I am very conflicted about how to approach this section of my story in Belize. Between the Super Bowl party and Valentine’s Day earlier this year I chose to end my marriage with Will. I don’t want to go in to any detail about the events that week and I’m not sure that I want to write about any part of it at all. Even though the decision was made by me, the months that have followed have been a period of my life full of pain and learning. I have realized a lot about myself in the last nine months. The pain comes from grasping the reality that my life as I knew it for the last 10 years dramatically shifted in a new country where I hardly knew anyone to draw emotional support from. Suddenly my family – especially my mom who was the only one here with me at the time – became immensely important, more important than ever before in my adult life. It was also extremely hard to feel sad about the transition without feeling guilty that I was the one who broke off the relationship and therefore shouldn’t have the right to feel sad. I had to come to grips with the fact that I needed to be able to feel distressed about the situation or I wouldn’t be able to move past it. Immediately I felt numb from being responsible for hurting someone so much, it wasn’t something I was used to doing and in fact was part of the whole problem. I was so worried about causing pain that I let a relationship continue on that I wasn’t happy with and instead of confronting the situation I hid behind a fabricated sense that I was doing the right thing by not making waves. So instead, I became bitter about the issues within our relationship by letting them simmer below the surface. My first lesson after all this was that I had to force myself to confront any issues that I have head on despite being uncomfortable doing so. My own happiness was dependent upon that – just because something is comfortable does not mean it’s the best situation for your life.

Being in Belize made me see clearly how different I had become from the person I was ten years ago. The biggest realization was that I had lost my individual self over the past years, or maybe I had just stopped looking. Somehow placing myself in completely new surroundings, far away from any comfort zone I knew back in Oregon, forced me to realize how unhappy I actually was. It became so abundantly clear that I was not able to fool myself any longer. So I made a dramatic decision and after the initial shock I promised myself that I would push my limits as much as opportunity would allow. If I was going to make such a dramatic choice then it seemed to be horribly irresponsible to continue to live in a comfort zone. I was excited to be in Belize for this new chapter of my life because I was going to be completely stripped of any familiarity which seemed to make it a bit easier.

It was slightly ironic to me that Valentine’s Day was coming up in a week and of course, since we owned a restaurant, we would be throwing a Valentine’s Day party. I was not in the mood to say the least. Valentine’s Day had never been a particularly important day to me so this year I really wasn’t in the mood but we set up a table for just our friends and then other romantic-type tables for the couples who would come in. We put a special pasta dinner on the menu and played love songs in the background all night. A few bottles of wine later the party at Scotty’s was over and my mom and I, along with a couple friends went to a local night club to check out the scene there. Overall we did really well at the restaurant that night but I was very happy when the day was over.

So a new chapter of my life started up February of this year and I had no idea what the future would hold or what emotions would come up as a result.

Back to the Scotty’s story…Our first big party after Grand Opening would be our Super Bowl party. In Belize American Football is not very popular but there was enough of a following between some locals and Americans we had met here that we decided a party was in order. Also it helped that my mom and I are major football fans so we wanted a great place to watch the game too and what better place than our own bar! The first problem was that we did not have a big TV in the bar – certainly not large enough to facilitate a party focused around watching it. So we decided to borrow Dave’s projector to hook up to the TV and project the game on the side of one of our walls. The battle was between the Cardinals and the Steelers and we made some marketing efforts to get people in for the big game. Flyers were printed and distributed, we sent out an advertisement to the expats via email and we hyped it up to anyone who came in the bar. We weren’t sure what to expect really but we were excited about it. We also tried to promote it by selling score squares for $5 a square which would pay out after every quarter.

The weekend before the party we had Dave bring in the projector to do a test run. The game was scheduled to start around 6pm our time which meant it should be dark enough at game time to avoid having to black out the screens and windows. We got everything set up and were totally relieved that it all worked – it also seemed to be just dark enough for everything to show up so we were all pumped for the next weekend. I really hadn’t followed either team but since Arizona is closer to the West coast I had to cheer for them and made a couple side bets just to make it a bit more interesting. So a bottle of wine was at stake for me.

