elusive crocodile

so it seems my by proxy vote didn't change the world.... shame. now ashcroft and his evil ways will be even more protected.... he's not popular here with normal belizeans. i found out he lives in the fort george area, which is downtown belize city where the radisson hotel also is. it's the nicest part of belize city, which isn't saying much. the radisson hotel now has a french style cafe where we sometimes go for chocolate croissants and coffees.

this week we've been really busy working on the house renovations here, and getting groceries again for the island workers. that was the usual palaver of hot busy days driving round the city, me with the map trying not to lose the plot, dropping off shopping lists, picking them up later, in which time the cook from the island had called with various additions to what we'd already ordered. why would he suddenly at the last minute need 10 eggplants (aubergines), a bunch of mushrooms and 10 avocados i don't know and he didn't get them. it took us about 10 different stores to find a box of barley, and the cous cous he ordered still eluded us, even at tommy's crazy wholesale store. we were sweltering in the heat and slightly lost all the time and frazzled so we stopped for a chicken sandwich in a shop on the waterfront (that makes it sound quaint - it's not) where the fan kept falling over and there was a belizean constantly sweeping the floor like an eternal punishment. it wasn't exactly fast food but it was tasty and it got me over my code-red hunger level 9.5 situation. it seems not everyone has the same nervous breakdown when they get hungry like i do, but once it's gone beyond hungry level 6 it's pretty much game over for me within the next 10 minutes.

the house is coming on well - we have a newly painted very bright red roof, the guys are painting the walls now and installing new doors, we have a shipment coming in this week with the oven and microwave and various things from the states. we have been learning about the ins and outs of the customs bribing process, it's quite complex and i can't divulge too much about it. we have been buying bits of furniture and vases (pronounced in american english to rhyme with face which always makes me laugh). it's not exactly a building site but there's still a fair bit to be done, cupboard doors, new front doors, more furniture etc.

friday we drove our groceries down to placencia again, to go out to the island on the barge. it takes the barge around 4 hours to make the trip over there - it's 18 miles and i guess it goes at about 4 mph.... when they put the excavator on it that's out there at the moment there was a near death moment when it nearly capsized - they had to get a bigger barge in from guatemala in the end. they are still working out there adding acres to the island, dredging sand up and building a sea wall around it. we had a whole carful of groceries on this trip - the cooler of frozen chicken and pork and steak had to be tied to the roof as there was a coolerful of veggies already in the car plus 3 of us and boxes of corned beef, salad cream, 42 eggs (none broke as far as i know) pineapple tang (i don't know what that is). you should've seen the testosterone flying around as robert plus 3 other meat shop worker belizeans all tried to show off their knot tying skills to tie the meat cooler down. very amusing. the car had a kind of warm onion smell to it which wasn't pleasant, plus at times there was also the added aroma of gas which seemed to be leaking from the exhaust into the car. despite this, the journey was fun, we listened to paul simon's graceland and some simon and garfunkel, saw a really bright yellow tree, picked up some curtains from belmopan for the placencia house, got lots of other stories from KT about various dodgy experiences they've had in the island selling business in belize. KT is doug's wife, and they are the real estate agents who sold the island, and she gets her name in capital letters on the blog, which is a rare thing. they are really nice - i told KT her and doug are the most straightforward people we've met in belize - she said that is hardly saying much.

we also met the island owner this week, and his girlfriend - he wants a tortoise sanctuary on the island, so my new challenge is to source 10 tortoises, and figure out how to get them here without going through customs with them....perhaps i can put them in a scuba tank and pretend to be a diver...

spotted this week:
a certificate at scotiabank that reads: country of the year awarded to: belize. on what grounds we wondered?
our truck we sold when we left belize last year! we recognised it from the scratches on the back that we got when we picked up some guy and his bike.
perhaps a crocodile in the water by the house - we are on a sea canal here, and some mornings the croc floats past, robert says you see his nose, then more of his back, all bumpy. we thought we saw him, but it could have just been tarpons (big fish), it's hard to know. we got our cameras ready but it was always a false alarm this week. 

watched 2 films so far - the time traveller's wife - pretty rubbish; and american graffiti - pretty cool, old coppola film staring ron howard of happy days fame.

not much else to report, it's all pretty busy and hot here. am listening to fleetwood mac as i write this, a new discovery for me, and what a discovery. i've played my guitar a bit this week.