Guthrie's Cabin on The Hill

Feb 15, 2012

I live in the jungle now, just outside of town. It's a two-story cottage built by a Brit whose pension sank and he thinks he and he wife can live more comfortably in Belize, on a fraction of what they expected to have, than he can in England. Lucky for me, that will be next year. This year, he needs someone to live here to keep malefactors away.

The house is in the southwest corner of an area called Kontiki, with a Maya mound just a few hundred feet from the house through the jungle, which is the highest point in Kontiki. The western highway brings you here from San Ignacio. From the vastly paved Kontiki Gas Station, you take the 10 mph, nearly impassable (which goes without saying) rutted rocky road 8/10 of a mile back and back and back, averting mud holes that even the Subaru can't traverse to a corner where the community appears to end at a wide black iron gate.

I climb from the car with a great sense of mystery every time, because to open a great iron gate at the back of a mile of haphazard half streets and hobbled together wooden houses and stately two story colorful concrete houses decked with palms and pillars and Gates, you feel like you're living in a story. And I am. No one who lives in Kontiki does not know that the tall American with two fat (compared to the locals) dogs and a Subaru has taken the Englishman's house on the hill and she's going to ruin her tires if she doesn't come and go more slowly. Maybe she is always late for something, they think. (And they are right.)

I lift up the rod on the gate that sinks into a hole in a round slab of concrete in the ground and push on the great gate and it swings easily and wide, opening the path to my very steep and rocky and slippery-when-wet mown driveway. You cannnot see the house from here. Not until the crest of the hill, 50 feet from the house, and still before you see it, you see Guthrie. Seated with perfect posture head pulled back in military stance, watching from a spot that overlooks all of Kontiki. He is The Sentry.

Friend or Foe? He assesses.

He hears me call out "It's the Gute!," his term of endearment, and he transforms into round-backed bounding puppy, rocking between his front and back legs, then racing to me with his ears back in glee and a great desire to muddy my clothes or the side of the car, whichever comes first.

Then, at last the house. There on your left. Kind of cabiny looking with cedar (or some hairy wood) siding. I drive all the way to the back, under the low clothesline strung on a pully and made tight with a 10-foot pronged branch to prop up the line when the weight of clothes would drag it to the ground. It's how everyone strings clotheslines here. Never tight. Always strung very high and hanging loose and low so you can reach the line. Then brought up and tight with a tall stick wedged at an angle between the line and the ground. Curious, I thought when I first arrived in Belize and saw so many clotheslines with these askew props. Now it just makes sense. With every batch of laundry you can set the line at the height you please. Sheets? Raise it up. Kitchen towels? Leave it low. A bedspread and jeans? Put it up and up and up. That's a heavy load.

I drive under the line because Juan the caretaker suggested that I park on my patio - under the second floor deck. Like a carport. So I do, leaving the rest of the length of the concrete patio under the paper japanese lanterns I have hung (lime green, orange, and formerly red) open for a table and chairs for romantic dining by night or a fluffy dog blanket for resting one's paws after a long jungle trek by day.

The entrance is a patio door fit to the space that once hung a garage door, protected with 8-foot "burglar bars" as they call them. Another iron gate, 10 feet wide and 8 feet high, painted white not black. One door has a rod that sinks into a small hole in the patio, just like the gate at the street. I keep it in place and use the other side of the door mostly. In fact, so often that it confuses the dogs if I open both sides, and they have to pause before they exit, considering the unfamiliar space.

Inside the grate are two sliding patio door screens. They do not fit tight to the glass or to the door frame, so when one eager pup put a paw through as he was waiting for me to unlock the door and come in, it didn't change the insect balance in the house (or outside). Finally, beyond the burglar bar grate and beyond the flimsy screen doors, are are two sliding patio doors fitted curiously with auto glass. This was described to me as an extra protective measure and immediately to mind came television shows of bullets shattering a windshield and leaving someone dead. I did not question the extra protection. Maybe they meant against criminals armed with Rocks.

The grate has a sliding bar at arm level that secures both sides together and locks with a padlock. The glass doors have a keyhole that is a mere 1/4 inch opening in the metal of the door with a strange, long key that reminds me of a drill bit - twisted metal - but with notches and a flange end to hold.

It is a cumbersome house to get in and out of. First to fumble with the padlock (which is on the inside of the grate, so you must reach through the bars from the outside) then to fit that funny long twisted key and get it just right to trip the jaw of the hook that grips the other door. It's a two-minute process.

The house is mostly concrete and tile so I have decided there's little danger of needing the hope of being able to escape for, say, a fire. (Though I did already soot up the kitchen ceiling with floating specs of melted plastic sieve handle the day that I was frying ginger donuts. And I already found a plastic version of a feather duster to pluck the sooty plastic dust off the painted wall and ceiling without Pressing it to the paint for a more permanent affect.)

Not just the entry is burglar barred, every window is burglar barred. Not necessarily screened, but burglar barred. One morning I lazily went back to Bed after I let the dogs out to explore the early morning yard and jungle. (They like to get up at 6 a.m.. This is their concession from the 5 a.m. wake up time they had as pups. Now that they are nine, 6 a.m. is sufficient.) No sooner did I drift off than a snout poked through the burglar bars on an unscreened window to give one good bark to make me jump. Guthrie reminding me about Breakfast.

The room has lots of windows, some that open, covered with borrowed fabric and curtains at night, which are flipped up and over the rod in the day to let all of the tropical light and air in.

The house is all tile. I love this so much about the tropics that I will probably, unseasonably, install tile throughout my house in Wisconsin. It is so Clean! I believe I will never be able to abide carpeting again.

