My mum's brilliant birthday party!

Andy's birthday....out on a quadbike!

This is quiet beach we found on the North of the island, where thousands of people over the years have been piling up rocks for good luck. I built a little rockpile myself whilst there and made a wish. It's a shame that in this picture you only see a small part of the beach, because these piles of rocks go on forever and even are built high up on giant bolders. Very cool place indeed.

After having been on our little tour of the island in the morning, Andy picked Lucas up from school with the quadbike in the afternoon. Of course, Lucas was delighted!

And here is picture of a us with our neighbours, who we'd invited over for dinner by the pool. We served them chicken, rice & beans, to show them what people eat in Belize (there's not much chicken, rice and beans being served in Aruba)

father's day, going orange, etc. Some recent pictures...

Some old fashion partying....but still in bed before one ; )

What I find so enjoyable about being in Aruba is that I have a chance to just be myself sometimes. To go out dancing with my sister, for instance. It allows me to, just for a few hours, forget that I am mom & that I have a family that needs me. For just a few hours I can simply get lost in the music, jump around & talk rubbish to people that I don't know (actually, isn't that also what I do when I blog and do my radio show? Hihi...)

These pictures were of a double birthday-party we had at someone's house recently. As you can see, it was a 'white' party. I've also been to a 'trashy, fake' party at another person's house/pool here on Aruba, which was also brilliant. These actually are the most fun places to go to (I think). Much more chilled than going into town to a club/bar. Most people seem to hire a DJ, catering and sometimes additional entertainment. At the 'trashy, fake' party they brought in a whole mariachi band which was a great surprise.

Anyway, guess this means that life on Aruba is still wonderful (apart from this terrible cold that we've all been suffering from).

Wishing you sunshine and happiness, where ever you are....

Cool FM

Starting the first of May I will be joining Aruba’s number 1 radio station, called Cool FM.

Of course, this is a small island, so if you compare it to Europe or America, than the radio over-all is pretty basic in Aruba. But still, Cool FM is the best station the island has. And they are very involved when it comes to live events. These guys are everywhere!

I’ve never done radio before, so it’s actually a nice challenge for me. I’ll be doing a show every Saturday morning from 10 to 12, called the Weekend Express. It will be a ‘standard’ radio show, with some tracks from the Dutch, English and American Charts, the Caribbean & Latin charts, some classic tracks, some dance tunes, some mash-ups…you get the drift.

The thing that’s rather worrying is that I am meant to do the show all by myself & I get very intimidated when I see lots of buttons, computer programs, etc. I just haven’t got a clue how to work these things. Also, I am starting so soon (May the 3rd) that I have no idents yet, no jingles, nothing. Still, I know how to introduce music and as long as the songs are good, the show should be okay. Right?

On the first of May the radio station is hosting a big event here on the island. I’ll be presenting part of the day and also my new cover band (RetroMatic) gets launched on that day. We have never been on a stage yet together & just two weeks ago we got a new drummer. And now our first performance will be in front of 10.000 to 20.000 people, plus be broadcast live on air. How crazy is that? We always envisioned playing our first gig in a smoky old bar somewhere, not in front of such a large audience! Still, we’re pretty confident that it will work out alright. And anyway, it’s just some covers we’re playing.
Wish me luck!

message to our family in Holland (sorry for anyone left out, the list was getting rather long for him ; )

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Lucas and Caroline dodging the Aruban waves

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Aidan's birthday

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Belize real estate, Riverside Villa

Well, we have decided that we want to stay on Aruba for the coming year(s). This place is a perfect mix for us between the relaxed Caribbean lifstyle that we had gotten used to in Belize & the Dutch/European lifestyle we were sometimes missing when we were living in the jungle. I love the fact that Lucas and Aidan are now learning to speak perfect Dutch in their Dutch schools & of course we love living so close to family (my mum and sister)

So, because we will not to return to Belize and because we want to buy a property here, we have decided to sell our family home.

