Passport Renewal

Today we had to go renew our passports for the 3rd time. I can’t believe we’ve been in Belize for 3 months already! The guy at the immigration office asked us how we like it here. I said “It’s beautiful. I love it!” He asked me what makes it so beautiful. I said “I love the weather and the water.” I explained that where I’m from back in the states I was cold all the time and I hate being cold, but here it’s constantly warm and beautiful. He asked, “Don’t you have heaters and things like that?” I said “yeah, but…” and he said “It’s not the same huh?” I replied, “No, it’s not. I like doing things outdoors and being able to enjoy it without it taking an hour to warm up.” He sort of laughed and reminded us that after 6 months the fee to renew goes up $100 BZE instead of the $50 we’ve been paying. He handed us our papers and we walked down to the Treasury Office to go pay. After we paid the fee, we were given a receipt that we then had to show them back at the immigration office before they would stamp our passports for another month. The two offices are not part of the same building. In fact, they aren’t even close to each other. It was a really warm day today too, so we counted that walk back and forth across town as the cardio part of our workout for today. While walking to the Treasury office I was thinking about everything I read before coming to Belize, in regards to how business runs here, and those things were true. I then compared it to how it is back in the states. Although the U.S. has a lot of conveniences like certain services that work together are placed in the same building; I also realized I didn’t care for that convenience, because back in the states there are usually long lines. Even though they have several people open to help, the lines still usually move pretty slow. I read things are slow going here in Belize, but the lines are so much shorter. You usually only have one, maybe two people in front of you; if any at all. I also don’t think they go any slower here than they do back in the states. Not in the government sector anyway.