The kitchen is big - the size of a one-car garage, which I think it used to be - with a new refrigerator and stove that the owner agreed to buy so I would take the place. (When they say unfurnished here they mean it comes with walls and maybe stick-on sheet flooring - no appliances, no nothing.) At the back of the kitchen is the door to a short T hallway for the bedroom, the stairs to the second floor, and, on the T, a laundry closet and a bathroom with a shower looking out on the yard and the jungle. The bedroom has a big clothes closet and under-stair closet for storage and seems vast because all I have is a bed. Borrowed from Michelle. I cover it with a bright floral sheet my mom sent because it is easier to wash pup prints off a sheet than a bedspread. The bedspread stays hidden (until one of the pups starts turning and turning and turning to create a little nest of his bedding...).

The second floor of the house is locked up, for the owner and his guests when they come. I don' t use that floor. But I use the deck. My patio is under the overhang of a beautiful covered wooden porch on the second floor. There, on the side of the house toward the mountains, I have hung my hammock and an extra clothesline (for when it's raining on the cleverly hung pulley line on the ground) and it's a whole additional living space to my house. With a beautiful view of stars at night and distant mountains by day.

The yard is manicured, about an acre or so, landscaped with a row of tropical bushes here, a lemon tree there, A little extra yard area mowed behind a line of hedges so the pups have another area to investigate. Then, beyond the landscaping, on all sides: Jungle. Jungle so thick I can let the pups run free and not worry. They can't get too far. The only exit is the driveway to the rocky Kontiki road. They are hounds in their element with a new sense of pride because they Roam Free. I can't tell you how Elias pranced and flaunted his freedom the first day I let him, and not Guthrie, loose. Eli had proven at the last house that he would stay in range. Guthrie did not prove this. Guthrie ran down the valley to chase chickens and ran across the highway where children were playing in a field. My poor roommate then, Michelle, tore out her hair more than once over the Gute. He is a canine wildcard. So Eli darted back and forth in the yard, keeping ever in view of Guthrie standing caged with me in the kitchen, behind the burglar bars.

Now, however, Guthrie too runs free. For nine years I have wanted to live somewhere that the pups could be trusted to run. I can't imagine any more idyllic place than this. They can run entirely on this property and never be bored! They also can run down into Kontiki and terrorize the local skinny-ribbed dogs, but it's more the other way. The local dogs see fat ones coming and they all pack together in a welcoming committee. Guthrie sees it and is not sure he wants to be welcomed and heads for the jungle.

I like keeping the dogs out while I'm gone. They are here to form their own welcoming committee to anyone who doesn't take the dramatic iron gate at the street seriously. And then I get the grand prancing welcome which does indeed make you feel like a queen. The Brit has dubbed the house Monarch Lodge, so it's only right to have a little fanfare on my arrival home each day. And, this way, I don't need to worry about the plate of homemade whole-wheat ginger donuts that would get polished off even if set at the very back corner of the countertop to cool when I went out...

Also in the kitchen is the smallest office I have ever had. My friend Fabio loaned me a wooden desk just big enough for my computer screen and keyboard. Flanking the little desk I have two green plastic tubs that brought unusual and organic foods and kitchen items from the US on the top of the Subaru. They are covered with linens and host the computer speakers and a stack of books and Monk DVDs. Before I leave Belize I will have turned everyone I know into fans of the old TV show Monk, which I have only just learned is coming Back to TV with a new season. And me in central america with no TV. I hope it is as good as seasons 1-8, which I have memorized by watching them so many years in a row.

In my small little office set in a big kitchen space, I have no internet. Yet. Internet is a terrible racket in Belize. If it thunders, it goes down. It is usually slow and it costs more than three times what I pay for internet in the U.S. I chided the girl at the cable company when she explained the prices to me and how I would have to pay for cable TV too - even though I don't have a TV - and deposits and set up fees. And pay installation even though the physical cable was already installed.

"How can any Belizeans afford Internet?!" I questioned her.

We don't charge them what we charge Americans, I thought she might be thinking. And five neighbors share one account.

Instead, she said, "Most people already have the cable."

That's the least of the expense! I thought. I walked away without Internet. I had a similar conversation when I called ATT about my cell phone in the US yesterday. There are people bilking people unfairly out of their money everywhere you go.

Don't get me started on the Duty I must pay on the wonderful Subaru. I thought I could avoid it. I thought I could be in Belize for 6 months before I would have to pay 67% of the value of the car. But no. Everything depends on who you know and what official you run into in Belize. And maybe how much you pay him to help you. I have talked to three officials and one insurance guy. The three officials were all the "head" of customs according to themselves or someone else. They all had a slightly different description of what I needed to do. And they all said, "Let's give the government what the government is due." They must spend a whole day of training on this one phrase because it is the only consistent information I was given. I hoped to have a "temporary permit" by which I would guarantee that I would not sell the car in Belize but would Drive it Out when I left. This would be a 67% deposit that I would recover upon leaving Belize with my car. The next time I talked to someone, it was a 150% deposit and still is today. My other option is to simply Pay 67% of the value of the car as duty, license the car in Belize and feel like I own a very expensive Subaru. This would be handy if I plan to come back and back and want to leave the car here when I am in the U.S. Also handy would be if I instead sold it to a friend for, say, $1000 US and then he would have to pay 67% of that for duty, and keep it for me for my various returns to Belize. This assumes that I have money to travel to and fro across the Americas. If I had money to do that, I might not be quibbling about duty on a Subaru. (67%? Yes, I think I still would.)

So, bilking. Let's not end an extremely long blog post on a bad note.

I live in the most wonderful place on earth. For the winter. I have an idyllic life of a little work that pays, a lot of work that doesn't (a book that maybe will one day...) and a tropical life with friends I love. Stay tuned. I will try to write more about the wonders of Belize and God and Susanna in Belize.

Blessings and lots of love from Guthrie's hilltop cabin,

Susanna