Trooper OOPS!

On it's best days our little old, 1990 Trooper isn't a thing of beauty, but right now she's having a new struggle. We let Rene take it home over the weedends so that he can get to another job on Friday and then to the market over the weekend. A week ago he bro't the car back and parked it on the driveway. We've had the emergency brake repaired, but he doesn't like to use it. He was weedeating a distance away and I was in the house when I heard a noise and looked out in time to see the Trooper bumping down the hill on it's own. I took off running and yelling when I heard a fairly gentle crash. As I came around the corner of the bodega I saw that it had hit our lime tree. The tree had been struggling with an infestation of bugs which we'd been treating, but it's now a moot point as it was broken and lying off to the side. Luckily, the Trooper only seems to have a broken headlight. If the tree hadn't been there, it would have picked up speed going down the hill and probably been totalled in the heavy bush. We've been trying to find a used headlight assembly, but no one has a driver's side light, so have now ordered a new one. Next week we'll take it to Bado (body shop) and have him straighten the hood and fender and install the new light.
2 weeks later:
We looked everywhere we could think of to find a used headlight, but only found three that were for the passenger side. Darn. Ended up having Bedo order a new one and then straighten the hood and fender to accomodate the light. I told him he didn't have to make it pretty because that would only embarrass the rest of the car. We now have it back and so far, so good. We're ready for a lull in the unexpected expenses.

Rain, rain and more rain

Sometimes it seems that's all I talk about, but right now it's definitely on our minds. If you can look at a satellite photo of Central America you'll see that we're right at the junction where fronts from the Pacific heading NE and those from the Atlantic, heading NW are meeting and heading for Mexico and the Caribbean. The hurricane center says that there aren't strong winds associated, just lots of rain. Well let me tell you, that's an understatement. It's been pouring for two days and is supposed to continue tomorrow. We're not going to head down until this is over as there's no way we could get back up our hill.

We have one neighbor just beyond ours and he's trying to do some construction. They have hopes to open as a small resort. I swear there's one resort for every tourist in Belize. People can't believe that we're gringo's, live here and don't have a resort. Anyway, we heard a truck try to make it up the hill, unsuccessfully, and then Bailey started barking. "Good boy!" I saw two guys walking up the hill, dragging rebar! ! ! Can you imagine. It's about a 1/4 mile up that muddy, long hill.

My dilemma is laundry. I didn't want to leave clothes at the laundry because I don't know when we'd get back to pick them up, but we really needed some things, so I did a few loads today. Seems silly because it's raining like crazy. I used the existing lines on the verandas of the guest house and our house and Art hung a new, higher line on our veranda so that I could hang sheets. Heaven only knows when, or if, they'll get dry. It's still quite warm out, so worth a try. Makes me feel as tho' I'm doing something positive anyway. Several of our friends have butane clothes dryers. I'm envious, but a huge expense for such a short time. It's something we'd buy tho' if we could afford it.

OK, back to J.D. Robb and Dallas. In case someone reads this who doesn't know, J.D. Robb is a nom de plume for Nora Roberts, writing about detective Eve Dallas. Great stories, but I've read them all at least 3 times. I'm getting desperate. I slurp these books up so fast tho', that I forget them just about as fast. Scary!

Dengue fever

Our dear Rene, who works so hard for us two days a week, was working a week ago when he collapsed. He's been weedeating. We heard a faint cry and Art dashed out to see what had happened. Rene was on the ground. He hurt all over, but mostly in his stomach and head. We got him in our truck and Art took him to the government hospital, stopping off at Rene's to get a couple of his sons. They stayed with him while they ran tests and checked him over. Now this hospital is new, but nearly worthless. The service is free, but you get what you pay for. Rene went back home, but felt awful over the weekend, so they took him to a private Dr, who diagnosed him as having Dengue and possibly malaria at the same time. There have been lots of mosquitos everywhere, with all our rain, so hard to pinpoint where he got it. We don't have any standing water, but the bush does harbor dampness. Anyway, after a week, he's doing much better and he's determined to try to return to work on Monday. We do pay his social security, which is a combination of retirement and workmen's comp insurance. He'll collect 80% of what his reported earnings are. The trouble is, so many people don't pay the insurance, so many workers end up with nothing. They work so hard for so little anyway, that it makes you angry. Dengue is a real threat here. We've had other friends who have contracted it and it's taken them months to get back to normal. Besides being weak, you have a horrible headache.

