Sunday, April 8, 2012

Hard to be sick when it's HOT!

It's been a trying couple of weeks.  I had a really uncomfortable case of stomach flu which lasted for several days, made worse by the heat.  As I've said in earlier posts, there are basically two seasons in Belize - wet and dry.  This year the dry season has arrived a little early.  Our last rain was in mid March and it's gotten steadily warmer since then.  The past week it's reached 100 every day.  Ick!  I have to admit that I don't handle these high temps very well, but I am over my flu.  It's hard to have much energy to do anything outside.  We get up early and take dear Bailey for a walk before it gets too hot.  Not sure if his heavy coat makes him hotter or serves as insulation against the heat.  He's such a gentle giant and I feel so helpless that we can't offer him more relief.  

Our solar is performing beautifully now, so we are able to keep fans going, which offers a lot of help, along with the wonderful breezes that seem to find us here on our hill.  A technician from ProSolar came by and installed a Trimetric meter that will tell us charge in the batteries and he lowered the panels to be at a better angle to the sun.  It's exciting to see the meter read batteries 100% charged. 

 This is the Easter weekend, which is causing a lot of frustration for many of us.  Our observation is that Belize isn't a particularly religious country, but the government declares every possible day as a holiday.  Easter is a 4 day holiday, starting with Good Friday thru Monday.  They've now passed a law that even the Chinese stores must close, which doesn't make any sense.  Why should the non-Christian religions shut down for every Christian holiday?  The government in this tiny country of some 300k folks, seems to want to divorce itself from it's British foundation and passes many laws without much tho't or discussion.  It's sad to sit back and watch them flounder with stupid things, while the infrastructure is in such sad shape.  Wow, I didn't plan to say any of this, it just spilled out.  

It's great to feel better and at least be able to talk to and see friends.   We're doing a lot of reading and I've actually picked up a paintbrush to do a couple of watercolors.  I guess the heat is the nudge that I finally needed.  Feels good!

1 comment:

sandy A said...

I have often thought that Belize has a LOT of holidays, and that the stores close unnecessarily. HOwever, I remember back in the day in the States when EVERYTHING closed for Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, Easter, almost all the majour holidays, and in Ohio (were I lived for a while as a youngster) all the stores were closed on Sundays too--"blue laws". Now everything is open all the time pretty much. How times have changed.