Our house in Belize is actually my dream home. If we could pick it up and move it to Aruba, we certainly would. It was designed by a UK/Swiss architecture company from Belize and I took a very active part in the designing of it. So many of the features were dreams of mine. Like the large sunken bath in our bathroom, with the floor to ceiling window and its private courtyard (complete with a lovers statue and tropical plants), the open-plan Mexican kitchen, the large walk-in cupboard, the hand-made mahogany furniture throughout, the decks overlooking the Belize River, etc. etc.

Anyway, we can't move our beautiful Riverside Villa. So its up for sale for $395,000. Which is roughly the same as 197,000 English Pounds. Not a bad deal for someone as it produces a good yearly income and could stay as part of the Belize Jungle Dome's rental pool. So if anyone is looking for a good investment in the international tourism industry, maybe with the thought of ultimately using the house as a place to retire to, than this house would be perfect. It is being managed and maintained to a high standard & it is making money.

Considering the large amounts of cash people spend on timeshare and condos, this 2000 square foot, 4 bedroom, 3 bathroom house, on 1/2 acre of property land, 15 minutes from Belize's fast developing capital, is an absolute steal. Of course I'm biased, but I can hardly believe that anyone who would look at the place and look at the investment potential would say otherwise.

So...you wanna buy a house in the tropics? For info and pictures click here , plus check out an older blog posting of mine with pictures. And/or email Andy at andy@greendragonbelize.com

More happy days

My goodness there's a delay on my blogging since we've moved to Aruba. This picture for instance was taken at the 2008 Carnival (late January) and I haven't yet uploaded the clips of Aidan birthday (14th of February)

Guess I'm just too busy having fun ; )

Nearly ran over a wild goat yesterday, which a true 'Aruba' moment. There's loads of them on the island. They are stinky, but fun to see around.

Now what to do tomorrow???? Shall we go sit on one of the many beaches, climb some rocks, take the kids to the playground or go to the cinema? Oh what a tough life we have...hihi...

So, just in case you wondered...are things good here? Yes they are! Apart from the fact that the drummer of our band suddenly has decided to leave the island. So we're currently drummerless. Still, we're working on finding a replacement. It'll all work out, it always does.

Aidan at the Ostridge Farm

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Who's afraid of the birdy?

My little sister's 'hero'...her partner Remon ; )


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Funny things kids say

All is well here on the sunny island. My little sister Iris and her partner Remon came over from Holland, Andy went to Belize to check on the Dome (it's running great, so we can continue to hang out in Aruba), Lucas and Aidan are enjoying their schools and I love singing in a band. So yes, we're a happy bunch.

We also celebrated carnaval here which-by the way-was great fun. I'll post some pics in the coming days.

Anyway, I believe it's time again to write down some classic 'Lucas comments'. Like the other day when we were bickering and he said:

'My brain thinks you're stupid...but I think you're beautiful'
Now how could I respond to that? It did make me laugh though.

And when he talked about how he misses Belize, he said:
'You know mum, I love Belize like a brother'

Talking about his brother...the other day he got very confused when he saw Aidan outside and a second later he noticed that Aidan was inside. He was convinced that we suddenly had 2 Aidans and looked for number two for ages.

And finally, we were talking about how Andy and I used to be on television. Lucas said that he wanted to be on TV too. When I asked him what he wanted to do on TV he answered:
'Oh nothing, I just want to go in there and have a look around'.

Oh, the innocence of childhood.

Religion 'gone crazy' in Belize

Living in Belize, we've come across some crazy situations with regards to superstitions. People in our local community believe in witchcraft, demon possessions, etc. It seems to be that many of the (rural) communities in Belize have blended the message of the evangelical missionaries with their old traditions/religions and/or superstitions. All that shouting about the devil (something the US missionaries seem to do a lot) is at least part to blame for crazy situations like the following story of today's Channel 7 newscast:

'Demon Possession' Forces Closure of Hattieville Government School

Stories of spirit possession in children are often things of village lore – and when the come across our news desk, we look very critically at the reports. But it became a story in Hattieville today when the strange behavior of 4 children forced the entire school to close down and sent 369 children home. What’s more the District Education Officer says it’s authentic! But is it really? Keith Swift went looking for answers.

Keith Swift Reporting,The classrooms were empty and the playground was deserted today at the Hattieville Government School. That is because since Monday 4 students have been possessed by what school officials are calling an “evil spirit.”

