We ARE the Entertainment

As I've mentioned in previous posts, Bigness and I have a house 1/2 way between Belize City and Belmopan. We have 2 neighbors right now, a bagpipe-playing retired Englishman, who is always home, thank goodness, because he also doubles as the volunteer fire department when its dry season, putting out brush fires in the neighborhood. The other neighbor is a Belizean college professor and his family - Bigness calls him "The Teacher" - I never did catch his name, but if we go off and leave our outside lights on, he unscrews the bulbs for us so that they don't burn out. Mighty neighborly of him. I spoke to The Teacher one time in my midwest nasal twang, he had a pained look on his face and squinted his eyes the whole time, the body language that I translated to mean: "I know she's speaking English, but what EXACTLY are those words. He had the exact same look I get on my face when I'm talking to a spanish speaker.

We are out in the "Country". The little subdivision where we live is in an old abandoned orange grove. On our property we have 3 orange trees, 2 of them bear fruit. There is electricity, but no phone service - unless you have a fixed cell, no internet, no cable TV, no local TV either, unless you have a satellite dish. There is however, Love FM (local music and news station with their collection of 5 CDs, broadcasting in English). There is also Bigness and Big Ting (Me) for entertainment.

We don't have a lawn mower, that would make too much sense, we have a weedwhacker and a machette. Bigness goes out to the yard and gets all of his frustrations out chopping and whacking. (I hear a lot of the Fok word then) For today's entertainment, I'm stalking a moth on the front porch, and then I'm in the yard photographing weird plant-like things growing in the orange trees.

So, la-di-da-di-da, snap snap snap, me in my pink mumu and pink foam flip flops, crawling around on the porch. I wrongly assume that if I'm not looking at you, you're not looking at me. Then I'm in the side yard, more worried about stepping in a nest of fire ants than watching who's watching me. Bigness is washing the car beside the house, as he does every week. His favorite Spanish cowboy CD is blasting from the 300 watt stereo system, echoing off the empty houses. Tocame Mi Corozon Mi Corozon over and over again. He's bare chested, sweat rolling off him like a sprinkler, and touching up the latest scrape on the bumper with black spray paint. I glance across the street at The Teacher's house. The whole family is lined up sitting on their front porch, un-selfconsciously WATCHING US, all quiet, mom, dad, boy, and girl, like we are a big screen TV program, or the gorillas at the zoo. Or a sociology experiment. Oh, I think, maybe I should put some real clothes on. Too late, they've already seen me.

Somehow I always end up living in "The Noisey House" on the block.

Anyone have any idea what these pods are growing in the tree? Some kind of orchid? Something from Invasion of the Bodysnatchers? Do you think its a flower or a seed pod? This plant is sort of just stuck onto the orange tree and as far as I can see does not have any stem going into the ground.