My Dad has been visiting us in Belize for the past five weeks and his trip is quickly coming to an end.  Since he had not yet had the experience of deep sea fishing in Belize we needed to get a trip to San Pedro in before he left.  That trip happened last Sunday through Wednesday and we had high hopes.  Maybe we were a tad bit optimistic because the weather has been unseasonable chilly for awhile now.  Sunday morning we all woke up to a cold and breezy morning – typically a boat ride over to San Pedro, which takes about two hours, is an awesome experience, but this time over was pretty cold.  We had layers, jackets, hats and blankets but we were determined to have fun and go fishing.

When we got to San Pedro the sun was actually out.  Since we had left Corozal in some drizzling rain we were pretty happy about seeing the sun.  This was promising.  So we tied Capt. J’s boat to the dock and started to unload our stuff.  The plan was to stay three nights so we checked in at the Princess Maya which has been our lodging of choice in San Pedro lately.  After we got settled in we all decided that we would just take Sunday and lounge around San Pedro since the sea past the reef looked a little rough with the wind whipping from the North.  Capt. J and my parents hung out on our balcony while my guy and I went down the beach to the Crazy Canuck’s bar to meet one of his friends Lara, who just launched her luxury bikini line Lemon Crush (http://www.lemoncrushbelize.com/), and have a few drinks.  It turned out that the day just kept getting nicer so we sat out on the dock with our drinks and enjoyed the sun – we had all been missing it.  When you walk around the town and people are wearing parkas and ski caps in Belize there is something very wrong with the picture.

That night we all took the boat over to the Palapa Bar to have some drinks; by then it was dark and getting cold again.  It was back to the hotel pretty early that night to try and warm up.  Our attempt at fishing would happen Monday.  Monday morning was beautiful when we all woke up but the plan was to eat breakfast and go out on the boat around 10am.  We were all headed to the boat around 10:30 and at almost the exact time that our feet hit the dock the wind kicked up and the clouds rolled in.  We were determined to catch a fish though so we all piled in to the boat and took off for the reef crossing.

As soon as we got outside the reef it was very clear that this would not be a warm ride.  I had put my bikini on in the hopes that the weather would get better but it never happened.  So we all made a mutual decision to troll close to Caye Caulker and then pull the lines in and hang out on Caye Caulker for awhile if we didn’t catch anything.  Nothing even came close to hitting our lines on the way over so that was a bust.  We crossed the reef again to get on the island, beached the boat and went on the hunt for something warm.  We found a little place to eat soup which we all ordered along with hot tea.  I was a site in men’s sweat pants, a swimsuit cover-up and my fleece jacket all over my bikini, but I was cold.  We didn’t stay on Caye Caulker too long; it was about two hours later that we were back on the boat to get back to San Pedro.  I stayed in the cabin for the ride back since my teeth were actually chattering out in the wind and I was happy that it was a quick ride back.  That night we went out to Fido’s for dinner and listened to live music for awhile.

After our hour long fishing experience this time we all decided there would be no more attempts at fishing outside the reef – it would have to wait for a warmer day.  So my guy and I flew back to Corozal on Tuesday afternoon while the rest of the crew stayed one more night.  The tiny little plane we flew back in was the smallest plane I have ever flown in – it only had four seats which included the captain’s seat.  It was a great ride back though and it was actually sunny when we got back to Corozal.

A couple of weeks ago I had the very cool experience of seeing a wild cat up close and personal.  Of course the events which brought this cat in to my life are very sad – it was a very young baby margay (http://www.belizezoo.org/zoo/zoo/mammals/mar/mar1.html) that had been orphaned and found by a Belizean in the jungle.  This cat is listed as an endangered animal so it was very sad to speculate that its mother had seen a worse fate.  A friend of mine decided to acquire the cat for the sole purpose of getting it to the Belize zoo located in Belize City – it is illegal to keep an animal such as this for a pet.  This little cat was so cute, but sounded just like a big jungle cat so it was a little nerve racking to be around the little guy.