12-year-old Aquila - who we spoke to in the presence of her mother - is one of them.
Aquila, Claimed She Was Possessed“I was with my friends and afterwards I started to talk about demons and then I felt something in my belly, something was in my belly moving, and then it started to make me tremble up and then I started to scream out. I didn’t want to scream but I had to make a little noise. I was screaming, my friend took me to the office and they tried to calm me down but I couldn’t calm down. I was trembling and I couldn’t stop.”

Keith SwiftWhat did you think was happening?
Aquila,“Well I think it was some kind of spirit that was trying to take over me.”

And if you don’t believe Aquila, 11 year old Richard Wade and his cousin 12 year old Devon Wade, who we met on the street playing because of their unexpected holiday, say they saw it – and they weren’t the only ones who did.
Devon Wade, “I saw a little girl Aquila on the ground going on crazy and she was spinning around her head and it was just frightening.”
Keith Swift,What did your teacher tell you?
Devon Wade,“She told us to stay in our class.”
Richard Wade,“She locked up the class because she didn’t want any demon coming in we. And then after that they just told us to get our school bag and go home.”
Devon Wade,“Our teacher is like a really good Christian, Ms. Mejia, she is a really good teacher and a Christian so she give, sometimes she prays for us and like that so that nothing goes in us.”

Richard Wade,“He just started to hold his head and was screaming how he is tired of this thing in me and how he wanted it to come out and he started to slam up the desk.”

Devon Wade,“And you know when like demon gets into you, you get stronger, he was lifting some beavy beavy desks. So I don’t know what went on because he was just scary. I was really frightened. I didn’t know that would happen. I didn’t know demon could come to Hattieville.”

Shanine Holland,“Yesterday evening around 5 o’clock to 5:30 when I was going to Belize, I saw the young lady Aquila just started to go on crazy and everything. She just started to cuss her. She said nobody can stop her from doing what she wants. That is all I see. She was flinging herself on the ground and in the drain.”

Janelle Thompson,“I came out here this morning and then I saw the young lady run from out of her classroom towards her mother and she bit her at her neck and then the blood came out and then she started to throw about herself, know her mom, and all the kids started to run and cry.”
There was a mass exodus from the school. This afternoon when we visited only teachers were there. Jahmor Lopez is the district education officer and he told us the ministry of education says they are trying to contain the situation.

Jahmor Lopez, District Education Officer“We were in contact with members of staff, telling them to remain calm, to try to deal with the situation. I believe that the staff members on the ground did an excellent job in trying to maintain order but things got a little bit out of hand when a relative of one of the children who is affected apparently was trying to perform some kind of, trying to exorcise the demon right on the compound. I think at that point students got very very alarmed because I think the woman shouted that the demon is here in the compound and I think that is when students began running. It was pandemonium and there were some parents in the vicinity and so a lot of parents came for their kids and others just dismissed themselves.
I was informed that when they had attended church that the manifestation started there and so it seems to be something involving evil spirit so clearly we would have to get in touch with the clergy, we would have to get in touch with somebody who will be ready to do such a job, to exorcise the demon. We just can’t call on anybody. You have to fast, you have to meditate, you have to prepare for spiritual warfare.”

Keith Swift,Sir but demon possessions don’t happen.
Jahmor Lopez,“Keith is that your position, you are telling me? You believe in good? That is your position.”

But Pastor Mark Somerville from the village Baptist Church – where the possession allegedly originated - has a simpler explanation.

Pastor Mark Somerville, Hattieville Government School“They were affected by something and then when we tried to find out what was the situation that was causing them to divide then they came up and behaved like they had some kind of unclean spirit but that doesn’t say they are possessed by these spirits.”

Keith Swift,So these kids aren’t demon possessed?

Pastor Mark Somerville,“Well I would not say they are not influenced by some sort of evil spirit but to say that they are demonized – then I am saying that they are not. They are not demonized.”

