One door closes and another opens!

"Don't cry because it's over. Smile because it happened" - Dr. Seuss

Goodbyes are always hard but we have decided that we must bid our loyal readers adieu. Where are we going? What are we doing? Why are we closing our blog?

Exploring Belize Continues was a labour of love. It took Colette up to 5 hours to put together a blog and as our new business, Conch Creative, started to take up more time - we realised that the blog was being seriously neglected. We also realised that much of our time and travels were related to our business.

So, we're not disappearing. We have started a new blog about our business and our work behind the scenes. We are very excited and hope that all of our loyal readers will subscribe. We can promise you interesting stories, cool locations and fabulous pictures. So, please do check out the Conch Creative blog

http://conchcreative.wordpress.com/

Before we depart, we wanted to share a few pictures with you. In September, Maya had her 50th birthday party. It was an amazing party. Earlier in the year, we bought a pig. Our pig lived at Darwin Farm, owned by our adorable (and we should add..startlingly clever) friends Kathleen and Andrzej in Succotz - near the Guatemalen border.

Darwin Farm is a magical place where the animals have names (our pig was named Goldman) and they are loved and cared for with great attention to their needs and quality of life.

Maya created a list of the people she wanted to invite and we sent out the invitation. She was super tough about who made it on the list and who didn't. 'The list' became a running joke amongst our friends and probably a source of consternation amongst those who didn't make it but thought they would.

We were grateful for Goldman's sacrifice and everyone at the party thoroughly enjoyed the traditional pibil that was made by Maya's favourite restaurant - a tiny little place on the Guatemalan border called Benito's or Benny's for short. Our friends then drove the pibil across Belize and flew over to San Pedro. They brought us some of their amazing artisan cheese and made the best home made bread for us. We tried to honour Goldman by creating a little shrine for him at the party. Thanks to one of our many friends who sent us pictures (believe or not we didn't take any!) for this one of the shrine and the party pics to follow.

And on that note, we say farewell to our wonderful friends, family and followers, who inspired us to share our lives in Belize. We hope you will tune in and subscribe to http://conchcreative.wordpress.com/ and join us on the next part of our journey.

Love and Kisses from Maya and Colette

A Conch is Calling

Cosmic Monster, by Maya Papovic

A few blogs back, we told you we were working on our business - Conch Creative. If you have been following this blog, you know we've accomplished so much since we've been in Belize. Aside from learning to live in a completely different country, overcome the inevitable culture shock, building a house, acquiring two more dogs and collecting a weird and wonderful bunch of new friends - we've spent a lot of time trying to find a niche.

We've bored our friends with our endless ideas and spent a considerable amount of time and effort on one or two projects that just weren't meant to be. We both wanted to reinvent ourselves and find a way that we could work together. Anyone who lives in Belize or even who visits regularly knows that Belize has a peculiar way of teaching you new things about yourself and the way that you live your life.

We knew we wanted to do something creative and we had to do something we were good at. The most important ingredient of course is that we had to do something that would work in Belize. Neither of us is particularly business minded but we do work hard and when we get passionate about something, we go for it 100%.

This is how Conch Creative came into being. It all started when we did a few logos for people, helped out with designing posters and did some photography. Colette had been doing some work in PR and had gained experience in that field, while Maya had spent much of her youth as a photographer, even having her own dark room, colouring and enhancing film by hand long before anyone had ever heard of digital photography or photoshop. Maya's career took her into videography but she has always been creative, recently demonstrating that she is a fantastic artist as you can see by the opening photo on this blog of one of her paintings.

Of course we need to make a living but as everyone knows, we've always been hugely commited to not for profit work and support the local humane society, SAGA. So, we produced a calendar for Friends of the Humane Society, containing black and white glossy photographs of people in San Pedro and their pets. These weren't traditional portraits. They were sexy and stylish and it is a project we were very proud to be involved in. So far, we have been told it has raised almost $4000 usd. If you want one for Christmas, let us know and we'll find a way to get one to you. They are only $10usd plus shipping and they really are a cool and unique present. We did not charge to produce this calendar, so the only costs were the printing. All profits to to Friends of the Humane Society, which is currently raising money to build a much needed isolation unit. You can read all about the calendar launch at Lime Bar & Grill here, here and here where you'll see write ups and some great pictures of all the fun. It was a huge event and very successful. Almost all of the calendar models attended the launch to sign their pictures along with Mayor Elsa Paz and Miss World Belize, Letty Lara.
















