John's Jungle Journal

Surprise!

2005-05-17T09:43:00.000-07:00

Another entry, bet you weren't expecting that. The thing is, I've tidied my room, organized my desk, done all of my other menial chores so this is my last ditch attempt at finding something to do other than settling down to another day of work, and this didn't exactly win hands down either.

I am all alone in the house at the moment as Andy, Simone and Lucas are back in Europe for the next few weeks and Karen has been back home to Canada, although actually she arrives back today. Still for now it is just me, the builders, the dogs and the kittens at the house. There was some discussion before Andy and Simone left about how many, and which ones we should keep, I don't mean of the builders and dogs, but the kittens. Well, as it happens, after spending this time alone with them I already have them listed in order of preference, not so much for which should stay, but which should go first. Now I do realize that the mother is going to be harder to re-house than the rest, but I don't feel that that should be any reason to stop us trying, and anyway, with all the building work going on downstairs there are plenty of hessian sacks and concrete blocks around, and the Belize river does flow past the bottom of the garden. We have options is all I'm saying.

Everything over here is going good. There was a small concern a few weeks ago as Belize was, and possibly still is I guess, going through a small period of political unrest due to a very corrupt government. It was all relatively peaceful and uneventful however and luckily, anywhere fighting did break out there always seemed to be a policeman just a stones throw away.

One of the things I will have to do when Karen gets back, is to get her to drive me to Belize city so as I can pick up my truck from the garage it's in and move it to yet another garage so it can sit and fester there for a while as I sit at home eating hundred dollar bills and marveling over what a sound investment I made. I am looking forward to driving it again however as the current garage has done absolutely nothing to fix it and just getting it there in the first place was a real experience. The thrill of the open road, the wind in my hair, the faulty steering box and the absolute abject fear that comes from driving a car with no brakes. You've got to love it. That coupled with the fact it is still making an extremely loud high pitch whining sound when you get it up to any sort of speed (something done less often in the current predicament). It's so loud you can't even here yourself screaming over the top of it, and I know this cause I tried. Very liberating, but I can't help but feel any passerby may have thought me rather odd. There is in any case some small consolation to all this in that it has at least for the moment, given up on spontaneously igniting the dashboard at inopportune moments. This can only be a good thing yet I still do, every time I catch a whiff of a passing bushfire, find myself having to check that the fire is on the outside not in. I've been thinking that, rather than paying for the next mechanics bill, I might just spend the money on yellow paint and an angel grinder, if I take the back off Andy's jeep, a quick lick of paint and he might never realize it's missing.

Anyway, I think that's enough for this annual report so I'm off. I have only one photo this time as Karen was selfish enough to take her own digital camera home with her when she left but at least you can see from this that I am still alive, and as you always knew, a 'winner'. Unfortunately Andy had to miss the final as he left the day before to go to England but I picked up his top scorer trophy for him. Something I felt slightly fraudulent doing due to my inability to net one myself throughout the entire tournament.

Hope you are all well, don't hold your breath for the next installment.

If I can just remember how to...

2005-04-02T17:49:00.000-07:00

1 month, 2 weeks and 3 days, if you’re counting, and apparently some of you are. Don’t be thinking though that because I’m writing now that I’ve seen the error of my ways and will now be keeping in regular contact from now on, I can assure you that this is not the case. It’s just that at this moment in time I have been driven in by the rain and other than watching Dora the Explorer with Lucas for the billionth time I really can’t think of anything else to do. I should also make it clear that this letter is in no way a response to my mum trying to fill my inbox with crap in order to make me write home (if this happens again however I will have Dave put your hands in a vice.)

