While waiting for the right shot (it is difficult to get candid photos of men sneaking around and breaking rules), I met Timesha. She slowly opened up to me and over the next few months she told me her story. I asked permission to post it here, as I asked permission from everyone in every photo. Here is her story. I repet it here because it is not an unusual story for young women in Belize. Here it is:

“Most of my hair fell out when I was 7 years old.” Timesha told me recently, sitting at a corner table in the abnormally quiet bar. “And my skin turned almost white. I was really sick. They said it was because I didn’t eat enough food. For a year, all we had to eat was boiled plantains. I got to hate them. My grandmother in Belize City started sending a box of food for us once a week on the bus and I got better.”

Timesha never really knew her father while growing up, and she and her four siblings were raised by her mother in Orange Walk Town. When she was nine, her mother’s boyfriend moved in with them and, not long before her tenth birthday, began having sex with her. She had her first child, a girl, when she was 15. The child was taken away from her by the girl’s father when the girl was 2 years old. The father, who was living with a woman in Gayle’s point in Southern Belize, seldom stayed at Gayle’s point and the child was left primarily in the care of the father’s girlfriend, who burned the child severely and repeatedly with a hot clothes iron. “She stares a lot now” said Timesha while describing her last visit with her daughter – something she is allowed by the courts to do once a month. Timesha has been trying, without success, to get her daughter back since the very day she was taken from her. As long as she keeps her current job, there will be no hope of retrieving the child.

She pulled out a tattered photo once to show me herself (left) and her daughter with the daughter’s paternal grandmother, who must be present at all Timesha’s visits with her daughter.

Timesha works as a “bar girl” in lover’s bar. She is not a prostitute. She is young and pretty and men may sit with her providing they simply buy her a beer. When the beer is finished, they must buy another or leave the table. Sometimes she dances to attract customers, either by herself of with another girl at the bar.

She dances provacatively, in the Garifuna stye – with much swinging of the hips and suggestive hand gestures and body language.

Timesha is charming and intelligent and is in high demand for conversation among the bar’s clients who can afford a beer, but not a prostitute, or who simply want the company of a pretty woman – frequently hoping that they can bed her later. A beer normally costs $1.50 for a patron who buys one for himself, and $3.00 if he buys one for a girl. Timesha is paid $1.00 for every beer that she drinks. When each beer is delivered to the table, the girl is given a chip which is cashed in at the end of the day. While a man is sitting with her, they are allowed to touch her, except for the private parts of her body, and she will place her hand in a friendly manner on the man’s leg or drape an arm across him in some fashion.

“How many beers do you drink on an average day?” I asked her.

“It depends” she replied. “On weekdays maybe 20. On weekends I can have over 50. I once drank 16 beers in half an hour. The customer liked me. I usually make an excuse, after a few beers, to leave the table and then go to the bathroom and throw them up. I put my hand down my throat”

“Do all the girls throw them up like that?” I asked.

“Most of them do” she said. “But a few just drink until they get too drunk to work”.

Timesha is adept at dispatching beers without appearing to chug them. The faster she drinks, the more money she can make.

Timesha was born and raised in a tiny house at the edge of Orange Walk Town 22 years ago. The house has belonged to her mother’s family for three generations. She seldom went to school – there was usually no money for books and other costs associated with education, and in addition, she was needed at home. Timesha is the eldest of five children – she has three younger brothers and one younger sister. They are all from different fathers. Timesha’s father left home when Timesha was three years old and never returned. He provided no support after leaving, and little support while there, and did not contact Timesha for 14 years after leaving. She confronted him when she was 17. She told him about the lack of food, clothes, electricity and the absence of even the simplest comforts in the home she lived in while he, during the same period, was drinking, partying and ploughing through a long line of women. He had come to the home, on learning that he had grandchildren, and brought a doll as a present.

“If you knew anything at all you would bring food.” She told him. “You buy that bitch you’re with a necklace and your granddaughter is hungry.”

Orange Walk is a small place, and the goings on of each citizen is well know to all of the others.

Timesha’s two daughters were born in this house. She had one miscarriage, at the age of 14. Few people in Belize go to hospitals to give birth. Most give birth at home, in front of the entire family. Children as young as two will watch. Mothers hand down the secrets of childbirth to their daughters, making midwives an unnecessary element of the society.

