It’s interesting to see the college students Liza and I are with and their reactions to the nature around us. A coconut falls from a tree in the dark and one of them is insistent that there’s a large animal in the tree ready to attack. Leaves rustle in such a way to make you think there’s something lurking in the underbrush (not that there’s much of that where we’re staying). It’s partially culture shock, of course, but it’s an entirely different world for them (and me, no doubt) here. As we were talking at breakfast this morning, the wife of the doctor on this trip called it the “suburbs of the rain forest.” I think it’s an apropos statement.

The growth of the flora is not as dense as I had expected. Belize, intriguingly, seems to be logged beyond belief (the populated areas, that is). Clearly the Baymen’s logging swath from centuries ago is where the bulk of the population still lives. It’s been two days, and I can’t say I’ve seen that much old growth (even only being five or 10 miles from the border with Guatemala) except in and around Cahal Pech. Even that growth isn’t old, comparatively speaking, to the true rain forest. For such a small country, with such massive natural beauty, one can only wonder about what the state of the flora and fauna would be had the Baymen been a little less aggressive in their logging.

The state of the people themselves is another question. I am reluctant to use the word “poverty” because of the definition of it and “poor” in the second edition of the NOAD (for the record: that is my favorite reference book and the first place I look to for definitions). The definition of “poverty” is “the state of being extremely poor” and “poor” is “lacking sufficient money to live at a standard considered comfortable or normal in a society.” Comparatively speaking, this is clearly a poor country when compared to others on the continent (though, compared to Haiti, especially after the Port-au-Prince earthquake, this is probably a very well to do place). However, one needs to look at the question of what is “normal in a society” and compare that within the society itself.

From what I’m seeing, at least in San Ignacio and from passing through a bit of Belize City and Belmopan, is clear poverty by US standards (though there might even been some regions of the Appalachians that are more poor than than these urban areas). To get to San Ignacio, we drove through some villages that are clearly at the same level of some areas of West Virginia I’ve driven through. I have yet to go into villages (I’ll do that tomorrow or the day after) but, comparatively speaking, we do not have this sort of poverty in the US.

It’s a question of the standard of poverty here, and how the rural and the urban here compare to one another. The state of the people here seems to be “at a standard considered comfortable or normal.” I’m sure there is jealousy towards the US, Canada, and probably even Mexico. We all (especially the US and Canada) give off an air of having an immense ability to basically throw away our money and flaunt it while we do so. Let’s be honest: I’m writing this on a laptop (a MacBook Air) that, bought new, probably costs well out of the reach of the average Belizean. I have doubts that computers themselves are in no more than 15% of households (and that even feels high to me, but I’ve spent precious little time in Belize City at this point). There is a clear dichotomy at play here.

However, the standard of living here, at least in this point of the trip, seems to be a true standard and not a massive sliding scale. The people are not straddling immense wealth and immense lack of wealth. For the most part, it looks as though these folks are lacking wealth. But is the lack of wealth “poverty?” Especially when comparing the people solely to their countrymen? I would argue it isn’t. The nation as a whole is impoverished, but I do not see that the people are (does that make sense?). The people expect this standard of living, they see it as normal, and, thus, the definition of “poverty” can’t be applied to the people as a people, solely to the nation and its economy. Normality for the population here seems to be focusing on handling what can be handled as best as it can be handled. The children are not running around in dirty clothes or naked, the adults all seem to be be actively working on things. This is not the typical developing nation we see Sally Strothers hocking to us after Craig Ferguson and the Sham-Wow commercials (at least not in the populated areas).

It’s clearly a country standing with one foot in each of the two worlds. They want to shake off their logging and slavery-ridden past, embrace their massive multi-cultural heritage, and take a long stride into a modern world. The students were able to talk with a woman named Cynthia Ellis yesterday, and listening to her statements show the precipice the Belizeans find themselves standing on. The next decade or so will see major changes, I think. I see three distinct possibilities.

The first possibility is this country could turn into another Haiti (elect or otherwise place into power a popular demagogue, a supposed man or woman of the people, fabricate a “common enemy,” stir) and the people, in their comparative poverty to the rest of the world, could embrace a destructive path if they are somehow convinced it is in their best interest. After all, that’s the formula Adolph Hitler and Robert Mugabe, amongst others, used, is it not? That’s definitely the formula that kept George W. Bush in power in 2004 in the US. Please keep in mind I am not meaning to come across as stating the Belizean government is, in any way, comparable  to the governments of Hitler and Mugabe. I am attempting to illustrate the way a demagogue uses jealousy and fear to attain and retain power. Make no mistake, though: I am definitely tying George W. Bush and his administration’s political use of fear tactics directly to the practices of governments run by people like Hitler and Mugabe (I personally am of the belief Bush is a traitor to the US and should be tried for war crimes, but that is an entirely different topic for another day). Considering the comparative poverty and the presumed jealousy in this country, such a circumstance could happen (but, to be more than honest, this could happen in any country under the correct circumstances). Looking at the past stability of Belize as a nation, however, I suspect it will not.

