novellas de la semana

The Chicks
So one of my host mom’s entrepreneurial efforts is to raise chickens. She got 100 chicks from the Mennonite community and if tended properly, they will be ready to sell in 6-8 weeks to sell for $10 each (which is a lot of money!). Problem is, they are frail things – as my mom says “if it rains, they die; if it gets hot, they die; if they get scared, they die”. Nowhere near as hardy as the local chickens, who are scraggily and take much longer to grow but are indestructible.
Anyway, first night, rats killed 6 of the chicks – we think they were trying to get to the food because rats don’t eat chickens. So we moved into Uber Chick Protection Mode. For three nights, we could catch all 96 of them (and as I have mentioned, chickens are FAST), put them in various buckets and bins and bring them in the house. Then we would put a fan on them, make sure they had water, food.
Her father-in-law fixed up the coop so we were able to leave them outside at night but the first night of that as I went to the latrine, I saw a cat crouching by the side. She couldn’t get in but if one of them wandered too close, she would have been able to grab it. So, back to Uber Chick Protection Mode: my host mom and I put up plastic and bed sheets around the chicken wire to help keep the cat away and tied up the dog (yes, Duffee, my best friend or novio as the 4 year old says LOL) right outside. So far, so good but keep your fingers crossed for those chickens. And, yes, I am struck by the irony of doing all this, helping with all this for the chickens to be killed in a few weeks. Thankfully, I won’t be here for that.

The Bus
Twice a week we are up at sunrise to catch the 6am bus. Goes for 40 minutes into a town, San Ignacio, then we take another bus to Belmopan which takes an hour an a half regular bus or an hour “express” bus. Each bus has 48 seats, or 96 people. Then they allow anyone to stand in the isles which gets us to a total of 115 or so adults, or up to 125 or 130 if it’s kids.
Then, someone pushes their way down the isle to collect the bus fare which is $3BZ ($1.50US) for each leg. It’s quite entertaining to try to maneuver to allow this person to go by without putting all your front or back business in the face of someone seated. And I don’t need to worry about lack of human contact while I’m here in Belize – we get rubbed on plenty just taking the bus with this exercise. So far, nothing inappropriate but I’ll give that time.
The best part is the bus stops anywhere. Anywhere. Whenever you want to get off just give a hoot and it will stop. Even better, is it will stop where ever you are to let you on – the other day, a person got on, the bus went literally 5 feet, stopped, another person got on, went 5 more feet, another person got on. Why those people didn’t just walk over in the time it took for the bus to roll up and stop for the next, I’ll never know.

The Tea
Turns out, when the British left, they took all their tea with them! Can only find Lipton. So if you send snail mail, thanks for including a package or two of tea

Headed into a long weekend for Independence Day and, more importantly, International Day of Peace, and most importantly, my birthday (LOL). We’re having a piñata for the kids, (well, OK, it’s for me) and I’ll be sure to send photos.

Best from Belize!!
Manissa
Anyone can see photos at this link: (updated as of 9/9/09, newest photos start with #31)http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=102016&id=640467317&l=4965dba765