Belize can really put the breaks on you if you live here.  Today was a “waiting day” as are most days!  I am not sure if it is something about Belize, or just something about life.  Here in this teeny weeny town of Punta Gorda, people can have the habit of  just stopping in the middle of a road to jump into a shop to buy something oblivious of the car that they are blocking behind.   I was behind such a car today…and, I just had to wait!

You see this mostly at the market in Punta Gorda where there is a procession of cars and somebody just stops to buy a pound of onions or a papaya.  If you are the unfortunate person caught behind that car, you have no choice but to wait.  And you have to be patient whilst the person is haggling for the best price with the market lady!

Whenever you queue up to pay a bill, the rule of thumb is to count to number of people in front of you and multiply this by 15 minutes and this will give you the average waiting time.  So, if there are 4 people in front of you, expect to wait one hour.  That’s just the way it is here.  I was in a couple of these queues today with eight people in front of me!  It can be a whole social event in a queue when you start talking to Mrs. W. in front of you complaining about the waiting time and you then turn to talk to the lady behind to talk about the weather.  Everybody else seems to have a jolly good time!

Punta Gorda makes you wait for everything.  Belize makes you wait!Sometimes it gets to me.  But, then I have to remind myself that I came here to Belize so that I didn’t need to rush head-long through life in a mad panic.