I'm so glad that Rene is doing better and we're praying we escape it, but it's hard to escape those little devil mosquitos.

Jaguar carving

I finally finished my jaguar panel. I was really happy with the carving, but disappointed at how red it turned when I put the teak oil finish on it. This is my first use of mahogany, but I should have expected this. Anyway, I now have to push myself to start something new. I can't complain any more that I don't have the time, because I'm getting really lazy and spend lots of spare time reading. I'm going to try to find a wood that's not quite so red this next time.

Sunday

We decided to drive into San Ignacio for breakfast. It's something we always enjoyed doing in the States. Here it's somewhat of a challenge. Most everything is closed except the grocery stores, and many of them close early. Our only choice is Pop's. It's a little hole in the wall that seems to have been there forever. Only six booths, so we had to wait outside, hovering to grab the next one available. As Gringo's we have to stand up for ourselves in line or we'll lose out. We had a nice breakfast with my favorite, fry jacks. Everyone seems to make them a little differently, but I love Pop's the best. I should try to learn to make them, but I really don't like to cook and it's so much better when you can enjoy those of an expert.

The weather is "tween" right now. Threatening, with thunder both to the north and to the south most of the day, but little rain for us. The Mopan river is at the bottom of our hill and it comes from Guatemala and the mtns. It's obvious that the clouds and storms to the south of us are dumping rain on Guatemala because the Mopan looks like the chocolate river in the Willie Wonka movie. The water level is high, but not enough to flood Paslow Falls Rd., which is a blessing, and is a dark red, mud color. We really don't covet land along the river. The potential for flooding is huge. The bugs love the dampness. According to Rene, who lives along the Mopan, the iguana's, which are a protected species, destroy most of their plants. We're so happy up on our hill where we usually have a lovely breeze. It's stifling hot a lot of the time along the river. When the weather is nice and the water is clear, we just pop down the hill and enjoy a dip. The best of both worlds!

We both did some weedeating yesterday so have decided to give ourselves a day off today. Art's reading and I'll probably try to finally finish a panel I've carved of a jaguar. I've really been lazy about my artwork. Discipline isn't my long suit.

I had planned to run errands tomorrow, licensing the pickup and going to the Bank. Those will have to wait a day because, saddly George Price, who lead the country of Belize into independence in 1981 and became the first Prime Minister, passed away this last week, just before Independence Day. Prime Minister Dean Barrow has declared Monday a holiday in memory of Mr. Price.

Hope you are all enjoying a relaxing day too. Blessings, Gale

Adjustment to butane conversion

We've been driving our pickup for a bit now on butane and it's doing beautifully. A problem did arise, however, when we tried to flip it back to gasoline. I've been checking some articles online and read that it's adviseable to start the vehicle on gasoline, at least occasionally, to keep the engine clean. It did start on gasoline, but had no power and wouldn't move. It seemed to be starving. Took it back to LP gas and found that indeed was the problem. It was starving for air. If you have this done, be sure to have this problem addressed. I wasn't there for the dialogue on the problem, but apparently the engine needs more air on gasoline. They installed a switch that will open (or reroute) the airflow when on gasoline. We'll probably have someone else look at it to be sure that this is the proper adjustment. Hope this ends this little project. We are very pleased tho' with the performance on butane and would recommend it to anyone trying to save money on fuel. Now, back to life in Belize!

Trip with friends in the newly converted truck

A friend had to fly to the State because his mother isn't well, so I agreed to drive him and his wife, Betty, to the airport. It had rained hard most of the night, so I was really leary about driving down our hill. Art didn't want me to try it, but I'd promised, so I slipped and slid sideways down the hill.

