Paget’s Belize Journal #17

October 8: A Place to Live, Hooray!

My househunting efforts have been successful and I will be
moving into an apartment in the next few days! I’m a little apprehensive,
it’s been cozy and safe and quiet at Pelican, but I think the
timing is about right. I know how to buy groceries and water
and spatulas. And I’m desperate for more vegetables in my diet
than I can easily get out of the kitchen here.

But 90% of the people I know are Pelican staff. And it has
been delicious being the privileged guest, almost the “pet”
guest. “Good Morning, Miss Paget, we have baked flour tortillas
for breakfast, just the way you like them.” “Good Afternoon,
Miss Paget, did you find a house today? Did you look again at
the house of Ernest’s uncle? It’s very convenient, you know.”
“Good Evening, Miss Paget, will you be walking on the dock
before dinner or would you like to eat now?” “Hello,
Miss Paget, would you like to join Miss Alice on the verandah
for a beer?” And knowing the names of (almost) everyone
and (surely) being admired and envied by the other guests. A
very civilized (I actually should say civilised) interlude.

But on to the new. My apartment is the second story of a fairly
new building. In the downstairs is the office of the only lawyer
in town, Antoinette Moore (Lawyer Moore). The building is at
one end of the main commercial street, Commerce Street, and is
owned by an older gentleman named Claudio Serano, who lives in
the building next door. The rent is BZ $350/month (US $175),
probably a little higher than it would be for a Belizean, or
more likely a Garifuna. But Lawyer Moore says he’s an excellent
landlord.

It has two very small bedrooms and a living room, bath and
kitchen. AND a tiny little balcony that looks out over the street.
Maybe big enough for a short hammock or two chairs. And the balcony
has a view of the ocean. Not a very expansive view, but enough
to rest your eyes. There’s also a closet. A closet is pretty
unusual in houses here and the fact that there is one seems to
be an indication that Mr. Serano anticipated occasionally renting
to outsiders. Actually, some of the places I looked at had big,
semi-built-in wardrobes, part of the British heritage I presume.

The apartment is about 300 sq. ft, maybe a bit more. The floors
are very smoothly finished concrete, there are screens on ALL
the windows and a security gate on the door. There is a kitchen
sink in a cupboard unit and a cupboard in the bathroom, which
also has a shower, sink and toilet. Just about perfect. As expected,
there is no stove, refrigerator, curtains, or hot water. I will
probably buy a two-burner counter-top stove and use an ice chest
for cooling. At least for a while. I haven’t figured out how
to get ice yet, although my best source of advice at Pelican – the
night manager and desk clerk, Alton – says that people sell it
out of their homes (?!) for a “shilling” a bag. (A
shilling is 25 cents Belize, 12.5 cents US. It will also buy
2 little bananas.) He advises that I will need about four bags a
day and that I should not use the ice from the ice factory because
that is for the fishermen to use to ice down the catch. I think
this means that it might not be consumable, but it could mean
that I’m not allowed to buy it. Maybe it’s a co-op or something.
Many things are a puzzlement.

And as of mid-afternoon they haven’t turned on the electricity
even though it was promised for this morning. The national electrical
utility is in the process of being privatized and a strike is
threatened but like a good, selfish American, I have been hoping
it doesn’t happen until after I have been taken care of. But then
Jobe told me that if there is a strike, there might not be any
electricity at all. I guess if the electricity stays on, we’re
fine, but if we have an outage, there’s no one to fix it. Middle
management is said to be not worth much, but has been guaranteed
a good deal in the transition and the worker bees have not. Thus,
the strike discussions, not quite a “threat” yet. But
I gather there’s no such thing as a “strike vote,”
or it’s already been taken. News is hard for me to decipher sometimes.

Jobe also ventured the opinion that it was a shame Belize
didn’t deal with such crises as some of our neighbors do -
have the military take care of things while the workers were
out. I allowed as how this absolutely negated the value of the
right to strike. Jobe seemed dubious. We may or may not continue
this conversation this evening.

This will be all for a few days. Columbus Day is a big holiday
here so the office will not be open and I will be busy scrubbing
and settling in and getting to know my neighbors and so forth.
I already know that I will be watching television with one of
them whether I want to or not. But if I choose the other bedroom
and keep the shutters closed on that side, it might not be too
bad.

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