The baby margay was very scared and simply stared at us.  He was maybe one or two pounds at the most.  In the cage he came in he tried his best to disappear in to a corner – we were glad to know that he would be in a much happier habitat soon.

The next day I coaxed him in to a cat carrier – appropriately a leopard print – with some tuna on a plate.  He seemed to be hungry enough since he went right in the carrier and I was able to zip him in for the trip from Corozal to Belize City.  So my friend and I plus another family all piled in to the vehicle and headed off to the zoo – we figured that we may as well make a day of it.  I had yet to see the Belize zoo so I was excited to make the trip.  We had called the zoo previously to make sure this was the best thing to do with the cat and they assured us it was and that they would take him in.

The trip to the zoo was about an hour and a half but we finally made it.  The skies were a bit cloudy and there was some light rain but we were determined to see all the animals.  It was probably ideal weather for viewing the animals since the hot sun wasn’t beating down.  First things first though, we stopped in at the front desk and told the attendant there that we had the margay to turn over to them.  They hustled around trying to find the correct person to check the cat out so they told us to go ahead and make our way around the zoo while they figured it out.

We made our way through all the exhibits and, as suspected, the weather was perfect because we saw all but one animal that day.  Most of the animals were in plain sight and walking around their enclosures.  The experience really felt as though we were simply walking through the jungle observing each of these animals.  There are over 125 animals at the zoo, all native to Belize and each exhibit provides a brief summary of the animal with a few facts.  I have visited the zoo in Portland, OR many times but this provided an entirely different experience.  I had never seen most of the animals that I had the privilege of viewing at the Belize zoo.  The kids were especially excited about each animal – there was some brief hesitation from some of them at first since they weren’t sure what they would be seeing, but that quickly went away and they were all running around to see the next animal.

The kids all decided that they liked the tapirs the best – probably because it was the one animal they were actually able to touch.  It was the first time I had seen a tapir though a few of my friends have seen them in the wild here.  After an hour or so we had seen it all and the kids were getting tired so we headed back to the front desk to see what had become of our little margay.  The carrier was empty and they were busy checking him out so now he’ll be safe in his new home at the zoo.

If you happen to make a trip to Belize in the future or you are here and haven’t been to the zoo yet; make sure that activity gets put towards the top of your list.  It’s a very worthwhile experience and a must see if you spend any time in this country.  Hopefully in the next year I’ll make another trip to the zoo to visit that little cat and see how he’s doing.

A few days in to the New Year, I would like to wish everyone a very happy and healthy 2010! Check out http://www.expatdailynews.com/2010/01/racy-calendar-girl-pictures-cause.html for a brief summary of my New Year’s Eve experience here.

I would also like to make a note that any new entries of my experiences here will not include “real time entry.” Now, since most of my entries are of my current experiences, I will only distinguish the past experiences of setting up my restaurant with, “Scotty’s Story” at the heading of each of those entries.

Thanks for reading!

As I mentioned in my previous post we attempted to start a Christmas boat parade here in Corozal and there were high aspirations for this project.  The venture started off three months before December even arrived.  The idea emerged at the tail-end of a night out drinking with friends.  Mom and I were sitting around a table with Rod and Ken at Haley’s, a local bar, when the topic of Christmas boat parades came up.  Rod had been in a few big parades in Florida and thought that it would be fun to try and rally all the boat owners in Corozal to be a part of a boat parade here.  Unlike nearby San Pedro (on Ambergris Caye), Corozal doesn’t have this tradition.  Mom and I both thought it would be a lot of fun so we said we were onboard for sure (we don’t own a boat so our involvement wasn’t much of a commitment).

The three of us planned on having a committee meeting every Wednesday until the middle of December when the event would take place.  Our intentions were good, we even assigned each committee member a position (I was the secretary), but as the weeks moved ahead our enthusiasm waned.  All hope wasn’t lost yet; we had spoken to about 12 couples who all owned boats and told us they would be involved.  It really would have been a sight for the Corozal Bay if everyone had participated.

