Susanne in Belmopan: Shocking

The Curse of Belize

Belize is a stunningly beautiful country, but it has one curse. Can you guess?

◘ Mosquitos

◘ Humidity

◘ Traffic Jams

◘ Greenhouse gasses

◘ Botlas

The answer is 5) botlas, which is Creol for bottle-ass (don't ask me why). They are mega tiny little flies, you can't see, hear or feel them at the time. Only a day later you will notice the spots. They itch like the devil and only very slowly recede (between 7 and 10 days). They're everywhere in Belize; in sand, grass, near water and even the most hard-core repellents (Deep Woods) and long pants and sleeves will not fully protect. I use Benadryl gel to relieve the itch but mostly just wait and sit it out.

Skype is not working in Belize. The national telecom company, BTL, has a monopoly on both the regular and mobile telephone network. Belize is therefor in the same category as China, Cuba, Kuwait and other unfree countries. Such a shame for a country as nice as Belize. They don't want us to use skype because they'll lose money if we do. They also charge ridiculous rates for internet in return for a pretty slow connection and poor service. After months of investigating and trying, I found there are ways to circumvent the blockage of Skype. You have to download some sort of software and then connect to a so-called VPN server. There is Witopia, UltraSurf, and there is Hotspot Shield. After many frustrating days I finally managed through HotspotShield.com. It is not perfect (dropped calls, other party can not hear me) but at least I can chat on Skype. Good luck to all who are trying to use Skype in Belize...

Pinky House

As any 4-year old, Soleine gets pretty bored when we travel long hours in the car. But now we have a game. The first one to spot a specific object gets points. As follows:
- a pink house = 10 points
- a horse = 5 points
- a tractor = 10 points
- a pair of shoes hanging from power line = 20 points

A regular trip from Belmopan to Belize can score about 100 points, to San Ignacio 150 points because more horses and tractors. Soleine usually wins. When we'll be in Belgium or Holland this summer we'll have to change the rules, There aren't many pinky houses (as Soleine calls them) there, right?

Thursday, May 28, 2009

Shocking

Woke up last night in the middle of the night because of some funny sounds in the bedroom. Our bed is dancing on its four legs, the windows are shaking and my dream-catcher is swinging frantically above my head. What is going on? Am I dreaming? Must be. I poke my husband who gets up to go to the bathroom. The shocks last, a few minutes but I still can not determine whether I am dreaming or not. Next morning, I ask my husband. He can not remember anything. Then I hear about the earthquake in Honduras and the tsunami alert for the Caribbean countries. Wow, so I was definitely NOT dreaming. A real earthquake in my bedroom. Truly shocking!