Our previous blog explains how we got to Belize, how we got settled, and what we’ve been doing for the past almost-seven years. It might even explain, at least obliquely, that our lodging business did (and is doing) way better than expected. So why are we jumping ship and starting a new adventure?
It wasn’t planned, in any way. Unlike our move to Belize, which had been in the back of our heads for years (although Belize wasn’t always the destination, just someplace warmer than Upstate New York), this one came out of the blue. We spent the summer of 2012 in the US, two months driving the whole East Coast visiting family and friends, and the last month in Florida with Tom’s parents. When we got home to Belize in the beginning of October, our friends M&G, who had also been in the US for part of the summer, invited us for a swim and dinner, saying they wanted to catch up on some news from while we were all gone. They (and now we) live on a very large tract of land in the Mountain Pine Ridge with some pine forest, some broadleaf jungle, a number of rivers and creeks complete with waterfalls, and a couple of very large waterfalls that go over the escarpment into the jungle below. The property is managed as two main businesses, with the pine part a tree farm with the main goal to help the pine forest recover from the pine bark beetle infestation of 2000/2001, and the broadleaf as a carbon credit “farm.” We knew this in a vague sort of way, so we were very appreciative that evening when G suggested that we all jump into the VW Thing and tour part of the property, with an explanation of what the land was doing, on our way to the waterfall swimming hole of the day. We’d never really driven around the property, and I remember thinking that I would have to ask if I could bring my horses up some time and leave them for a week or so, so I could ride the trails.
After the drive, we had a nice pre-dinner swim, and over dinner that evening M&G informed us that while they were in the US, their general manager had submitted his resignation, and would be leaving in January. We expressed our condolences, and G stated that we could talk more about it after dinner. So, over a glass of wine after dinner, we asked M&G what they were going to do without a general manager. They have a staff of eight to twelve who maintain the grounds and buildings, do the forestry work, and generally support the business. M&G travel part of the year, so we knew that the general manager had managed the farm operations in their absence, and while their foreman excels at running the crews, he isn’t interested in all the administrative work involved with managing the fairly large farm operation on an ongoing basis. G sighed and said they’d be looking for a new general manager, and what they wanted was somebody with “US business sensibilities” who could operate in the Belize business environment.
My first thought, after an internal snort, was “Good luck with that!” As we frequently tell people with over-idealistic views of moving here, “Belize is not the US.” In any way, shape, or form. English may be the national language, but it is definitely not universally spoken, and the business attitude, as well as the general attitude towards life, is way more Caribbean than North American. The “manana” philosophy is in full swing, and nothing is urgent. Fluidity and flux are the rules of the game, and even what we consider basic things like keeping a calendar are somewhat foreign. “Right now” means “I’ll be with you when I’m done what I’m doing,” which could be a few seconds, or a minute, or an hour, or later in the day, or maybe tomorrow, or sometime after that. When it’s Friday and somebody says they’ll have something done, say on Monday, you need to make sure they’re talking about the coming Monday, and confirm it three or four times in different ways, and if you have any hope of getting it on Monday, the conversation goes like this:
“I can get this to you on Monday.”
“You mean Monday, September 4?”
“Yes.”
“Like, three days from now?”
“Yes.”
“So you’re going to work on it over the weekend?”
“Yes.”
“So I can pick it up on Monday, September 4, three days from now?”
“Yes.”
If you don’t go through this exercise, it will not be done on Monday. With this exercise, you have about a 50% chance of getting it. Half the time, you’ll show up on Monday, and get, “Oh, I’ll have it done tomorrow. Something came up over the weekend.” The something could be anything…an illness, bad weather, visitors from out of town, or a chance encounter with a bottle of rum, which is an excuse equally as good as any of the others for most people here.
The thing is, this isn’t really a bad thing, it’s just the way it is. It made us completely crazy for the first couple of years we lived here, but then we learned to live with it, and if not like it, at least understand and appreciate it. You don’t see people risking their health and family relationships over work, and that’s a good thing. And the reality is that most work things really aren’t that important, and with proper planning – and knowing how it works – it’s pretty easy to work around this. And, if you really have an emergency, somebody will help you out whether it’s the middle of the night or a holiday or just damned inconvenient, but you just can’t expect the emergency level of service when it’s not an emergency. And that’s okay.
Lots of expats never get used to this, and continue to be frustrated and flummoxed in their efforts to get things done. Some even throw up their hands and leave the country, returning to known and understood frustrations. Native Belizeans don’t understand why the expats get so wound up, and don’t see any reason to do things differently. Hence, my internal snort. At this point, Tom says he knew where the conversation was going. I was still busy quietly snorting, when G said, “So we thought maybe you two might be interested.”
Tom and I, sitting across the room from each other, made eye contact and silently agreed that we were just going to listen, and neither one of us was going to say anything until we had a chance to talk privately. Afterwards, M told us that her respect for us went up at this point, since this was obviously going to be a “we” decision, not a “he or she” one. M&G proceeded to explain to us that they’d had this brainstorm on their porch in the US, and had done a role playing exercise where G was them and M was us, and G convinced M that this was a great idea for all of us, even in the face of all the reasons why Tom and I wouldn’t want to do this. They talked and went through their role playing exercise, we listened, and we had to admit they’d done a good job of understanding our position. We left them late that night with the promise that we would think about it for a few days, and get back to them with whatever we were thinking.
We went out to the car, with both of us expecting the other to say, “Why the hell would we want to do that?” Instead, pretty much in unison, we both said, “We should think about this.” We talked until late that night, continued through most of the next day and night, and the day after that, before we called and told M&G that we were interested and wanted to talk more.
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