Paget’s Belize Journal #1

How it all began

My adventure working and living in Belize for four months in late 1999 and early 2000 began with one of those late nights between two friends who haven’t seen much of each other for several years. My friend, Dawn, was visiting from Alaska, here to help her elderly father decide on living arrangments and had managed to cut out one evening for catching up.

We talked, ate, talked, drank wine, talked, listened to music, talked, danced in the kitchen, talked, etc into the early hours of the morning. And somewhere in there I said I was really interested in an adventure, really wanted to go to live somewhere else for a while, but needed to be able to earn some money while having this adventure. And Dawn said she knew a guy who had a brother who had an Internet consulting business in Belize and was having a difficult time staying on top of all the business he was
getting and an even harder time hiring people to help.

So e-mails were exchanged and eventually I decided to take a two-week vacation in Belize to see if there was a possibility for a longer relationship. The Internet consultants, Tony and Therese, live in Dangriga on the central coast. Therese’s family owns the Pelican Beach Resorts facility there in Dangriga and Tony and Therese live at the facility with their three children.

They were willing to give me a (very) good deal on my two-week stay and I was willing to do a little work for them to see if we had any kind of match. That’s how it all began.

As a measure of my interest in this project, you should know that I passed up my 40^th high school reunion to check out the possibility (and now you also know approximately how old I am). You also might like to know that I’m single, have two grown children and one grandchild. I have my own web development and Internet consulting business, based out of my home. And I wasn’t willing to sell all my worldly possessions for this adventure.

I left for Belize the first time on June 10, 1999. As you can see from the first few messages, getting email messages off took a several tries.

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