Super Bowl Sunday finally arrived and we were in a scramble all day to get everything set up and ready to go for that night. We got the screen up and projector set up. As the evening grew closer we were slightly worried because it didn’t seem to be getting as dark as it had the weekend previous – it probably had something to do with the fact that it was a beautiful, bright day instead of slightly cloudy. So we started to get a little panicky when it was 5:30 and pre-game wasn’t visible. We went out and bought a ton of big black garbage bags and started frantically stapling them to the walls to black everything out. We got done – with a major group effort – just as most people started to arrive. It turned out perfect – we definitely had the biggest screen in town for the game. We had a special game day menu of nachos, pizza by the slice and hotdogs – we wanted it to be simple and quick. We had a packed house and everyone was happy – the game couldn’t have been better and of course came down to the wire. The squares were a hit and made it that much more fun for people who didn’t know anything about the teams playing or even much about the game itself. The vibe was fun and exciting and everyone was in to the game – cheering as if we were all right there in the stands. It was a total success, well, I did lose my bet for the Cardinals so I was short a bottle of wine but I was happy to give it up.

Most people left after the game but a few stuck around and it would mark the first time the bar actually ran out of beer. Overall it was a major hit and absolutely no one complained about anything – or we just didn’t know about any complaints.

The next big event would be Valentine’s Day but things in my life were set to explode in the few days following Super Bowl…

For new readers who may not have read how the timeline on this blog works I want to avoid any confusion.  I have two storylines going simultaneously here; the first is the story of my experience moving here to Corozal from the beginning and that story is delayed about 9 months at this point, the second is a chronicle of my experiences currently.  To determine which is which, the entries that recount my current experience include, “Real Time Entry” in the title.  Any other entry is back to the delayed story.  Hopefully that helps a little. 

After my Dad left my mom and I got to experience visitor withdrawal.  It’s a horrible condition that occurs when you have moved away from friends and family to a totally foreign place and have begun to settle in when suddenly someone from back home comes to visit and reminds you of the people you love and the place you are familiar with.  Then that person leaves and the feeling is homesickness and loneliness.  We did get to spend New Year’s Eve with my Dad which was really nice – we had a very small party at Scotty’s with some of the regular customers we have and also some friends we had made up until then.  It was a fun night and there was a blast of fireworks at midnight – we had the TV on to watch a countdown to the New Year.  Little did I know then how much my life would change in 2009. 

Everything at the bar was moving along smoothly.  Because it was a new year we had to renew all our licenses.  For the most part this was no big deal – just a bit of paperwork and money.  The trade license was easy, a simple renewal.  The liquor license was the most complicated of them all – we had a slight issue with Cathy (the liquor license queen) during the month of December that we felt may curtail our ability to get a renewal on the license.  It was a pretty funny story actually and one that opened our eyes to how things would start to work around here.  Most of the businesses around town host office Christmas parties and the government offices were no exception.  Well, apparently Cathy was in charge of obtaining a venue for the mayor’s party and one night just before closing time she walks in to our bar.  She comes right up to the bar and tells us that the mayor’s office will need to reserve our bar for that Wednesday evening for a group of about 30 town counsel people so they can celebrate at their annual Christmas party.  Oh, and they wouldn’t be paying anything or buying food or beverage from us, and naturally they would need the place closed to the public since there would be so many of them.  What?  At this point we are a brand new business and can’t afford to just give our space out for nothing, especially with less than a 24 hour notice.  So we start questioning her about the whole issue and she throws back subtlety threatening questions about our employees’ food handler’s permits – in effect trying to establish some sort of dominance over us by implying that she had the power to shut us down if we didn’t cooperate. 