It became clear a couple weeks before Christmas that Ken and Rod would be the only two boats appearing in the parade.  No matter, we were still determined to make this happen and had planned on it up until the weekend the whole thing was to take place.  Then the weather turned and Rod still wasn’t even back in the country with his boat yet.  So the three committee members in country (me, mom and Ken) decided, with regret, that we would be canceling the boat parade.

Then Rod got back in the country and the project had life breathed in to it again; Rod convinced us all that it could still be done and they would decorate the two boats.  Two days later, and two days before Christmas we were on the bay in boats surrounded by Christmas lights and having an absolutely awesome time.  There were two boats with seven people total and we had our Christmas music blaring as we made a slow pass back and forth the town of Corozal.  We weren’t sure anyone would see us from shore since our parade had sort of fizzled before it sparked back to life.  There had been no announcement this would be taking place, but there were plenty of people along the water that night.  So we waved and yelled, “Merry Christmas” and spun the boats in front of each crowd we passed.

In the end we provided some entertainment for the kids along the water that night and for ourselves.  It is the start of a tradition for us as long as we’re in Corozal for Christmas and we may even add another boat next year.

This Christmas was a fun one – besides the missing my family part – we had a great day.  The holiday really started for us on Christmas Eve.  My mom cooked a dinner for the girls who work for us and we had some small gifts to give them so it was our version of the staff party.  We also invited a few friends to join us for dinner.  Mom fried a whole hogfish (caught in Belize) for our appetizer and then the main dinner was baked chicken along with a few typical holiday side dishes and it all turned out fantastic.  We closed the bar early so the girls were out the door before 8pm and since we would be closed for Christmas day and Boxing Day they had the next two days off.  One of our waitresses had brought over a sampling of the rumpopo her mom had made for the holidays.  Rumpopo is a traditional eggnog type drink in Belize that is made with eggs, cream, nutmeg, cinnamon and overproof rum and is delicious.  After we ate and opened gifts we all took a few pictures by the tree (fake).

A very typical sound in Corozal during the Christmas season – especially on Christmas Eve to bring in Christmas day – are the blasts of various fireworks and firecrackers that are let off all day long.  As the night continued on, more and more blasts are heard and we all knew that we would not be falling asleep before midnight so I grabbed a book and knew exactly when midnight hit by the obvious finale happening all around town.  In Corozal that night it sounded like New Year’s Eve sounds in the states.  After midnight I did fall asleep easily and was woken up by a 7:30am phone call so I drug myself out of bed and spent the next few hours hanging out with my parents and getting ready for the party later that day.

At 11am we were in the truck headed to Ken’s house for a ride on his boat to Progresso Lagoon.  My friend Matt and I were going to ride in the boat with Ken and then my parents were going to take a truck to the same party so that they would have a way to get back home.  It was a perfect day for a boat ride – the bay was calm and the sky was mostly sunny – we zipped over there pretty quickly with just one pit stop in the Copper Bank lagoon to catch Rod on his way over too.  Rod had his own boat and he zoomed off ahead of us, long gone by the time we even hit the Progresso Lagoon.  We got to the party around noon and the food was already out.  We were among the first to arrive and my parents got there almost exactly the same time we did.  Bruce and his wife Nicole already had the place ready for guests.  They had put a pig in the ground the night before and it had cooked all night long, there was also an abundance of Indian food purchased from one of the local men in town along with the various side dishes and desserts other people brought with them.  We all grabbed a drink and a seat to start in on conversation.  Slowly, more and more people started to arrive and by the end of it all there were about 40 people there.

