A Man’s Tough Love
“There is no remedy for love but to love more” – Thoreau I was raised tough by my father. He would often say he wants all his boys to be strong; the world has no place for “sissy” men. As a boy, his punishment for disobedience was the strap. You were a man when you […]
Getting Rid Of Pigeons
In past columns we have seen how Sanpedranos dealt with the problems of some animals that became pests. We have seen the bottle with a hole in the lid to catch house flies. Then we used the smoke buckets to drive away the bothersome mosquitoes. Well, have you ever thought that pigeons can become pests […]
Wisdom of the Heart
It’s not hard to make decisions when you know what your values are. ~ Roy Disney Many years ago before I moved to Belize, I had made a decision to slow down and live my passion. Back then I had a business, worked long hours and hardly had time for myself, or my family. It always […]
Drive Them Mosquitos
My grandfather used to say, “The mosquitoes deserve to live too.” And my father used to say, “How can such a tiny animal like a mosquito bother you?” But the real problem is not the mosquito. When you slap and kill one, ten others come to you. Got the point? The point is that we […]
Wisdom in Every Wound
Many times a bruised mango has the sweetest flavor- Emmanuel Some pains never really goes away; they are like dull stains on a white shirt. We can’t see them clearly, but we know that they are there. All we can do is keep the white part of the shirt so clean and focus on the […]
Secret To Long Life
Either the people of old days were made of good material, their genes were early death proof, or they had some fine secret that really worked, but the people of old lived quite some more years than our present generation. And my point is that they used to do quite a lot of the very […]
Patience, Patience, Patience
God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference. Anger like impatience is a self contained act. You are usually experiencing it alone inside yourself. You want people to hurry, you have things to do, lost in your own […]
Spanglish or Spamaya
In our present day San Pedro we speak a lot of Spanglish which is basically a lot of Spanish with some English words mixed into it. The reason for Spanglish is that we are living in a Spanish-speaking community influenced a lot by an English speaking environment such as television, radio, newspapers, education and street […]
Reshape Your Body Beliefs
Your body is a temple, but only if you treat it as one. ~Astrid Alauda These days I exercise regularly to keep healthy. What started out, as vanity is now self-preservation as I advance in age. But I remember years ago when I was overweight and out of shape. At the time I was quite […]
Staying In Primary School Until 14
This is the graduation season, the month of June. Back in time there was no graduations in San Pedro, even though we had one R.C. School with about 125 students and one Adventist school with about ten students. Some boys and girls never made it to Standard VI, the last year in primary education. But […]
Consequences, Circumstances & Beliefs
“Arrange whatever pieces comes your way”- Virginia Wolf We have all heard stories of growing up with abuse. Some of us actually lived it. Growing up in a household with a mean spirited angry father or mother. A Father bitter and cruel abuses drugs and alcohol, nearly killing himself many times. Finally ends up in […]
The Village Bells and Its Chimes
Make no mistake, if there is a fire you are bound to know when the fire truck with its siren flies by. And in other cities you know the different calls of the ambulance, fire truck or ice cream vendor. And so it was twenty five years ago in San Pedro when there was none […]
Seasons of Your Desire
“If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself but to your estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment”- Marcus Aurelius There are seasons for everything. All is transient and continually unfolding. Your emotions and desires are also constantly changes. For […]
Getting Rid of Those Annoying Flies
The other day there was one single housefly inside the house after we had hashed some shark meat. It is the baby shark incidentally, called “cazon” by the local fishermen. Whenever you fry fish, it tends to attract a lot of flies. So I asked my wife for the swatter before she got into a […]
The Shift
“Blessed are the flexible for they will not be bent out of shape”-Unknown Those who were shaken awake on Thursday last week can identify with my experience: Feeling the vibration of the floor beneath my feet, the startling awareness of the possibility of my building collapsing under the pressure of the earth’s movement. The earths’ […]
Mayan Treasures Hidden in Cenotes
This new discovery a sink hole that came about just at the time of the earthquake has many people associating a sink hole to a “cenote”. A “cenote” is a depression in the ground communicating with a subterranean passage (especially in limestone) and formed by collapse of a large cave or a large chamber in […]
“Player Hater”
In recent years the term “Player Hater” has become very popular. According to UrbanDictionary.com, the term is defined as “A person that simply cannot be happy for another person’s success. So rather than be happy they make a point of exposing a flaw in that person.” The word is believed to have originated from the […]
Fisherman Lies
Fisherman lies, they used to call them. Ever wondered why? Because the fish that got away was usually the largest fish of the day’s expedition. The fisherman would never acknowledge his lack of expertise as the reason why the fish got away. No. it was always that the fish was so very large that it […]
The Power of Acceptance
Serenity comes when you trade expectations for acceptance. It was 5a.m. and I climbed out of bed just as the sunlight bounced of the window illuminating the bedroom walls. Looking out my window I saw a lonely fisherman with a cast net, in the process of tossing it into the sea. I watched his body […]
Latrines on the Lagoon "Embarcaderos"
Part two of the Embarcaderos will take us from the garbage dump sites to the toilets over the lagoon. If you go to the lakes around Mexico City, in an area known as Xochimilco, where there are beautiful embarcaderos. There, the embarcadero is a wharf or place where you get on board a large canoe […]
Speak Up For Yourself
“Boundaries create focus and order”- Unknown We have all had, or heard this complaint going around; you or someone you know who does not like the way they are being treated. It could be at home, work, and school or with friends. Setting proper boundaries is important to create harmony in all your relationships. What […]
The Famous/Infamous Embarcaderos
There is a famous embarcadero in Mexico known as Xochimilco, a romantic waterway and tourist attraction. There you board large canoes or rafts which take you to a pleasurable ride accompanied by Mariachi music, Tecate, Superior or Carta Blanca, tacos and tamales, flowers, souvenirs and photographers. They compare in beauty to the waterways and River […]
Get Real About Fear
“Worry gives a small thing a big shadow.” A pilgrim on his way to a small village outside of Baghdad meet up with the plague one day, “where are you going?” asked the pilgrim. “I am going to Baghdad to kill five thousand people,” was the reply. A few days later the same pilgrim met […]
A Man’s Pregnancy Symptoms?
It was said that one mother-in-law knew that the child was her grandson because her daughter carried the baby in her womb, but the other mother-in-law was not totally sure if the child was for her son. But all these suspicions and disagreements between grandmothers disappeared when the husband suffered “bascas” during his wife’s pregnancy. […]
The Perfect You
When you aim for perfection, you discover it’s a moving target. ~George Fisher Consider Perfection Consider the bird that flies Without direction A sun, which sets without a clock The face of a moon that reveals Innermost secrets Seeds of trees that find their way Flowers, which come alive At the dawn of spring A […]