Paget’s Belize Journal #12

October 1: Housing Styles and Security

A few people have expressed some interest in the security measures
that are in place here, presumably because of my mention both
of the issue of security bars on houses and the night security
man at Pelican Beach.

For Dangriga in general, it appears that neighbors look out
for each other and it is desirable to be in a neighborhood, just
like in the US, where at least one person in the immediate area
is home all day. But also, because the houses have no windows,
just rotating shutter panels and sometimes screens, it’s entirely
easy to get in. So most people who have anything at all to steal
put up cast-iron security bars. Some of them look like old-west
hoosegow bars, but many are fancy and are painted in colors to
match the trim of the house. The houses themselves are either
wooden or cement, often raised up on legs about 3/4 of a story
with the laundry, lounging, beer-drinking and chicken-raising
section open to the air underneath the sleeping and living area.

Usually the bars are on the windows only and the door itself
is a locking wooden door. Often the doors have bars also that
are swung and locked into place when no one is home (or at the
office or store or whatever). The doors are more likely to have
bars if they are on the ground floor – the modern building style.
It is logical to assume that anyone who has built living space
on the ground floor of a cement building, which absorbs heat
all day and holds it all night also has provided an air conditioner,
but, alas, this is not always true.

As to the night security man at Pelican Beach, he is really
the negotiator for the pack of security dogs, an Irish setter,
three weimaraners, 2 black Labs and a mongrel – all of them
noisy, territorial and intact males – and one sweet female Lab.
They work all night, roaming the grounds from 9:00 pm or so to
about 6:30 in the morning, then have their morning swim and supper
and are shut up for the day. Their names as far as I can tell
are Yellow (the setter!?), Blackie (the female) and Hey!, Hi!,
Wha! Hyut! etc – other plosives that they seem to answer to
individually. But maybe not.

Additional information about security measures later.

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