Traveling is educational of course, even if what you choose to learn is based on one or two examples – hence the glory of generalizations. But we thought you might like some over-all brilliance gathered from our last month in San Pedro.
1. The U.S. overbuilds its scaffolding. In fact, America’s preoccupation with safety is kinda a drag (thank you, all you lawyers) and not duplicated so much here in Belize.
2. A. Signs don’t have to give real information – they can just make you smile. Maybe both at the same time.
B. Signs don’t have to be anywhere near their location and need not mention that at all. The “World Famous” Talapa Bar has a million signs, conservatively, strewn everywhere for miles, with no hint of where this icon sits. Maxies and several other bars/restaurants also clearly believe in more than social media to communicate.
3. Entrepreneurs can flourish anywhere, but in some places it doesn’t take much to get started. At Secret Beach, we were approached by a man with an aluminum box selling meat and coconut pies (those are two separate things). They were delicious. A young woman from the Belize mainland came around selling pieces of slate-like wood which she carves with a very sharp stylus. Or you can open a shop or restaurant with what looks like a minimum of financial backing – and clearly few investors. Just set up a table. Some of the best tacos I’ve ever had came from a place called Big Eats, a tiny place on a dusty side street. The eight-year-old daughter of the owner served us at one of the three picnic tables.
Entrepreneurs flourish even if they’re not sure they want to be entrepreneurs. We met a shy nine-year-old boy in a bar selling jewelry that his mom made and when we asked him if he liked this job, he said he likes the times when nobody's around. Then, he said, he doesn’t have to talk to people so he can draw. I bought a bracelet of course, wishing that he was selling his drawings.
4. Simple inventions can make life easier so how come we don’t have these napkin holders at outside places in the states? (OK, we got a little carried away by these. It's windy here and we ate outside a LOT.) Why do you need chairs? Who says water should pour from a boring faucet?
5. In the U.S., we take Infrastructure and city services for granted and maybe we shouldn’t. When a place is growing faster than its infrastructure, it's problematic. Things like trash collection and drivable roads . . . important! You think Kansas City has potholes? Try driving a golf cart (the major means of transportation here) on roads originallly built, we guessed, in 1982 when Belize became its own country, and never repaired since. That did turn out not to be true – just today we found repair evidence. Trash is an on-going issue along roadsides, in part due to inadequate containers, but we'll spare you excessive pics except to say the one container below is the nicest one we saw.
6. Belizeans are very fond of speed bumps, somewhat hard to understand as the roads themselves serve that purpose quite well. Speed limits are posted – from 5 all the way up 15 mph….though big trucks apparently get a pass on this. Many speed bumps (sometimes just a very thick braided rope) often seem to appear just in front of a shop or restaurant, for safety reasons we’re sure. Others are more official -- and not all were additionally adorned like the one below.
7. Belizeans stay pretty covered up when outside. That makes sense, especially in the 10 months of solid sun here. It's very easy to absorb too much as I learned, unexpectedly confronting a damn cold sore on my lip. So indoors we went for a while for parts of a few days. When not lost in reading, we once again discovered the value of YouTube, as there we learned the intricacies of cribbage. We also discovered a game called The Tower of Hanoi, slightly addictive and harder than it looks, in a bar. We have to buy it back home in case we have to stay home some day.
8. Really no one should contemplate eating an iguana, even though I found a recipe for a traditional stew, also known as bamboo chicken. “One iguana, cut in serving pieces and eggs (if any), 2 cloves (aka plugs?) garlic, ½ tsp. black pepper….Wash iguana in hot water with lime juice, season and set aside. . .” And it is still served occasionally I gather but we didn’t see it anywhere. I think it’s because they’re too scary ugly to eat.
9. And finally, kids and sunsets are beautiful all over the world! Duh.
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