The boat ride was already a far cry from the typical holiday activities when I was living in Oregon but it was about to get even better.  After dinner the water toys started to come out.  Water skis, tubes, a wakeboard, boats and kayaks; I knew that I wanted to water ski so I put on my swimsuit and headed out to the boat.  Matt hadn’t been waterskiing since he was a kid so he wanted a go at it too.  So Matt and I got on Rod’s boat with Rod as captain.  It was a ton of fun on two skis but I did take a nice fall to end my first trip around the lagoon.  It sort of stunned me so I passed the skis off to Matt and he got right up and made a nice spin around the lagoon before he fell.  I got back up on the skis and we made our way back to the dock were I made a much more graceful landing.  While all this was going on there was a big group of Belizean kids who were very excited to go on a boat so they piled on Ken’s small boat and from the dock it looked like an accident waiting to happen.  Luckily all the kids were wearing life jackets and the lagoon is very shallow, but sure enough, as Ken’s boat was coming back in to dock the kids were getting nervous because the front of the boat started to take on a little water due to the amount of weight on board.  Suddenly some of the kids panicked and went to the bow of the boat; well this was the very last thing that should have happened because as all their weight shifted to the front the boat took on more and more water.  Rod saw what was happening and ran his boat over to the scene to help as Bruce did a quasi dive in to the lagoon as the kids (most of whom have never been on a boat before) were insanely screaming in terror.  In the end everyone was okay but a few of the kids were very upset – I knew one of the little girls from other trips and I grabbed her hand as she was crying hysterically by herself on her way to the house.  We found her mom and eventually she calmed down, but it was quite an experience for them.

After everything had calmed down I went back out on the boat to try my luck at getting up on one ski.  I had done it before a few years ago during an Oregon skiing trip but it had been awhile, so I fell on the first attempt and the next 10 or so attempts.  At one point I did get up but did not stay up for any amount of time, but on my last try my hip popped and my leg went numb so I figured that was enough for the day.

Most of the guests left soon after that and there were just a few of us (who were spending the night) visiting before everyone made their way to bed.  As you may have already guessed I was extremely sore from my slalom experience but the worst part was that I actually injured the right side of my neck so for the last four days I’ve been nursing that.  We also attempted Corozal’s first annual Christmas Boat parade which I will write a separate entry on.   Happy New Year everyone!

It is the holiday season again and this will mark my second Thanksgiving and Christmas in Belize. Thanksgiving went by a few weeks ago and my mom and I did celebrate with friends here in Belize. Thanksgiving is, for me, easily the hardest holiday to be in Belize and away from family. It is almost surreal – the weather really doesn’t change here, and it is extremely hard to even realize that Thanksgiving and Christmas are here. I am so used to seasons; in my mind those two holidays mean cold, snow, rain and real pine trees to put up in the house. Here in Corozal I’m still sweating and the trees are plastic. So this year we had two turkey dinners with two different sets of friends. The first came the Tuesday before Thanksgiving and since Scotty’s was closed that day we were able to go out to our friend’s house for a potluck style turkey dinner – my mom made the pumpkin pie and mashed potatoes. Since we are not surrounded by our family it is common to create a pseudo family comprised of close friends we meet here – not quite the same but the practice does take away some of the loneliness I feel when the holiday season arrives.

Mom and I picked up our manager, Vanessa and her family and headed out to the party. The event was even more fun for me because my very tired boyfriend (yes, this is a fairly new development) had just arrived the night before from a long trip back to Belize and was going with us to the event. We arrived with a truck full and ended up being unintentionally, fashionably late. The night was fun; good friends, good food and good conversation.

The second Thanksgiving event was at Scotty’s. My mom had planned to prepare a turkey dinner and we were selling each plate (turkey, mashed potatoes, candied yams, stuffing, bread, salad and pie) for $20 BZD. Our main group in that day was a totally different set of friends here and it went off without a hitch. There were a few other options around town for turkey dinners so it is common for some Belizeans to go out and eat a Thanksgiving dinner on this occasion. Our dinner was a hit although that night I got really sick with some sort of stomach ailment; my mom was terrified that she had poisoned everyone but luckily that was not the case and I just had the stomach flu. Sadly for me this meant I missed out on all the leftovers since I was not eating for a couple days. We did sell a handful of dinners the next day as well so all the food was consumed and enjoyed.

