Belize Part 1



In many parts of the world when you mention Belize people reply “where?”

For those that know Belize, a tiny country on the Caribbean coast just under Mexico, many people think of the islands of Ambergris and Caye Caulker and the legendary Blue Hole.  The country is famous for scuba-diving and snorkelling, being on the barrier reef, and being lush with exotic sea plants and sea creatures.

But Belize is massively more than that.  Extraordinary Mayan ruins, exotic plants and animals, stunning views and lots of interesting little towns …. all on the Caribbean ….

My favourite spot is the coastal area of  Hopkins and vicinity, a little Garifuna village on the beach, still boasting its traditional way of life.  Garifuna (in a nutshell) is like Creole, but not Creole.  They are friendly, cheerful, happy people who will greet you as you pass and whose children are safe to play outside in the streets long after dark.  There are several eateries where you can try out the local dishes, and there are also several European and/or American restaurants too.  We like eating at the German- run “The Frog”, cheap and cheerful and very good, or at Iris’s, owned by a South African lady called, not Iris,  but Maureen.   A little further along, heading south out of the village, there are more up-market restaurants and some excruciatingly expensive hotels and villas.

In Hopkins itself the cheapest place to stay, if you are young and happy to rough it a little, is The Funky Dodo, a backpackers’ hostel owned by a young Englishman, William.  Dormitories and private rooms are funky and quirky, with an excellent bar up under the treetops and a small restaurant being built as we speak.  For us, we are too old for places like The Funky Dodo and we hire a beach cabana for the duration – there is a great selection to choose  from.

When we first visited Hopkins, three years ago now, the beach was awash with litter and stinking seaweed.  Most of the litter was plastic that had come off various boats and been washed ashore and, just as the Garifuna people have started to understand the importance of cleaning up their beaches, so the rest of the world needs to understand the importance of being so sooo careful when disposing of plastic.  Expatriat residents of Hopkins, and there are quite a few, organize beach clean-ups several times a year and most areas are now garbage-free.

I think one of the things I particularly like about Hopkins is that, although it has retained its traditional culture and values, it has also made way for the modern world which – inevitably – includes tourism.  Each year there are improvements – an ATM this year! – making it a lovely place to stay, be comfortable and enjoy ……

Tomorrow the Mayan ruins.

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Hummingbirds

Hummingbirds are among the smallest birds on earth, measuring around 7.5-13 cm (2-3 inches).  In our part of France we often see the Bee Hummingbird, which is not a bee, but a real hummingbird, but so tiny that people sometimes think it is a bee.  These tiny Bee Hummingbirds gather around a red flower, which I think must be a gorse bush of some sort (I have tried looking it up on Google to no avail) in the grounds here.  They measure barely 3 cm, perhaps 4 cm, and they move so quickly that it takes a while to realize what they are.  In fact were it not for the long beak, I too would have long ago assumed it was a bee.
I spend quite a lot of time in Belize where there are several types, all tiny, but none so tiny as the Bee Hummingbird.  But then Belize boasts a lot of wonderful plant and animal life, amazingly-plumed birds.  This one (illustartion)  is in Belize and measures barely 8 cms..

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Autism

Yesterday I had the pleasure of interviewing the older brother of an autistic 14 year old girl.  I had been asked to write a series of  ’Coping with Life Articles’ and decided to start with a family that I know well.  The older brother, Josh, is 25 and when Suzy, his little sister, was born he was 11.

“I first noticed that there was something very wrong, when Suzy was about 3 years old.  I got up in the middle of the night to find her running round and round the dining table in frenzied circles, while my mother patiently tried to get her back to bed.  The scene has always stuck in my mind, and I can picture it as clearly as though it were half an hour ago, a toddler in pyjamas running round and round like a small trapped creature.

To this point Suzy had just been one of those babies that seemed to be forever crying.  I know now that my mother, from the first stages of pregnancy, sensed there was something wrong.  My older brother and I had been straightforward babies and toddlers with all the usual ups and downs that accompany them.  Suzy right from the word go was completely different.

Memories of her as a small child are filled with traumatic scenes of trying to relate to a little sister who was unable to relate to me.  My dreams, and my older brother’s dreams, of a sweet little sister to molly-coddle were utterly thwarted.  We had instead a furious, yelling creature whose spurts of noise were intersected with long periods of stoney silence while she rocked herself back and forth between the sides of the doorframe or similar.

Now, at 14 years old, Suzy has learnt social skills that only her immediate family can understand.  She cannot apply her mind to anything if it doesn’t interest her, but when she is interested in something she will obsess on it.  She has a collection of Barbie dolls with all their accompanying ‘accoutrements’ and these will occupy her, with an almost manic intensity, for hours on end.  Unlike most girls of her age she has no interest in clothes or make-up and does not recognise her body as something that she needs to cover up when appropriate.  Puberty has made the situation vastly worse because although she has the body of a 14 year old, she has the mind of a 9 year old.