Well, this did not sit well with any of us.  My mom tell her that we will discuss this and call her in the morning to see if something can be worked out that is fair for everyone.  We ultimately decide that we don’t want to play that game with her so the next morning when my mom calls her and tells her that we can’t just give up the space during business hours for free, Cathy starts in on an additional fee associated with our liquor license that they forgot to charge us.  Now we’re pretty upset at being so clearly pushed around.  So Will and Salvador decide to get this all straightened out by going to talk to the mayor himself.  Salvador happened to know him and where he lives so they made a trip over there before we talked with Cathy any further.  Will runs the entire situation by him and the mayor tells Will that Cathy had told him that she had our place confirmed for their party a week ago.  He told Will not to worry about any additional fees either – he said he would be giving Cathy a call to straighten this whole thing out.  Before Will even got back to the house Cathy had called us back and she had done a complete 180 in her attitude towards us – suddenly she was overly sweet on the phone and asking how much it would cost to rent out place for the party.  We quoted her $100 off our regular rate because we did want to be fair and in the end she declined, “Maybe next year” she retorted with a cynical laugh. 

We felt good about how this had all gone – we learned a very valuable lesson that day – it was good that we didn’t take her at face value and let her use us as a doormat.  The problem now became that she still headed up the committee which decides who gets their liquor license renewed for the new year and who doesn’t.  So we were a little nervous that she would be holding a grudge.  The first step of the renewal process was to go to the town hall and pay $10 for 5 photo copied “applications” to fill out.  If you would like them to complete the three entry spaces they gladly will for a fee of $50, but we chose to take the 10 minutes to complete them ourselves.  Then we had to go to a committee meeting in which all other business owners attend and it is announced by the committee one application at a time if that business is granted their license. 

So on a Monday my mom and I attended the meeting not really knowing what to expect.  It was a bit of a circus.  We were hoping that this meeting wouldn’t take up the entire day because we had poker later that night and Monday morning/afternoon was really our only down time during our regular operations.  We got up early to get ready for this meeting, and we decided to walk there since we thought that parking would be a bear considering anyone selling liquor in the town would be present at this meeting.  We show up about 15 minutes early and we shouldn’t have been surprised that we were the first to arrive, so we had our pick of a seat and sat down to wait.  A couple of officials showed up, including our friend Cathy, and slowly a few more people started to show up.  We were expecting quite a crowd but by 15 after 9 there were only about 10 people there.  We were the only North Americans there (we were expecting a few more based on who owns businesses around town) there were only about 5 Belizeans and then all the Chinese business owners started to show up.  The room consisted mostly of Chinese business owners by the time we got started. 

So Cathy started the meeting about 20 after 9 and we quickly figured out that it was essentially pointless to be present since about 3/4 of the business people weren’t even there.  They already had the approved licenses printed out and they started calling individual names out to pay for their renewal.  They started with a beer license, then wine and malt and then we got to the restaurant licenses.  This is where all the chaos started.  Most of the Chinese business people present were here for the restaurant license and Cathy started to call out their names.  No one responded after the first few names and then one of the men who spoke a little English came up to start talking with Cathy.  She asked him to translate for her, but it really didn’t get much better.  They all started looking at each other and talking over Cathy and the translator…finally a few minutes passed and Cathy told the translator to inform all the people here for a restaurant license to come forward, at this point half the people stood up and went to the front, they couldn’t figure out the names or what was required so after a few more minutes she had the translator tell all the Chinese restaurant and shop owners that they were all approved and they could come to pay later…at that point they all stood up and left the room at once, all laughing. 

Well, that left about 10 of us again and after a few names they finally called Nancy Rifenbark and we went up front.  She says that our license is approved and we can pay at the cashier.  We asked her if we had to pay right away and they tell us, no, we have until the end of the month to pay for the renewal.  So we left after about 50 minutes of chaos.  There was absolutely no need for us to be there, we could have simply gone to town hall on Tuesday, asked if we were approved and paid the fee.  Oh well, we are slowly learning and it didn’t turn out to take too much time, plus the experience was worth the wait. 

So the New Year was here and we had all our licenses under control again – now we would see how business would be this year.  Poker was moving along well and giving us some exposure to people who weren’t coming to our place before so that was encouraging. 

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.

