This is My Surprised Face - 8/10/06

Nathan has written about some aspects of living in Belize that have surprised him, now here are some of mine!

• No speed limits, seatbelt, helmet, or hunting laws in Blue Creek
• Running outside during sudden rain and thunderstorms is an exciting 5 minute break in the middle of the day.
• Patience is a virtue practiced on a regular basis here: Mail is only delivered once a week, it takes two weeks to open an account at the Credit Union (makes Bank of America not look quite so bad, huh?), and when you order a pizza at the market downstairs, you have to wait 1½-2 weeks for the next batch to arrive.
• Mennonite girls pierce their ears, dye their hair, and gossip about boys. Mennonite boys fight with their parents about piercing their ears, wear their shirts unbuttoned and show off on their scooters and 4-wheelers to impress the girls.
• Many of the vehicles have been converted from unleaded gas to butane, because of the ridiculously high gas prices.
• The families that can afford to, fly to Houston for the weekend once or twice a year to buy clothes and other necessities or luxuries not readily available in Belize.
• Lightning bugs are sooo cool!! When we go walking at night they swarm around us, blinking away. For a moment it seems that the stars have fallen from the sky and are blinking all around us.
• Geckos are cute and very useful for eating bugs, but cleaning up their poopie and waking up with the babies right next to my head gets old fast.
• Frogs predict weather better than Woppler--when you hear them all in a chorus you know you have 5 minutes to grab some cover before the rain starts pouring!
• You can enjoy an amazing lighting show nearly every night right after dark.
• Although they live and work very close together, Mennonites and Mexicans worship very differently.

P.S. Our mailing address in the left column is correct. I've double and triple checked. Unfortunately, Amazon.com doesn't deliver to Belize. If you're ordering anything from our wishlist, you will have to mail them to yourself and then ship them to us. Sorry for the inconvenience.