Retiring to Belize

Retirement-age Americans have been migrating south for decades.  If you had limited funds  you moved to Florida, but if you had money and a sense of adventure you might opt for south of the border— Mexico, Costa Rico, Panama, the island of Roatán north of Honduras, and, increasingly, Belize.  Land and houses are relatively still relatively cheap in all five countries.  (Considerably cheaper than Sarasota, FL for instances, although Sarasota now has so many medical facilities it’s become a very desirable place to spend your declining years—in stark contrast to Belize.)  Many Central American countries have well-established expatriate communities, so you have the advantage of neighbors who speak the same language you do.  Because the countries I mentioned are all third-world countries, if you want a little luxury in your life, many retired people can easily afford to hire a cook and a housekeeper (usually the same person) and a gardener.  But Belize has one advantage all the other countries lack:  your neighbors aren’t the only ones who speak English.

A bachelor’s house in Toledo District. He did the plumbing and electricity himself, but the washer and dryer, far left, come from Guatemala. (Photo by Joan Fry)

Making the Move to Belize

Three final tips about moving to Belize:  know where you’d like to live, be adaptable, and be a good neighbor.

The entrance to a Maya village in Toledo District. Are you sure you want to live someplace that has no electricity or running water? (Photo by Joan Fry)

People Who Successfully Move to Belize

People who move to Belize and stay there year after year, making friends and becoming part of their community, usually have very good social skills.  The most important are: acknowledge that you’re in a foreign country, and respect that country’s laws and customs instead of trying to superimpose your own values on existing laws and customs.

In popular tourist areas, feral dogs like this are routinely fed meat laced with strychnine before the season opens. (Photo by http://www.wired.co.uk)

So You Want to Move to Belize

Like most people who go to Hawaii for the first time, I had decided before the end of our vacation that I could live there.  (“There” was Kailua-Kona on the Big Island.)  But moving anywhere wasn’t feasible at the time because my husband had a business to run, although he and Mark, his partner, started a bicycle rental business on the main street, so we had an excuse to visit a couple of times a year.  I still love the area, although of the thousands of people who fall in love with Hawaii, many, of them did move there—and today Kona is as crowded and congested as Del Mar, California.  Belize is a little like the Hawaiian islands in that nearly everybody speaks English, the climate is great (no real extremes of temperature or climate), and everything costs more than it did back home.  But it takes a certain kind of person to pick up your roots and leave your friends—and sometimes your family—behind and move to Belize.

Two-story houses in Belize with both an inside and an outside stairway are very popular. This Maya house was entirely built in Big Falls by two men with no previous experience. (Photo by Joan Fry)

Text-Free Tuesday

A pretty, bi-level house near the water.  (Photo by Joan Fry)

Obeah in the 21st Century

When I lived in Rio Blanco, Father Cull transformed the school into a church so he could say mass there.  But since I’m not Catholic, I’m not exactly sure how he did that.  One night—and this story is in my memoir—I saw candlelight coming from inside the school and heard two people talking.  The next morning, I discovered they’d been burning black candles on the table/my desk.  Was somebody making obeah against somebody else?  The village mayordomo didn’t know, didn’t care, and didn’t want to talk about it.

A king buzzard. In ancient Maya mythology, they carried messages from humans to the gods. Kriols call all vultures John Crow. (Photo by Danny Bales)

Text-Free Tuesday

The old house on the right in Punta Gorda was once new and elegant and sparkling white–but unlike the house in San Antonio, this one was built. No obeah involved. (Photo by Joan Fry)

Obeah–Belizean Black Magic

The obeah men who are paid to make spells believe that obeah itself is neutral—it’s simply power.  If someone asks him to make a spell against somebody else in order to hurt him and cause him pain, the power becomes evil.  If someone asks him to make a spell so that his sick child will live, the power becomes good because it will result in good.   Among the Maya—perhaps in an overlap stemming from their own ancient, oral traditions of witchcraft and sorcery—obeah is almost always used for evil.

If bullets are used in the spell, it’s a good bet that the victim will die of a mysterious gunshot wound. (Photo by Joan Fry)

Text-Free Tuesday

Ceiba tree on the way to Nim Li Punit. Several years ago a hurricane wiped out most of the lone-standing big trees in Toledo District. (Photo by Joan Fry)

Text-Free Tuesday

Somebody Paid an Obeah Man to Make This Spell  (www.professoraba.com)