FINALLY I sit down to update the blog. Well, we have been working on the first every Monkey River Village Festival – a big success, and then immediately had to deal with the only two force 5 hurricanes ever to hit land in the Atlantic basin in one year. Dean and Felix hit northern Belize and Nicaragua on 20th August and 5th September respectively. At one stage we were right in the path of Felix, and we were within two hours of evacuating ourselves, our friend Dennis, our neighbors Joy and Richard and of course, the five dogs we have between us.

Anyway, thank goodness both ‘canes missed us, and we are hoping for a more relaxed time for a week or two.

MRVF, held on 18th august, was a great event. Music, loads of food, a big fishing competition won by our guide Wayne Castellanos with a big catch of ‘cuda, a football tournament in which the Monkey River Smugglers were runners up, lots of fun fundraising activities and generally a good time being had by all.

Not everything when 100% right, but we have learnt a lot for the future. Those of you who so kindly contributed, a very big thank you. We raised over $14,000 in cash and probably close to the same in kind. We gave out around $8000 in prizes, and we were able to improve our football pitch, build a prefabricated stage which will be used for village events such as dances, graduation, school plays and so on, and we built three new public toilets on the site of the old school toilets which were destroyed by Hurricane Iris. We also raised enough money to put fly screens on the schoolroom doors, which will make the school more pleasant.

The fishing contestants were introduced to the joys of Monkey Butt Powder, thanks to our friend Terry Snowday (who came down from the US for the event, along with sister Sally and brother in law Ned) Monkey Butt Powder is a magic product which prevents chafing – each competitor was given a free pack and it created much amusement.

Chris and I worked like dogs on this project, but it was very rewarding. The village looked great with lots of decorations courtesy of our major donor, Fyffes, and we had a Tidy Yard competition which resulted in the entire village looking really spruce. We had Love FM radio and Love TV on hand, we are looking forward to seeing the film they made, which has been delayed because immediately after the Festival we were plunged into a couple of weeks of hurricane watching.

Next year the Festival will be a two day event, on May 24th and 25th, we are planning already.

Hurricane Dean looked pretty sure to pass us by with just maybe a tropical storm – bad enough when you live on the shore. On The day it struck, we collected our new rescue dog, Arbie, so for his first night we all hunkered down in our bedroom and waited for the worst. Everything which could be brought indoors or tied down was in place, Patience, our boat, was on her moorings at the end of the path to the lagoon, which now runs from behind our house. At around 4pm a big squall started blowing – this is it, we thought. After half an hour the rain stopped, the sun came out, and we had a remarkably peaceful night.

Unfortunately Belize did not escape, and the northern area was badly damaged, although thankfully no-one was badly hurt or killed.

We had guests arriving the next day, Vic and Randi, who had evacuated from Ambergris because of Dean. They got some pretty good fishing but Vic had what turned out to be a virtually severed tendon which required surgery on his return, so although he was brave he was in a lot of pain. Sort of the holiday from Hell really!

Then what do we know, Something Wicked This Way Comes. An invest way out in the Atlantic turns into a Tropical Depression, then a Tropical Storm, then really quickly into a very strong though relatively small hurricane, Felix.

During the week of development, just about the whole of Belize was in the firing line at one time or another. From north to south, everyone was making their preparations – there seemed a lot of uncertainty as to the final destination, so no-one felt safe. As the projected track inched south, we decided that we were going to have to evacuate. Imagine moving house in the most traumatic of circumstances, the work is exhausting and the worry is draining, but you can’t sleep!

We are very lucky in that we bought a small cement house inland, which is totally basic but safe, so we have somewhere to go. With the Festival taking so much time up, we were not able to prepare the house as we had planned, so we were expecting just to be camping out there this time. Things were made worse by the fact that the Monkey River Road was flooded, so we had to make preparatory journeys to the house and to get supplies by sea. Fortunately the weather was pretty kind during the days, so we were able to get our preparations in place.

Also coming along to her house in Bella Vista would be our friend Martha and her three dogs, and of course Rambo who would be going in to be with his family. Three boats, eight people, eight dogs – it was going to be quite a procession.

With the entire house packed up and as much as possible moved upstairs, we had a final dinner with friends Dennis and Wilma, who were visiting their cabana just up the beach. Wilma was flying home next day, so we had sparkling wine and drank a toast. A nice dinner and more wine set us up for the evacuation next day.

During the night I was up and down checking http://www.wunderground.com/ . At midnight, it seemed that Felix was going to make landfall further south. By 5am, it looked certain that we would be safe from all but tropical storms – we called the evacuation off.

We are fortunate in having good insurance and resources, and the thought of losing our house and possessions, though upsetting of course, is not the end of the world. The feeling of possibly losing one’s home, the safe haven we rely on no matter how humble, is deeply disturbing, but made so much easier by the support of friends. In particular – thanks for the offer Craig!!

We are off to have a few days break at Blancaneaux Lodge and in the City. We promise to be better bloggers from now on!