A wish come true...

   I often wished that one day I would experience a hurricane. My dream came true last night. (Sunday night) The storm will never be forgotten by those who experienced it. Before we had any wind at all, the air was quieter than I had ever felt. The fire flame at the oil company stood straight up into the sky, the first I have seen it that way. The wind first started blowing late afternoon, and close to midnight it was about the worst. Electricity was off for about 12 hours. Luckily I had water saved up and candles and the lamp out. Even though it was dark, we were still able to see the trees shaking and I even saw one fall close to the house. Daniel had to go to the shop in the night to take care of some metal that was getting wet so he left us alone during the worst hours. I was not afraid, because with a hurricane you know exactly how strong the wind is, and it was a category one so not strong enough to blow down a house like ours. We stayed fairly dry in our house. First we had wind from the north, then west and then a really strong south wind.  The maximum wind speed was 90 mph, but at our place it would have slowed down already.

A hurricane has an eye in the center where there is no wind and absolute calm, and the center of this hurricane came over Belmopan so my family there felt it. First the wind will blow from one direction, then total calm for 10 minutes, and then wind from the other direction. We did not have the eye over us, but we must have been very close to the center.

Daniel was eager to go to a restaurant once the wind had started blowing already. So we looked and looked, and found only one Chinese restaurant open. I guess Belizeans take warnings seriously. Well, we were the only ones at that restaurant, and in the middle of eating, the electricity went off, probably turned off on purpose. It was a very interesting experience, all right. Going through a city at night, completely dark! I guess you can say we made the most of the situation by braving it.

This morning we woke up to a quiet world, the weather innocent as if nothing happened. But lots did. We have two trees down, and more broken branches. As much as happened here even though we are inland 60 miles, I am sure the damage must be a lot greater at the coast. Here is some evidence of what happened around here.

 Under that tree are my washlines! Now I might have to use the dryer, as expensive as it is though...

 At Daniel's parents place things looked pretty rough! They have many old trees on their yard that can't stand lots of wind, so there are a lot of broken branches.

 Here come the avocados! 26 of them fell in the night. Think guacamole, as much as you can eat...

 This is one bluggar bunch that will be easy to harvest.

This is the tree I saw fall when looking out the window.

Well, that was one exciting night. It was fun in one way because nothing very serious happened to us. I have yet to hear and see what happened closer to the coast, and if we check it out soon I'll update you all again!