Conversely, she does quite well at school, is good at languages and intricate art work.  She is miserably teased in some situations and goes through patches where she will scream and kick rather than get in the car to go to school.  There are also patches where another girl befriends her for a while (it never lasts long) and Suzy is happy.

Now as adulthood approaches my biggest concern for my little sister is her inability to cope in a social situation.  She is terrified of strangers and falls apart when she simply just has to say hello to someone.  With friends and family that she does know, she will suddenly chime in to a conversation, usually very loudly, and at the most inappropriate moment.  I don’t know what the future holds for her.”

Autism is a mental condition present from early childhood.  Victims have great difficulty in communicating and forming relationships.  They have high anxiety levels and are easily confused.  They come across as though they feel no emotion, but this is not yet properly understood.  Autism does not necessarily mean learning difficulties, though it is often associated with such.  Perhaps the saddest part is that it is such a lonely syndrome that is little understood and that pushes most people away.

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The Storks

The storks are back! Every year the same storks return to this part of France and they almost always return to the same nests. They remain in couples all their lives, and both partners look after the young and each other. They will nest in the most precarious positions on the top of pylons and in dead trees- they choose dead trees so that the leaves and twigs don’t get in the way of their huge wings. However, sometimes a dead branch will fall off taking the nest with it and it can be heartbreaking watching the parent birds circling round and round trying to find their young.

The tradition of storks bringing babies started in Germany and the Netherlands during the 14th century. The souls of unborn babies were said to live in the marshlands and the storks would carry them from the marshlands to their new parents- Storks are usually seen in marshy areas. As Victorian prudishness overtook our society in the 19th century, children were told that that is how babies are made.

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Thoughts on how to run a business Part 7

So, to sum-up:-

- your business should shout out at the public: COME IN!  BUY ME! THIS IS WHAT YOU NEED!  EAT HERE!  BEST VALUE!   ….. as the case may be

- you, in your dress, your manner, your speech, your attitude, should shout: I AM YOUR MAN!  I AM THE ONE YOU NEED!  YOU CAN COUNT ON ME!

- never take things personally if you can avoid it

- too much chummy chatter is not so good

- yet too much stern professionalism is not so good

- anything that smacks of the run-down -and- struggling needs to be kept out of sight, e.g an old car

- but on the other hand do not spend much-needed funds on anything that is not going to lead towards getting the money in, e.g a new mobile: the old one is fine

- never ever allow yourself to sound needy, never ever be pushy, not even slightly

- yet never allow yourself to be patronized

- analyse the type of person you are. Take a good, hard look at how you come over to other people and how you look

- keep your sums up-to-date every single day, no matter how small.  A lot of small businesses come crashing down because of hiccups in the sums

- remember the AIM of your business: to make money.  To provide a good servie and a good product too, of course, but to MAKE MONEY

- and remember YOU.  You will work long hours, often late in to the evning, and that is just par for the course.  But take time off too – get right away for a full day once a week, preferably with somebody who helps you to feel relaxed

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Thoughts on how to run a business Part 5

It is sooooo difficult to not be pushy or to sound desperate when you really really need that sale!  I remember it well.  But it is the worst thing you can do.  There are some people who can be talked in to buying an item or paying for a service (we have been victims of this ourselves, in Marakesh, when the vendor of some herbs and potions managed to talk us in to spending a small fortune on rubbish … he was brilliant.  We are tough business people, very experienced, yet he had us round his little finger in seconds. You have to admire him for it).  But on the whole it is a mistake and you shouldn’t do it.
Never ever plead either!  I can hear you all exclaim that of course you would never dream of pleading, but it happens.  Claire ran her own little business selling candles and pretty ornament-type items.  She went to people’s homes in the afternoons, having arranged a tea get-together (or a coffee morning) in advance, and then showed her wares.  I watched her closely, for it was potentially quite a good little number.  All women like to buy pretty things, we all have birthdays and Christmasses coming up, and the women who were not out at work during the day were also the ones who could afford these things.
However nobody showed any interest.  There were about 10 of us there and, statistically, at least three women should be buying.  But everybody sat slightly awkwardly and tried to distract the situation by taking another buscuit or sipping tea.