Everything here is going really well. Although I can’t officially ‘work’ until my permit comes through (which hopefully it will do soon) I’m keeping myself busy acting as a free consultant for a Swiss architect who’s been working in Belize for many years. Because there’s only one other person on his staff I’m getting to see and do a lot of really cool stuff. The other week I was taken up in one of Francis Ford Coppola’s private planes to help with some surveying work he is having done on his Blancaneaux Lodge in the Pine Ridge. It’s a pretty amazing place and they say over the next month or so they’ll be putting me up for the occasional night or so while I’m doing work for them. I guess the only thing to worry about now is how long can I milk it for and I don’t see why, if they want a really detailed survey, a couple of years should be too excessive. Actually, it does sound like if this goes well that there will be lots more work from them so, fingers crossed.
Anyway, This is me at the back of the plane taking photos of myself…

2005-04-02T17:42:00.000-07:00

And this is me remembering what I’m actually there for and taking very poor aerial photographs on what’s left of the memory card.

2005-04-02T17:40:00.000-07:00

Other than work stuff, things here are good. We’re doing well in the local football league we’re playing in. I guess there’s not a huge element of surprise there though as we do have an ex-English premiership player playing up front for us but hey. Some people might see as a touch unfair, but I just think it’s always nice to win.

Also, I bought a truck the other day. Partly to get to and from work, partly to give me a bit more independence but mostly just cause I thought it was really cool. Unfortunately in this photo things don’t really seem that different from how they would back home as it’s pissing it down with rain and my vehicle doesn’t work but I’m hoping both these things are just temporary. Certainly it was working fine the other day but I had to fit a new ignition barrel yesterday and since then the starter motor has been accompanied by its own light and smoke show. It could just be a coincidence but just in case, dad, if you could send a hayne’s manual to the normal P.O. box then I should have it sorted in six to eight weeks.

Anyway, as I doubt many of you are still checking this blog there seems little point in going on for much longer. Just to say, I hope you are all well and that all is good back home or wherever you are, and I will write again, if not soon, then later.

Holy Crap

2005-02-16T19:39:00.000-07:00

Ok, two things. Firstly, yes I am aware it’s been over a week since my last entry. Secondly, I’m really starting to resent you all for this. It is normally about this time that I would choose to drop out of contact with you all for around a month or so. No real reason, it’s just I’ve kind of settled into things here and have neither the desire nor the information to make this blog entry interesting. Added to that, my parents have been swanning around Rome for the last week, squandering my inheritance on holy crap, so my reason for writing home is diminishing with every over extravagant excursion.

Things here are going well. Miguel, the guy who did all the construction for the pool I designed here last year, came back to work with us this week. We’ve mostly just been doing various bits of tidying up and the laying of new paths and lights around the resort, but it’s all starting to look really good. I have felt slightly hampered by still being reduced to just one hand but it is at last getting slightly better. In fact, I think the swelling would have pretty much gone completely if the first job I did yesterday hadn’t had me accidentally sticking my hand in to this while attempting to re-run some cables…

2005-02-16T19:28:00.000-07:00

I don’t think the resulting elephantitis comes across quite as good in photo-form as it did in real life (especially if you hadn’t seen my skinny little girl hands to start with) but it was fairly impressive. Once it had gone down slightly you could start to make out about ten individual stings, painful, but at least I could feel slightly smug that I hadn’t wasted a good hand.

2005-02-16T19:23:00.000-07:00

There has of course been lots more going on here besides, but to be honest, as most of it doesn't directly revolve around me, I don't see why I should have to write about it, or of what interest it would be to you anyway. Instead I'll leave you with a picture of Lucas playing dominoes with me in the bar. Our rules are slightly different to those used in pubs by elderly gentlemen, but then I guess you have to be more careful if you no longer have your own teeth.

Toilet Huggin’ Hippy

2005-02-03T19:16:00.000-07:00

I’m starting to seriously doubt the benefits of all this healthy living, fresh air, nature, exercise and all that. In fact, after a nearly a month of clean living I’m now under the impression that it was the alcohol in my bloodstream that was responsible for preserving whatever healthy genes I had.

I’ve been feeling pretty ill this last week, most of us in the house have. If many more of us get it, by the time it gets round to the last person I think the virus should have sufficiently mutated that the first person can go again. It’s been pretty grim anyway, large periods of feeling lightheaded and dizzy interspaced with occasional vomiting. The other night I had to sleep with both my bedroom and the bathroom door wide open for fear they might impede my progress. Still at least it’s only throwing up, and not down as well. I’ve had bugs here where you sprint to the toilet and are caught in indecision as to which end to point at it first.