Keith Swift,Is it safe for these children to return to school?
Jahmor Lopez,“Certainly. In my view I believe it is perfectly safe. The problems that the kids have been experiencing, these are students in standard six, I was told there is one student from standard five. But it is not the entire school, it is a number of students from one classroom. And so there is no need for all the students to stay away from school. If it was such that there is something on the compound then I would be affected, all the other members of staff would be affected. There is no need for us to be alarmed and take alarmist’s approach. We have four students and we need to address the issue with those four students. It is not a thing with the entire school so we need to get that clear. I am appealing to parents, send your kids to school and we will continue to monitor the situation.”

The Ministry of Education says it will be seeking treatment for the four children.

Aruban life

Aidan loves having his aunt and his nan so nearby. Strangely enough, he calls them both 'Opa', which is Dutch for grandad. Oh well, guess he's a tat confused.

Lucas has been struggling the most with our move, but he is just starting to get settled in now. He has started school (finally) and is loving it. It's a brilliant Dutch private school, called 'De Schakel'. So he should be talking Dutch in no time, seeing as he's already got the basis of it, with me talking Dutch on and off to him since he was born.

Our dear friends Roy and Cindy came down from Rochester, New York to stay with us. They brought their son Joshua along for a few days. We had never met Joshua before, but he turned out to be a wonderful guy. They are such a nice family : )

Chilling at 'Fisherman's hut' with Cindy. This is the place where we spend many weekends...

Our little pirate Aidan

Still in love after all these years. If only we could remember for sure how long we've been together. Has it been 11 years now?

Happy 2008!

Christmas and New Year has been very enjoyable here on Aruba, with plenty of presents, plenty of family time and plenty of crazy fireworks. Pretty much the oposite of the quiet Christmasses and New Years that we've had in Belize for the last 6 years.

In Belize we had to remind ourselves that it was New Year Eve, for instance, whilst in Aruba there's no escaping it. Everybody spends a small fortune on fireworks here and goes out on the street creating their own little (or not so little) fireworks show. So at midnight the whole sky above Aruba was alight with fireworks, you simply didn't know which way to turn, it was everywhere. Andy was really surprised to see it as even in the UK people don't do that, but I told him that it reminded me of my childhood in Holland as the Dutch do the same thing.

Something else that I really enjoyed here were the traditional Christmas singers. I forgot what they are called, there's a special name for them. Anyway, they are big groups of people (about 20 per band, with about 8 to 10 of them singing). The music that they make does not sound like Christmas music to me though, it just sounds Tropical and kinda salsa to me. It's really good fun. And these bands are everywhere around the Christmas period in Aruba. They play at the supermarkets, in the shopping streets, out at parking lots, etc.

The traditional Christmas lights on the islands were wonderful to see as well. The boys (of course) loved them.

And the other traditional thing that the Arubans do is scare away the bad spitits from the past year by letting off thousands of firecrakers outside virtually every store and business on the island around New Year's Eve. It's rediculously noisy, but I like the thought behind it.

The following pictures were from our Christmas Eve dinner, which was at a Lebanese restaurant. Which is of course not particularly traditional for Christmas, but we had great food and good fun too.

So there you go. That's what's been happening here. I hope you've all had plenty of good times and I wish you all good health, love and joy for 2008 and for the years that follow.

Blog on!

The clown doctors Aruba

The clowns sorting out the Christmas tree decorations. I didn't take any pictures of them 'in action' as I wasn't sure if I was allowed to take and/or post pictures with the residents of the old people's home or the children with special needs on it.

Before our move to Aruba I had already been thinking that I had wanted to do the following things here:

1. Sing in a band
2. Join the clown doctors

Well, it looks like I will be doing both those things. The band has already been formed. Currently it's just the 4 of us, with 2 Dutch guys (guitar & bass), one Aruban guy(drums) & we may still take on one more person (keyboards). They really are a nice bunch, so I'm very happy. We haven't got a name yet, so any suggestions would be welcomed ; )

And then there's the clown doctors...

I went to see them in action yesterday & loved what they did. They had invited some special needs kids to a retirement home-with mainly people with Alzheimer’s-to help them decorate their Christmas trees. It was a wonderful experience.