Colette - Miss August, Friends of the Humane Society Calendar 2010

David - Mr. September, Friends of the Humane Society Calendar 2010

















Friends of the Humane Society Calendar 2010 - Models

After all the enjoyment we had making the calendar we really had to get our nose to the grind stone and think about how we are going to earn a living so that we can continue our love affair with Belize. We have been working on our portfolio and our website is almost ready to go live. Maya does most of the photography, although Colette is learning and has produced some pretty nice pictures herself. We work together on our concepts and planning the shoot and between us we tweak the photographs until we are perfectly happy to label them with our Conch Creative logo.

















Baby in Bowl - Conch Creative























Natalia - Conch Creative























Independent Feathers - Conch Creative










In Your Hands-
Conch
Creative




Now that the business is just starting to get off the ground, we are learning about how supportive our community truly is, with everyone helping us out with advice, practical help and referrals. We are very excited about this business and both enjoy the work so much. It is just another confirmation to us that we made the right decision when we moved to Belize and while we miss the wonderful friends we left behind, we don't miss the lifestyle at all.

Of course, in the midst of all this, as if it weren't enough, Colette has been working hard on her humane education programme, Be Kind Belize, which seems to have taken on a life of its own. Recently, she featured on the Belizean national breakfast TV show called Open Your Eyes, where she got the opportunity to talk about the link bewteen cruelty to animals and human violence. She was also invited to speak to a group of students at Belize University on the same subject, which she found extremely inspiring. Several new volunteers have come on board and it is likely that Be Kind Belize will be finding its ways into schools all over the country in the new year.


















Colette with William Neal and Marleni Cuellar on Open Your Eyes Chan. 5

While over in Belize to film the TV show, she was invited to participate in a great event being held by Lifeline, a charity established by Kim Simpliss Barrow, the Prime Minister's wife, to provide financial assistance to children's projects across Belize. This particular event, called Magic Brushes, involved a group of women who were cruise ship tourists. Instead of doing the normal tourist activities when they visited Belize, they decided to do something for the community. So a group of them turned up at our hospital, Karl Huesner, to help brighten up the paediatric ward by painting murals on the walls. You can read about it here. Colette, with her friends Denise from San Pedro and Caroline, one of the Directors of Lifeline, spent the day with a bunch of other amazing people brightening up the days of a bunch of sick children and hosting a fabulous group of women who were hugely generous with their time and spirit and had a great experience in Belize.


















Caroline, Denise and Colette do Sponge Bob at Karl Huesner Hospital


















Poor Patrick - Colette Kase

Most people think that tourists are relatively hedonistic, but Belize must do something to people because we are constantly stunned by the thoughtful of visitors who come to Belize. So many people bring gifts for the schools, humane societies, health clinics and other good causes. Be Kind Belize has several wonderful benefactors from around the world, who bring prizes for the children when they visit and help to support the programme. Philanthropic tourism is definitely a good thing and we would urge everyone who is traveling to countries that are not as wealthy as your own to find out in advance how you can help. A few dollars or pounds and a little effort by you before you arrive at your destination can often make a huge difference to non profit groups in your host country. Things you can do include bringing school supplies, medical and veterinary products, clothing and books.

Watch this space as we are very close to announcing the launch of the Conch Creative website, which is when we'll truly be up and running. We're so thrilled we might just explode.

Caye Caulker Lobster Fest - Feel the Rock!

Lobster Season is Officially Open!

Be Kind Belize

Humane Education Ain't Just for the Birds You Know

This gorgeous shot of a Harpy Eagle was taken by Maya

Where have we been? Why haven't we blogged? How can we be living in tropical paradise and be so busy? Oh the questions.

We like to keep our blog supporters updated but we also want to make sure we have really interesting stuff to share. Of course we could rub it in constantly and report back on our wonderful friends, the sparkling Caribbean Sea where we walk our dogs and swim regularly. We could brag about the great fishing and how amazing it is to eat fish that we have caught ourselves, straight from the salt water onto our grill. We could talk about hanging out at beach bars with our feet in the sand, the breeze in our hair, a cold beer in our hand tapping our feet to stomping good blues music. We could revel in the barefoot beach lifestyle that we have grown to love, treasure and embrace. We could drone on and on about the interesting people we know who are doing all sorts of heart stopping, enthralling and magical things. We could, but we won't.

