Wondering what Medical Services are available in Belize? This is must-read for the traveler, visitor or anybody who is considering emigration to Belize.
Take a look at Medical Services in Belize in the Library.
Monthly Archives: November 2014
A Tropical Herb.
Today’s post is an addition to our Library:
Hamelia patens or Read Head in our Plant and Farm Related Section.
Maybe you have some growing in your garden.
Cheers.
Meeting an “Insanely Famous” Person.
I have been hob-nobbing with the “insanely famous” so I have been told. I was told that this man was “majorly famous” and that he was a big celebrity, mostly in the UK, Europe and Australia. The people from the States did not know who he was. I have not followed television for many, many years so I had no idea when I was introduced to this guy without any prelude. I got the impression that he was a very down-to-earth guy with no delusions of superiority or grandeur. He just seemed like an ordinary, friendly person.
Gnome spoke Italian with him. Everybody got along very well.
A Bit More About Our Philosophy…
Human Productivity:
In Our Philosophy and About Our Products pages, we allude to the desirability of hand-made as having something “more” over machine-made, conveyor belt things. We also lauded human productivity. What does this actually mean?
Let us say that we are making a gesture to the pyramids, the castles, the cathedrals, Roman ruins, any ruins, to the hand-tool, to the mentality of lasting, to the direct human ingenuity of solving a problem. This is very romantic and ideal and sounds nice but why?
Want to know why? Read the Rest Here!
My Doggy Licks Toads.
My dog Beatrice, likes to lick toads and has done so for as long as I have been her owner. I would like to share some interesting observations with you which may indicate that my dog is capable of some degree of awareness and adaptive behaviour.
Beatrice, in her formative years, used to run after and maim toads like mad. At the same time, she would be slobbering all over them, licking them like mad! In turn, the toads would release chemicals which would cause her to salivate more and it would always turn into a very, very wet slobbery mess. She would bark a “playful’ bark for about half and hour, frolic about with the toad, and then she would fall asleep instantly for a couple of hours. I have not noted any long-term side effects from this dog’s activity as I am aware of this chemical being cardio-toxic. In my observation, I have noted that after these toad-licking sessions, her mood appears to be more stable as her basic personality is mad, aggressive and erratic and she can be quite a handful.
Over the years (I have never been able to stop her fascination with toads), I have noticed a moderation in her behaviour with toads. She no longer thrashes about with them in a overly boisterous way but instead, she is perfectly content to sit next to toads in a friendly “let’s hang out” sort of way.
She now sits with the toad calmly and they seem to enjoy each other’s company in the shade of the coconut trees. It is a different toad (I think) each time and I have observed that she licks them intermittently and actually pets them with her paw. Whenever I see this spectacle, I call it “Beatrice and Bufotina Hanging Out” as a play on words because the chemical which toads release is called Bufotenine. The toad does not seem scared at all and usually, after a while it politely leaves her company without any fuss; what I am saying, is that the toads do not get injured anymore! Moreover, there are just a few frolicking barks but no keeling over on the dog’s part.
In conclusion, I think that my dog is capable of surpassing normal aggressive doggy behaviour and learned how to control her recreational requirements with moderation.
If you want to know more about Cane Toads Go Here.
Hooray For Stumpy!
About 5 years ago, we decided to embark on a project to raise guinea pigs for food. We had read up on it and found that it was a delicacy in Peru; our reason for choosing guinea pigs was because they are docile (after having goats, the keeping of guinea pigs sounded very nice) and they also eat lots of grass and greenery without the need for bought food. Besides, we saw varoius tasty Peruvian recipes which looked very appetising; most of them looked like variations of deep-fried guinea pig with the head left on!
We started off with three guinea pigs in our breeding program which consisted of one male and two females. The male was a long-haired, dark brown type; he was very boisterous and friendly and he liked to wiggle his bottom at the other two girls whilst making ddddrrrrr overtures. We called him “The Boy”. Both girls had a patch-work of different colours and they were also long-haired. Penelope had blonde and white patches and was very friendly and liked to petted. The other girl had red and white patches and her personality was the complete opposite of the other girl. She was very shy and liked to hide in the corners of the cage; she was deadly quiet except for when I approached the cage with freshly cut sweet grass; she would call out with a shrill weeeeeee! And, as soon as I was in view, she would stop as though she had never been making any noise. I never heard a peep out of her whenever she saw that I was looking at her. Her name was Stumpy and she is the only one that remains alive out of all three.
She was aptly named Stumpy as her left rear leg unfortunately broke on the first day, when we were transporting her back home. By the time we got home, we ended up having to do an above-knee amputation (there was no choice) and then we dipped her stump in copal oil and dressed it. Her recovery was remarkable and to this very day, she is my testimony for the wonderful healing benefits of Copal Oil.
Through out the years, Stumpy bred like a champion and mothered many guinea pigs (at a guess, it has probably been about 20). The leg has never been an impediment and has continued to be a piggy with a winning personality. We call her GrandMa Stumpy now and she has her own cage because she can be a bit irritated by the other noisy guinea pigs.
She is retired now and every day we give her fresh sweet grass (Mombassa is her favourite) and even some small doggy food pellets as a treat. Because of her age, she does get a bit smelly and unkempt so every three months, we take her out of the cage to give her a haircut, trim her toe-nails and clean out her hairy ears.
I wanted to write a special article on Stumpy because she is the Grandma of our farm and she deserves a mention because she is such a sweet little creature. Hooray for Stumpy!