One thing could undermine that stability, though. I’ve already heard mentions of various people in the government who are getting rich and shouldn’t be. We watched the drugs we were bringing in for the people in the villages be confiscated at the airport because there are new rules for bringing these things into the country (I personally think a bribe of $50 USD, which is $100 in Belizean currency, probably would have gotten the drugs through). There’s clearly a subculture of corruption beginning to make a marked appearance in governmental functions, and that corruption can destroy a society trying to improve itself. Those leaders who are responsible need to work to ensure that the corrupt and corruptible stay out of power here. If the government is eventually seen as a corrupt entity, that will destroy the people’s trust and allow for a demagogue. This country, as we’ve seen with Haiti, would not survive as any type of productive member of the international community.

The second possibility is nothing will change, or that change will be glacial. Ten years hence, we could return, and nothing would be different. It is a distinct possibility if the international community does not assist Belize in lifting itself up. I do not mean solely by monetary means, either, but also by actual assistance, teaching, and training. Watching the situation with the group of students Liza and I are working with down here shows me, clearly, that the aid groups based in country are utterly disorganized.

I’ve heard some Belizeans claim it’s their laid-back lifestyle, but being laid-back doesn’t preclude organization. One can be laid-back and still have a sense of process and procedure. This is the third year an undergraduate group from our university has come down here, and I was shocked by the amount of basic questions Liza had to ask, and keep asking, in order for this to come off correctly. Even as we’ve been here, I’ve heard one of the group leaders (essentially our “fixer,” to use some Anthony Bourdain terminology) state she didn’t know the students were supposed to speak in school settings (while her, I assume, boss has reinforced that, yes, this is going to happen). Then, last night, as the students were talking with the doctor, practicing taking blood pressure and poking each other in the fingers with glucometers (in order to test for diabetes), the fixer’s boss noted that they should do this sort of things with all of the groups. (He is, I should note, the same one who keeps making the “laid-back” statements… while supposedly responsible for upwards of nine international groups of doctors, nurses, and students at any given time.)

Aid groups from outside of a country need to be properly prepared and assisted by those in country in order to correctly address the needs of the people. I’m not saying they need to emulate American business practices. But a standard set of instructions for groups coming in to help? That would be excellent.

The third possibility is what I see as most likely. American corporate interests will soon realize how close to the American mainland this country is, that they speak English, that they take American currency at an easy exchange rate, their power comes out at 110 volts and uses the same receptacles we do, that Sally Strothers is unlikely to have a camera crew filming her next commercial here (at least, again, in the heavily populated areas), that American music flows out of the bars and American TV is all over the airwaves, and, last but not least, that the Belizeans are more than willing to make spaghetti and peanut butter & jelly sandwiches for food squeamish student groups. Once those corporate interests see that (if they haven’t already), this country will be awash in more logos than Logorama or Blade Runner featured. The Las Vegas of the Caribbean along the barrier islands, with the areas further inland becoming vacation spots for middle- and upper-class Americans who have tired of Hawaii.

I think the Belizeans would welcome a massive amount of increased tourism by (relatively) wealthy Americans. But is a service economy what they really need to survive? A portion, yes, but I should hope they would balance it. If you think about it, in this situation, one big recession in the US could have massive, and irrecoverable, repercussions on this country (I’m sure the current one already has had an affect). The country could become service-based, tourist-centric, and completely collapse in the next financial meltdown, leaving it a rotting corpse of a country… with Sally Strothers filming her next commercial in San Ignacio.

It’s my hope the Belizeans are adept enough to control the American corporate interests from running roughshod all over them. Unfortunately, if the leaders of the aid groups can’t get their acts together as they deal with students groups, how are they going to stand up to McDonald’s and Wal-Mart?

I’ve been debating this for a while.

I knew I wanted to utilize Jonathan Coulton’s “Thing a Week” idea. Of course, if he got stuck, he could do a cover or two. I can’t do a cover because, in writing, that’s either plagiarism or copyright infringement (or, of course, it could be both if I were really stupid about it).

I don’t have the time or energy to actually work on the book right now (other than just jotting down notes here, sometimes writing a few thousand words there when, or if, I have some extra time or I find myself awake at 2am). I could write a chapter of the book at a time, but that’ll just land me back int he same spot I was in a few years ago (not knowing what I had written previously, and just being generally out of touch with the entire piece).

And I am not a big fan of short stories (don’t particularly like reading them, don’t particularly like writing them), so a story a week? That’s right out.

I could do a blog post a week… but I’m trying to make this a more substantive blog that talks about larger issues and bigger decisions around me, which means those posts would because essays. Do I really want to tackle a big issue, and write an essay, every week? No.