What we will do is tell you a little bit about why we are so busy. Here are some of the things we've been up to. We've been taking photographs for a fund raising calendar for the local humane society. Sounds easy eh? Well, first we have to coordinate times with everyone, which isn't so easy when there is something called 'Belize time', which seems to mean that appointments don't constitute any sort of commitment. A good example of Belize time is the recent announcement that the Belikin Calendar has been released for 2009. Um hello guys, it is June already. But for those of you who don't know Belize time, there it is for you. For those of you who don't know the Belikin Calendar, have a click and look. You'll realise that most of the guys who buy the calendar aren't making the purchase to check what date it is. (nudge, nudge, wink, wink)

Then there is getting the weather to cooperate. These pictures involve people and their pets. As anyone knows, who has worked in this field, trying to get an owner and pet both looking fabulous in the same shot is a miracle in itself if you are attempting anything resembling a posed picture. Then there is the tactful and time consuming task of making everyone look extra beautiful without looking unnatural. Fortunately Maya is a genius. We want to get this calendar out on time - not on Belize time and we want to make the local humane society a lot of money. Watch this space and wish us luck. The good news is that we have gorgeous pets and stunning owners and there will be a fair mix of boys and girls - so everyone should be happy.

In the midst of all of this we realised that we had better start earning some real money and so we set off on the task of writing a business plan and getting ourselves all excited about a new business. Then the economy sort of collapsed and we started to feel it in Belize. Not the right time to start the business we were planning and we have been disappointed to have to shelve the idea temporarily. Those that were involved are disappointed too, but such is life. We are moving forward with our next plan of action and things are going very well. We will be updating you all when we are ready to launch Conch Creative formally, but that is a hint. That is the name of our business.


















Of course, you all know that Maya has been gardening and that combined with finishing our house has been a humongous task. Enjoyable and frustrating all at the same time.

Colette has been particularly busy. Everyone who knows her, knows that she is always up to something, she does a bit of writing, a bit of music a bit of this and a bit of that, but her main focus recently has been her humane education programme, Be Kind Belize. (website was designed and provided by the amazing and wonderful people at Belize Bird Rescue) After living here for sometime and trying to work out what she could do to give something back to this wonderful country that has been so welcoming to us, she decided to use her lifetime of
experience in animal welfare to develop Be Kind Belize.

Some of you might be asking, 'what on earth is humane education?'. Well, Colette sums it up by saying that it is the teaching of kindness in all of its forms.

A more complicated but detailed definition is provided by the all knowing Wikipedia.

"Humane education makes the acquisition of relevant knowledge, skills, and commitment to living ethically, sustainably, and peaceably on this planet the very purpose of education. It does this by infusing the curricula at all levels of education with meaningful information, inspiration, and tools for creating a safe and humane world for all.

Humane education examines the challenges facing our planet, from human oppression and animal exploitation to materialism and ecological degradation. It explores how we might live with compassion and respect for everyone: not just our friends and neighbors, but all people; not just our own dogs and cats, but all animals; not just our own homes, but also the earth itself, our ultimate home.

Humane education helps raise a generation that cares, that realizes that what we do matters, not just to ourselves but also to everyone our lives touch; a generation that understands the connections between both our personal and cultural choices and the fate of other people, other species, and the Earth, and takes responsibility for creating a better world. Humane education achieves these goals by inspiring people to identify the values that will guide them through life and by teaching them the process of embodying these values in the face of complex problems and needs.

Humane education promotes empathy and compassion towards all other species.

The birth of humane education as a national effort dates back to 1915. In that year, “Be Kind to Animals Week” was inspired Dr. William O’Stillman, leader of the American Humane Association. AHA’s primary goals were: visiting local schools to promote the development of humane education and publicizing the good works of the nation’s humane societies."

So, overall, it is a pretty good thing. Colette started designing this programme over a year ago and studied hard to ensure that her lessons tied in closely with the Belize National Curriculum. She then approached schools and was delighted to be invited to work with two - Holy Cross Anglican School and Island Academy - very different schools but both full of delightful children, who seem to love Colette's Be Kind Belize lessons and rather unconventional teaching methods.

The children have put on plays click here to see play. And they have written songs click here to hear them sing .

