Okay - back to the story…

There are a multitude of holidays in Belize and as an employer we have to be very aware of these holidays due to labour laws here. In Belize holiday pay is double and being a new business we had to decide if it was worth being open at all since some days we didn’t even cover wages at this point. It seems in Corozal specifically that there are certain holidays where people want to go out and eat at the various restaurants around town and then there are holidays where everything is a bbq or family picnic set up so we had to rely on our staff to steer us in the right direction.

The first holiday we encountered being here was Garifuna Settlement day which marks the 1832 arrival of the Garifuna people to Stann Creek and is celebrated on November 19^th. It’s mostly celebrated in Southern Belize but the holiday is countrywide. Word was that there was going to be a beach party in celebration on the bay side in Corozal so we decided to close down the restaurant for the day. We were looking forward to a rare day off so we had planned to take part in the festivities. At this point it hadn’t been raining too much anymore which was nice - things were finally starting to dry up. It had been a little cooler than usual lately though - it’s almost laughable because we were actually getting cold in 70 degree F weather. In the meantime back home in Oregon they were having an unusually cold winter - with actual snow. So we would complain to our friends and family back home that we were cold at night and had to put on long shirts and pants and they just laughed at us - I’m sure there was some eye rolling going on too. In any case it was colder than usual for the Belizeans and we would go around town seeing people in real winter coats. I think it was more the temperature swings than the actual temperature because during the day it would be in the 90’s and then at night drop down to mid 60’s range. So my point with all this weather talk was that the three of us went in to town after sleeping in that morning (it was a Wednesday), it was a noticeably chilly day and it was as if we had walked in to a ghost town. Nobody was out and I mean nobody. Everything was shut down and everyone was apparently shut up in their homes. We walked all along the seaside and there was no sign of any beach party to happen that day or night.

We were really confused about what was going on, but no one was around to ask so we basically just walked around town and went back home. A little disappointed that we weren’t going to experience the music and dancing that day. Salvador came around to the house to hang out with Will later that day and we asked him what was going on. I almost choked when he told us that everything was cancelled due to the bitter cold 70 degree F weather - what? It wasn’t even raining. I flashed back to all of the outdoor concerts I had attended in the pouring down rain or freezing cold that I had attended in Oregon. This was outrageous - people in Belize hate the “cold” weather.

That night we were getting bored. Will was being his hermit self and didn’t want to do anything but stay in and watch TV - he was in a major funk here and couldn’t seem to pull himself out of it. My mom and I couldn’t stay in the house - we hadn’t been getting days off and we wanted to take advantage of it. So we decided to eat at a local restaurant called Vamp’s Chill and Grill. So we headed out - we made our way in to the restaurant and it was pretty empty, there may have been two or three other people in there. The bartender was playing some punta rock on the stereo and it was a good vibe. He saw us come in from the bar and sit down. He came over and took our drink order - then when he went back over to the bar and suddenly the music changed. Mom and I sort of looked at each other quizzically and listened for a few minutes before stifling our laughter. He had changed the music to some sort of awful female pop CD that he obviously thought we would prefer. Now my mom and I are very much in to listening to the local music so we just sat there and couldn’t help but keep laughing and cringing at the new play list. We had our drinks and ate our food - they have delicious pan fried fish - and then we took our leave trying to listen whether or not they would change the tunes back after we left. Just as we were getting in the car, sure enough the music changed again. We both hoped that night’s music debacle was the last of its kind.

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