Well, here it was – Grand Opening. None of us could actually believe that we had pulled the whole thing together so quickly. We had the opening planned for a Saturday and everything was set. The DJ would arrive around 4pm to set up, we had alcohol stocked, a supplied kitchen and staff in place. Everyone was a little nervous because none of us knew exactly what to expect. We were hoping for a good mix of local Belizeans and expats – our overall goal for the restaurant was for it to be welcoming to everyone. It was a real concern here in Corozal that we could easily discourage Belizeans from eating at Scotty’s if we didn’t play our cards right and that was the very last thing we wanted to do. We were going out on a limb with our plan to only serve burgers, fries and sandwiches. Almost all the other restaurants in town served local dishes such as rice and beans, but we wanted to stand out so we chose not to compete with that – we were not going to pretend that we knew how to cook these dishes. It had been discussed between the three of us that we would change our plan if it came to the point that we were getting enough negative feedback about that decision.

The opening hour was set for 5pm. We chose to skip lunch hour on this day since we felt we would have a very large crowd for dinner and we didn’t want to overwhelm ourselves. The burger had been tweaked to perfection by Will, the fries were turning out fantastic – we went with handcut curly fries to be different – and we had finalized our beer battered onion ring recipe. We were slightly concerned about our fried food. The fryer we had purchased did not regulate it’s own temperature which meant that if we started to get large orders for fried foods the oil temperature would go down dramatically as we continue to fry food and things could get messy but this is what we had to work with so we couldn’t worry about it too much. We had another unique item on the bar menu, lime cello – Will had home brewed the concoction himself as a variation of lemon cello. It is made with Belize’s over proof rum (similar to 151) and lime peels and then added to simple syrup after sitting for a couple weeks and served ice cold. No one in Corozal had this refreshing little drink on their menu and we had high hopes for it. There were also some minor improvements we had to make to the road around the bar – the rain had flooded a lot of the road and surrounding areas which meant that cars continued to get stuck in certain areas around our place. This would not be good for customer satisfaction so we had gravel brought in and dumped all along our gate to ensure cars could park easily without getting caked in mud.

All the employees were at the bar around 11am and we were all running around making sure the final touches were in place. By 4pm the DJ hadn’t arrived yet but we weren’t too concerned. We had a spot for him already set up and we had called to confirm he was coming, he was, and was just running on Belizean time. We had a few expats contact us before Saturday and make reservations for 5pm so we were expecting people right at opening time and, sure enough, they arrived right on time. So it started – we were all so excited to serve our first official customers. I say “official” because we had about 4 days of a soft open before grand opening just to make sure we had the menu down – we had been given great feedback from that. While that first group was ordering the DJ finally arrived and got set up. Now, our place isn’t very big but it’s also not totally enclosed so we were anxious about how it would go with the DJ. We basically told him to keep the music at background level until later which he was okay with. So he continued to set up and then it hit…we got completely slammed. We all moved into high gear and got a little panicked. It quickly became a mad house – we had rented some additional chairs and tables for the chance that this would happen and now we were very happy we did. People just kept coming in and had to share tables or wait for tables. The first wave of people were all expats and they absolutely, 100% hated the DJ. They constantly told us to make him turn the music down – which we did until it was barely worth having the music there at all. Will, Salvador and Salvador’s brother Eli were in the kitchen running around like crazy getting orders out and Vanessa, Sherie, me and mom were in the front getting drinks out and orders placed. Sweat was running down my face and I was trying hard to just slow down and think a little. Other than the music everyone seemed to enjoy the food and the experience – as expected we started to have problems with the fried food after a bit because the oil wasn’t staying hot enough so we did start to get some complaints on that but everyone maintained a positive and helpful attitude.

As the first wave of people were leaving a second group started coming in – this time it was all locals. It was a little later now so we had the DJ put the volume up a little and this time people were enjoying it rather than complaining so it wasn’t a total waste of money to have him there. At this point no one was buying the lime cello so we started taking a few shots to calm the nerves a little – not sure if this is the best idea but we went with it anyway – we were trying to have fun with this night since it was turning out to be such a big success. Everyone on the staff was meshing well and having a good time. The fried stuff continued to be a pain so at the end of the night we just had to stop serving fries and onion rings – this would be a problem that would have to be addressed.

