Lizards Don't Pay Rent

Wow...I knew things were different in Belize.  I knew things wouldn't be as easy as they are in the states, and that was made very clear today.  The work permit is a pretty major necessity so I can avoid a Belizean jail cell; but they are not easy to get.  Step one should've been easy.  It wasn't.  This does not bode well.

In the States, if you need a document, it can be printed from a website.  Not so much the case in Belize.  A work permit requires (among a stack of other things) a three page packet to be completed for submission.  This three page packet could easily reside on a government or immigration website...but no.  Too easy.  Finding it is 1/2 the battle.  No, 8/9ths of the battle.  I walked all over this little burg today in search of such.  I went to where the guy that took my photos told me to go, then where the immigration people told me to go.

Finally I found a place that sold them.  They were out, had been for weeks, no idea when they'd get more.  It rained on me...a lot (but I'm cool with it).  Eventually ended up back at the dive shop and reported my failure to Shelly, our GM.  One phone call later she lad located a stack at a local grocer...that was easy.

So off I strolled to Richie's Market (the closest to home of all the places I had been all day) and found a stack of permit apps.  For all the trouble I was expecting them to be under lock and key, individually numbered and protected with plastic.  This was hardly the case.  No numbers, no protection, just a stack of packets on the shelf right between the computer paper and wide ruled spiral notebooks.

So is the lesson that Shelly is awesome?  Or that the Asians that own Richie's Market are on top of everything?  Well the lesson I took from today - lizards don't pay rent.

Loving #BelizeanLife