As some of you may not know, I’m a grandma. I have two wonderful grandsons, Domenick (10) and Callum (6) that live in Houston, Texas with my step-daughter, Tara.  This year I asked them what they wanted for Christmas, and they told me they really didn’t need much. I said, “Wow, you guys must be spoiled. Do you know how many children in Belize would kill to have someone buy them Christmas presents?”

Without any prompting from their mom or me, the boys decided together that they wanted me to take the money I was going to spend on them, and spend it on buying gifts for some Belizean children.  I don’t think I’ve ever been more proud of them.  Since Nige has lots of cousins whose parents don’t have enough money to buy their kids any presents at Christmas time, we decided to spend it on them.  Since I promised my grandsons pictures of the gifts, I thought I’d blog about it so you all could see what Christmas gift options are in Belize.

First, little three year old Jared will be getting this bike, his dream gift (I can’t wait to see the look on his face).  It cost $130 bze ($65 usd), but we have to take it to the gas station and get the tires filled with air still.

We also got him a little pack of dinosaurs, just so he’d have one more present to open ($2.95 bze/$1.48 usd).

Next there’s Jaeda (or Nena as we call her).  She’s a little princess, so we got her this Beauty Set ($21.95 bze/$10.98 usd) and a pair of pretty black sandals (not pictured), or slippers as they are called in Belize ($20 bze/$10 usd).

The older boys, Jaylan and Jace, really needed shoes too, so we got them these tennis shoes ($40 and 30 bze respectively/$20 and $15 usd). Although, in Belize, they drop the word shoe and just call them tennis.  Also pictured is a cute pair of infant sandals for the baby, Janae ($20 bze/$10 usd).

Speaking of the baby, she’s only six months old, but growing quite quickly, so we got here two cute 12 month outfits ($30 bze each/$15 usd). I love buying baby clothes!

Back to the older boys, we also got them so cool baseball hats ($25 bze/$12.50 usd).

And some slippers as well ($15 bze each/$7.50 usd).

Last, for Nige’s other cousin, not quite three years old yet, we got him a very sturdy, metal Tonka Dump Truck ($80 bze/$40 usd). He shouldn’t be able to break this any time soon!

While shopping, we also bought one boy and one girl present to put in the Salvation Army donation bin.  All in all, I’m very happy with the results of our shopping trip, and I can’t wait to give the presents to the kids.  Tara will be reading this email to my grandsons Christmas morning, and I think they got the best present of all – getting to experience the gift of giving!! Thank you boys!!

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Yesterday I had to make a quick shopping trip to Spanish Lookout, a Mennonite community about 20 minutes outside of San Ignacio, and noticed a nice, new sign they have greeting people that wasn’t there the last time I was here (notice it says Welcome in German too?).

Later that day, we headed over to the new Cayo Welcome Center in downtown San Ignacio.

We were there for Diamond Realty’s Grand Opening party for their new location.  Previously they were pretty much hidden away on one of the back streets behind the main street, Burns Avenue. Now they’ll be quite visible in this prime location, across from the market and bus station.

Inside their new offices, they had a fabulous mural painted by a very well-known local artist, Jose Landero, which depicts the country of Belize – very relevant for a real estate firm.

After mingling and drinking a couple of Belikins, we took a quick tour around the rest of the Welcome Center area.  The Old French Bakery has moved and is now the New French Bakery. One day I will stop in and see how their coffee is and report back.

Down the ways from there we spotted a new Thai Restaurant called Bamboo – yum!! Will definitely be giving that a go soon.

The Welcome Center is comprised of lots of little “house” type structures that vendors and businesses can rent. So far no one is really open yet.

There’s also a huge stage/amphitheater in the middle of the complex.

Unfortunately, however, they only installed one row of benches, so at big events I suppose they will use rental chairs – seems like a bit of a waste of money and a missed opportunity, honestly, to not construct more built in seating.

We also saw this odd statue. I “think” it is a toucan being birthed out of an egg.

In any case, enjoyed my day out and wanted to share what I found. Do you like checking out new areas?

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At our house, we get our internet through BTL (Belize Telemedia Limited), and as I’ve stated before, they have always been very, very reliable. Recently, however, at our house sitting job, we had occasion to experience a Hughes satellite internet dish.

