Paget's Belize Journal
The Preliminary Trip-
It Begins The Actual Stay-
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Sep 28, 1999 More Weather; Sensations; Housing
Anyway, that meant that the sand fleas were out. Now anyone who has been to Belize will warn you about the sand fleas if they've experienced them. And they're worse. Tiny little black bugs that can jump and fly and bite as many bits as they can find. Not at all a respectable bug that you have a chance to squash once in a while. We white folk do have one advantage, though. I was talking to a staff member and she said they were terrible, because "you can't evah see dem, but dey bite, den dey gone." How strange, I thought. *I* can see them. And then figured out, of course, that she could see them on *my* skin, too. This place is going to be just grand for making me recognize realities of the world that I haven't been thinking about, especially from lily-white Oregon. Tony and Therese's children have just started at a new school because they will be moving as soon as their house is ready. The new school is much less racially diverse than their old school, is mostly Garifuna. Luke, the middle child (8 years old) is dealing with being teased and called Pinnochio because he has a sharp little nose, not a lovely rounded one like virtually all of the other children. He's a trooper though. He was feeling so bad, I let him take apart my wonderful battery-operated hand fan (here they're known as "church fans") to see how it worked. Lost one of the pieces in the sand, convinced me to give it to him so he could fix it. Then had his Dad fix it with a piece of tinfoil. Tony immediately claimed the fan and I'm not sure I'll ever get it back. (Aunt Margie -- a Christmas present?) Sounds are also hard to get used to. The beach is just about 20 yards outside my window, so when the tide is turning and it's pretty quiet, it sounds just like a person breathing just outside the window, especially when you wake up in the middle of the night. But I am learning to sleep through the nearly-nightly thunder storms and the early flight from Belize City. Oh, I promised an update on house-hunting. I have looked at two houses and have begun to get the range of what's possible and not possible. There will be no hot water and probably no screens. Unfurnished is just that. No stove or refrigerator, nothing except bathroom fixtures and *maybe* a kitchen sink/counter unit. I'll have to buy whatever I want. So I've started pricing a bit. A floor fan will be about $16 US, a two-burner cook top about $40 US (if the house electricity can take it). I'll buy a piece of foam for a bed (US $ 35) and have a handyman "knock up" a frame, and probably a table and chair too. And also do the screens and maybe burglar bars. So now I am concentrating on finding a small place, not too expensive in a safe neighborhood. One of the security men (Ernest) has an aunt and uncle who have two places. One is a very small house with no kitchen sink, but new bathroom fixtures (very appealing). BUT you have to crawl into the bedroom because it's under the eave. It's $175 BZE/month (half that in US $). The other one is the ground floor of a two-story house (not desirable, you get no ocean breezes). I didn't ask how much it was because it was hot and sooooo GREEEEEN on the inside. I mean bright. I mean 4 different colors of bright green. Including the ceiling. But these places I looked at on Friday and no one has come up with anything else since then. And the only way to find a place is word of mouth, there is no such thing as classified ads that I have found. So maybe I'll have green. or no sink. Gotta go, let me know if anything needs more explanation.
Tony and Therese are the people who own Naturalight Productions
(http://www.belizenet.com/)and
for whom I'm doing some project work. Stay happy. |
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