Independence Fervor

Independence Fervor

Everyone in Belize is gearing up for the celebration of independence day, September 23, with flags waving and lots of marching. The Chinese stores (all the grocery stores) are selling red, white, and blue cowboy hats. Each school has children ready to perform. Unfortunately, most of the schools are run by missionary groups that perpetuate the colonizer’s purpose. Belize has the worst literacy rates in the region.

One thing I have learned is that people in Central America live in fear of being murdered in their sleep. Consequently, they build house that can be completely closed up at night, where people sleep in the heat.

I have finished a few more books. The two latest are a dual language Garifuna/English easy reader and Holocaust of Native America: An Introduction. The other two are Mr. Finnegan and the Bears and Code Talkers. I am working on sketches for A Ride Through Chaco Canyon. When I was working on my dissertation, I amused myself by writing children’s stories, sci-fi, and poetry. I hope to have a few more Garifuna/English books by mid-2020.

I haven’t been able to get down to Tumul K’in yet. When I go, I have lots of Native American materials, books, journals, and DVDs, for them, enough to start a library. I am hopeful that the students in the school might come up with some publishable stories in Mopan or Queche Maya. I am also donating linguistic and composition texts and journals to the Department of Eduation and Arts, University of Belize. I can get most of those professional journals online now, and I have hung up my researching shoes.

I have also learned that rabbits can growl. I think my rabbit spends too much time with the dogs. One day, he growled at me when I was trying to feed him. The dogs continue to grow into really good dogs, Ikana moreso than Amafo Little Foot, who is the smaller one. He just wants to be babied a lot.

I miss all of you guys. Let me know how you are doing.

Hot and Dry

Hot and Dry

Two weeks of above 100 degrees—104-107F (40-42 C)

now in the mid 90’s

One day of a rain—3/4 “

Hot dry breezes fan the palms and rustle the leaves of the chestnut tree

its first time blooms blown to the ground

The yard toad cools herself in a bucket of water (see attached photo)

Iti Shvski, the mother Manila mango tree pregnant

Attracts a flock of grackles that knock the little green mangoes to the ground

After taking a bite & that

Attack a stray grackle that wandered into the yard

Pecking it mercilessly

Then disappearing never to return

The dogs own the yard &

worry needlessly every time I leave

Chukfi Nakni, my trickster rabbit, spends a lot of time sleeping under the bed

His fur grown out from the last romp wih the dogs

Tek, my little mother cat, scolds me if I stay up too late

insisting that I retire with her

Class ended

 turned in my grades

set up my summer course

Painting my little clay booger masks

Cherokee booger dances were winter dances

The 19^th century missionaries hating and forbidding them

Have 3 children’s books set up and ready to proof

two of them stories in Choctaw

Working on an Eero Hand adventure book

(you may remember that Eero is my grandson)

started on my list of things to complete before

summer class that begins May 20

Feb 2, 2019

Feb 9, 2019—The hot dry season commenced, almost a month early.  Fortunately, the mornings were still cool, but by noon the temperature soared to about 83F/31C—sweating weather. And the warm winds sprinkled lime dust on all the vehicles. People began to worry about the coming months and the heat.

I got to see the police in San Ignacio practicing in riot gear behind clear bullit proof shields. There they were standing in the heat, seating, and most of them overweight.

 Most homicides in Belize are done by strangulation or machete. These shield must have been a donation from some country.

One morning

As I biked to the pool,

I saw a young, attractive creole man

long dreadlocks and many tatoos

Dancing the Tai Chi

When next I saw him, I hollered

“Are you going to dance the Tai Chi?”

He grinned and said, “Yes.”

I didn’t see him for a couple of weeks.

As I was walking to the pool, he came running into the park.

“Hi,” he said.

“Have you taken up running?” I asked, looking down at his slip on canvas shoes.

I kept walking when I heard him shout at me, “Let me know when you are ready.”

“What?” I replied as he walked toward me.

“Let me know when you’re ready?”

“What do you mean—Ready to do Tai Chi?”

He walked closer, touching my upper arm, grinning.

“Ready for whatever you want.”

And for one momen I was tempted by the fantasy before

I said,

“I’m 73.”

“73 is good,” he said.

“For me, not for you,” I said over my shoulder as I kept walking.

When I first came to Belize, the woman I stayed with said that the problem with Belizean men is that they wanted to be paid for sex. And you will see old, wrinkled white women with young Creole men. In addition to this young man, I also have 23-year-old with 2 children José who looks like a pudgy 12-year-old who wants to “visit with me and give me a spa.”  Sex trafficking is a significant problem: Human trafficking is one of the reasons that Belizeans can no longer get visas to the U.S. easily.

Some of my Spanish as a Second Language errors

Jabón (soap) for jamón (ham)

Miércoles (Wednesday) for martes (Tuesday)

Una mesa (a table) for un mes (one month)

Hago (I make) for tengo (I have)

Sometimes when I try to speak in Spanish, it’s like trying to grab words as they swirl around in my head.

I had a second meeting with the Maya language teachers at TumulK’in.  Neither of them have any linguistic training, so we had to work through some misunderstandings in our communications. We made some good progress on the curriculum. We will meet again at the end of April or beginning of May.

I have 3 children’s books almost set up for printing—just waiting for a little clean up on some illustrations.

James and I are headed for New Zealand and Portland.

Notes from Paradise

Notes from Paradise

I start my days working out in the pool (after I feed my menagerie and get the latest news from Bloomberg)surrounded by palms trees swaying in a light breeze and the calls of brightly colored birds, followed by hot Belizean coffee from the café to help me warm up from the cool water, and a short nap in the sun (on the days the sun shines).  The women who work at the resort help me with my Spanish a little bit at a time. Usually, the only other person around is the pool guy, cleaning. Some mornings, there are children. Adult tourists have finished breakfast and left on their various tours. It’s a great way to start a day.

Classes started at the University of Maryland Global Campus on January 14. I had 31 enrolled for the first session, but I am down to about 28 now. My second class begins on February 25, and there are 26 enrolled in that class. All of the classes use materials available to the public, and one of those links started requiring a login. When I reported this to the course chair, she suggested I select a new article for the course. This was followed by an email to two other instructors telling them that “professor George Ann Gregory” had selected a new reading. It was kind of tickled me to see myself referred to as “professor” even after all these years.

Native Daughter Publishing almost has its first book ready for publication—Mr. Finnegan and the Bears: Once When We Were Homeless. I am just waiting on my Photoshop guy to get a few illustrations back to me. In the meantime, I am putting all the little Choctaw stories into one big picture book. I am still trying to get a book done in Garifuna. My autobiographical piece about the sixties is back from readers with some notes. I will probably get back to this during my next break.

Clifara still comes by occasionally for help with math. We spent an intensive two weeks working on division after she started back to school in January. One math lesson was on fractions, and we baked cookies for that one. Kalon helped me clear weeds so that I could plant jicama, and he was happy to get a pair of Adidas basketball shoes. I am working a bit with Mary Ann, their mom, on math materials for her classromm. Outside of small problems like figuring out how to get the cover off the refrigerator light so that I can exchange bulb and getting the screws on the lawn mower loose enough to adjust the blades, life seems to be going OK.

I would love to hear what you are doing.

Love,

George Ann