Rainy weather keeps kids home, floods yards
We’ve tried to be patient, we’ve tried to look at the bright side, but the rain has lasted for six days now. If you count the tropical depression at the end of October, it feels like even longer. Today Janelle Chanona, umbrella in hand, found out a lot of people just want the sun to come out and dry up all the rain.
Cherrie May Beaton, Resident, Cesar Ridge Road
“When I wake up and see this, I say well, “Lawd, da whe dis now?” I can’t come out so I stay right at the door and I never did come out till my nephews put the palette here so we could come out or rest. We could not come none at all.”
For the past week, Cherrie Mae Beaton has not been the only Belizean to wake up to some very wet mornings. It seems “moist unstable conditions” have made Belize their permanent address. For a short time today, the sun did make a command performance and clotheslines bloomed throughout the city as people tried to dry their clothes the old fashioned way. But for some coping with all the rain involved more than pinning out clothes. Molly Geban woke up to find water in her house.
Molly Geban, Resident, Cesar Ridge Road
“My kids’ room is at the back. It has water in it. So as they get up out of their beds just water they go right into.”
The parents we spoke to didn’t send their children to school because of weather. All were afraid their children would get sick. This was the concern of Jevon Andrews, a resident of Belama Phase Three. The streets leading to the highway are almost impassable.
Jevon Andrews, Resident, Belama Phase Three
“I just never feel to go in wet tennis and I was sick already.”
Parents worrying about wet shoes and uniforms aren’t the only ones feeling under the weather. Everyone, from fishermen to taxi drivers to painters say when the rains began, their work stopped.
Charles Anderson, Taxi Driver
“No, less business because people go about less than when the sun is out.”
Hugo Aguilar, Fisherman, “Alicia”
“Money get scarce. We can’t work enough, because the weather and well the water is muddy too.”
David Williams, Car Washer
“We’d really want the sun hot right now to do some car washing so we could make some money.”
Frank Williams, Painter
“Rough. I could have finished this job from long time but the weather just hold we down, you know. But we will try finish it before the weather come back.”
The extra rain is giving one business more business… the Laundromat. For a week they have been filled with people from as far as Ladyville, hoping to dry clothes. Assistant Manager, Shakira Taylor says the dryers at the Belize Laundromat Company have been working overtime.
Shakira Taylor, Belize Laundromat Co.
“Now and again, one or two of them stop but then just for while and then it start up again, just need to rest.”
Janelle Chanona
“Despite a little sunshine earlier today, the forecast for tonight and tomorrow is more rain and more patience. Janelle Chanona for News Five.”
