Belize: Yet to be discovered

Today I met Lorraine, a super friendly representative of the company LARM who we speak with often in most of the Americas south of the US. She picked me up and immediately I knew we would click. She is young, pretty, smiley, and just overall a very happy and welcoming person. Originally Guatemalan but doesn’t look it. She has blonde hair. I didn’t see any blondes when I was in Guatemala. We went out to lunch and immediately she was ready to do anything and everything for me, anything I could possibly want or need, she was on it. I think that she was feeling a little bored, in general. She was working part-time for LARM and really, that’s exactly what it was. Last year she placed only ONE person in the country because there’s just no foreigners here. Anyways, I felt like I immediately had a personal secretary. After speaking with her for just a little while, I realized what little there was here. Hairdressers? She goes to Guatemala for that. Clothing? Don’t even think about it. Laundromat? There’s only one here in the city. The really nice restaurant here went out of business because the type of market located here just doesn’t support it. Despite the fact that it was located across the street from the only business hotel in the city, yeah the one that gives you ants crawling on your bed. My hotel. All the buildings are falling apart because construction is expensive and no one can afford to build. Though, when one building does go up, not only is it the talk of the town but it goes within a finger snap. There is just nothing here. Everything is falling down. This place reminds me of Africa, Haiti, you name it. A place with poor infrastructure that has almost nothing. And then you have the touristy areas such as the Cayes which is completely different. This place has still yet to be discovered. As I spoke about it with Lorraine, I realized just how much this place is just totally behind the majority of the world. It’s one of a kind, and original. Not necessarily a bad thing, just different. I wonder what the future of Belize will hold. I would imagine it can only go up, especially with the booming tourism here. Which, is exactly why I was dumfounded Belize City wasn’t better off. Where is all the money going?

I went to the 2nd grocery store today. What’s interesting is that most items are imported from the US, so they carry a lot of the target brands I’m looking for. It’s just that there’s gaps in what I can find. Today I asked, and they don’t sell bananas or oranges here. No bananas or oranges? Where the heck are we, they both grow in tropical climates! Streets are dark at night. It reminds me of the Haiti I saw pre-earthquake, just creepy and run-down. I had a ghetto “taxi” pickup but it was exactly who the hotel said it was going to be. He spoke with a thick accent that I could barely understand and when he first arrived I thought he was sporting no shirt, but he had a wifebeater on. Ended up being a nice guy, just sketched me out at first. He showed me pics of his daughter on his phone.