I bet all of you guys who were moaning last year about how little I wrote are questioning your judgment now. Still, it’s only right that now I have this platform that I use it to deal with these issues in such a delicate and tasteful manner. It could have been worse you know. There was a brief moment the other night while I was lying shivering under my blanket on the toilet floor, face rested on my porcelain pillow, when it occurred to me, should I be getting someone to photograph this for my blog? You’ll be glad to see as you scroll down the page that I didn’t. In fact when Karen called through to see if there was anything she could do to help, I decided against even broaching the subject.

Anyway, I am feeling much better now and am trying to settle back in to doing some work. You can read into this that I am at least at my desk, even if I have just been checking my e-mails, writing this blog and sticking my pencil into the blades of my desk fan.

Oh, one last thing. One of Simone’s friends, Rita, is here from London. She is a T.V. producer and has been working recently in both the U.K. and the States on that Wife Swap show. What do you think dad, shall I have a word?

Captain's Blog

2005-01-26T21:07:00.000-07:00

Day 4. I’m still not sure how often to be writing in this thing. On the one hand I don’t want to be responsible for building unrealistic expectations, however if I start leaving it too long between entries I know from experience that I’ll be facing the full wrath of Mumzilla et al. I reckon about once a week might be feasible.

Simone and Andy have gone for a few days in Miami for a spot of retail therapy so me and Karen are holding the fort here. It’s amazing how quiet it is without Lucas, and to tell you the truth I’m not sure how much I like it. I’d almost forgotten how to start the morning without Barny on the TV. I tell you, we may not be too up on our current affairs in this house but we’re getting pretty hot on our shapes, colours and manners.

Unfortunately as we don’t have any guests at the house at the moment, Tella and Nora are no longer cooking our dinner for us, and Karen and I aren’t exactly cooking up a storm on our own. We’ve worked out a pretty good system though of cooking an excessive amount of pizza on the first night and then dinning on leftovers for as long as we can hold out. I know it may not be exactly ideal but it seems to be working ok so I see no point in rocking the boat. Aside from the obvious, I did find another big downside to cooking for yourself the other night. I was lying in bed, just dropping off to sleep, when I rubbed my weary eyes and was suddenly reminded of all the chilies I had been cutting to put on my pizza. Very vividly reminded. The only slight consolation I can think of is at least I didn’t need a piss before I went to bed.

For the last day or so I’ve been really trying to get in to learning some Spanish using an audio CD Moocho gave me. It seems pretty good and I do feel like I may be slightly picking some of it up. I’ve already started recognizing more words on the football pitch, although as I haven’t yet reached an insult section, large amounts of what they say is still going over my head. I’ve attached a photo of our ‘practice’ tonight (it’s every night nowadays and to be honest it’s killing me.) although it may not be quite an entirely accurate depiction as it doesn’t look as if anyone is playing in their welly boots and I don’t see any dogs on the pitch. I think around the time this picture was taken I was really starting to regret my pre-match warm up of running on the pitch ten minutes late with my laces undone and still stuffing my third tortilla in to my mouth.

2005-01-26T21:01:00.000-07:00

Lastly I thought you might be interested in this picture of a snake that was found round at the stables a couple of days ago. Partly cause it’s a pretty impressive snake, at least I thought so as in Scotland we don’t have wildlife. The other reason was so you would see how much taller I am than the locals around here. It’s pretty cool, huh? I look like the BFG.

The start of something... short-lived?

2005-01-23T13:32:00.000-07:00

Well here it is, my long promised blog. Started more as a product of guilty conscience rather than any real good intentions on my part but don’t let that put you off. Just so long as you know that this is written with a general feeling of bitter contempt that I still have to keep in touch with you losers back home, rather than getting on with my new exciting life over here, that’s all. I’m now thousands of miles across the world and I still feel you’re all holding me back. Now, I know on computers it’s hard to know if I’m being sarcastic or not, so I’ll just let you make up your own minds.