Being a city girl and never using satellite internet in my life, I really had no idea that one of the limitations is if it is a cloudy day, you may not get service, or the service you get can be very, very slow. This is what happened to me. We’ve been having quite a lot of rain, and the visibility was next to zero, so my internet came to a halt. Really made me appreciate BTL, I must say.

In addition to satellite internet, the clients had satellite TV as well, from Shaw Direct, a Canadian provider. The TV satellite was quite reliable, and never seemed to be affected by the weather at all, however, I did miss all of my U.S. TV channels lol!

Yesterday I was craving a traditional Belizean meal, so for lunch we headed to a local restaurant, which is basically a shack with a kitchen and a porch – if the place has a name, I don’t know what it is – but boy do they serve the best food here (located on Joseph Andrews Drive, or the double road as we locals call it)!

Their menu was a kick! Someone needs to learn how to spell “sandwich” and “coffee.”

I opted for stewed chicken with rice and beans and an enormous glass of lime juice!

Nige had chicken with stewed beans and white rice.  You must be careful how you order your rice and beans here in Belize, because there are two very distinct styles of preparing them.

After a lunch like that, I definitely needed a siesta. Are there any items on the menu you don’t recognize?

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Don’t think that as an Expat when you date a Belizean people don’t look at you or make comments like, “Yeah, he’s just with her for her money.”  When Nige and I first got together almost two years ago, my friends and family completely freaked out. They were convinced that he was out for my money. However, as time has passed, and he’s remained committed to me and our relationship, that sentiment has all but disappeared (come on fam – you know I’m smarter than that, right?).

However, I have taken certain measures to make sure that his family understands what’s mine is most definitely not theirs.  Because Belize has such a high unemployment rate, many people rely on their family to take care of them when times are tough – Nige’s family is no exception – there are several members who are very down and out. 

So when I first came on the scene, they definitely tried testing the waters with me.  Almost immediately I was hit up for money to pay the light bill or buy medicine.  I told Nige to spread the word amongst his family that I was not a bank, and not only did I not loan people money in the States, but I definitely had no intention of doing so here.

Two reasons for this. First, you set an expectation. The minute I say “yes” and loan someone money, guess what? They consider that an open invitation to continue to ask, over and over. What a nightmare! Your simple favor turns into a recurring request that is hard to say no to once you’ve said yes already.

Second, because loaning someone money is the quickest way I know how to ruin a perfectly good relationship, something I refuse to risk with a member of my family, or Nige’s. 

Now, you might call me heartless. Maybe you’ve had to ask for a loan in the past and think I’m being overly harsh.  That’s fair. All of us have probably at one time or another found ourselves on hard times, and not for the generosity of someone we knew (family or otherwise), were able to pull ourselves up and get out of the situation.

So, every once in a while, I have seen situations that I felt compelled to help. How do I handle that? I allow them the opportunity to work off the loan. To me, this is a win-win.  They get the money, the message is loud and clear there are no handouts, and I get my money back. They can clean my house, chop my yard, wash my car, etc. 

Look, while I came here with some reserves, I am by no means rich (which is why I run two businesses – I still need to continue to earn an income to secure my retirement years).  But trying to tell a Belizean that I’m not rich is almost insulting to them, given how some of them live.  So I try to do what I can to help, but within reason.

If you plan on moving to Belize, trust me, you won’t need a Belizean boyfriend to be hit up for money. So decide in advance how you will handle this situation, what compromises you are willing to make, and whether the whole situation will be a major turn off to you or not.

What do you think? Loaning money thumbs up or down?

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I forgot to share a story about something that happened with one of my clients last week. As part of our one-to-one consulting session, we went to Spanish Lookout (a Mennonite community in the Cayo District) and I took the group to the Farmer’s Trading Center (FTC) so they could see all of the different types of products you could buy there – produce, groceries, hardware, household, etc.

I wandered off to a different part of the store with part of the group, when one of the ladies came up to me and said, “Do they sell whole bean coffee in Belize?”  I said, “Yes, they certainly do.”  She told me that she couldn’t find any on the shelves in the store.  I thought that was very odd, since this store is big, and if anyone would have something like that, it would be them. So I told her, “Let’s go look together.”

