I'm home and away again

Hi Marjoriacs,

This is an entirely personal and not at all Marjorie related blog entry.

I got home from Belize last night. I'll give you a few words on Belize and a few other random updates before disappearing again to my sales meeting in Florida early a.m. tomorrow.

Belize is one wacky place and should be the subject of one of those TV programs set in a place where everyone is insane in a charming way (think Northern Exposure gone tropical). At the same time the poverty of the place is completely oppressive and heartbreaking.

I spent most of my week in a slum in Belize City. The neighborhood is known as either the "Burial Grounds" because of its proximity to the city's largest cemetary or "London Bridges" because it is a swamp where squatters build shacks and little bridges to get to them. The residents of the Burial Grounds dump all manner of trash to fill the swamp in an attempt to create land. It's a real toxic soup.

I was mostly working on a school building that will be opening this fall. I don't see how--it's nowhere near ready. It was hot and dirty work. Belize City is a crime riddled and very dangerous place. There were four murders here on the day I arrived and three on the day I left (and that's in a city of only 80,000 people). A couple of days we were wiring this building. There was a guy staying in the building overnight, but Rudolfo must have gone off for a while because while he was away, thieves came in and stole most of the wires we had spent two days installing. It's just a really frustrating place to be.

The food was beans and rice or rice with beans (and a little chicken) for most lunches and dinners. Breakfast was beans and some sort of bread. Pretty basic fare.

It wasn't all "suffering for Jesus". On Sunday drove across the country to visit some nearly deserted Mayan ruins on the Guatemalan border and jump off a waterfall in the jungle nearby. On my last day I got sent off to hop a boat for a four hour ride to an island in the north of the country to help deliver a bunch of new computers to a school. I slept on the boat and hopped an "air taxi" back to Belize City the next day and headed for home.

Here is just one picture showing a few of the "London Bridges" shanties taken from the roof of the school building. I've got other very cool pictures that show more of the beauty of the place, but that will wait until I can bore you with them later.

Mike and Jen and their kids are on the road to their new Lynchburg home as I write this. We'll sure miss having them around here.

Okay this blog will return to Marjorie-related business soon. Speaking of which, did you notice that Cathleen thrashed her competition in the now closed "shopaholic" poll?