As I arrived, most of the residence were sitting motionless in the hallways. I was surprised at the lack of reactions from them. I would greet them as I walked by, but most would not acknowledge me at all. I guess its part of the Alzheimer’s? Anyway, what was interesting was the things that did make them react. For instance, I noticed the difference music made. As soon as the salsa music started to play many residents would start dancing and singing and you could see how they were transported into another space and time. Suddenly you could see how these people had once been, dancing the night away, celebrating life, feeling sexy and confident...I instantly realized that one day I (like any of us) could be just like them & that music would definitely do the same thing for me as it did for them (already, when I hear good dance music I get transported back to the nineties and I get a huge grin on my face; )

The other thing that made the residents react was the sight of children in the hallways. Most of them loved the kids. We tried to get the old people involved with the decorating of the trees by giving them some decorations to unpack-it was as much as most could contribute-and to hand the decorations back to the kids to hang in the tree.

The clowns were wonderful in how they would approach people and get them involved. It seems that their most important role is to be the icebreaker. It's not about tripping up over banana peels or squirting water out of plastic flowers (though they may do that at times?) It simply is about approaching people, it's about playing with them, holding them, smiling to them, it's about sharing love with them. At least, that's how I see it. That's my feeling of it.

So I would love to join the clown doctors. It's quite a commitment though. It's not something you can do once every few months. You have to commit to one or several 4-hour sessions a week. Still, I would love to do it. I'll first receive some training and after that I'd have to create my character and outfit. I'll keep you informed on it all. Just like the band, it won't really start until the New Year. But that suits me just fine. It gives me a few more weeks to settle in.

Our 5-year-old and God

Lucas has started to have a bit of a spiritual life all of his own. He talks to God quite a lot these days and it's so sweet to listen to. He asked God the other day why people have 10 fingers and then continued to ask him to please, please, please give him 17 fingers. When he opened his eyes and I asked him what he was planning to do with his 17 fingers, he went quiet for a moment, closed his eyes again and said: "No please God just give me 10 fingers, just 10, that's all I want. Not 17 fingers. Please God, do not give me 17 fingers!"

And the other day there was a TV show on about religion when Lucas walked into the room. He said: "Is that show about God mommy?" I told him that it was. He then looked at the theologist talking on the screen and said: "You know mommy, God made that man". I said that that was right. He then continued: "And you know what else? God even made himself and that's a very tricky thing to do".

Andy and I may not be part of any kind of organized religion, but I do find it important that my children develop their own spirituality. Oh, and whenever Lucas asks God to help him not wee the bed at night, he doesn't wee the bed. So his prayers are being answered ; )

Belize supermarkets versus Aruban supermarkets...I think we have a winner!

For those of you who've never lived in a developing country like Belize it may be hard to imagine, but I am in heaven every time I walk into a supermarket here in Aruba. In the supermarkets here you can get pretty much everything. Which isn't always the case in Belize. In Belize you can never get any kind of mushrooms, fresh asparagus, soy yoghurts, blueberries, veggie burgers, etc. But in Aruba you can! So I'm having a field day here. Not that I've really got into cooking properly yet. I'm still getting used to this kitchen and figuring out what things we still need to get for it.

And the other cool thing is that nothing on the supermarket shelves in Aruba is out of date. In Belize you have to check everything you buy. Sometimes things are more than a year out of date. I recently bought some children's vitamine C there that turned out to be from 2002! Five years out of date. Can you believe it?

Anyway, I better get ready and start my day. Have a good one, where ever you are!

We're here!

We arrived in Aruba last Tuesday night, but it feels like we've been here much longer than a week already. My dad and Ina had flown over to Aruba from Holland on a last-minute deal that they found, which was a wonderful surprise! We had some great family time with them (not long enough though)

Our house here is great, Andy is happy playing golf, I've found a band to sing with, the kids are settling in well at school...all is good, really.

It's so hard to imagine that the following pictures were taken just a week ago in Belize. Bart had come back over to spend some time at the Belize Jungle Dome to help out the ladies in the kitchen (congratulations Nora on the birth of your baby girl!!!!!)

It was great to spend some time with him, John and Silvia before we left. And of course with Karen. I will miss you her whilst we're here : (

Will blog more soon....