If you want to read a cool and entertaining article on Guinea Pigs, Click Here.
Busy Bugs In The Bush.
Today I made body oils; this consisted of pasteurising coconut and avocado oil (I basically heat it up to 72C and hold it at that temperature for five minutes.
The Chocolate Body Oils are very popular down here in Toledo for the tourist market since cocoa (cacao) is a major commodity down here.
In keeping with our philosophy, I cut, glue and paste every single label. It is my hope that my positivity in working will infuse into the product from beginning to end.
We live in a wooden house in the Tropics (in the bush…think Sean Connery in Medicine Man…yes, we do live like that!) so I have to obsessively protect my wares from the environment. One particular problem is a bug which looks like a metallic shiny green robot bug (looks exactly like StarBug from Red Dwarf, if you know what I am talking about); it hovers and buzzes around all my precious boxes looking to plant mud everywhere to build nests. You can spot him a mile away with its back legs trailing mud everywhere and it makes a continuous droning noise like an electric screw-driver. Truth be told, they are actually rather “cute” in a buggy sort of way and if you look at them, they are not menacing or predatory like the biting bugs of Belize. They just act as if they are messy little bugs that mean you no harm but like to smear mud everywhere. They have made too much of a mess of my products that as a consequence, I have had to cover all my products in plastic. I used to wrap things up in brown paper bags in boxes but these bugs seem to be attracted to anything made out of paper.
Keeping The Blog Alive.
I am tired today so it is going to be a short one; I was not going to write one but Gnome said that I should try to keep the Blog alive. It is like something alive which I am trying to cultivate and at some point it will assume a personality and a presence.
This morning I spent many intense hours cutting out labels, sticking them on jars and bottles and packing a lot of products.
Gnome dipped the bottles in wax and I followed up with the ribbons and labels for the product.
We packaged soap; this involved the cutting of plastic from a roll and sealing.
More tomorrow!
A Piece Of Land.
Our beginnings in Belize started with Ideals and when we started looking for land, we always kept our philosophy in mind.
People always ask us why we moved to Belize. When we were living in Scotland, we definitely caught the bug to be outdoors all the time. Any spare moment we had, in between hospital shifts, we were running about in the Scottish Woodlands. It got to the point that our days revolved around synchronising work shifts in order to get the free time together to enjoy the great out-doors. Our enthusiasm was so great that we learned to forage for all our greens in the wild; we made nettle soup, dandelion salad, steamed burdock and not to mention a whole plethora of home-made wines from gooseberries to elderberries. Anything that we read up on that was edible, we ranged the countryside in search for that delectable and I think we have tried every documented wild edible green in Scotland. The foraging of edible mushrooms deserves a mention as I still have fond memories of wandering through birch forest with baskets of chanterelles and boletes. One very memorable time for us involved secretly tapping maple trees in the centre of Glasgow; early in the morning, we would don our green hats and wellies and place tapping paraphernalia onto maple trees and covertly hide all this equipment with branches and leaves. By the light of the morning, we would be whipping off our green hats, assuming the role of doctors again, and high-tailing it all the way to hospital. And so this was the start of our discovery of the great outdoors and it became part of a neccessary way of life for us in between the stressful long working hours.
Cassava Bread Hors D’oeuvres.
This article is mainly aimed for the reader in Belize who thinks that it is so difficult to find something yummy and convenient to make. Here in Belize (at least in the Southern Region), the Garifuna people make cassava bread which is a flattened, unleavened bread which they traditionally eat with fish. It is not even something that is found on eating out and in fact, to get your paws on traditionally made cassava bread, you really have to befriend a Garifuna, stay in their village, and then you may be fortunate enough to have some of this cuisine. Traditionally, cassava bread in Belize, is made manually and this involves a long, intensive process of grating cassava by hand (lots and lots of it…sacks and sacks), a system of poles and tree limbs (even with women standing on poles) and the eventual flattening and cooking of the bread on comals. This is a project which my partner and I have long held off since it is a lot of work and you need people power.
So, you will realise my glee and absolute wonder to discover shop-bought Cassava Bread here in Punta Gorda, Toledo, Belize! It is found in all the Chinese Supermarkets sold at approximately $6.75 Bz for just under a pound. If you understand the effort and sheer man-power required in this bread, it is a snap at this price. A quick look at Amazon.com shows that our international readers can buy cassava bread on-line (mostly imported from French Caribbean countries) if they are interested in trying out my suggestions.
Cassava Bread is sold in square packets and when you open up the pack, you will notice that they are scored into smaller squares. Ideally, you should be able to snap off these portions but I have found that, with its bendy-like consistency, it is actually easier to cut the squares out with scissors.
Here are some pictures of serving suggestions for shop-bought cassava bread. You can basically use it as a base for hors d’oeuvres…with a difference since it is cassava bread. Think of some important people paying you an impromptu visit in Belize and you whip this up in 5 minutes for them! Its not your ubiquitous cracker…it is cassava bread, indigenous to Belize and it is also gluten-free. I have used it also as a pizza base and as a quick snack. The possibilities are endless.
The cassava bread can be eaten straight out of the packet or if you want to crisp it up a bit, it can placed in the oven for about 5 minutes. This bread is a great discovery for me because it is only made with raw materials and no additives. Since its original use was as a preservation method for cassava, you can stash lots of this at home as emergency food or for the impromptu visitor.