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.