground. It must have been frightening for those folks - seeing it by flashlight at 2:30 in the morning.
On other subjects...
I don't think I've ever mentioned how polite folks are here. You are known by your first name - so I'm Mr. Carl. Since I live on the outskirts of the village of Seine Bight, about 7 or 8 miles north of Placencia Village, I usually give rides to folks standing beside the road wanting a ride in either direction. Because I have a cap on the truck, and it is very dirty (from the dust) and very hot under the cap, I let people ride up front with me. They are always appreciative - tonight an old man I gave a ride to would not stop talking, and what I could understand of his creole was that if I ever had any problem he would be there for me. From my perspective, not quite sure what he could do, but a nice sentiment. When I have to move from my present circumstances, I'll probably be living in Seine Bight, so for my own personal security it will probably be helpful to have a cadre of folks I've given rides to looking out for my well being. Bradley routinely gives rides, and is known and well liked by everyone I pick up.

( I originally had comments here about my work, but have removed them to avoid disclosure issues locally. Send me an email if you are interested in my work.)

Well, time to stop writing here and get on with other interests!