It's a short two hour drive from here to the airport, but we always allow lots of time as the trip from here to Belmopan is hurry up and slow down for villages, buses and kids going to school. From there, Betty, our good friend Diane & I headed for Belize City as I'd never been to the new Benny's. Wow, what a treat that was. It's the first store I've seen in Belize that resembles one in the States. It's like a smaller version of Home Depot. Lots of beautiful items for your home, but few would fit in our little wooden house. Our small rooms and single wall construction aren't conducive to installing fancy fixtures, tile or large appliances. I'm sure I left drool marks tho' on the washers and dryers. We had such a lovely time looking tho'. We then made a stop at Brodie's. They're a little high priced on most things, but they carry so many things that you can't find anywhere else. It's lovely to see familiar brands. Our next stop was great, but please don't ask me the name or where we were, because I was lost. Down an alley, behind several stores was a small warehouse that appeared closed. We were buzzed in (made me think of old movies where they buzz you into a dark door to an illegal gambling hall), but this was a wholesale produce place. It was getting to be afternoon, so pickings were somewhat slim, but we still got lovely lettuce, grape tomatoes, apples, peppers , asparagus at good prices. Our last stop was at Save U. I was getting desperate as it's way too easy to spend more than you intend, but here the prices were too good to pass up. I didn't buy a lot but sure had fun.

We headed toward Cayo about 2:30pm. My concern was that it had rained a lot during the day and our road loomed large in my mind. I dropped each of the ladies off at their homes and then headed home myself. Betty insisted on following me in her old 4x4 truck. I felt badly that I'd let my concern spill over to them. She waited at the bottom of our hill and I headed up. I didn't get very far before I got stuck. The mud is slippery like gumbo and I couldn't find rock. I backed up and tried again. Still no luck. Betty stood by and watched my wheels while I kept trying by rocking just a little. Finally, I was able to get down to a bit of rock and lurched my way up the slippery ruts to the top of our hill. I wanted to stop and thank Betty & let her know that I was ok, but I couldn't stop. When I got home the truck & I were both a muddy mess, but I was glad to be home with my groceries and to be able to just relax. It was all worth it. I had such a lovely time with two truly nice friends.

I haven't had a chance to fuel up yet, but the gauge on the tank shows 45% full, if I'm reading it right. We know that our V8 engine doesn't get good mileage, but it appears that the trip cost about $65bz, where previously it cost about $150 for gasoline and a shuttle is from $180-$200, so NOT BAD! Blessings!

We're driving on butane

This isn't going to be the definitive answer to all your butane questions. Just how we see our conversion. It was a tad cheaper than we'd been told, which was a lovely surprise. We just put a few gallons in at LP gas as they only had the imported butane available for $5.21bz/gallon. Art drove to the BNE depot and filled up with 25.5 gallons for $102bz. ($4bz/gallon). Now the test will be the mpg.

Right off the bat we can see two problems.

1. We've lost some of our load space and the gauges and connection are toward the back, so we'll want to put some kind of a barrier there if we want to haul anything that might hit them. Already ran into that problem when we hauled the old flail over to Hillside welding AGAIN! Yes, that's 3 trips to Sp. Lookout this week.

2. This is a problem for me. The switch on the dash is just the right height that I tend to bump it will my delicate little knee when I get out of the truck. Have done it twice already in one day. Up is butane, down is gasoline.

These are just minor bumps and certainly not significant enough to discourage someone from having the conversion done.

The biggest issue is that, right after we got home the "check engine" light came on. Bummer! Now will have to go to Matus to have that checked. He's the only one with a real code tester.

9/12 This morning Art took the truck to Matus to find the answer to the "check engine" light. Whew! He said it's normal. Just the vehicle's way of saying things have changed. Ignore it! Hard to do, but great to have such a simple answer and it was "free."

Butane questions

I'll know more after Tuesday, but I'll answer a couple of questions right now.
First, most of the people use butane appliances, ie. stoves, on-demand water heaters, etc., so there are lots of places to get butane. There must be at least 10 in San Ignacio alone. We're lucky that BNE just opened a new station on the Western highway, just west of San Ignacio.

The truck will have a semi-permanently installed tank in the bed of the truck. To fill it we just go to a station and they fill it there. Our only problem that we can see is if we decide to put the canopy back on the truck.