Violence in the home is the norm in Belize. Drug and alcohol abuse is endemic, and, when combined with widespread poverty, creates a volatile mix. Police will not respond to a domestic violence call unless a death or serious maiming has been the result. Judges will generally not mete out punishments for conflicts arising between husband and wife nor between parents and children. The general assumption of the populace is that marriage and family contain violence as an integral component.

Timesha was beaten by all of her mother’s boyfriends. Most of them because they were drunk and angry. One because she resisted his sexual advances. She still has a scar on her neck where the man held a knife to her throat, and in the heat of his passion and drunkenness, pushed the knife in. “Blood was everywhere.” She said. She still has the scar:

Timesha had always said that she would never work in a bar. She would clean toilets for a living first. But six months ago her younger sister, Shakira, who has worked more than a year for the bar’s owner – Pazus, introduced her to him. Pazus had been lobbying Shakira for many months to bring her sister in to meet him. Timesha and Shakira are close:

Pazozo explained to Timesha that bar girls were respectable girls, not prostitutes. He explained how the job frequently leads to long term relationships with respectable men who have good jobs and fine prospects. He told her that she could earn $50 a day from beers and tips. He told her the secret of purging the beers she drinks. He explained all this softly and sincerely as a father would explain some intricate part of life to a daughter that he loved. He summed up by saying that trying it for a day or two could not harm her and that she might be passing up an opportunity that she would much later regret.

Every prostitute in Pazozo’s bar began their career as a bar girl, and bar girls seldom quit their jobs. They could never make as much money in any other job available to them. Over time, sitting in the same room, and frequently at the same table as the prostitutes, who make three times as much money, the natural progression to prostitution commences. Here is Timesha and Shakira at a table with two of the bar’s “working girls”.

It begins, usually, with a real attraction to a given customer, who may, over time, have become close to the girl. Girls are forbidden to date customers outside of work, and if an infraction is discovered, the girl is fired. Customers, however, can pay a “bar fine” and leave the bar with a girl. The bar fine is supposed to cover the lost revenue suffered by the bar because of the girl’s lost work time. Bar fines are not fixed fees and are negotiated individually and personally with Pazozo. Pazozo takes into account the productivity of the girl, the amount of time she will be away from the bar and the estimated size of the customer’s wallet, and then comes up with a price. The girl gets 25% of the bar fine.

There is no talk of purchasing sex, and Pazus is clear with the customer that his success with the girl will depend on how smooth he talks and acts, and wishes him luck, but in the customer’s mind, he has paid for the girl and therefore has certain rights. It doesn’t take many encounters of this nature for a girl to begin to change her attitude towards herself. It’s a short walk from here to outright prostitution.

Timesha says she has considered it already. “Every man I’ve been with has fucked me, beat me and left me with nothing, except my babies.” She told me once. “Maybe it would be better to get paid for it. They couldn’t beat me in here.”

Timesah did not become a prostitute. She began living with me a year and a half ago. She has her own house on my property and she has her privacy. She has returned to school and is proud of her progress. And I am proud of her.

I tell this story because it is not an unusual story for this country. Due to the economic situation, there is rampant poverty and privation. The powerful accumulate the wealth and spread it to their own families. The rest have little. This imbalance could not exist if the law had teeth and the powerful were obliged to follow it.

I will continue to post these stories, with photos so that you might better understand where I live.

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Three of my friends are still being held in prison on trumped up charges.  They are:

Eddie Ancona

Cassian  Chavarria

William Mulligan

 They were charged and have been imprisoned because three legally licensed firearms were found in the incorrect rooms on my property (stretching the law to the extreme).  I would ask you to please email the following and demand their release:

Three of my friends are still being held in prison on trumped up charges.  They are:

Eddie Ancona

Cassian  Chavarria

William Mulligan

 They were charged and have been imprisoned because three legally licensed firearms were found in the incorrect rooms on my property (stretching the law to the extreme).  I would ask you to please email the following and demand their release:

Sam, and others, can verify if they choose, that I am not foolish enough to believe that many young women could love a 67 year man. Being loved does not interest me much. Loving does. I truly love, not with a desire to possess or control, but with compassion and empathy. I care immensely, about many people. What they may or may not feel for me is their own issue.

