And life goes on...

This month we celebrate the birthdays of 2 of my kids, Nicole on the 14th (Flag Day) and Matt on the 23rd. I’m not going to get all gushy about it and tell you what great people they are, although they are. It’s also my sister Diana’s (Bunny) and my brother Dave’s (who will visit me here in another 19 days) birthday as well. I always forget the exact dates of whose is when but one is today, 6/7, and the other 6/8. I just want to say Happy Birthday to all of them here and tell them that I love them.

I’m posting this from Belmopan today. It’s the capital of Belize. I drove Tricia here so that, hopefully, she will get her citizenship, finally, after a 5 year battle. I won’t go into specifics but she’s faced some personal obstacles that have helped drag this out for so long. Last week she finally was able to obtain a document which should put this all behind her. One of the issues though is that she hasn’t kept up with the visa process. She hasn’t gotten a stamp in those 5 years but that was because of an ambiguity in the laws governing citizenship for foreign nationals. They wanted her to pay a fine of close to US$5000.00 but she met with one of the officials a few months ago and negotiated it down to BZ$500.00. Until now she hasn’t had that king of disposable cash. Kismet is not a cash machine. It is a low end, backpacker, student, and travelers on a budget kind of place. She charges US$12.50 a night. So, anyway… Since I’ve been here (so she tells me) she has never had so many quests (I’m her lucky charm!) and now has some money in the bank. So we are off to see the wizard, I mean the Immigration authorities to see if she can finally gain her citizenship and get a little peace in her life. This whole process has been pretty hard on her.

Well my bike was stolen sometime during the night of May 26th. I thought I had locked it but found the cable on the table next to where I keep my bike, and no bike. So now I’ll have to resort to borrowing one of Tricia’s bikes to get to town until I can either find mine or get a new one. The thieves here aren’t the smartest so I may see someone riding it on the streets of Hopkins or Dangriga. I’ll give it a couple of weeks before I replace it.

I was mistake in my assumption that after 4 months you go to a 6 month visa. That’s only for employment visas. I’ll stay on monthly visas but after 6 months the price raises from US$25 to US$50 a month until I apply for residency. No one said anything about my car and trailer import tax at immigration. I know she saw the stamp because she was counting the number of visa stamps I have and I saw her pause on that one. So, until someone says something I’ll keep my mouth, and checkbook, closed. As I mentioned in an earlier post I can restart the visa process by leaving the country for 2 weeks and go back to the BZ$50 a month stamp. I’m still thinking about it. But one of the immigration officers I talked to said they look at your previous stamps to see if you are doing that to bypass the process. If they find that you are they can deny you entry into the country.

On Sunday 5/30 I woke from my afternoon rainy day nap to the sound of noisy upstairs neighbors. That was strange since, living in a trailer, I don’t have upstairs neighbors. I soon discovered that the repair work on my palapa was beginning. As my palapa was going up the 1st time I told Elvis that it wasn’t tall enough to pull my trailer out without tearing off my A/C unit. I had given him preconstruction orders to build it high enough that I could drive out from under the structure should I need to leave for any reason. Elvis, who some of you know is a very heavy drinker and who’s eyes look like they are constantly bleeding, didn’t listen. He had cut the 6 main beams too short and when the palapa was finished there was only about 2 inches of clearance but that wouldn’t have been enough once I tried to hitch the trailer to my car. I reminded him that I had told him that when I hitch the trailer to the car I needed at least 1 foot of clearance. Since then the roof has sagged some and there was no way I could have pulled out in an emergency without either tearing off my A/C unit or having to chainsaw away the front ½ of the structure. Since then it has been raining and the lagoon was too flooded for them to cut new hard stick. Tricia told Elvis that since he didn’t follow my instructions that he wasn’t getting paid anything additional. I did agree to pay for the hired help which cost me US$100 for the 3 days that it took to redo my palapa. Sunday the 30th was the start of reconstruction. They had to basically start all over from the ground up. But now it’s finished and I can safely pull my trailer out in case of a flood or hurricane. I didn’t remember how hot it got inside my trailer before the palapa went up and I suffered for the 5 days it took to reconstruct. Tricia, Peter, a guest named Nichola from Prince Edward, British Columbia, Canada; and I all worked on adding the thatch. It took 2 half days to do the thatch and boy am I glad it’s done!

Its mango season and I am in my glory! All you have to do is stop and pick them up from under any tree in anyone’s yard. They fall when they are ripe. I didn’t know it but there are about 6 different varieties of mangos. I don’t know all the names bit some are hairy, and purple, and some go by numbers like 11 and 12. They are different sizes and the tastes are slightly different. My favorite is still the one that all of you are familiar with. They will be dropping until the end of September and I’ll be eating them, cooking with them, drinking mango juice, and Tricia is even making mango wine and jelly. Bananas are also plentiful and Tricia has a couple of trees so I always have a few on hand. She also has a blobo tree. That’s a cross between a banana and a plantain and is so good to cook with. I make French fries with them. On the property or close by there are sea grapes (not ripe yet) and coco plums and even some wild sugar cane. I had my 1st cane on 6/6. Peter’s son Felix used a machete to cut some for us and pealed them. They are pretty stringy but you chew them and suck the sugar out. Boy is it good! Probably hard on the teeth though so it won’t be a steady diet but it sure is a nice treat.

On a sad note, Tricia and Ron are no longer an item. They are still friends and he comes around almost every day just like he used to. That’s all I’ll say about that…

And on a final note… I would like to ask you all for your prayers for my daughter Carrie. She has has made a life effecting and life altering decision of which I am extremely proud. She isn’t joining the military and I can’t tell you what it is right now because she asked me not to, just in case, for some reason, it doesn’t work out. A few of you already know, one person because I asked for something specific for Carrie, and whomever else Carrie has told. But this will take some extraordinary hard work and training on her part. She needs your prayers for strength, both physical and mental, that she learns patience and understanding, and for God to make her path easier if her plans are his plans for her. So please, add her to your prayer list and to the lists of your prayer groups because this is very important to our family, but mostly to Carrie. Thank you so much!

As always, stay well, keep happy, and practice peace. I am!!!