Ready to Go

Hallo Leute, zuerst einmal unsere Entschuldigung, dass es hier so lange nichts zu Lesen gab. Wir haben ein großes Geheimnis daraus gemacht, wann und ob wir nach Deutschland zurück kommen, um Kerstins Papa zu seinem Geburtstag zu überraschen (gelungen!). Wir sind seit Anfang Juli wieder in Deutschland und stecken bis über beide Ohren in 1. deutscher Bürokratie und 2. den nächsten Projekten. Diesen Blogeintrag haben wir beide lange vor uns hergeschoben - schließlich geht es um die Abrechnung, den Abschluss eines wundervollen, vollen, langen, intensiven Jahres. Wenn wir in Deutschland Freunde treffen, die uns fragen: "Und, was habt Ihr mitgenommen aus Belize" dann fangen ...

Apologies for not posting to the blog in a while. We're back in Germany for a few weeks, wrestling with German bureaucracy, trying to meet as many friends and eat as many or our favorite dishes as possible ;-) Still some Belize posts in the pipe and of course a wrap-up of the "tripwithameaning". Stay tuned! :-) -------- Liebe Leser, sorry dass es hier in den letzten Wochen so ruhig war. Wir sind seit 2 Wochen zurück in Deutschland und die letzten Wochen waren voller packen, Abschiedsfeiern, reisen, Überraschungen und deutscher Bürokratie. Und ganz viele Freunde treffen und leckere Sachen essen. Wir haben immernoch ein paar Belize-Posts in der Pipeline und natürl...

A few weeks ago when Hendrik was visiting, we took him around the country. Amongst other places, we got to spend a night at Mama Noots Eco Lodge down south. A beautiful and well run little off-the-grid lodge, Mama Noots is located in the Bocawina National Park of Belize. It's home to the longest zip line of the country and some magnificent hikes. We went on the zip line before hiking to a waterfall and repelling down that waterfall. This was the first time in Belize we did something where I thought: Wow, I could get seriously hurt here if I don't pay attention. We did fall. But we didn't break anything. And we had a lot of fun! We can really recommend Mama Noots ...

A little while ago, our friend Ernesto from Rainbow Hotel invited us over to spend a weekend at his hotel. Rainbow is situated centrally on the little island of Caye Caulker (which is definately one of my favorite spots in Belize). It lies right on the main beach front street, close to restaurants and supermarkets. It's also close enough to Ocean Side, the local night club, to crawl home. But not too close so you won't get disturbed when decide to take a nap on your porch after you crawled home. (All hypothetical examples, of course). Ernesto and his family used the last slow season to remodel the hotel. On the outside they painted. But on the inside - they t...

"I met this guy on a water taxi", my friend John said. "He's starting a business with bamboo rafts on a river. He asked me if I would like to go rafting with him one day and be very critical about the experience. That's when I thought I should ask you guys." It took us a few weeks to find a day to make it work and in the end, Kerstin couldn't go because she was working.  Patrick (the rafting guy) picked John and me up at the parking lot of a big supermarket for the drive out to St. Paul's bank, a little community about an hour from Belize City.  We drove past trees full of monkeys to Patricks house and picked up a guide on the way. At the house, I learned why cashew ...

(This is #2 of a series of tongue-in-cheek articles about my work for the Coalition to Save our Natural Heritage in Belize. The last one described how I became a propagandist and outlined the build-up to the People's Referendum on offshore oil drilling. This one is a first person account of how I was kicked into a political shark tank, i.e. help run the polling station in Orange Walk during the Referndum.) Short introduction to Belizean politics Belize is very small (area of Hessen if you're German or Massachusetts if you're from the US) and has rather few people (320.000). Consequently, politics have their peculiarities. There are only two parties, the People...

Ende April fand in Belmopn die National Agriculture Show 2012 statt. Ich habe mich total drauf gefreut mal in der Hoffnung mal wieder "normale" Pferde zu sehen, nicht sowas wie die armen Viecher aus dem Tourism Village, an denen ich jeden Tag vorbeiziehe. Mein Kollege meinte die AG show waere "nichts besonderes" und "voller schreiender Kinder, viel Staub und betrunkene Leute". Die Wahrheit liegt wohl irgendwo dazwischen. Ich war eingeteilt am Samstag beim Rot Kreuz Stand zu helfen. Also sind wir morgens bei bereits lauschigen 33 Grad angekommen, und haben unseren Stand in einem hinteren Teil des Gelaendes aufgebaut (direkt neben einem Grillmeister, einem Duengemitt...

End of April, the National Agriculture Show 2012 was held in Belmopan. I was really excited to go and hoped to see some "normal" horses, not the poor critters I am used to seeing in the Belize City Tourism Village. My colleague told me that it is "no big deal" and "all about screaming kids, dust everywhere and drunken people". Well, the truth is somewhere in between. We were assigned to attend to the Belize Red Cross booth on Saturday; Sunday it was a different group. So we arrived in the morning (and it was already in the 90s hot) and set up our Red Cross booth in one of the less crowded back areas. The location was actually pretty good, although we were not on th...