Getting to know the neighborhood

We slept well even with the threat of looters – probably because of the letdown after the big adrenaline boost – but we were both still awake by 5:30 am. We ate breakfast, took a look at our list of things we needed to do, prioritized the list, and got to work. We emptied the truck into one of the cabins and took off the cap. Tom measured for windows in one of the cabins so that we can lock it up when we leave the property. He also took a look at the water pipe, which is broken near the road, and determined what he needed to fix it so we would have water. At 8:00AM we had our first job applicant, a woman named Marta who lives next door (through the jungle/horse pasture). The small settlement on the corner is inhabited mostly by one family, and Marta is the only one there who is not family, but she is a close friend. She is from Salvadore, and her husband is working as a painter in Orlando, FL, so she is in Belize with her five children. The three older girls had already left for school, so she came over with her two young boys, Eduard, 10 months, and Giovanni, who is four. She speaks almost no English, but managed to tell us that she would like to work for us, and that she can do anything – make tortillas, corn or flour, make clothes, clean, teach us Spanish, or whatever we need. We tried to explain that we wouldn’t be hiring anybody until we actually owned the property, and even then it might be a little while before we need help, and we think she understood.

Just as Marta left, a pickup carrying three men pulled up to the gate. One of the men introduced himself as Honorio, and told us that he was the caretaker here when it was the cat rehab hospital. He expressed dismay at the condition of the place, and told us that the Director of the rehab center – or cat farm, as we’ve started calling it – left in May 2005. Honorio remained as caretaker for another six weeks or so, but then he wasn’t paid any more, so he found another job. He said he would check on the place once in a while, and that much of the looting had occurred relatively recently. Tom took off for San Ignacio and Spanish Lookout at this point, and I walked around the property with Honorio, who showed me the horse pasture boundaries, some of the fruit trees on the property, and the direction of the generator housing and the water tank stand. He offered his services to walk and chop the property boundary line for us, as well as the services of the other two men in the truck, who were relatives of some sort, and told me where he lives in San Antonio so we could find him if we needed him.

Honorio had not even turned his truck around when three more of the neighbor women appeared at the end of the driveway. They wanted to meet me, and to tell me that their husbands are much better workers than Honorio, and if we need help we should talk to them. I explained that we didn’t yet officially own the property, and that we weren’t hiring anybody before that happened. I also asked them if the horse that was wandering around the property was theirs, and told them that as far as we were concerned she could stay. They asked if we wanted to buy the horse, and I told them again that we weren’t spending any money on things we couldn’t take with us until we officially received the property title, but that yes, we would be getting horses once that happened.

They left, and I started trying to put things together. I spent some time writing down all the things the visitors had told me so that I wouldn’t forget any of the details for Tom, and spent some time wandering around the paths on the property. I found the generator house, empty of course. I found more cat cages in the bushes, and took a good look at the condition of the cabins. Both have some termite infestation, but overall they look sound. I wandered around trying to figure out what all the fruit trees are, and picked up some of the garbage that seemed to be everywhere. When the place was deserted, they apparently left all the food and supplies in the cabinets and refrigerators, and when the cabinets and refrigerators were taken, everything in them was just dumped on the ground outside the cabins. Everything consumable and accessible was gone, but there were still lots of empty wrappers and some sealed, partially full jars. The PVC pipes for the plumbing in the cabins had been cut up and taken, but many of those scraps were still on the ground under the cabins. I think I filled at least six or eight big trash bags.

The kids get home from school around 4:30. As soon as their mothers told them that people were living at the cat farm, and that we have a big, strange dog, all the kids appeared. They brought offers of tortillas from their mothers, wanted to see Mel, and wanted to tell me what all the fruit trees were. Right outside the camper is a big tree with hard brown fruits on what look like dead branches. However, the tree isn’t dead, and is, in fact, producing fruit. When the hard brown balls get a reddish cast they’re ripe, and they can be picked and eaten. The problem is getting the fruit out of the tree, which is very tall, and which is difficult because the fruits are pretty firmly attached to the ends of the branches. We made piles of buckets and got long sticks and proceeded to whack at the fruits. We didn’t get any intact fruits down, but whenever a piece of a ripe fruit fell the kids would pick it up and we would eat it. When the hard brown shell breaks open, the inside is full of a pudding like fruit with big seeds in the center. The inside is a very pretty pink, and it’s sweet and is a lot like pudding – which is probably why they call the tree the custard apple. The kids said it’s hard to get the fruits because when they’re ripe enough to be picked, the birds usually get to them first and peck through the shells, ruining the fruit. They’re supposed to be a favorite of toucans, although we haven’t seen one yet.

While the kids were there, Ofelia, one of the three women who had visited in the morning, showed up with George, the owner of the grey mare wandering the property. Even though Ofelia speaks excellent English and understood that we didn’t want to buy a horse yet, she wanted George to meet us and tell us about the horse. George is Ofelia’s uncle, but they’re both about 18 years old, and he has recently finished school and is starting courses to be a mechanic. He wants to sell the mare both because he needs the money for school, and because he doesn’t have time to do anything with her. She’s small, a large pony by our standards, three years old, and in foal, although he wasn’t clear on whether that’s a sure thing, and isn’t sure when she’s due to foal. She’s broke to pull a plow, and he doesn’t think it would be hard to break her for riding, although I’m sure most sellers would say that about any unbroke horse. I told him again that we weren’t ready to buy a horse, but that she was welcome to stay on the property. They left her, and even though she’s not ours, it’s definitely nice to have a horse wandering around, especially since she’s a very personable mare who likes to see what we’re doing and hang out with us since there aren’t any other horses to keep her company.


Tom getting to know the resident horse, who says her name is Esmerelda. George says she doesn't have a name.




The kids went home with Ofelia and George, and I decided to Nordic track in the cabin since the Nordic tracks were out of the truck. I did that, then took a shower, and by then it was 6:00. I was getting a little worried about Tom, who wasn’t yet back. I started writing for this blog and waiting, getting more and more anxious. He finally pulled in a little after seven. Nothing happens fast in Belize, and despite being gone for about 11 hours, he hadn’t even finished with half his list, which, if you know Tom, you know was a great source of frustration. He had, however, bought a generator, which we left in the back of the truck and plugged into the camper so we could cool down the fridge and recharge the camper battery. He had also signed all the necessary paperwork so our offer was official, picked up our black water waste tank from Noah’s truck, and picked up food for dinner. He showered, we ate dinner, and started figuring out the plan for the next day.

Before bed, we stepped out of the camper, since that was the bathroom for both us and the dogs. It was very quiet, and the sky was incredible. The night sky in Canadice is pretty impressive, and it’s usually dark enough to see the Milky Way, at least when it’s not cloudy as it is much of the time in upstate NY. But the Canadice sky, even on a clear night, doesn’t even compare to the sky over the jungle where there’s little or no ambient light to dim the stars. It looks like it’s dusted with sugar, and the constellations stand out as vividly as they do on the sky charts. As we stood there we heard a fluttering, and when we looked up we realized it was the fruit bats fluttering around the custard apples we’d broken in the trees. As we stood still, they flew lower, and came close enough that we could fell the wind from their wings on our faces. This probably sounds frightening, but it wasn’t because the bats were so intent on feeding that they weren’t any threat to us.


Custard apples