When we got in the aisle, sure enough, there were a couple of different brands of whole bean coffee (not any made in Belize, however).  But they were non-American brands, and the packaging was much larger than the size she was used to in the States, so I think she just overlooked it.  She felt silly, but I told her not to.  I see this all the time. 

Our eye is trained in the stores to see what we are familiar with.  In a foreign country, like Belize, this can lead you to first of all, overlook less expensive items, because everything imported from the States will cost more. Secondly, it can cause you to not try new things that might be better or healthier for you than what comes from more industrialized countries. I can tell you with certainty that the items from Mexico or Guatemala have far less ingredients than the ones from the States – i.e., less preservatives and food colorings, which I prefer.

So when you go shopping for the first few times in a Belize store, take some time to really peruse the aisles and look for things that don’t look familiar. Not only will you find food that tastes better and costs less, you will probably have a cultural experience too, eating foods you may never have considered in the past.  My little tip to you!

Do you try to look for local brands in the grocery store when you visit a foreign country?

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So last week I had posted about some issues I’ve been having using Western Union.

The drama continued until finally, last Friday, I was able to pick up the money our new tenant was trying to send.

As it turns out, this really isn’t a Western Union thing at all, but rather a problem with her bank.  It seems US Bank red flags any requests you make using WU’s online transfer service to Belize as possible fraud, and they stop the transaction cold in its tracks. They may do this for other countries as well, I have no idea, but whenever she would tell me the money was ready for pick up, I would call my local agent to confirm before trotting on down there (good thing I did), and she would tell me the funds were marked as “Unavailable.”

So she would call US Bank again, they would give her a new pick up number, and we would have a repeat of the same scenario. Finally, on Friday, I successfully picked up her funds! At the same time this was going on with her, I was trying to log on to my online banking account with, guess who, US Bank. It wasn’t letting me. Kept telling me it was “Unavailable.”

Finally, frustrated at not gaining access to my only U.S. bank, which is my lifeline to my business and personal ventures I still have in the States, I called customer service to find out what the issue was. They informed me that my account was suspended due to suspected fraud. I asked, “What fraud?” and they told me someone had tried to make a Western Union transfer to Belize.

“Well,” I told them, “that would have been me. This is not fraud.”  They told me I was going to have to go into my nearest branch and open another account. I told them that is impossible, since I live in Belize, hence the reason for the money transfer request. I asked to be escalated to a manager to give me my account back since this clearly wasn’t fraud.

After speaking with individuals in the Customer Service, Fraud, and Online Banking Departments, they acknowledged their error and reinstated my account and online access. Still, what a pain! Bottom line, I think there must be a lot of illegal money being transferred via Western Union to have the banks so worried. Until just recently, I never had any of these issues. Going forward, I will only be using WU Pay (the service I explained in my last blog), and not the online service anymore. It’s just too much hassle otherwise.

In the end, I am glad my bank was proactive enough to be looking out for me – that is reassuring. But next time maybe they’ll just call first instead of shutting everything down. One can hope!

Have you ever had a banking nightmare when you were out of the country?

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Yesterday was my monthly Cayo Women’s Group meeting. We had taken the month of September off due to the Independence Month festivities, so it was nice to see everyone again after such a long absence.  About 26 of us showed up at the Aguada Hotel – a very good turnout indeed.

I was talking to the organizer of the group, Betty, and we both think that the turnout is better when it’s not summer time, since so many people travel and go back home and visit their family, etc.  Even people that live in Belize go on vacation, lol!

The theme of the meeting was Volunteering in Belize. We were asking everyone who chooses to volunteer what kinds of things they are in to. In that regard, one of the members brought a gal from The Cornerstone Foundation – one of the largest non-profit volunteer organizations in Belize, and probably the most well known. We are proud to have them located right here in San Ignacio Town.

The gal stood up and spoke to us for a few minutes and told us some of what they do.  Basically, they are involved in seven different programs that they could really use volunteers for. Specifically:

•  Women’s program and projects
•  Health program and projects
•  Youth program and projects
•  HIV/AIDS program and projects
•  Relief and Aid program and Projects
•  Literacy program and projects
•  Community Service program and projects

They also can use volunteers for office work. If you come here to volunteer for them, you will normally pay a fee for your boarding and one meal for the day.  However, what most people aren’t aware of is that “technically,” you are not allowed to volunteer in Belize unless you are a citizen or Permanent Resident. That means all you tourists or folks on the QRP cannot volunteer, unless you first pay $50 USD per family member to get a volunteer permit, which lasts for one year.