I forgot to mention that there'll be a switch which will allow us to run on either butane or gasoline. This will make it easier as we could switch to gasoline if we should ever take a long trip with the canopy on and a load in the truck.

Hope these help.

butane vs gasoline

We've been struggling with this question for quite a while. I'm referring to switching to using butane to fuel our pickup truck. We love our 8 cylinder, 2000 Toyota Tundra, but it's a gas guzzler. Here in Belize gas has run up and down from $10.47bz to nearly $12 per gallon. In US dollars that's from $5.50 to $6. Ick! $200bz won't even fill the tank. We use the Trooper some, but it's not much better considering it's age. We haven't really travelled much around the country because of the expense. Between the vehicles and weedeaters we feel we're supporting the gas station on Bullet Tree Rd, all by ourselves.

A few years ago, oil was discovered here in Belize. There are several wells in Spanish Lookout, with more scattered around the country. BNE (Belize Natural Energy) seems to be quite prosperous, but we understand that most of the $$s leave the country, as the oil is processed out of Belize and the company itself is Canadian. Anyway, I digress!

A byproduct of this oil is butane gas. Now my knowledge about all this is extremely limited and I was under the impression that butane and propane weren't interchangeable, but apparently I was mistaken. Anyway, at this point, we are focusing on our immediate problem. Imported butane sells for around $4.50 - $6/ gallon, with the local butane from BNE selling for $4/gallon. We've met several folks lately who have converted their vehicles and they couldn't be happier, so off we trudged to Spanish Lookout to check out conversion possibilities. (I still find it weird that the best mechanics are Mennonites. Kind of an oxymoron to my way of thinking). Folks who've had the conversion done claimed to have spent from $1k to $1,400. Of course, when we checked it has now gone up to closer to $2k for the complete conversion, plus a 30 gallon tank as well as some butane. One consideration is that we'll probably get one or two miles per gallon less with butane. Even at that price, with butane being only $4/gallon, we can save enough in a year to pay for the conversion. It's tough to spend money on something so unexciting, but fiscal survival makes it a smart decision, so Tuesday, early, we head off for Spanish Lookout. Here's hoping we'll find ourselves among those smug, satisfied customers. Later,

Lazy days of summer

Here in Belize that phrase has a different meaning for me than it did up in Oregon. Up there it seemed that the weather is still warm, but the nights are getting a little cooler and you should just sit back and enjoy the slow, winding down. Here, it's just too hot to do much else. I feel guilty as lots of the local folks (Rene for one) keep working all day, heat and all. It just wipes me out. It will rain for a while one day and then be hot for the next few. Today dawned cloudy, but didn't feel like rain, so I quickly did a couple of loads of laundry. I'm probably repeating myself again, but I do laundry the Belizean way. I either haul water or use the hose to till a washer that agitates, then I move the clothes to a tub on the side, which spins the clothes. It's reminiscent of the wringer washer system my grandmother used. Anyway, I hung the clothes on the line, ate a bite of breakfast and then had to head to town to get the Trooper licensed. This wonderful event is once-a-year, as is the insurance, and a pain in the "neck" (insert your own body part of choice). We always have to wait our turn, which can mean a long time unless we assert the fact that we were there ahead of others. Then they may or may not inspect the car. Now we're talking here about a 1990 Trooper with 280k miles. We checked all the lights before leaving home and they all worked. We just had the emergency brake fixed, so we felt in pretty good shape. Well this happened to be one of the times that he wanted to check the car. The left headlight is held in place by a piece of wire and always heads a little bit off to the left. He pointed out that it was not very bright. Was he refering to me or the car? Of course the sun was blinding us and boiling my brains out, but I couldn't argue with him. Luckily, Art popped up about then and whispered to him that this car is not driven at night and is only our security system. Hi smiled and let the rest of the check go. Way to go Art! Of course then there is another fellow to double check the paperwork and then you go to the cashier. Here we had to wait in line behind a couple relicensing a taxi. They were shuffling with the money an bro't out a wad that looked like hundreds of dollars. Turned out to be his fares, so was two's (yes in Belize they use paper twos that are blue) and fives along with a bunch of US ones. The clerk had to sort it all, turn the buills around, shuffle, shuffle. I was ready to jump the counter and do it for them, but they finally agreed on the amount and it was our turn to hand over $200 and wait for the poor girl to hand write all the papers. My little voice has to keep say, "this is a 3rd world country, it's an emerging nation, it will be over soon!" Miraculously it was. The weird thing is that here, rather than getting license tabs, you get a sticker for your windshield. We always put the sticker on the passenger side. Now, they're demanding that the stickers go on the driver's side. It's to make it more convenient for the transportation inspector to check when he stands in the middle of the road at a checkpoint. Of course, you might hit him as your vision will be impaired because of the stickers, but ours is not to reason why. (Little voice says, "get a grip Gale, you'll be out of there soon). Oh joy, I get to do this again next month when the license for the pickup expires.