Up front, before Sam and I became intimate, I explained to Sam that I did not expect her to love me. I only expected honesty to the degree that she could muster it. She tells me many times a day that she loves me and I smile. I take is a sweet gesture, since it is spoken with sweetness. I do not believe that anyone can ever know another’s heart.

___________________________________________________________________________________________________

Three of my friends are still being held in prison on trumped up charges.  They are:

Eddie Ancona

Cassian  Chavarria

William Mulligan

 They were charged and have been imprisoned because three legally licensed firearms were found in the incorrect rooms on my property (stretching the law to the extreme).  I would ask you to please email the following and demand their release:

In the event that I am captured, please continue to support this cause. It is a just cause and it needs International attention.

Thank you.

___________________________________________________________________________________________________

Three of my friends are still being held in prison on trumped up charges.  They are:

Eddie Ancona

Cassian  Chavarria

William Mulligan

 They were charged and have been imprisoned because three legally licensed firearms were found in the incorrect rooms on my property (stretching the law to the extreme).  I would ask you to please email the following and demand their release:

After two days we returned to the house, in disguise, and I began my watch.

The first day I colored my full beard and my hair light grey- almost white. I darkened the skin of my face, neck and hands carefully with shoe polish and put on an LA Saints baseball cap with the brim facing backwards and tufts of the front of my hair sticking out unkempt through the band. I stuffed my cheeks with chewed bubble gum stuck to the outside of my upper and lower molars – making my face appear much fatter. I darkened and browned my front teeth. I stuffed a shaved down tampon deep into my right nostril and died the tip dark brown – giving my nose an awkward, lopsided, disgusting appearance. I put on a pair of ragged brown pants with holes patched and darned. I wore an old, ragged long sleeve shirt. I donned an old Guatemalan style sarape and toted a bag containing a variety of Guatemalan woven goods. I adjusted my posture so that I appeared a good six inches shorter than my actual height and slowly walked up and down the beach with a pronounced limp, pushing an old single speed bicycle and peddling my wares to tourists and reporters using a broken English with a heavy Spanish accent. On my second day, while peddling small wooden carvings, I nearly sold a dolphin carving to an Associated Press reporter standing at the edge of my dock. He was pulled away from my enticement by an urgent phone call.

Among the people I spoke with that day was the caretaker at Mr. Faul’s house. The police had stated that Mr. Faul’s housekeeper discovered the body. His caretaker told me that Faul did not have a housekeeper. He himself discovered the body he said. I found this interesting and filed it away as a piece of data that might help at some point. Why would the police lie about this? Lies always have a reason.

Then I watched the police dig up my four dogs that had been poisoned and buried. They cut off the heads and re-buried the bodies. I found this curious. The dogs had been dead too long for an effective autopsy, considering it would be performed in a Third World country with limited access to laboratory resources. What was this all about?

I watched the police search my residence 7 times. At one point I got too close and was angrily ordered to go away. I did so while muttering “Pendejos!” loud enough for the officers to hear. Every search was allegedly performed in order to find me. On two occasions, however, the police carried large duffle type bags into the premises and left with the bags appearing nearly empty. Perhaps the bags contained their lunch and they ate while searching. Perhaps not.

On subsequent days using different disguises, I did the same general thing, one day selling tamales and burritos that I had purchased wholesale from a real vendor, on another pretending to be a drunk German tourist with a partially bandaged face and wearing speedo swimming trunks and a distasteful, oversized Hawaiian shirt and yelling loudly at anyone who would listen – “Leck mich um ausch!”. At 67 years of age it was quite a spectacle.

What I discovered is that the police are more concerned with finding me than catching Mr. Faul’s killer. Rumors are rife. The most enduring and frequently passed rumor is that the killing was punishment for a soured real estate transaction. I did not know, until I heard the rumor that Mr. Faul was working for a local real estate company. No-one seems to know the true details of the transaction or the parties involved, but the police could easily discover the details if they were so inclined.

I also was able to observe the machinations of the press. They stayed mostly on my long boat dock and behaved themselves, but occasionally they would nab one by passer or another and ask questions. Mostly they waited for me to be caught on camera. Yesterday I got to watch Amy bring NBC to film the police illegally (again) search my property. NBC used my boat service (Coastal Express) so I would like to thank them for the business. They also sat for a while just offshore doing God knows what. I watched perplexed and eventually they went back to town.

