Year’s Highlights

January

January 9th. The office has been chaotic today. When we moved into this building, the owner arranged for a live-in watchman, and we all contributed to the salary. Recently, he came to see us to say he wanted to install an alarm system in his premises downstairs and hoped we would want to put one in. It is a rental system, and the signal goes to Wackenhut’s 24-hour security service. The price will be a bit less than that for the watchman, and we are delighted. Meanwhile I have had claustrophobia, surrounded by four very tall young men moving briskly between the desks with wires, tools, and ladders, drilling holes everywhere. I just have asked them to move the control box lower because I barely could reach it and couldn’t see the numbers through my bifocals to punch in the code.

 

January 15th. I may be less than coherent this morning. I came to work early, opened the door, punched in the code on our new alarm system and was practically knocked off my feet by the resulting wail. For thirty minutes I hit every button and combination of buttons available while noise reverberated around me. I dashed to the telephone to call Wackenhut and report a false alarm and recalcitrant siren. I got the book of instructions, found directions for disarming the alarm, and followed them and followed them uselessly. Of course, this was the day Alex was late.

Alex and Mr. Fairweather, who had installed the system, arrived simultaneously. They went into action and, within moments, blissful silence ensued.

1. No, the system was not at fault.

2. I did not have wits enough to punch in the master code because I considered it Alex’s sole property.

3. I was using the wrong code.

Alex was not here the day the codes were installed. Someone had wandered into the office and heard the common number, so we all decided it should be changed. Next day Alex suggested a new combination of numbers. Apparently I was the only person who didn’t realize that he was unsure about installing the replacement and never changed the code. You are familiar with the phrase egg-on-your-face?

February – Early April

I’m not used to taking my major trip at the beginning of the year. I usually travel in September or October. The trip to Europe in February was rushed (as I knew it would be), cold (as I expected), and marvelous (as assumed). Although it was an if-it’s-Tuesday-this-must-be-Belgium type trip, it was fun being with friends who had lived in both Holland and Belgium and had visited all of the counties many times.

For once, I returned from a trip rested. To my own amazement, by bedtime, both suitcases were unpacked and stored away. I had time to regroup before Carli and Tom arrived on Good Friday. We had a delightful week—plenty of time to visit, a few sightseeing expeditions, lots of good Belizean or Mexican foods I don’t usually have.

On Holy Saturday, we christened the picnic table Alex and I gave María for her birthday. The wind was brisk and the sun, bright. Thanks to the dry season, there were no mosquitoes. The table—which took five strong men to move into place—is in the shade of the big tree in the back yard. María has worked for months building a good bed around the base of the tree and establishing low plants and multi-colored flowers. It makes a pleasant setting. Alex’s barbecue was superb. The whole thing was so pleasant that we did it again on Easter Sunday.

Monday we drove up to Cayo, stopped by for ten minutes to say hello to Callie and Ford Young, then continued west and took the ancient ferry across the river to Xunantunich.

I had not been there for at least thirty years. Changes are impressive—much more excavation, a little museum, tidying of the area. It is a worthwhile tourist site.

Alex and María suggested our having lunch at DePlooy’s, a resort not far past San Ignacio. It has a charming large deck overlooking a gorge. The bird feeder nearby attracted a succession of gorgeous birds I never had seen before. Alex quoted the owner as having said that some Audubon guests counted more than 100 different varieties off the deck before breakfast one morning.

Another day Carli, Tom and I drove up to the zoo, then on a little farther to Jaguar Paw, a new resort back in the low mountains on Cave’s Branch River. The nearby cave with its pebble beach is fascinating. Carli agreed with my assessment that, charming as it is, the place is far too Americanized for a jungle resort.

Friday morning the four of them took off in Alex’s car for the Yucatan. I was so pleased at their all vacationing together that I couldn’t be bothered feeling lonesome at their deserting me. I settled down to regular hours in the office for the first time in a week.

Alex and María returned Wednesday afternoon absolutely bubbling. The four spent the first night at a charming resort at Bacalar, just beyond Chetumal, then head up the coast. They visited the ruins at Tulum and the new theme park Xcaret. Alex delivered C&T to Hertz in Cancun before he and María returned to Belize. C&T were headed to Mérida and Chichén Itzá. They should be home this weekend. It was a lovely holiday for all of them.

Mid April – Early May

April 15th. Muriel and Don Stauffer have thrown me into a flap. Yesterday they asked me to consider joining them on a 10-day trip to Tokyo in September 1998. It is the same convention Don attended in Madrid two years ago. My immediate reaction was “impossible.” About thirty minutes later, I found myself playing with the idea.