After we left there it was off to Three Flags (market) and the bank. The line at the bank can be long and take forever, so we stopped and got a coke before heading home. We had a bite of lunch and then, our energy flagged and it's an afternoon of reading and just gentle chores. I'm seeing the practicality of the mid-day siesta. My trouble is that it's stretching out longer and longer. Wow, looks as tho' I may be retired!

cacao problems

This probably isn't of interest to anyone but us, but I want to record some of it here for my own memories. We were so excited because our root stock has been doing so well. We've had a good success ratio and had lots of small plants for grafting. Our only source of buds for us to graft has been at Marco's place in San Ignacio. It's exciting to see his trees, full of flowers and tiny pods. We select buds from the strongest trees with the most pods. Marco hasn't labeled his trees, but we know that his are grafted and a mix, so that's going to have to be good enough. Rene and I have collected buds 3 different times and returned home and grafted them the same day. We've been extremely careful with our grafts, but the end result after all this time is that we've had almost no success. We haven't been able to coordinate with Marco for help, so have been struggling on our own. Art & Rene have been extremely disappointed and wanted to give up, but I just can't. If they can do it in Toledo then, by darn, we can do it here in Cayo. It's just hard to have lost so much time and money with our experiments, but we're NOT giving up.

I've been looking at the grafts that we've lost and it seems that they're really wet, with some even having mold on them. We've had them under the trees, but not really under cover. We've had some serious rain lately at times, so that I'm pretty sure that that's our problem. It's not so much our grafting techniques as much as too much water. Marco had already told us that cacao doesn't want to have their feet wet all the time. This time we pulled out all the stops. Our friend Jane gave us a screened house that we'd hesitated to put up as it's not real heavy and we were afraid that the wind and rain would destroy it, but we need it, so up it went.

Fourth batch - Rene and I experimented with different kinds of grafts too with this batch. We left some buds long and not covered and used plastic wrap rather than the parafilm on most of the side grafts. We had already tried 2 unsuccessful grafts on several of the plants, so Rene cut the top off of them and tried a top graft. We put all of these in the screened house right away. We're hoping that in a couple of weeks we'll see an improved result. At that point we cut the tape off and expose the graft to the air. It's hard to work with your fingers crossed!

We've arranged with Marco to come up on Monday to review our problems and give us some advice. Rene feels badly that he didn't ask all the questions we have when he was in Toledo, but heck, he was really only there for one day and we think he learned a lot in a very short time. It's frustrating to learn by the "hunt and peck" system, but we'll get there. We also remind ourselves that the folks in Toledo were given everything by grants. They have concrete floor buildings, were given seed and unlimited help with growing, grafting and pruning. We're outsiders by being in Cayo as well as being gringos. It's just a fact of life here that we can't let make us angry. It seemed to us when we were actually living in the US that the immigrants got most of the assistance and priorities, but here in Belize it's just the opposite. Unless you're a wealthy gringo, you just shut your mouth and plug along trying not to make waves. We knew that coming in, so we try to make it work. The part that makes it acceptable is that we have friends in the same boat. It's easy to feel sorry for ourselves until we look at the plight of the local families and then we realize that we're doing ok. At least we have a great place to live and food. Many of them have next to nothing. That's for another posting. I can really get angry for them. My glass is still half full.