I will continue my investigations, since the police seem to have defaulted on this obligation. I have offered a reward. If anyone has any information, please give it directly to me. I will publish it here on this blog first, and then provide it to the police. That way it cannot just conveniently disappear if it is evidence that the Government finds distasteful.

P.S. No-one at the house, including the staff, know that I am nearby. If the police are reading this, do not randomly round up everyone for harboring a fugitive. Please.

___________________________________________________________________________________________________

Three of my friends are still being held in prison on trumped up charges.  They are:

Eddie Ancona

Cassian  Chavarria

William Mulligan

 They were charged and have been imprisoned because three legally licensed firearms were found in the incorrect rooms on my property (stretching the law to the extreme).  I would ask you to please email the following and demand their release:

Eddie Ancona – my best friend in Belize. Eddie is a consistent attendant at the local church. He does not drink. He does not smoke. He has never used drugs. He has a loyal wife and a young son. His only crime is being my best friend. He is still in jail and is being charged with trumped-up charges.

Cassian Chavarria – my caretaker of two and a half years. Cassian is one of the most honest men I have had the pleasure to know. He is reliable and competent. I would trust him with my life. He, like Eddie, has been jailed for a week.

A cab driver named Cesar. I regret not knowing his last name. His only crime was driving me into town the day of the murder. I am told he has since been released.

William Mulligan – my British bodyguard. He was arrested and has been sent to the Government penitentiary in Hattieville.

Williams wife, Stefanie Mulligan – she was arrested with her husband. She had just arrived for the weekend. He had not seen her for months. I am told that, since she was breastfeeding, she was temporarily released.

My housekeeper Priscilla – I regret again not knowing her last name. She is one of the most decent people I have known. I am told she has been released but charges may be filed.

The list will grow. I am asking all people of conscience to read this blog, especially the links in the “Background” section, and see the ugly truth unfolding here. Speak out. Write your congressmen. Write the Prime Minister. Do what you can. These people are suffering and will continue to do so irrespective of my actions. They will become yet another bleak statistic in the web of injustice clutching the heart of this country.

___________________________________________________________________________________________________

Three of my friends are still being held in prison on trumped up charges.  They are:

Eddie Ancona

Cassian  Chavarria

William Mulligan

 They were charged and have been imprisoned because three legally licensed firearms were found in the incorrect rooms on my property (stretching the law to the extreme).  I would ask you to please email the following and demand their release:

Samantha’s native tongues are Spanish and Creole.  She has only recently begun to master English.  She insists on using it exclusively, however, an idea that I encourage.  English is a powerful tool in the current world.  I have left her text exactly as she wrote it.  This is her first exposure to blogs and and her first blog entry:

im 20 years old. i have not had an easy life. The things i had to go through was painful but at the end i learn from them. while i was growing up in a family of 8 it was really hard for me. my little sister an i had the hardest things to do, we had to wash everybody’s cloths by hand sometimes with a bucket and a long pipe ,we would put the durty cloths in the water and detergent and would take the pipe and bet it for about 20 minutes each of us would take turns to do so.when we had done doing this we would make lunch on a fire hart. my brothers would go to the bush and find old wood and bring it for us to light the fier so we could cook on it an make luch for all of us.I grew up in a very poor family and also abusive my life has not been to fun ,everyday was painful for me and my brothers and sister,sometime we would go with days not eating because my dad did not had a straight job .Our house was made out of a type of would call primenta i had 2bed and a ketchen ,we all had to live in this little place an could not coplain because we knew that we didn’t haditas good as others but one thing we had life although it was not a life i would like to live. Then came along John who most of you know .when i first saw him is when he came to a village called carmelita . Everyone was talking about this white man at this point i didn’t kwen his,i who is a every inqisitive girl want to meet this man an see who bad he appers to be in the eyes of other . so one monday evening my and a friendwent to his house i did not want to go alone cause people were saying that he feeds kids to the crocz.so i ask my friend to come along with me as ireach is gate with fair not knowing or things what this man would say or tell me i was just friking norvious.So i apruch the securite gard and said to him,”i wa talk to the bass man you could plz call a fu mi”he smile and simple turned away and pull out his walk man an said “bass theres a girl an a guy here to see you” then i saw this white guy coming from about 2feet from the gate with gun houster around his shoulder.He then ask “can i help you “i said to him with fear’ i heard thatyou said if anyone needs anything or help gto come to you so i did so.”he then said to me “what do you need.”i then reply”i need a job can you help me” he then said “do you drink’i said”yes,i do”then with out thinking of it he said to me”am sary but i dont hire people who drink” i the hury and said to him,”i could stop drink mister i really can i just need a jod becausemy mom has no money and she recently separated from my dad.”he shake his haead an said”meet me 6 pm at the Amy house which am building in the village center.”so i went an he did gave me a job. John has been a great man to me an had done things for me that i am thankful of and will always be.I am a belizean an from since these people has been turmenting this man lifei had been by his siad because i see that he has been inocent ,for examlpe they are pointing fingers at this man that he had murder a nabier next door which is so low and also a lie cause that night he was with me the whole night we were seeing move an playing with my puppy i just got.also everyone who live in that house saw him their that night so i know he is clean .Im a belizean and am not taking part for him butif you are wrong you are but this country of mine is corupted an injustice and full of liers.I ceartenly cant live like this nor in a place that dose not have justice, we as the people should voice out what we feel an do something of it cause we are living in this place know one ealse.so as you see here in my country of belize is all a adventure for me as myy life.