One of the most exciting things that Colette has done through her programme is the Kind Kids Adventure. Through the generous help and sponsorship of all sorts of individuals and businesses, she has set up an overnight field trip to the Belize mainland for a group of children from these two schools. Field trips aren't always particularly unusual but this one is different for a number of reasons. Firstly, the children are choosing which of their classmates get to go on this trip - only two from Island Academy and four from Holy Cross will be able to go as this trip is actually a prize for the kindest child. All of the children in each class get to use Kind Kid Coupons to identify and reward kind behaviour by their classmates. Through this system, which the children have to support by drawing a picture of the act of kindness along with a written description, which is then verified by the teacher, children will actually 'vote' for the kindest child in the class.

The children who are lucky enough to come on this trip will get the chance to visit a wild bird rehabiliation centre, Belize Bird Rescue, where they will learn about wild and domestic birds and see conservation in action. They will meet a real Belizean cowboy, who specialises in training horses with kindness and see him work with horses. They will visit a reptile conservation programme, the national Audobon society, get to learn about environmental technology, find out how to become a veterinarian in Belize and, on top of all of this, they will get a half day of cave tubing at Caves Branch . There are so many people to thank and Colette will be doing all of that properly and hugely after the trip, but the kids (don't tell them if you are reading this and you know one of them) will be receiving t-shirts, knapsacks, chocolate and all sorts of other amazing goodies donated by people from all over the world, who have heard about Be Kind Belize and want to help.

Fortunately, Colette has been in animal welfare a long time and knows how to do things on a shoe string. She also doesn't want to get into fundraising and the whole having to be on a committee, be terribly diplomatic (although she's never been known to have been diplomatic in her life really), do fundraising and all that malarkey, so she has kept costs down to a minimum while gratefully accepting practical donations.

But Colette isn't stupid either and printing costs a fortune down here, so she has set up a little Be Kind Belize Cafe Press Shop online, where you can purchase Be Kind Belize products and help out with the costs. You can also be incredibly fashionable, hip and rather sexy (there are even t-shirts for dogs). Or you can be a really a wonderful friend and buy items as presents for others. Either way, check it out as the logo is adorable and once you see it, you'll want one. The logo, was in fact, created by the talented and mysterious Maya.

For your viewing pleasure, here is a stolen shot of the now famous 'Flyin Mayan'. Taken by Ruth Verrals from the gorgeous Caribbean Villas

And another one which could only be titled (for those of you familiar with British Panto) 'She's behind you!' Or Maya's caption which is 'Jazz Hands'. Taken by Ruth Verrals from the gorgeous Caribbean Villas.

One little aside. We don't normally review local restaurants here because we are fussy buggers and we don't want to insult anyone, but in this case we'll make a little teensy exception. True to form, no review, just a comment. 'F'ing brilliant food!' Hummingbird Cafe.

To sum it all up boys and girls - We are busy. We are creating. We are doing. We are going to be launching soon. When we do, we will make sure you guys are definitely going to hear about it. We love you all. Colette & Maya

ps. This blog was supposed to be an interview with the great Drummer Dan and his talented friend Derrek. Unfortunately, the boys are rather slow at answering interview questions. So, if you see Derek, could you please give him a kick up the arse from us.

Bats, Birds, Books ....oh and one little Agouti called Ben

"Bats have no bankers and they do not drink and cannot be arrested and pay no tax and, in general, bats have it made."

John Berryman (1917 - 1972)

These adorable, but slightly menacing creatures are Pygmy Fruit Eating Bats. They have a condo in a palmetto tree outside our window. They don't live there full time, but hang around (ha ha) every two or three days. Maya has been standing on a pile of crates to get photos when we can. Catching them with their eyes open is difficult. Catching them with their mouth open is even more difficult if they don't happen to be eating at the time. The little grey ones are babies and we've been watching them grow. As mammals, they nurse and we have caught this happening and it is absolutely fascinating. Welcome to our world. We're bats about Belize.

























This is Chilli. Chilli is a Red Lored Parrot who found his way from the rain forest near the Macal River, to San Pedro and then back to mainland Belize. He currently resides at Belize Bird Rescue. His wings had been cut back badly but after their expert care he is now free flying and they are hoping he will soon find a mate.

Belize Bird Rescue does more than rescue and rehabilitate birds, their kindness and hospitality attract all sorts of stray people and animals.























This is the rather inappropriately named, Hunter (the dog), with Ben (actually Benjamina) the Agouti. Ben was brought home as a newborn, with umbilical cord still attached, by one of their other gentle but giant dogs. Agouti are eaten as bush meat in Belize. Luckily no one has told Hunter that.





















This is Colette helping with early morning feeding. Ben may look very cute and truly is scrumptious, but she is a wild animal. Having spent time at Belize Bird Rescue that might be difficult to believe, since Benjamina has full run of the house, which can be somewhat disconcerting as she has a habit of rearranging things, but she is free to come and go as she pleases and will hopefully mature and attract a mate herself.





















Ben is becoming less dependent on her milk feeds and seems to enjoy solids, such as this juicy piece of mango. It is so nice to live in a place where you can pick mangoes off the tree. Have we mentioned that Belize truly is paradise on earth?





















We need to get back to the bird bit though. Somehow the cuteness of Benjamina overwhelmed us and she got in on this blog much too early. Belize Bird Rescue has hundreds of birds, many of them chickens. This chicken and her little baby seem to understand that a chicken's place is in the hen house.



























But many of the chickens don't understand that fact. This very handsome and rather large cock (sorry we couldn't help ourselves) practiced his crowing outside Colette's window every night. She claims it was reassuring but got back to San Pedro with big bags under her eyes. As she denies that she consumed far too much wine and stayed up far too late with her wonderful hostess Nikki, putting the world to rights, it must have been this very large cock that ruined her beauty sleep. (oh we really must stop with the childish innuendo)

Sometimes the situation became somewhat Hitchcockesque, as the chickens and the odd turkey settled for the evening. Trust us when we say that you didn’t want to be the first one walking down these stairs in the morning.

And the turkeys were definitely odd. This is the author Joan Fry (who incidentally should not really be mentioned in this part of the blog but she’s nearly as cute as Benjamina, so we’ll let her off) with her friend Lee and an odd, un named turkey.

Truly though, after this picture you might start to understand that there really are chickens everywhere at Belize Bird Rescue. And thank goodness for that.





















Without them we would have no eggs as we are very fussy about eggs and there really are none better than those grown on a healthy diet, free range and organic. Big kudos to Jerry and Nikki for ensuring that we do not have an eggless existence.

Oh deer. Oh deer indeed. Somehow they’ve ended up with a pair of deer as well. Bambi you would think, but these are trained attack deer and Colette saw exactly what they were capable of, when she bravely threw Nikki under the pounding hooves of one very pissed off young buck. Fortunately there was a hose nearby and Colette can certainly hose a deer down in self defence....is there a song coming on here? Hose a deer, a female deer...Actually it was the male deer who attacked and he is scary and strong.

For those of you who prefer views to animals, this is the view you wake up to at Belize Bird Rescue.

And if you are really lucky, this fantastic cowboy (and he is truly fantastic), Alyson, will take you out for a ride in the rain forest. Colette and Joan Fry joined him. Difference is, Joan is a horse expert and gets to ride regularly.

Colette loves horses but doesn’t get to ride very often and embarrassingly actually managed to find herself hanging from her bra from her saddle. Her horse was very patient with her.

Now before we get to the book section, we have a few more gratuitous photos to add.

Gratuitous and indulgent still life and a saddle similar to the one Colette dangled from by her bra.



























Gratuitous yet amusing picture of chicken in parrot cage.


















Gratuitous but somewhat heartwarming picture of Buddica and Maya.





















Completely gratuitous shot of three stunningly gorgeous people. Kathleen, Colette and Andre. Now onto bookish things.





















Joan's book signing in Belmopan sign with Joan and Jerry being propped up by a sign.





















Joan dressed in her riding gear for a horse adventure. We're not sure we've ever seen anyone in Belize get dressed up so fancy to ride a horse.





















Joan is interviewed on the Morning Show by Senator Aiden Salazar. Colette's behind the scenes version of the 'monkey dance' stopped them both from falling asleep. Early mornings are not Joan's forte'.






















San Pedro welcomes Joan with a banner. (with very tiny writing)





















Miss Tammy turns over her Hummingbird restaurant to cook some of the wonderful recipes from Joan's book, How to Cook a Tapir - A Memoir of Belize. Of course, the amazing Tapir is now an endangered species and we would never cook one, but the rest of the meal rocked.





















San Pedro's Mayor, Elsa Paz, meets Joan and receives her own signed copy of the book at Page's Bookshop.

We'd like to thank everyone who made Joan feel so welcome back in Belize and all of our wonderful friends who continue to supply us with chocolate and bring us the little things that make life a little bit easier. Much love.