Now, just being honest here, most tourists who come over here don’t do that. And for the first 30 days you are in Belize, you can probably get away with it.  However, once you go get your passport stamped for the first time, which you are legally required to do after 30 days in the country, the stamp makes it pretty clear you are not to be volunteering.  This is what it says:

“PERMITTED TO REMAIN ON CONDITION THAT THE HOLDER DOES NOT ENTER INTO EMPLOYMENT PAID OR UNPAID, DOES NOT ENGAGE IN ANY BUSINESS OR PROFESSION WITHOUT THE CONSENT OF THE DIRECTOR AND DOES NOT REMAIN IN BELIZE LONGER THAN THE _________”

It’s amusing to me that Belize considers volunteering “employment,” but they do.  I suppose they don’t want people coming over here trying to game the system and saying that they are volunteering, when in reality they are working and taking jobs from the locals, something the government works very hard to avoid with the passport stamp language and work permit rules. So they just disallow all of it.

In any case, it was an educational day learning more about Cornerstone, and I encourage anyone coming to Belize to volunteer to follow the proper channels and look this very worthwhile group up. They can help you secure your permit and do everything legally.

Have you ever volunteered in a foreign country? If so, where, and did you need a permit?

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Yesterday was Pan American Day in Belize.  I had never heard of this holiday prior to moving here, but I guess lots of countries actually celebrate Columbus’ discovery of the Americas.  One of my Facebook fans asked how Belizeans feel about this holiday, as in the States it has become a bone of contention with the Native Americans about who really discovered America first.

I aksed Nige, and he said most Belizeans probably don’t even know what it’s about really.  They just enjoy getting a day off school or work and hanging out for a bbq.  I asked him if they taught him about it in school, and he said yes, but that was a long time ago and for the most part, it wasn’t a memorable part of history for him.  Makes sense to me. I would imagine the history you remember most is from the country you were born and raised in.

Since it was a holiday yesterday, and not much was going on, I thought I’d relay a funny discussion I also had on Facebook. Someone on another page had called Caye (pronounced “key”) Caulker – Caulker Caye instead. Someone who was planning on moving here made the mistake, so someone who already lives here politely corrected her so she wouldn’t look like a total newbie when she arrived.

It reminded me of when I first moved to Belize.  For some reason, I got it in my head that Caye Caulker was called Caye CaulkNer.  I don’t know why I inserted that N, but I did. And for the longest time, no one corrected me, either in discussion or online.  Until one day, when I first started dating Nige back on the island of Ambergris Caye (not Caye Ambergris lol! – who knows how these names were decided).

In a discussion, I said “Caye Caulkner.” He said, “How are you saying that?” So I repeated it.  His dad, who was also present, and him just started laughing at me and said, “There’s no N in Caulker!”  I kind of felt silly, but was so grateful they corrected me. But have you ever learned someone’s name wrong? It’s hard to break the habit. 

For instance, I was always calling Spanish Lookout Spanish Outlook when we first moved to Cayo. Once again, Nige had to correct me.  Took me a while, and I finally broke both bad habits, but the other day I was going through my photo albums on Facebook, and there was one labeled from two years ago “Caye CaulkNer Trip.” Oh dear, wonder how many people have seen that and wondered why the heck I, of all people, don’t know how to spell that.

Just so you know too, Belizeans like to shorten the names of locations, quite a bit in fact.  Here are some examples:

Belize instead of Belize City

Cayo instead of San Ignacio

Anything with a “San” or “Santa” in front gets removed and just the last part of the name remains, like Elena, Antonio or Familia (instead of Santa Elena, San Antonio or Santa Familia)

Spanish instead of Spanish Lookout

PG instead of Punta Gorda

And, interestingly enough, as was mentioned on the original Facebook page that the Caulker Caye comment was made, the locals actually pronounce it “Key Corker.” Go figure?