Towards the end of the night – closing time was 11pm – there was a group of expats hanging out and having a great time drinking and dancing and there were a few locals still hanging around doing the same. It turned out to be a great atmosphere and at that point we all could start relaxing. The only negative to the night was Will’s stress level – he was completely stressed out even at the end of the night and mad at me for taking shots during the night. So he stormed in the house and stayed there for awhile. I was elated that the night had gone so well and continued to be in the bar and socialize with everyone else. I could see Will’s concern if we would have gotten drunk while trying to operate the bar but that was hardly the case so I chose to not concern myself with it – we would have to discuss that one later.

About 12am we had the DJ shut down and closed the bar for the night. There were about 6 people there the whole time and they had a blast – they told us that they would be back and were excited for a new place to socialize. Once everyone had left we all sort of fell in to the closest chair and reflected a bit – all the employees left shortly after that and I crashed in my bed. It had been a success and that was extremely exciting. I knew we weren’t going to be that busy on a regular basis but the word was out and Scotty’s was open.

The first thing we did was ask around town.  Everyone had a different solution for us.  Various meat shops were recommended; some people told us that we would never find what we were looking for here because there’s not enough fat on the cows and others told us to go well beyond the Corozal town limits to find our beef.  There were a couple options that appealed the most to us.  The first was a company called Running W that was located in the Cayo district (about a 3 hour drive from Corozal) and the second option was to contact the food buyer for the Las Vegas casino in the Free Zone because they get their meat brought in from the states.  First Will called the woman at the casino to talk to her about possibly getting in on their orders but that was an immediate dead end.  They didn’t get their supply from the states anymore and if we were going to tag on to their orders we would also need an import permit.  We didn’t want to put in that additional cost right off the bat so we went to option B.  We were told that the Running W had meat sent in to the stores in Belize City on a regular basis and since we were making some trips over there we decided that we would buy some samples and see what their deal was.  When we finally got to Belize City to buy these samples we found that there was no Running W meat in town because of all the flooding that was happening across the country.  Damn.  So we bought some random samplings of the beef patties that were in the store to try them out.  At this point we were all getting a bit discouraged because if we couldn’t find the meat we wanted then our whole vision would go down the drain. 

We got back to Corozal with our meat as well as all the other supplies we would need to create our first burger.  Will got the grill fired up and it would be our first attempt.  It was an exciting moment with mom and I sitting in the bar waiting anxiously to try out our product.  Will got the burger finished and presented it on a simple ceramic plate for us all to try.  It looked great, we were all optimistic.  Will cut up the burger in three pieces so we could all have a sample.  The three of us took a bite in a coordinated effort and we all knew right away that this wasn’t it.  My dreams were dashed – we would still be on the search for this non-existent beef.  The problem came in the taste.  It cooked up fine and the meat held together but the suppliers put their own blend of seasonings in the actual ground beef that gave the final product more of a meat loaf taste.  It would not be good enough.  Our goal was an all-American juicy burger, not a slab of meatloaf on a bun.  When various meat shops were being recommended early on there was one that was repeatedly mentioned.  Frank’s Meats right in Corozal town – we had been told they are the best in Corozal but even they most likely would not have what we were looking for.  Since we were already down the list to option C we didn’t have much choice but try them out.  So the next day we found our way to Frank’s to see if they could sell us what we needed.  Frank is an extremely friendly man and was more than willing to help us out.  He was excited to hear that there would be a new place opening up in town and also eager for the new business.  We purchased some of his ground beef and some ground steak, the plan was to try a burger made of purely ground beef, one of purely ground steak and one with a mix of both.  So we got back home and Will tried again – he was the one with all the burger cooking experience since he had been an assistant manager at Helvetia Tavern in Oregon where burgers were their specialty.  He got all three burgers made and we sat around again to sample the final result.  This was more like it – all three tasted like an American burger but they all had distinctly different tastes as well.  The meat would make a big difference.  We all voted and decided on the winner which I won’t divulge here since I’m sure all my competition are keeping tabs on this blog J

Our Burger

So it was a success.  We were yet another step closer to opening day which was tentatively set for November 15^th since we were still waiting for the liquor license to be approved.  We all sat around laughing at ourselves for being in a new country trying to open this restaurant up and not even knowing if we could get good beef – what were we thinking?  Either way we were learning a lot along the way and having some interesting experiences to go along with it.