So, what to do?

I’ve been on an Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (the old school first edition) kick as of late. I found my old books (you know, the Player’s Manual, the Dungeon Master’s Guide, etc.) as I’ve been cleaning things up in preparation for the baby. Instead of selling them, I decided to keep them and collect the ones I was missing (I never actually owned a Monster Manual, as odd as that might seem, and I always wanted a copy of Deities and Demigods with Cthulhu and Elric in it).

But I really wasn’t sure why I was collecting them. I can’t see getting the chance of playing again soon (not for many, many years), but I knew they were useful as reference material for fantasy settings.

And that’s when it dawned on me.

I created a relatively generic fantasy setting called “Northwing” about 20 years ago. I’ve never really done anything with it, so why not pull it out (I still have the stuff I had begun to create in that setting) and create 52 “things” from that? Creatures, characters, locales? And have them adhere to AD&D rules?

Why not?

I gives me a chance to build up a world I never really started (much less finished) working on, gives me a creative outlet, and keeps me on a schedule.

No, it’s not hugely creative, I agree. But it does let me get my hands typing, and allows me to play with building a fantasy world that might be useful at some other point.

So, in the next few weeks, I’ll start this up. I’ll probably find a way to separate it out from the regular blog posts, but I will find a way to have an organized posting system for it and focus on creating a fleshed-out world for Northwing.

It’s kind of exciting to think about.

I honestly think I’ll start with an arctic lizard:

Gotta love The Mighty Boosh.

That’s enough for me today. Back to eBaying stuff. Enjoy the last bit of your snow day if you were lucky enough to have one.

UPDATE (3/14/10): Yeah, I’m not going to do this. I need to focus my time on writing my own stuff. While Northwing is original, AD&D isn’t. Guess it’s going to end up being essays, then. :)

Our first child is due on July 15, 2010.

Of course, I can barely get this trailer out of my head:

(We do have to watch this one of these days. I don’t think either of us have seen it all the way through.)

It’s no secret we’ve been trying. Nor is it a secret we have been going through fertility treatments. However, the fertility treatments may have played a minor role here (though they probably helped jump-start everything) as we were technically “taking a break from them” when everything happened. (There may even be some credit to be given to the “process cheese” Provel… but I’m sure its detractors, most notably Liza, will staunchly oppose this idea. If the baby grows to like the stuff, though, there may be something to it.)

The reality of all of this, of course, is our world is about to be turned upside down. But in the most wonderful of ways.

The house is currently a massive mess because I’ve been working at whittling down my collections since the week before Thanksgiving. eBay has become a regular internet hangout for me as I keep placing more toys and comics and books up for sale. Once I’m done with all of it, we should have just enough room to start moving a load of baby furniture, clothes, and toys in.

It’s exhausting, but worth it. Granted, it’s nowhere near as exhausting as what Liza had to slog through when she was dealing with the fertility treatments. She’s been strong dealing with everything the past year brought about, even when it wasn’t the most pleasant of experiences. All I could do is stand by, watch, and be as supportive as possible. If you are curious about everything we have (and by “we have” I mostly mean “she has”), then I suggest reading Liza’s second blog, Bastante Bien. There were some heart-wrenching moments over the past year, and I think Liza captured them quite well.

It’s been a long year, no doubt. But we see the reward in our sights. As I was sitting in Liza’s class this week (we will all be going to Belize during spring break), there was a point where the students were asked what their fears are. Dogs, spiders, snakes, etc., all came up. Thankfully, I didn’t participate in that discussion, because my fears, of course, are much more grounded than a college student’s would be. I was thinking of various things:

How much will college be for the baby when they’re this age? Could I see myself working a job I don’t particularly love for the next 18 or 20 years just so there’s financial stability? How much exercise do I need to do now to make sure that I am alive and well when my child has his/her first child? How do I make sure Liza and I don’t end up on Oprah, or Springer, or worse in 20 years as some of the worse parents ever to walk this earth?

You know – the typical things that go through an adult-in-impending-parenthood’s mind. I’ve managed to stay away from this dream (so far):

I have to admit, at almost 37, I think it’s easier for me to relax and tell myself to deal with the issues as they come along than it is for a 22-year-old, or a teenager. That fear discussion in Liza’s class the other evening made that very apparent.

It all comes back to the fact that she and I have been ready for this for a while. We’ve lived a very nice life with each other, and we’ve been able to do a lot of what we’ve wanted to do with relative ease. Our two dogs have helped break us in for the rigors awaiting us over the next many years, but it comes back to the relationship. She and I are at a point where we are able and ready to share our lives with a child.

Liza and I have had a wonderful time together, we continue to, and now… we get to share it. No matter what my fears might be, I know the reality is going to be a lot more exhilarating. And I can’t wait.