The adventure that ended in the emergency room

I thought it would be nice idea to do some Belize daytrips before we leave the country at the end of the month so my sister Miriam and I decided to do the zip line tour at Jaguar Paw yesterday.

But guess what happened? On the first of the eight ziplines my shoulder popped out of its socket. So there I was, stuck on a platform high up in a tree in the jungle, seeing stars and being wobbly on my legs. The Jaguar Paw guides were amazing and within minutes the first aid guy was there with a full kit. By that point we had already been trying to get my shoulder back into its socket, I remembered how it was done many years before and gave our incredibly shocked guides instructions (nothing like this had ever happened before at the ziplines). After 3 painful failed attempts we had to give up.

So they put a sling on me and then I had to climb down some rocks to get off the platform and back to the ground.

The staff at Belmopan hospital were great too. They drugged me up good ; ) and I didn't even realize that they put my shoulder back. All in all it worked out well. Just been back to the hospital to bring the staff some 'thank you' donuts and I'll phone Jaguar Paw in a minute to thank them too for the good care.

But no more wild adventures for me for a while.

Oh, and this is a picture of the baby howler monkey that runs around at Jaguar Paw. Isn't he adorable? I wonder where his mum is though. Poor little guy. He must miss her : (

The view from my kitchen window

Yep, views like these make doing the dishes a lot more pleasurable (aren't I the domestic blogger today?)

When I was a little girl I always dreamed of being able to see horses from my house. Well, I got it. Plenty of horses to see and a river view too.

If this is your idea of heaven too, please check out: Horse Lovers Dream Home for sale

My God, I hate sweeping!

I tried to be 'all Zen' about it today and imagined myself being some kind of Buddhist Monk as I was sweeping, trying to meditate as I went along, but I failed miserably. I just hate sweeping. Just like I hate repetitive exercise like running or cycling. It's all just so mind-numbingly dull. I'd rather clean toilets than sweep.

Now, lately it's been easy. The resort has been closed (for maintenance, etc.) for the last two months, so we had to find work to keep the staff employed. So the women would come and sweep our house. Today was the first time that I had swept in weeks, which is pretty good going if you knew how much mess my two little boys make.

But instead of meditating as I was sweeping this morning, all I could think of was that maybe I should ask for one of those little robot vacuum cleaners for my birthday. You know, those things that look like flying saucers? Or I might even ask for one of those plus the other one that mops. That way I'll never have to clean the floors again. Or maybe I'll just strike a deal with Andy: He'll keep the floors clean in our house in Aruba (as we definitely won't have any staff there) and I'll do everything else as far as cleaning the house goes. Does that sound like a fair deal to you?

What do you want to be when you grow up?

Our almost 5-year-old boy Lucas is dealing with some difficult life questions at the moment, like: What do I want to be when I grow up and whom do I want to marry?

He said that he wants to marry me when he grows up because he likes the way I cut mangoes (my special ‘criss-cross’ system), but also would like to marry Emelda, the girl from next door.

And he also can’t decide whether he’d like to be a bug catcher when he grows up or a Princess, or whether Emelda should be the Princess and he would be a man with a tie, a black T-Shirt and jeans. Decisions, decisions, it must be hard being a kid sometimes ; )

My book reviews

I may not have been blogging that much lately, what I have been doing is reading, lots and lots of great books. Oddly enough, my favorites recently seem to have been either historical novels or memoirs of people growing up in highly dysfunctional families. I’m sure there are other great genres out there, but right now these are the only books that are doing it for me’.

My two favorite historical novels have been:
‘The other Boleyn girl’ by Philippa Gregory
& ‘The birth of Venus’ by Sarah Dunant

And my favorite dysfunctional family books have been:
‘The Glass Castle’ by Jeannette Walls
& ‘Running with scissors’ by Augusten Burroughs

‘The other Boleyn girl’ is about the first few women in the life of Henry VIII, up to the point where he has married for the third time. The cool thing for me is that I know very little of English history, so I had no idea how things would end (I was aware that he chopped off the heads of some of his wives, so I did expect that somewhere along the line). The author, Philippa Gregory is a genius at weaving historical facts into imaginative novels and by the rave reviews I read about her on Amazon, her other books are meant to be just as good. I’ve already ordered some and can’t wait to get stuck into them. Trust me, this stuff is better then any soap opera! It’s totally addictive reading.