April 28th. In their fax Friday, Don told me how please they were that I had not slammed the door on their suggestion that I join them on their trip to Japan next year. My stern Midwestern side tells me I should say, “How pleasant, but no thank you.” However, I am beginning to feel like Mary Tyler Moore tossing her hat into the air in the introduction to her old TV series. More and more, this falls into the opportunity-not-to-be-missed category.

I think Bucher’s sister Becky may have tipped the scales. I called her just for a visit this weekend. I told her the Stauffers wanted me to join them on a trip to Japan next year. She interrupted me in mid-sentence to say: “Go!” No qualifiers, no think-it-over, just a flat command. She added, “What are you saving it for, anyway?”

I have 18 months to save up for the trip.

May 8th. I am delighted that common sense didn’t win out over my desire to accept a marvelous opportunity to see a special part of the world.

July

Alex and María have been on holiday for almost three weeks. The first week at the office was gloriously smooth. I finished up our accounts and turned them in to the auditors early.

The next week was pretty hectic. We had a container ship and lots of work with consignees, shippers, documentation, and faxes. At the same time, we were deluged with Air France business. A glorious way to suffer at the office. Of course, sometimes you work hours making and changing reservations, only to have the passenger decide not to take the trip. Still, it is worth it.

This past week was one for the books. The Air France requests and changes continued; people came in to talk about their trips or get their tickets at the most inconvenient moments. No matter. Good business. The main problem was a ship arriving to load sugar. Comet Shipping of Limassol, Cyprus, had contacted us weeks earlier about the vessel. At the last minute, it was held up in a previous port so they substituted the Kapitan Kudlay. She had been at anchor off Honduras waiting for a charter.

The ship arrived Wednesday morning and Allan Clare, the man who usually boards ships, took the boarding party out to meet her as she anchored at the Bogue, a couple of miles off the Fort point. He didn’t get back until almost noon. Reason: three stowaways.

As the boarding party (Customs, Port, Immigration, Health, and Agent) boarded the ship, three men appeared in the water and swam to the launch that had taken the boarding party out. They were hauled aboard, weak and sick.

As the story finally emerged, they were stowaways from Honduras. No one knows when or how they got out to the ship, which was at anchor just outside the harbor there for several days. They hid in the well at the stern of the ship, where the propeller shaft comes out. They had some food and water with them. However, that ran out before the ship left for Belize. The crossing must have been hellacious for them. We have had strong winds and heavy squalls. How they held on and kept from drowning, no one knows. According to the Chief Immigration Officer—and, believe me, I had plenty of contact with him for the next 24 hours!—they were shoulder deep in water the whole time.

Allan said the Master of the vessel was completely horrified when he heard about the stowaways and where they were for so long. He wrote the normal Letter of Protest, describing the incident and declaring that the ship had no responsibility for them because they were outside, not inside the vessel.

Sounded nice, but of course Immigration held the ship responsible. The three stowaways were locked up at the police station as soon as the launch returned to shore. The Chief Immigration Officer (CIO) offered me two options: 1) The ship could take them back to Honduras instantly, which would have cost the ship owners many thousands of dollars, or 2) we could send them back to Honduras on the next plane. That was what I intended to do from the moment I heard about it. In view of our cooperation, Immigration didn’t even take the men to Magistrate’s Court in the normal way.

I asked the CIO if he expected me to be responsible for driving the stowaways around town to get passport pictures for their Emergency Travel Documents. He laughed and reassured me that he would take care of it. He also promised to take them to the airport and make sure they boarded the plane. I got the tickets and delivered them to the CIO when he brought the three unsmiling stowaways to the office after getting their photographs. He also had bought them new tee shirts (at the ship’s expense) because theirs were in rags.

The current Chief Immigration Officer is a nice young man I have known for years. I used to chauffeur the boarding parties, and knew him as a novice Immigration officer. I’m delighted to see how he has risen in the ranks. I think we both enjoyed working together on this. He told me that some shipping agents are very obstructive, and he ends up taking them to court.

 

As if the stowaways weren’t enough of a problem for the office, we had a sick crewman who had to be taken to the doctor. The Master, a huge, pleasant Russian, who speaks quite good, heavily accented English, indicated that this man would need a specialist, but didn’t know the word in English. I suggested that he show me what part of the body was involved. The Master looked somewhat flustered and gingerly pointed one finger downward.

