life in a country with only 2 main roads...

It is hot here.... the usual April/ May melting temps, but this year there have been a lot of fires, so the atmosphere is heavy with smoke.  Hot, smoky weather does not create a good environment for ticking off entire segments of the population, as the government has just discovered.  Earlier this week, someone in the government decided to take a privately owned bus route, and give it to a relative to run.  Nepotistic things like that are all too common here, and mostly get a little comment and then everyone moves on.  But in Belize... you do not mess with buses.  A few years ago the bus companies tried to raise the ticket rate, and a riot broke out culminating in someone being shot.  This time it is the bus company owners that are rightfully upset.  Their livelihood was suddenly taken away from them, because of a government official's whim.  So they protested, by parking some buses across the Northern Highway, blocking the whole two lane road.  Anywhere else, this would not be a big deal, because cars would use an alternate route.  In Belize, however, there are only 2  main roads.  The roads run North to South, and East to West, forming a cross through the country.  There are plenty of smaller dirt roads, but these don't connect.  So blocking one road effectively cut off the entire northern part of the country.  The people up North probably don't mind much, cause they can just hop over the border into Mexico and go to McDonalds if they want.  But it is a pretty good way of calling the entire country's attention to your cause.   At one point this morning the East/ West highway was also blocked, which gets a bit more tricky for us because we live on that highway.  I've heard the government has agreed to negotiate, and the roads are now unblocked, so hopefully all the return volunteer teachers who are flying in for graduation this weekend will make it!