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06 September, 2008

I Dunno, Something Just Looks Different

Early last week, on one of my walks with the girls, I finally stopped and looked at the Corozal monument to its war dead from WWII. Some twenty-nine Corozalenos gave their lives in that war. I was impressed.
Monument to WWII Dead
For such a small country and town, that seems like quite a few. Maybe not, I didn't do any analysis, just a gut feeling.

We also saw one of the local fishing sailboats on the hard, getting ready for a refit. The crew are in the process of outfitting a palapa-like boat house around it while they work on it.
On the Hard
Kind of funny that it's named "No Eyes". Usually, native cultures tend to paint eyes on boats to help them find their way, find fish, etc. Maybe these guys don't need any such prmitive help.

Now on to the topic I had in mind when I titled this piece.

When I look out over the landscape of our place, something just looks different. I can see off into the distance - well, as far as one can see in the bush, anyway.

What is it that I can see more of the road? What is missing? Let me think...
Big Truck
Ahh, I know. There's a big twenty-foot box on a Ford truck body that's gone! Yes, that's right - gone! The truck is gone. After almost a year of hanging around our place, it left.

It did yeoman's duty storing all our stuff for us for so long, and following us as we moved three different times before we could move into our house. But, will I miss it? Not really. Oh, it was fun to sit in the cab with the hydraulically damped driver's seat, gazing out from on high at the surrounding terrain. But after a month or so, that does begin to get old.

So, "what happened?", You might ask. Well Canadian Bob came over and as we were all sitting in the pool talking about this and that, he mentioned he'd really like to get the truck, but that money was tight. Dianna had an inspiration and suggested we could work out a trade - the truck for his building a guest cottage for us. In short, that ended up a done deal. All concerned were pleased with the outcome.

The next morning saw me firing up the rig and driving it out to Consejo, where Bob and his crew are building another house out there. Let me tell you the road to Consejo is no picnic. I think the word is rough... Yes, that's it Rough. Oh hell. It's beyond "rough". It totally sucks. Especially when you're driving a large, empty truck over it. Thank God for the nice driver's seat.

Anyway, the truck is now living out at Consejo, and we're looking forward to getting a guest cottage sometime in the relatively near future.

Our first project (of the current looming construction plan), is the swimming pool. That should start this coming week and take about a month to get done. Bob has one or two projects pending as well, so construction will probably start on the guest house sometime in December or maybe January (that's just a WAG).
Swimming Pool and Guest House
This is an artists conception of how the pool and the guest house will look - something like that anyway (we hope). I guess since it's an artist's conception at this stage, the next will be the contructioneer's interpretation... It'll be interesting to see how closely the two match up.

In the drawing, north is to the left, the canal is at the image top, our house to the bottom. The grey hex thing on the northeast corner of the pool is the pump house for the pool, with a waterfall coming off of the roof (that's what the wedge attempts to show). Per instructions from the feminine side of the operation, the bathroom is easily accessible from the pool area, hence the double entrances to the facilities. The big grey flowers in the guest house are supposed to be ceiling fans.

Hey, I found a cool website this morning, Nations Transport Services, one of the bus lines here, actually has a website that lists schedule destinations and times. It's at: (http://www.nationaltransportbelize.com/). Here, all along, I just thought they worked on approximations. I didn't realize there really is a timetable. Who knew?

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