Chilly Wednesday Morning

This morning dawned cold and windy, at least it was dry. Walking the dogs required blue jeans and my hoodie sweatshirt, topped off with brisk walking to keep from shivering.

I know, I know, those of you from up north, smirk at 68 (f) degrees as being cold, but let me tell you, once you get acclimatized here, cold is cold. Don't forget, no one down here (that I know of) have furnaces or even fire places in their homes, so when the thermometer takes a drop, it gets cold. And with our usual high humidity, there's no such thing as saying "but it's a dry cold".

The other morning, was worse. It was cold, windy, and drizzly. As you can see from the photo below, we hardy dog walkers get out before sunrise, whether it's wet, or cold, or windy. As you can tell, Doug is the hardier of the bunch, wearing his shorts and t-shirt.

This picture was taken in the Corozal market. It was even too early for most of the vendors. When we come through, usually there's only three or four vendors open for business at that time, so we tend to get the freshest fruits and veggies of the day's offerings.

Doug, Twyla, tupelo, and Lola - Walkies

I've been meaning to get this picture of one of the market tents since we came down here. Just a curious use of USAID materials. I thought it was kinda cool.

USAID Tarp

Northern Belize Violence

A little excitement has come to northern Belize. Normally, it's relatively sleepy up here compared to San Pedro and the more touristy areas of the country. That has changed. We've had some unrest in the Orange Walk area involving the Belize Sugar Industries (BSI), Ltd (http://www.northernbelize.com/econ_sugar.html), and independent sugar cane growers. Actually, more than just "unrest". "Violence" is the term we should use. a striking cane farmer was killed and several wounded in clashes with police.

Ostensibly, the argument is about something called "core sampling", which is a piece of machinery that takes a core sample of a truck load of sugar cane to determine sugar content.

What BSI wants to do, is pay farmers according to the quality of their product, instead of just paying by weight of cane delivered to the Tower Hill Sugar Factory in Orange Walk. To those of us that are not involved in the industry, that sounds reasonable on the face of it.

However, yesterday we had a Neighborhood Watch Association meeting, our meeting host's housekeeper, to her credit, piped up during our discussion of the violent turn of events and gave us the independent cane farmer's point of view of the problem. Her comments were eye-opening in that the only side of the story we had been getting to that point was from the local TV media, which seems to have pretty much provided the public what BSI wanted broadcast.

Anyway, it seems the issue is more BSI keeping down cane prices artificially through use of their company-owned cane fields, really lessening the effect any action the independent farmers may try to take to increase their income. The core sampler issue is more the focus of that effort, the lightning rod, so to speak, than the primary issue - at least that's my take on things.

So, the day before yesterday, things came to a head. The farmers barricaded the Northern Highway, and tried (I think) to blockade the factory itself. Because of the blockage of the highway, brought a response from the Belize Police Department. Things turned ugly, when some cane farmers apparently used machetes to threaten police. The police responded with force. The rest you know.

Apparently, now the highway is open, BSI is still processing cane in the factory from their own fields, and still arguing for use of the core sampler. To think the problem has been resolved or is anywhere close to that, would be premature at best. Politics has gotten involved up to and including the Prime Minister. Hopefully it will get resolved fairly and soon.

Guest House Update

Alright, enough of that sort of reportage... Our guest house is now forest-less. All the sticks and plywood supporting the roof have now been removed (except for the outside doorways because of the size of the headers, which are also concrete. It'll be another week or so before plastering is begun on the walls of the house. I'll try to remember to include some photos of the bare house interior a little later on.

Tunes On the Site

Something new on the site is a list of my fav tunes. I picked kind of an eclectic mixture. Featuring the late Andy Palacio, Belize's best know musician. He unfortunately died just as his career was getting ready to take a huge international jump. Still his music is worth listening too. I've included a bit of reggae, which I've been a fan of for years, and even some Ol' Blue Eyes, just cause I Frank is such a groove of a singer. Let me know what you think of this feature. It's still in beta on Google's Blogger services.

It's A Wonderful Day In The Neighborhood

Thanks and a tip of the ball cap to Fred Rogers, cause it was a wonderful day in the neighborhood. I sacked in till almost 5:30 AM this morning, an unusual occurrence.

After a second cup of coffee the girls, Cindy and Secret began hovering around the front door, trying to tell me it was time for their walk. Dianna went out on the porch to welcome the sun and that's when they really begin to get excited.

About 6:00 AM, I get out onto the porch and have to spend a few minutes getting Secret to sit and calm down, to that calm, submissive state as Cesar Milan says. Once I get her there, then I leash them both up and we headed out toward the gate, making sure that as we went down the stairs, that I was in the lead as the pack leader.

When we got to the gate, we have a similar ritual for that. They both have to sit, then I open the gate just wide enough for one person to go through. Guess who gets to go through first? Riight, it's me. I'm the pack leader. Then, they have to sit again and wait while I get the leashes adjusted just so. Then we're ready to take off.

Today the walk began with us heading into town, taking the road up by Tony's Inn. As we went along there, there's about 5 or 6 really big Rottweilers and Labradors that live there. Of course they all have to come out to see who the interlopers are. Once upon a time, this would have been a terrifying experience. But after having read both of Cesar's books on dog behavior and problem solving, and watching many episodes of his show, the Dog Whisperer, and having put into practice the things he recommends, it's no biggie.

This morning, it was a little different however. At the dentist's house on the corner live two medium sized brown dogs, they always bark at us. Just beyond them is where the Rotties and Labs live. They came bounding down to see who we were. There was also a large black Lab female who I hadn't seen before in their pack and she was obviously the leader. Right away she went over to the fence barking at the dentist's dogs. I'm sure if the fence hadn't been there, both of them would have been dead, she was that ferocious.

When they retreated, she turned toward us. I thought, "Oh boy. We're in for it now." But Cesar always says not to let them know you're afraid, so I continued to be the leader of my pack, controlling Cindy and Secret, which mean't keeping them from making direct eye contact with her and still walking where we wanted to go.

We stopped once for some "howdy-do" introductory sniffing and then we continued on our way. Surprisingly, the big Lab fell in with my crew as if she was part of my pack. I could tell that, because just like my dogs, she was walking slightly behind me. Interestingly, as soon as she fell in, the other members of her pack quit barking right away. We kept on our way, and as we passed their property line, they all fell off and we kept on our walk.

We turned the corner at Tony's Inn onto the highway into town and walked along the seawall, each of us taking turns walking on the wall itself. Neither Cindy or Secret really like that. The water makes too much noise and it seems like a long way down from the top of the wall.

As we turned onto First Avenue, continuing along the water front, we passed a small cove with a little boat at anchor. I stopped the dogs and snapped the picture. Here it is.

Corozal Waterfront Anchorage

Off in the distance you can see the houses and hotels along Almond Drive and Bay Shore Drive.

We continued into town until we turned around at St. Paul's By the Sea Anglican Church. We headed back out of town, continuing past Tony's Inn on the highway and turning in at the next road (I don't know its name). It took us back to Ferry Road and we continued walking down it to Mr. Quinto's place. He's the retired Belizean Ambassador to Taiwan. We turned around and headed back up Ferry Road to our place.

Just before we got to our place, on the left is a door that stands overgrown in the bush. That's it... just a door. So naturally, I stopped and took a picture of it. Actually, I've been meaning to do that for some time now, and finally remembered to stop. Here's the result.

The Door Into Paradise

I'm calling it The Door Into Paradise. Of course, the catch 22 with this is, that you already have to be here in paradise to be able to go through it. Just a little paradox for you on this wonderful Sunday morning in the neighborhood.