‘The birth of Venus’ is set in fifteenth-century Florence and the thing that fascinated me most was the story behind the story. Basically, as the leading character moves through her life, we get introduced to the vibrant art world of Florence of that time & later the emergence of an extremely fanatical form of Christianity, which brought with it the early stages of what would become the frantic Witch hunts of Europe.

‘The Glass Castle’ is the memoir of Jeannette Walls, who is a news anchor at MSNBC. She grew up in an extremely dysfunctional, yet at times brilliantly creative and funny, nomadic family. At some point in the story you wish you were part of the family yourself and at times you are fuming at the carelessness and cruelness of the parents towards the children, hoping that someone would just jump in and take these poor kids away from them.

The interesting thing that this books shows so well is that children, in most situations, seem to stick to their dysfunctional parents like glue. They protect them to the bitter end and seem to view the outside world (police, social workers, etc.) as the enemy. I saw this in some families as I was growing up, witnessing situations where social services probably should have jumped in, but where the children would hide the truth from the outside world, fearing that their parents would get into trouble or that they would be ‘taken away’. ‘The Glass Castle’ is a rolercoaster of a story; it’s funny, shocking, sad and beautiful and then back to being shocking and funny yet again.

‘Running with scissors’ by Augusten Burroughs is quite similar to the Glass Castle in some ways. Augusten’s memoir tells of him being ‘given away’ to an extremely bizarre psychiatrist and his unorthodox family by his psychotic poet mother & his is surely one of the weirdest childhoods I have ever heard of.

And reading about the ‘relationship’ he had with a pedophile from age 12 onwards was both shocking and fascinating to me. It shows the intricate mix of emotions that a child goes through in a situation like this & it’s the kind of stuff you don’t normally hear about. Society likes to keep that whole subject one-dimensional, when of course we all know that it can’t be (no relationship in life is). I guess that most of the time it’s just too shocking and distasteful a subject for us to look at, so we like to just scan the surface & simply say that all pedophiles should be shot, locked up, or whatever we think should happen to them. This memoir will not change your views on pedophilia (it didn’t change mine), but even so, it was interesting to actually hear the voice of someone who has been through this and to see the human aspect of it.

‘Running with scissors’ is actually a very funny book and a highly entertaining read. The part where, together with his adopted sister, Augusten spontaneously decides to knock the ceiling out of the family kitchen or where the family thought that God was sending messages to them through the shapes of the father’s turds/poos/number-two’s (they would actually fish them out of the toilet and dry them in the back garden) all made me laugh to no end.

This book made me realize yet again that there can be some kind of value in ‘disfunctionality’. Apart from the chance of becoming a complete lunatic, addict, drunk or criminal (or all of these together), there is also the chance of becoming a much more interesting person in the process with a tremendous amount of depth, insight, compassion & humor.

So anyway, if you have a spare moment…read these books. They are all total gems. Enjoy!

The Jaden Foundation blog

Any of you who have supported the Jaden Foundation (my little charity) over the last few years, please check out the Jaden Foundation blog on what's been happening with it.

Just to get you up to date though...here's the posting that I added to it today:

Tumul k'in sponsorship

As nowadays the children of Belize are getting their schoolbooks for free (paid for by the government of Belize), we decided to spend the bulk of this year's Jaden Foundation money on supporting the sponsorship program of the local Private school, the Belize Christian Academy & on supporting the Tumul k'in Center of Learning in Punta Gorda.

Tumul k'in is a Mayan school (not only for Mayan children, though most are) and it is a project that both Karen and I visited a few years ago and fell in love with. I wrote about Tumul k'in in the following blog postings: http://simonesbelizeblog.blogspot.com/search?q=tumul+k%27in

Anyway, this year we have donated $3000 BZ to the school so they can finish building their 'multi-purpose' building. It will be a place where the children can eat their lunch, where the graduations will be held, where community meetings will be held as well as parties and music performances (my kind of place!)

At the last graduation most parents had to stand outside as they didn't have a building large enough to house everyone, so they are very happy with the J