Susanne in Belmopan: Three times Three

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?

Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Three times Three

I made an interesting discovery last night. Ask a general random person to put up three fingers and you will most likely see the three middle fingers. But ask a German and you will see the thumb, index and middle finger. And when you ask a Belizean lady you 'll get the pinky, the ring and middle finger. Can anyone explain this? And why is the middle finger the lucky one?

3 comments:

AnjaNovember 26, 2009
Hahahaha, en wat doe je daar allemaal nog meer!!
Hahahaha
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UnknownDecember 03, 2009
Here's my thoughts on it, not sure it's an explanation, but here it goes... In the US, you start counting with your pointer finger. The logical sequence of threes would be pointer, then next two, just as you would count.

In Europe, you start counting with your thumb. The logical sequence of threes would be thumb, then adjacent two fingers.

In Belize, maybe they start with their pinky first when counting? Or Maybe they were taught to reverse the hand?...

I'm seeing a pattern but maybe it's all just a coincidence....

Great seeing your article on the EFAM newsletter.
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Global TrotterDecember 05, 2009
Wow...interesting analysis. We indeed start counting with our thumb, never realized this!
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