Can you think of any location abbreviations in Belize that I’ve forgotten to mention?

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Saturday we had to go on a wild goose chase looking for a key duplicating place that could make a copy of a very unique key for us.  Recently at the Kumquat Cottage, we decided install a new sliding deadbolt on the front door, because the one that was there was inadequate, in our opinion. Mainly because it could only be used if you were home, from inside the house.

Our contractor told us about a different kind of deadbolt I’ve never heard of, where you can actually engage the deadbolt from outside the house – how cool! The key is twice as long as a normal size key, which we soon found out is a problem.  We went to two key duplicators in San Ignacio – neither of them had the blanks.  It was recommended that we try Spanish Lookout.

We hadn’t been there in a while, and I needed a few items from my health food store, Reimers, so we took a road trip.  Unfortunately for us, the hardware store there couldn’t help us either, and they recommend Belmopan. Grrrr…

While in Spanish Lookout, we decided to indulge and have a frosty cone at Western Dairies, one of our favorite guilty pleasures when in Spanish Lookout.  I also picked up some Vitamin C and Echinacea. As we were leaving the area and heading East on the Western Highway towards Belmopan, it started pouring rain – I mean hard.  There goes all the towels I had left on the clothes line back home!

At this point, we had completely lost track of time, and as we arrived in Belmopan, we realized it was 12:45 p.m.  Of course, the key place was closed (most places in Belize close for lunch). Great!  Since an ice cream cone lunch does not make, and we had some time to kill, we decided to go to Pasquale’s and get some sandwiches to go, since we needed to get back to San Ignacio as soon as possible.

While waiting for our order, I ran into the President of my Belmopan International Women’s Group (BIWG), Amanda.  She wanted to know if I was going to their annual dinner/dance meeting on October 26.   She said the theme was Grease and everyone was dressing up. I told her I couldn’t imagine anything in my closet that I had brought from the States that would even come close to sufficing for the event, but I’d consider it.  Grease, after all, is one of my favorite all time movies – it could be fun!

As bad luck would have it, even after waiting until 1:30 p.m., the key place still hadn’t opened. We assume they must have been closed for the day, so after making one more stop at a local hardware store, and being told they didn’t have blanks, yet again, we threw in the towel and headed home. Seems we will have to go to Plan B (or is that E?) to get this darn key copied!

Do you ever have days where you are stuck chasing your tail?

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After being gone on house sitting gigs and client research trips, as well as the big party we had over the last holiday weekend where it rained and my house got trashed, I was so thankful to have my house keeper show up Friday morning and give our home a proper cleaning. Boy did it need it!

At the same time, I did three loads of laundry and got all caught up with that.  By early afternoon, I felt so good about things. I really hate not being organized or tidy. I’m pretty sure I have a mild case of OCD, but normally people just tell me I’m anal. Either way, I felt like a new person.

Later that afternoon, I headed over to my chiropractor’s house for my bi-monthly appointment.  We got to talking about their situation, and they were feeling frustrated because they couldn’t get a bank account open, since they didn’t bring the required two bank reference letters from the States that the Belize banks here require.  They called their U.S. banks and requested them, but they would not send them; rather, they wanted them to come in and pick them up, which obviously they couldn’t do now that they live in Belize.

While I thought that was odd, since I got both of mine via email from my banks, I did have good news for them. I told them to go visit the local credit union in town. I said they really just want you to fog a mirror and you can get an account. You’ll also get an ATM card, and I believe they even have online banking available now.  It’s better than keeping your money at home.

I also answered some questions they had on work permits as it relates to Permanent Residency. By the end of the appointment, they told me they should give me the visit for free.  They were so grateful for my help. I told them if they had hired me prior to moving to Belize, they would have come prepared with all the proper documentation and knowledge they needed so they didn’t have to go through all of these headaches. They said they wish they’d know about me and they definitely would have done so, but they’re not really “computer people”.

The rest of the weekend was uneventful.  Due to Independence Day being this Friday, it’s like someone has turned off the “business” faucet.  We’re still doing a lot of online business with my research clients or folks who are booking vacation rentals through Red Roof Property Management, but the face-to-face meetings are pretty much on hold until the holiday passes. So we’re just enjoying the quiet time.

Do you consider yourself a neat freak?

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