I calmly suggested a urologist, then told him I didn’t think Belize had one. I ended up taking the man to Medical Associates, where the surgeon saw him. He has to come back in a week for another test. The young seaman was polite, but managed to avoid ever looking at me directly.

This is an old story. Some years ago, a sugar ship arrived after spending the Easter holiday in Panama. By the time they reached Belize, more than half the crew needed medial attention. Dr. Lizama referred to them as “Kate’s Bad Boys.”

 

Thursday, the Master announced that he had enough operating water for only two days. Our standard reply to shipping companies when they fax to ask us to attend a ship warns them that water is not available in this port. There is a tiny line at the port for ships small enough to moor there, but it takes days to fill a tank. As for delivering water to a ship at anchor, it is a major hassle. I checked with Honduras. For the ship to go there to take on $500 worth of water would cost $24,000 in port charges. That left me with our inadequate Belize facilities.

I located the only water barge in the country, arranged with one of the local launch men to do the necessary towing, bought enough water from Water & Sewerage for four barge-loads over the weekend, arranged with City Council to hire their only water truck, and promised overtime pay to the drivers. Do you need to know that none of the above fell into place easily? By the end of office hours yesterday afternoon, I was ready to collapse.

Saturday morning, I went out around 7 o’clock to make sure the barge was in place. It was. I went on to the bridge-foot and located the launch man, Cracker. He is an old friend, worked for Bucher. I suspect Cracker is something of a scamp, but as Bucher used to say, he’s our scamp. We discussed all the arrangements, and he was most reassuring. Fortunately, the older I get, the more protective people like Cracker are about me.

As I drove home, I had the not-unfamiliar feeling that Bucher had been standing behind my left shoulder telling me what to do. When I got up this morning, the idea of going out early to check with Cracker had not crossed my mind. This has happened before. It is a wonderfully reassuring feeling that we aren’t that far apart, even after 20 years.

November

I should have gone to an Air France agents’ meeting in Mexico City last week. However, you can’t get there from here now except by going through the States, too long and expensive for a one-day meeting. Air France sent me a Continental pass. It arrived a few minutes after my TACA flight left Belize without me. I managed to survive the disappointment of two long days of traveling and one long day of listening to speeches in Spanish.

 

Bucher’s eldest sister Bibba, with the enthusiastic connivance of Carli and Tom, pulled me yelling and screaming into the electronic age. I agreed to get email, not knowing that Alex already had it in his own name. Of all the human beings who have pretended to teach through the centuries, Alex is the worst. His instructions in the intricacies of Windows and Eudora covered the barest basics, leaving me as secure as if I were in a leaky canoe without a paddle.

Grudgingly, I admit that email is a quick, efficient, inexpensive way to contact friends-and-relations. Carli and I are back and forth several times a week now. Lovely. Email devotees are like Holy Rollers, determined to spread the good word. I have the feeling that I am being clutched to the bosoms of more people than I am comfortable being intimate with. On the other hand, just having an email address has brought some wonderful friends from the past back into my life. I suspect I am in the process of adjusting to the (excoriated) mode of communication.

December

I developed a motto to cover my moments of embarrassing stupidity: If you don’t tell anyone, no one will know. It is fairly useless when I usually find my mishaps so funny that I broadcast them happily.

Which brings me to yesterday. After work, I dropped by Emilie Bowen’s, as I often do. Her brother was due for the holidays, so this looked like our last chance to get together for a moment. Earlier in the afternoon Emilie drove out to meet brother Ray, found he was not on the plane, and refused to do another run over a highway still under construction. The driver had taken her car to the airport to meet him.

I did not want to block her driveway so, for the first time, parked across the street. In view of the narrowness of King Street, and hoping not to be sideswiped by passing cars, I eased my car up over the low curb, carefully avoiding the great square open holes in the sidewalk.

After a short, pleasant visit I returned to my car, duly investigated the position of a hole directly behind my right rear wheel, verified that the hole in front of it left ample room for me to pull out, and set off…

…instantly falling into the hole I had not noticed hiding under my bumper directly ahead of my right front wheel.

There’s one thing about Belize—there always are strong arms ready to rescue one. A group of men, including Kevin Bowen (Emilie’s grandson), materialized from Bowen & Bowen. Kevin’s girl Caroline emerged from the Chan Chich office and semi-directed the operation while soothing me. My car quickly was lifted out of the hole, and I was sent on my way, feeling like a grateful fool.