Anyway, I’ve been saying I would write one of these for at least a fortnight now, everyone else in the house has been writing one for ages ( except for Lucas, who is two, and in my opinion just plain lazy.) Well I’ve started now, and, as this is essentially just an on-line diary, I give it two weeks tops before any sort of limited novelty value it has wares off. If you think about it, me having a blog works out much better for you guys though. No longer will you have to receive my large impersonal group e-mails. In fact, I don’t think I will be writing to you at all. If you do feel the need to find out how I am doing however, and I’m aware this will be a fairly select group and getting smaller by the minute, you can simply log on to my blog where I intend to go to great pains to illustrate how much nicer my life is than yours. I’ll even try to include some pictures.

It just occurs to me that I forgot to mention to many of you that I arrived safe and well in Belize. I’ve now been here a couple of weeks and as this was a fairly fundamental reason for me writing this it should perhaps have come before I launched in to insulting you all, but I guess that’s not the way it worked out. Things here are great anyway. It’s funny to be somewhere that is so familiar (I lived here for a while about a year and a half ago) yet that has changed so much. I am back staying in Andy and Simone’s house and it is really good to be back. They are such great people and have done so much to the place that it looks almost unrecognizable, everything has been finished off really beautifully. They now even have a bar inside the house but despite this I am managing to abstain from drinking. Two weeks now, perhaps a new personal best.

On top of my healthy eating and drinking I have been leading, almost by accident I must say, a very healthy lifestyle, running and swimming most days as well as a fair bit of football. I’ve already played a couple of matches for the local team although I could only manage 45 minutes in each. In fact in the first I only played for 10 and spent the remaining 35 as a spectator with a great view of the pitch. Still, I am gradually acclimatizing. With all this fresh air and exercise you’d think I’d be feeling in peak physical condition and perhaps I would’ve been if I hadn’t been savaged by the mosquitoes and sun. That coupled with the fact that my wrist is all bandaged up as I have put it out again lifting weights… from one side of the deck to the other. What a man. Anyway, with all my bites, bandages and peeling skin I’m looking like a cross between a badly written brail book and a scabby mummy, not a great look.

We have quite a busy house here these days. The bottom floor, where I stayed last time, has been converted in to guest rooms as Andy and Simone are now running a small resort here, hence the bar and stuff. You can check it out at their website at http://www.greendragonbelize.com/. It’s all very cool. Also there are now five of us living upstairs as Karen, who is a yoga teacher from Canada, is also staying here, probably for a year or so. She is also really nice and it is good to have more people to hang out with, especially as Mooch isn’t here this time. It’s also very different now that Lucas is Two. He has the energy of ten of us and is now great fun. He is pretty mischievous though and I find the discipline side of things very hard, how do you tell someone off for something when your doubled over crying with laughter? I find it all just too funny. This has the unfortunate side effect of not really putting him off however, in fact in many cases quite the opposite and I don’t think Simone is too keen on this. It’s not always too good for me either, like the other day when he was sitting on my knee ‘playing dominoes’ and made himself sick by swallowing too much of his own hand. Very messy.

I am also very happy that I seem to have timed my trip here very well again with regards to work. After a week of holidaying we are starting again on several construction projects including a riverside yoga deck, a huge rainwater collection tank and some sort off eco-house / guest accommodation. It’s all still early days but very exciting stuff. We still have to sort out my work permit and things but I am hopeful it shouldn’t be a problem.

Anyway, now you are all caught up on what I am doing I can finish this, safe in the knowledge it will take me a fair while to write again. Hope you are all well back home.

2005-01-23T12:25:00.000-07:00

Proof of life

2005-01-23T12:22:00.000-07:00

My new front garden

2005-01-23T12:21:00.000-07:00

My new back garden

2005-01-23T12:20:00.000-07:00

View down to Belize River