September - a month of celebration

Last Friday was an official national holiday celebrating the Battle of St. George's Caye. This was the beginning of the September celebrations. The second biggest holiday is Belize's Independence Day, September 21. It is tradition in Belize for celebration to begin at the beginning of September and continue through Independence Day, extending festivities to almost three weeks.

A little history lesson: On 10 September, the Spaniards and British lined up o

ff St. George’s Caye. Prior to 1798 the Spaniards attempted to invade Belize at least six times, and only once were they successful when in 1779 Spanish ships surprised the inhabitants of St. George’s Caye, burned down the buildings and took away 140 prisoners. These were imprisoned in the dungeons of Havana and not released until 1782.The Spaniards stormed through the channel, and at 1:30 engaged the British in a two-hour fight which ended in

defeat for the confused Spaniards.

In 1973, the colony's name was changed from British Honduras to Belize and on September 21, 1981, Belize's Independence was declared.

Guatemala Claim
Guatemala claims to have inherited a Spanish clai

m to Belize when they became independent in 1821. Their claim to the settlement of Belize was made soon after Guatemala gained independence from Spain but a treaty between Britain

and Guatemala in 1859 recognized the de facto boundaries of the settlement as well as Britain’s sovereignty. Since then Guatemala has revised

its claim against Belize in 1930, 1945 and as late as 1999.

In December 2008, accepting that negotiations were unable to settle

the issue, the governments of both Belize and Guatemala signed an agreement to conduct simultaneous national referenda to determine if

the Guatemala claim to Belize should be decided by the International Court of Justice.

Belmopan, even though it's the capital of the country, is really a sleepy town, and I say "town" because compared to a city in the States, it's more like a Midwestern town out in the prairies. I tried to find the opening ceremony supposedly located by the government buildings and found nothing. Another volunteer said that there will be a festive event this coming Wednesday night - we hope to go to that. On the 21st, Belize City and some of the other towns will have carnival-like parades. Belmopan City is scheduled for a parade but I'm not getting my hopes too high to expect a mardi gras like parade.

My San Antonio kids had a good time when they stayed the night. The whole family (14 of them) came to the house. Trying to fit them all in my space was problematic but they were gracious to split the number inside and outside - fortunately, the weather was pleasant and the bugs were not too bad. Four kids stayed with me, Heidy, Esli, Jerry, and Wayne. The rest were off to a revival meeting held that night in Belmopan. I made the kids hamburger and fries and strawberry shortcake - I french fried the potatoes with the skin and they thought it really weird and peeled the skin off each fry. The strawberries were too sweet for them but they drank the concentrated orange juice with more sugar. The night was warm and the two girls sleeping in my bedroom couldn't sleep sweating - Heidy fell out the bed trying to catch some of the air from the fan. I made pancakes and bacon for breakfast but they didn't eat the pancakes but put the bacon in between slices of bread and that was their breakfast. Jerry, the eight year old, was sick the whole time but didn't tell me until while we were waiting for the bus to take them back, he threw up at the bus terminal. Oyvey!! This was the first time the kids stayed overnight with anyone outside of the family and San Antonio. The good news was that the family reported back - the kids had fun and two of the kids wanted to come back.

Last weekend, I went to see a Belizean pianist perform a concert at the George Price Center - along with his performance, he had a pop singer and a student violinist - they were all wonderful. I enjoyed the show tunes and the classical repertoire - it felt a little like home.

My clothes line broke and fell again! Of course, with my clean wash on the line - I shouldn't complain, Larry's line which was tied to the tree fell because the tree collapsed. Did I tell you about the hornet nest in my yard? That happened a few weeks back - the size of a basketball, it hung from my grapefruit tree in the front yard.- Anthony and Stanley from Peace Corps took it down - Anthony sent me a photo of Stanley covered with white plastic looking like an alien ghost trying to approach the nest.