Claire had given quite a sweet little talk about her wares, and had explained some stuff about how candles are made …. yet it had fallen flat.  Why ?  Poor Claire started to plead and, before she humiliated herself totally, I bought a few candles.  This had the effect of kick-starting other purchases, and I realized what had gone wrong:
Claire was kneeling on the floor at a large coffee-table on which her things were on show.  This was a subservient position. Furthermore, the ladies present were seated in armchairs or on the sofa, and nobody wanted to be the first (people are daft!) to get up and go to the coffee table, bend over and ask the price of something.  It was awkward.  The items would have been far better on the main table alongside the tea and biscuits, where the ladies could get up, pour more tea, look at candles …… and buy.
This simple little thing had nearly created a flop.  It made me realize too how valuable a “stooge” can be in some situations.  I don’t want to encourage anybody to be dishonest but, frankly, if I hadn’t set the ball rolling I doubt anybody would have bought anything.  Claire could perhaps have asked the hostess to please show an interest straight away – explaining why – even if the hostess didn’t actually buy anything.  In some situations I expect a friend can be brought along ….
Elodie had a nice little bar-restaurant near Paris.  It was very small, but sweet, with pretty gingham curtains (my idea) and vases of flowers and the lights full on (the French are terrors about having the lights so dim that the place looks closed from the outside).  The area was good, on a central place with two other cafe-restaurants and plenty of passers-by. Yet trade was slow.  The reason was because she didn’t look busy.  People are attracted to places that look popular, quite wrongly assuming that it must be “better” because there are lots of poeple already there.  She stood outside trying to encourage people to come in.  That certainly works in some cases but in hers it was all wrong – it was her way of speaking – in a kind of pleady way.
Elodie then arranged her friends and family to take turns in coming to sit either outside the cafe (even when it was cold!) or inside at the window where they could be seen.  Every day for a week she had at least four friends there, all looking as though they were having a quiet coffee and enjoying it.  Passers-by in the street were then attracted in.  Problem solved.  And once she had built-up her reputation, she was flying.

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Thoughts on how to run a business Part 4

One thing that we all learn really early on in business is that we cannot rely on family and friends.
Depending on what your line of business is, your family and friends are – theoretically! – a good source for Getting the Word Out There.  But, oddly enough, although they mean to, and they want to, and they will do it tomorrow, and sure I’ll see to that, and of course count-on-me ….. somehow it just doesn’t happen.
Worse, they rapidly get fed up with you hammering on about your product.
More significantly, unless they too have had a similar experience to yours, there is no way they can understand your need for their active and effective support.
Susy wrote a book about yachting.  She self-published it and assumed all her friends and family would buy a copy just to support her.  But to her amazement they said things like “but, Suzy, I don’t sail!”  The book was very expensive, which didn’t help, though this was out of her control – it was simply what books cost to print.  She had business cards printed with a clear indication of her book and her sailing expertise and gave little piles of them to her friends and family – but no.  Very few ever gave the cards out on her behalf.  I know about this because I attended a coffee morning she held to promote her book; I bought a copy (though I don’t sail) and, as I left a joint friend commented to me : “I see you bought a copy!” (slightly condescending laugh) “but I didn’t – I don’t want to get involved.”
Get involved ?!!!!   Aren’t people peculiar ?!!!

Well no, people are not peculiar, they just don’t get it.  Most people are employed by somebody else.  The job they do may be difficult and it may be easy, but basically they have trained for a specific thing, they go in to work each morning and do that thing, then they go home again in the evening. End of story.  The job may and may not have responsibilities, it may or may not involve some work at home and it may or may not involve stress … but they are paid by somebody else to do whatever it is they are supposed to do.
When you are self- employed you have to create a situation whereby you cause money to go in to your bank account.  That is a scenario way beyond the comprehension of Mr & Mrs Average.  It stands to reason, therefore, that they cannot see that they, as your family and friends, potentially have a role that could – usually at no cost to them – be very good for you.
Just like general clients – this was brought home to me yesterday evening when a friend was telling me about a few houses she had been to view. Here in France it is quite common to meet the estate agent at the house or, as is often the case because properties can be remote, outside the town hall or the church.  This friend was utterly unashamed when she told me that, at the last minute, she had decided against the house anyway and didn’t turn up for the rendez-vous.  Now, I used to run my own estate agency and I got stood up at  odd intervals by so-called clients.  They had no idea about the trouble I had been to on their behalf – driving three miles in the wrong direction to pick up keys, dropping the children off at school twenty minutes early, the baby at the child minder, put petrol in the car …. and dashed to the town hall or the church only to wait around for an hour while it dawned on me that it was going to be a no-show.
I said in an earlier article that we cannot expect our clients to have any sympathetic feelings for us – that is not a part of their role.  We just have to bite the bullet, tough though it may be, and get on with it.  Likewise, we cannot expect support from people who have no, or little, experience of the ups and downs of running one’s own business.  Your friends and family are just that – friends and family. We cannot and should not count on them.