After Thanksgiving I was going to get a dose of Christmas in the cold on a week-long trip to CT with my boyfriend. His family has an annual Christmas party during the first weekend in December and I was going along with him this year. I was understandably (in my opinion) nervous having never met any of his family but the trip was outstanding. I got my dose of cold holiday weather which put everything in perspective for me; I got to participate in a snowball fight, wear sweaters, worry about icy roads, go to a Christmas tree farm and drink lots of red wine (not abundantly available in Belize). Since a trip to the States also involves a list of items to bring back to friends in Belize, for the first time in my life I made two trips to Wal-Mart in one day. Even though I do appreciate the cold weather it was very nice to fly in to Cancun and enjoy a day on the beach in the warm, sunny conditions. The day we flew back was a 60 degree temperature swing for us.

Next comes Christmas. My dad flew in to Cancun yesterday and will be in Belize tomorrow evening so he will be here with my mom and me for Christmas and to bring in the New Year. It is tremendously exciting to have him here for awhile; I can’t wait to see him tomorrow. The plan for Christmas day is to go to a big party at our friend’s place at Progresso Shores. There will be no real Christmas tree or traditional gift giving, no snow on the ground, stockings on a mantle or any other family but there will be a carefully selected group of good friends who are all in the same boat as me, laughter, good food and conversation. A new experience is created which is certainly different than the one I am used to during this time of year but nonetheless very special in the sense that we are lucky to still be surrounded by love and friendship when we are missing everyone at home.

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.

Yesterday our manager Vanessa got married to another good friend of ours here in Corozal and the reception was held at our bar. They got married by the bayside at another friend’s house and it was a very small wedding – my mom was Vanessa’s witness and I took a ton of pictures. When we first met Vanessa a little over a year ago she had vowed to us that she would never be married but, as with most things, attitudes can change dramatically and quickly, so this was the case here.

The day was perfect; beautiful blue skies, a slight breeze and not too hot. Vanessa was a nervous wreck – the tears had already been flowing a few times before I had even seen her to help get her dressed and ready. To calm the nerves she took a shot of Crown with my mom and me before the wedding. The pastor performed the ceremony in Spanish so I really only caught about half of it – having been present at multiple weddings I was able to follow everything as it was said – I really need to work harder on my Spanish though. During the ceremony the couple was as happy as can be – ribbing each other every once in awhile and looking into each other’s eyes with deep love; it was just like them. By 4pm the whole thing was over and I was headed back to Scotty’s to get everything opened up and ready. Everyone else would follow after a few more pictures. We had planned on closing down the bar for the event so when I got to the bar I unlocked everything and turned the music on. Everyone else started to show up about a half hour later and, wow, did they show up! It was supposed to be a small affair (maybe 20 people at the most had been invited) but people just kept coming in so by the time everyone had shown up we had close to 70 people in the bar. We had not planned on this many people so we were worried about the amount of food that we had. Luckily a friend of ours had brought two huge containers full of tamales as a gift. That completely saved us and there was enough food to go around. Since there were so many people I was incredibly busy handing drinks out and just making sure everything was running as smoothly as possible. Another friend of Vanessa’s had made a wedding cake and brought that which was beautiful and provided more than enough cake for everyone. I had to take a quick break after most drinks had been handed out so I rode around with a few friends – we stopped to take a look at the huge tigers penned up next to the circus tent in town.

We were in full swing from about 4:30 to 9pm so by the time people started to leave we were exhausted. It was also slightly draining emotionally for the simple fact that this was the first wedding I had attended since my divorce so that brought up all kinds of strange emotions. I’m not sure I could even explain that one and I tried my best to shove all that down somewhere where it wouldn’t surface. During the reception Vanessa had a ton of emotions going through her – she was excited and happy for her and Ducky’s celebration yet she was upset at some of the people who had arrived uninvited. Overall they had a blast and took their leave around 8:30pm to the honeymoon hotel we had set up for them in town at the Almond Tree Resort.

Amongst getting prepared for their wedding we had some horrible news early this week. My mom’s best friend passed away after a diagnosis of cancer just late August of this year. She lived in Oregon and this was extremely difficult news for my mom. Overall it has been a draining range of emotions throughout this week.