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Three of my friends are still being held in prison on trumped up charges.  They are:

Eddie Ancona

Cassian  Chavarria

William Mulligan

 They were charged and have been imprisoned because three legally licensed firearms were found in the incorrect rooms on my property (stretching the law to the extreme).  I would ask you to please email the following and demand their release:

The government then switched tactics. A week after the antibiotics scandal was dropped, a new charge was leveled: The security company that I had formed to provide security at my residence possessed most of the weapons licenses used for said security. Unaccountably the physical records for that company disappeared from government files and re-appeared without my name appearing anywhere on the records. This would mean that said weapons, being in my possession at the time of the raid, and me not being a director of the company, were held illegally by myself. An automatic ten years in prison would be the result. Fortunately, my property manager had kept the original documents and drove with them to Belmopan – the seat of government – and presented the documents. The government again backed down.

Next, a week or so later, there was talk of charging me with hiring security guards without a license. Every lawyer I talked to shook their head at their own ignorance. None of them had heard of, or could find, such a law. This issue was mulled over by the government’s prosecutor for quite a while before it faded away.

The list goes on with boring precision. The government has not returned any of my property as of this date. All requests, through lawyers, through the U.S. Embassy and through myself, have been met with the same reply: “We have not concluded our investigation” .

Seven months seems a long time to investigate a non-existent meth lab.

___________________________________________________________________________________________________

Three of my friends are still being held in prison on trumped up charges.  They are:

Eddie Ancona

Cassian  Chavarria

William Mulligan

 They were charged and have been imprisoned because three legally licensed firearms were found in the incorrect rooms on my property (stretching the law to the extreme).  I would ask you to please email the following and demand their release:

Samantha is 20 and a ball of fire.   I have known her for a year and a half and in that time I have been astonished at her courage, determination, energy and intentions.  She is generous and compassionate and she has become a large part of my conscience.

Sam has been upbeat throughout my ordeal with the government, not just in the past week, but also for the past 6 months.  She has experienced the government’s harassment with me and has seen all that I have seen.  She is pissed at all that has happened to us and wants to see justice done, just as I do – not just for Mr. Faul’s family and friends, but for all Belizeans living under the Draconian system that has evolved under the present government.

For the past week, Sam has kept our clothes clean and has fed us and kept me distracted by telling stories of her life and humorous anecdotes about her family.  She is a natural raconteur and mimic.  She has also helped me evade detection by grabbing me and kissing me, in public, in a fashion that causes passerby’s to feel embarrassment at the thought of staring and by creating emotional scenes that cause the curious to momentarily forget what they were looking for.  She is acutely aware of her surroundings and is as street smart as a sober hobo.  She does not drink or take drugs.

Sam insists she will be with me to the end, whatever end that may be.  I will include her frequently in my story.  She has even asked to write something herself, a request that I, and I hope you, the reader, have no problem with.

I will return later.

___________________________________________________________________________________________________

Three of my friends are still being held in prison on trumped up charges.  They are:

Eddie Ancona

Cassian  Chavarria

William Mulligan

 They were charged and have been imprisoned because three legally licensed firearms were found in the incorrect rooms on my property (stretching the law to the extreme).  I would ask you to please email the following and demand their release: