This is intended as an introduction to the unspoken customs of Belize. Car Hailing is a particular idiosyncrasy pertaining to the Toledo district, the southernmost part of Belize. If you ever go outside of the district, you will find that you can “car hail” amongst fellow Toledo people so it becomes even more esoteric and meaningful. Nevertheless, this is just a simple and friendly way of “saying Hello” to drivers on the road and it is of particular importance in such a small community where everybody knows each other.
Symbolism is a means of communication without words and so we have ascribed a name to each of the hailing types in order to give meaning to the gesture. Above all, it is just about having fun. So here are the Fundamental Five:
Rabbit Ears: Gentle but kind. Offers Protection to All on the Road.
Car Hailing in Belize: Rabbit Ears.
Double Gibnut: Double Luck. Gibnut are solitary creatures and are rarely found in pairs.
Car Hailing in Belize: Double Gibnut.
Pointing Snake: Projection of Inner Knowledge.
Car Hailing in Belize: Pointing Snake.
Jaguar Paw: Respect to the Power of the Predator.
Car Hailing in Belize: Jaguar Paw.
Upward Facing Dog: Companionship.
Car Hailing in Belize: Upward Facing Dog.
Ok, everybody, let’s start the car hailing revolution. Actions speak louder than words.
Hi Everyone. Our Internet just came back on…it has been really erratic lately and some days we only have it come on for about 5 minutes at a time when some emails download but no connection to write back. Such is life in Belize. Well, we’ve been busy with medical calls of late. So, all farm and business stuff has been pushed to a minimum until things go back to normal. The rains don’t help either…and, I should also throw in the unhelpful conjunction of the stars for extra measure! Anyone waiting for coconut products is waiting for all our patients to get better, sunnier days and of course, the big stick (for knocking down the coconuts).
Of course, being doctors always comes first and we really don’t mind seeing patients. We just have so many other things that we like to do that it is sometimes hard to fit everything into our lives. For us, seeing patients is our gesture to people, the community and the universe, at large because we put such a huge effort into this work. Not only are our call-outs one hour, they sometimes extend to two hours and we don’t ask for extra money for this. The money that we receive from patients is what we like to view as a “gesture in kind.”
During these hectic, stressful and tiring days, I think to myself that we are so lucky that we can work together as doctors (and in everything else). Due to patient confidentiality, doctors should never talk about their patients to anyone else except to other medical colleagues. In our line of work, this is called “sharing the anxiety” or in more professional terms “de-briefing.” I am really glad that we can share the anxiety together!
It is nice when some acknowledgement comes our way. The last week or so, we have received gifts of fruit from patients’ relatives.
A gift of mangoes. This is great because we have no mangoes growing on our farm.
Mangoes.
A gift of kenip fruit. These are fruit with a sweet and acidic flesh…you gnaw on the fruit around the seeds and then the seeds can be kept, boiled up and then roasted to make a nut snack. Gnome really likes this fruit!
I have a nice story to share with you today. It is a heart-warming story that makes me feel connected with the community of Punta Gorda and at large, humanity.
About a week ago, I received an early morning phone call from the daughter one of our many patients. She was naturally distressed because her elderly father had fallen on the floor. Unfortunately, we were in Belize City at that time so we were unable to come to her aid. However, I did tell her that it was imperative that she take her father to hospital (in Punta Gorda) urgently. I detected some hesitancy from her because she was unsure as to whether she and her husband could physically carry him out of the house and into their truck. I understood her concerns and I stated that there was simply no ambulance service available but nevertheless, it was of utmost importance that he be seen by a medical doctor.
On the same day, the daughter phoned to give me an update and said that her father was stable and improving in hospital.
I didn’t hear anything more until a couple of days ago. The father had been discharged from hospital and we came out to do a check-up. When we arrived at the house, we were met by the daughter. She was very pleased with her father’s progress and said to us mysteriously, “I will let my dad tell you about the ride in the pick-up truck…”
When we saw the father, he was lying down and it was clear that he had been through a very difficult and trying week. Despite all this, he smiled and beamed with relief when he saw us. The first thing he said to us, as he chuckled to himself, was “Oh, I need to tell you about my first ride on the back of a pick-up truck…”
So this is the “pick-up story”: The daughter had run out to her neighbour and asked them for help in getting her dad into her truck. The neighbour shouted an incomprehensible list of commands in Creole over her shoulder and the next thing she knew there were six young men, armed with blankets, standing by her side. The six men (I imagine in my head, six very strong burly men) ran like soldiers to the house and swooped the father up effortlessly and carried him in a blanket onto the back of the pick-up truck. As they drove the bumpy ride to the hospital, the men acted as a human cushion to stop the father from rolling about on the truck.
The neighbour had also called ahead to the hospital to inform them of the imminent arrival. And so, everything was done in a timely, co-ordinated manner as soon as they reached hospital.
I smiled when I heard this story. This shows community spirit and compassion. In times of crisis, they rally together and give support to one another. This is truly priceless and no amount of facilities and public services can replace the warmth and humility that is necessary in times of need.
Munchkin has charged me with the honorary task of posting our two-hundredth post and filling it with some lofty thoughts and ideas that free us from the feeling of mundaneness engendered by three inches of rain every night, not having fixed the pump yet, mud, mosquitoes, no-see-ums, botless flies, doctor flies, termites and the constant growth of tropical bush — Green Hell…ehm…I mean Paradise!
Before I start, however, I want to share the happiness of having found and reconnected with a long-lost, medical school classmate with whom I shared some of those awful times:
Thank you for re-appearing in our lives and being more than a once-a-year-email friend.
Here I go: Let us take today to realise that all religions have at least one common commandment: “Thou shalt not disfigure the soul.” This is a powerful and empowering statement and it gives me hope and comfort when I ponder upon it: it reminds me that we are all in the same boat as collective Humanity; allowing me to feel and behave as an equal with my fellows; with compassion and understanding regardless of which books we read and study in our search for freedom. I believe that we can all meet with the common belief that there exists a Divine Essence in the universe without having to kill, crush and destroy each other trying to prove the supremacy of our personal thoughts to others.
This next one is a blatant paraphrase from the Liturgical Manual and Commentaries of the Orange Catholic Bible: People, finding no answers to the ten thousand religious questions now apply their own reasoning: All men seek to be enlightened. Religion is but the most ancient and honourable way in which men have striven to make sense out of God’s universe. Scientists seek the lawfulness of events. It is the task of religion to fit man into this lawfulness.
Another paraphrase that follows nicely: Much that is called religion has carried an unconscious attitude of hostility towards life. True religion must teach that life is filled with joys pleasing to the eye of God, that knowledge without action is empty. All men must see that the teaching of religions by rules and rote is largely a hoax. The proper teaching is recognised with ease. You can know it without fail because it awakens within you that sensation which tells you this is something you’ve always known.
I dedicate this quote from Bomoko’s Legacy to those of us that feel that our problems will be taken away by somebody else: “You who have defeated us say to yourselves that Babylon is fallen and its works have been overturned. I say to you still that man remains on trial, each man in his own dock. Each man is a little war.”
I find this quote from the O.C. Bible enlightening when I neurotically rationalise and justify my bad behaviour: “Any sin can be ascribed, at least in part, to a natural bad tendency that is an extenuating circumstance acceptable to God.”
And finally, to end on a note that reminds us to be mindful of that little voice in our heads which often gets us into plenty of trouble (22 Kalima): “Whether a thought is spoken or not, it is a real thing and has powers of reality.”
The rains have stopped and we have had some good dry days. We eventually realised that our procrastination time was coming to an end when the water was slowly going down in the tanks and the frogs had laid enough spawn in our buckets to start a frog farm.
Tadpoles in Water Bucket.
It was time to pull up the well-pump and face reality and deal with it. So, yesterday Gnome cleared the well-pump area which was overgrown with lots of green climbing stuff.
Pump Before Cleaning.Removing Pipe.
He pulled the 50 feet of pipe to bring the submersible pump up. Hoping that the pump was just full of gunk, we ran the pump inside the water tank. It groaned and creaked with each electricity jolt but refused to start up.
Testing Pump in Tank.
On closer inspection of the one-way valve, Gnome noticed that there was a “biological black rotting that slimed out past the valve.” Those were his technical terms and he thought that it was most likely a frog, snake or bunch of slugs which had got caught and mashed up in the intake.
The next thing that we need to do is to open up the pump and clean it out and to see if there is damage to the pump mechanism. We are not sure if this can be done if the parts are all glued together. Anyway, it isn’t looking good for the pump and we are already looking for a replacement. Since we have a variable-draw pump because we have a very shallow (slow) well, the pump is extra expensive…with duty and shipping it will probably cost close to $5000 all up. Needless to say, we are now considering other less traditional types of pumps; Gnome is favouring the “air-lift” pump which will double-up as a compressed air source for the farm. Also, he is trying to save me money!!
Anyway, enough of the technical stuff. This reminds me of our good, old pioneer days when we first came to Belize….
Back in the early days, we befriended the manager at Cotton Tree Lodge who was, at that time, in the early phase of construction of the establishment. He had mentioned to us that he had bought a second-hand well-digger ( a small one which could only dig a maximum of fifty feet) but the only problem was that he could not figure out how to use it from the operating manual. Gnome was able to decipher the manual and so the manager made a proposal to us; if Gnome could dig a well for Cotton Tree Lodge then he would allow us to dig a well on our own property. We readily agreed to the exchange of services and Gnome set about digging a well at the lodge. We loved the idea of being “well-diggers”…it sounded sooo cool and appealed to our sense of adventure.
Anyway, during a short morning break, we happened to meet a visiting medical doctor from New York who was on holiday. When he found out that we were Doctors and that we were enlisted well-diggers, he was absolutely horrified. He guffawed and stammered and finally said,”Doctors, huh? Do you think this is a smart career move?” We just laughed because we were having so much fun in Belize. But all he could do was scratch his head and give us a befuddled look of dismay.
Yes, I definitely have to say that it was a smart career move. Ten years down the line, we have become independent-minded and self-sufficient. We can usually figure how to achieve a job on the farm without paying for an expert or professional. It is all about thinking out of the box and as one very well-seasoned Belizean ex-pat (a Hawaiian Gnome) once advised us,” to make it in Belize, you need to have the smarts to get ahead.”
Hello Everyone. We just spent the last two days chilling out and relaxing. We still have the same ongoing problems…yes, life goes on but we decided just to take a break from our usual mad running around. Pause to think about life.
It was partly due to this; it was raining buckets. When the weather decides not to co-operate with outside activities, it is best to co-operate with reality and do nothing. We are learning.
Heavy Rains.
Also, we had a visiting froggie that looked like he was contemplating life and so we thought to follow his example. Sometimes slowing down can be a good thing.
Sleepy Froggie Contemplating Life.
Aside from the froggie, we have had another house visitor…a bat. He just hung (ha-ha) around for a day or so and then left.
A House Visitor.
It reminds me of the time when we first moved onto this farm; the wooden house was just one big room and a whole army of vampire bats had taken residency on the ceiling. So, on our first night in this house, we bravely (or stupidly?) slept on a mattress perched on wooden boards (rather precariously, I might say) in the midst of a house with the to and fro fluttering of about a hundred vampire bats. They squeaked, chirped and swooped all around us…it felt like a scene from a horror movie. Needless to say, we didn’t sleep very well on our first night and still to this very day I wonder why we did it…was it an initiation into ascetic living perhaps or learning to live with all creatures? Anyway, ten years on, we have house rules…only visitors…and we don’t mind the odd rat snake, tarantula or bat but the rules are that they can not take up residency in our house. So far, so good…everything seems to be co-operating.
Today, I will talk a bit about doctoring in Belize since we had a whole day of house-calls:
We are thankful that we are able to practice Medicine in Belize according to our philosophy. We are both House Call General Practioners and our services include chronic care, post-operative care, palliative care and minor procedures. We see people of all ages from the elderly to babies to pregnant women. These days, we find that doctors are so specialised that they are only confident with their specific field. We, on the other hand are all-encompassing doctors with knowledge in every medical specialty. Also, prior to Belize, we both already had experience in Tropical Medicine (tropical infections, land and marine envenomation and parasites) as we had worked in Northern Australia.
As doctors, we feel that one of the most important factors of proper care and management is giving time to the patient. We purposely book one hour for each patient so that we have the time to assess a patient properly and answer all their questions. In our experience, this time factor is critical for the patient to feel satisfied and get better.
I want to share with you an experience which I had in my early days as a medical doctor. I used to work under a very stern consultant and every morning, we walked through the hospital to do the ward round. He used to dictate to me what was required in terms of further investigations including blood and diagnostic tests and I would be scribbling like mad as he ran through the blood tests which he wanted,
He would say, “FBC, WCC, U+E, LFTs, etc, etc,” and then he would look me squarely in the eyes and say, slowly and deliberately, “TLC.”
Tender Loving Care. I will never forget it because he was such an old cantankerous bat who never smiled nor made a joke. But, he taught me a very special lesson in being a doctor. This story still makes me smile to this very day.
Hello Everyone! I have been reviewing my product descriptions and I have been re-evaluating the contents of each page. I feel that there is not enough oomph (or heart) in my words and I would like to do a better job in translating our inspiration and creativeness into words. So far, I have re-done the pages for the soaps and it is my hope that I have enthused some of our fun-loving charm into it all! The previous descriptions were really drab, formularised “copy and paste” drivel. I will be re-writing the page contents in an effort to keep up with our philosophy in doing everything with focus and awareness. Anyway, expect to see more thoughtful product descriptions as I am preparing the way for the Grand Opening of The Apothecary very soon!!
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?
This is intended as an introduction to the unspoken customs of Belize. Car Hailing is a particular idiosyncrasy pertaining to the Toledo district, the southernmost part of Belize. If you ever go outside of the district, you will find that you can “car hail” amongst fellow Toledo people so it becomes even more esoteric and meaningful. Nevertheless, this is just a simple and friendly way of “saying Hello” to drivers on the road and it is of particular importance in such a small community where everybody knows each other.