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…

Halloween; one of my very favorite holidays to throw a party. I love finding a costume, dressing up, seeing what everyone else comes up with and having a party – specifically I love throwing a Halloween party. In the States my mom and I started our own Halloween party tradition and went all out for this ghostly night, but last year Halloween was a bust for us. We had just moved to Corozal and didn’t have a proper costume or a proper party to go to; this meant that we would simply have to throw a killer party this year. We began the planning early October because Halloween decorations are not very easy to come by here – not even in Chetumal. Luckily there is a resale shop in Orange Walk which imports items in from the US and typically they stock holiday items. Sure enough when we stopped in to check out what they had they were stocked full of miscellaneous Halloween décor. We filled our baskets and were very happy that we had also hit a 50% off day which meant we got a ton of stuff for almost nothing ($25 US).

We put things up here and there right away but saved most of the hardcore decorating for the week of Halloween. We had both ordered our costumes off a Halloween website and our friend brought them down from the states for us so we were really all set and I was even more excited that Halloween day would also bring a huge college football game for the Oregon Ducks vs. USC which we would get to watch on ABC. We had personally invited our friends around town and everyone was planning on coming all dressed up. Jell-O shots, Lime Cello and dancing were on the menu. Friday soon came around and we did all of our last minute decorating – the place looked fantastic. We had little kids coming in to order burgers and walking at a snail’s pace looking all over in awe, or possibly fright.

That week at the bar had been slow so we were also looking forward to having some people actually occupying the bar. Saturday morning I woke up slowly and turned on ESPN – I had totally forgotten about College Game Day setting up in Eugene, OR that day so I got to watch the Duck fans going crazy with excitement for the game and it really set my mood on high for the day. Then it hit…

The rain came in suddenly. I had seen the grey clouds in the distance but hadn’t thought much of it since we hadn’t heard of any major storms coming through. All of a sudden the clouds burst with huge drops of rain – the sound was deafening and everything immediately started to get wet. Water came in the business, my room, the living room and I was running around shutting up the house while my mom and the girls were dealing with the water coming in the business. I looked out at the sky and it was dark as far as I could see – this didn’t seem to be just passing through – my mood dipped slightly but I was still holding out hope. Of all the days for this to hit it had to be this day. I started to feel a twinge of homesickness knowing if I was in Oregon I would be at the game and at a party with no flooding.

Then the lightning started striking and the thunder was rolling. At first it started at somewhat of a distance as usual but then it started moving much closer until it was directly on top of us. It was the most intense lightning storm I had been in and a little unnerving. The power started hitting and I turned off all the electronics; I unplugged the laptop and stereo but failed to unplug the TV. At one point Vanessa was nailing stuff up to the wall in the business and a bolt of lightning struck close throwing everything off that wall and shocking her. This was serious. The cats were hiding in the cupboards, the dogs were whimpering around my mom. I was sitting in the living room putting a playlist together for that night wondering if we would even be having a party later when a big spark came snapping through the electrical outlet that the house TV was plugged in to – at that moment I knew we no longer had a working TV although I did not confirm that until later once the storm finally passed. We never lost power for too long and the cable didn’t go out but once it was all said and done both the house and business TV had blown as well as our modem. The skies were still a heavy grey and I wondered if we would get more rain that day – by 3pm I was frantic about being able to watch the Duck game but luckily we were able to borrow a friend’s TV to put in the bar to watch the game. The rain never really started up again so the party was also on, but that day we got as much rain in a few hours as we had all year.

We ate dinner at 2:30, went over to another friend’s house to get our makeup applied and back to the house to put costumes on and get to the bar just in time to catch kick-off. Everything was set and we were just waiting for people to arrive and slowly they did. In the end the Ducks pulled off a major win and we danced and drank all night – it turned out to be an outstanding day and Halloween – the only downside was that I didn’t get to enjoy my annual Halloween viewing of Rocky Horror Picture Show. In the aftermath of this storm we had to purchase a new TV for the bar and for the time being will have to live without a TV in the house, and we’re currently awaiting a new modem from BTL. So it is internet cafes for me right now, luckily they are all over the place here.

Me and Mom Ready for Halloween