Honeymoon's Over: A 95% Shit Week
It's officially not all that fun living here after a week of our home continuing to find ways to suck, and getting fleeced at every turn. I'll get to those specifics in chronological order. Prepare for a bitchfest.
Monday afternoon saw a bill for almost $2,000BZ come over from Angel, and that was without pumping and sanitizing our septic system - that was just replacing the pump. Even more frustrating, no one - not even general contractors that have been here - understands how or why our plumbing is set up the way it is, or how it works. How many possible variants could there be..?! For whatever reason, Angel no longer wanted to pump our system, or raise the pump above ground. Whatever. Just put the pump in and take our money, which I sent via instant transfer. His office claims it didn't come over by 4:45, so they sent Jose and Vandam home and said they'd be back in the morning. Our septic trench was left open for the night.
Fortunately, they did show up Tuesday morning and did install the pump.
As most companies here do, our Butane delivery showed up unannounced - until they aggressively honked their horns at 8:30 AM in our street. They took our 100lb tank with them and returned it in the afternoon.
While heading to town, Belize Freight sent me a text that they had put our paddle boards on the Caribbean Queen barge. Excellent! Now how about our sofa and 2 missing canopies..? A rep called me, saying they had 2 canopies without labels on them, could I describe mine..? I don't know, how many OTHER people are missing canopies this month? One is easy - it's from the last company I worked for, and it has their name all over it, inside and out. The other, I bought at auction and I'm not sure we ever opened it. They asked if I had pictures of them; I found one photo of the case of the company canopy loaded in our U-Pack Trailer, circled it, and sent it back. They acknowledged getting the photo and "would look into it". It's Friday, and crickets. How about our sofa...? Oh, still in Miami. They are trying to ship it at the end of this month, but, you know, storms. After being in trucks, warehouses, and containers in swampy areas since mid-July, we are fully expecting to get a moldy sofa one day. Maybe.
Wednesday I journeyed south to Ambergris Sausage Factory to see if the quality and/or pricing of meats were better down there. I was surprised to find a small wood structure, not what I would consider a "factory". Pricing was marginally better than in stores.
Heading north (but still south of the southern gas station), I decided to pop into Home Tan Supermarket.
It looks like a high-end furniture store in the States from outside...
Nathan and I have passed it on our journeys south before - he even asked if I wanted to check it out - but it looks so shiny and new, I already knew in my mind the prices would be outrageous, so we didn't stop.
In a rare bright spot this week, I WAS SO WRONG, and it is SO GREAT! Practically everything had pricing clearly marked, and things like 4 ounces of goat cheese were $9.50BZ, not $11.50+ like everywhere else. I didn't find a single expired item, the store was so clean and organized...I thanked the cashier when I checked out and complimented the store. It's two stories - upstairs is more like a gift shop/toy store/school supply area. Google Maps puts it at 16 minutes drive from our home, but I may just drive past the 4 other stores that I have been frequenting. It's THAT good!
..and a legitimate grocery store on the inside!
Wednesday afternoon I had contractor #3 scheduled at 4 PM to see the villa and provide a quote for repairs out of our scope. A little after 3 PM, a Facebook friend I haven't met in person, Leigh, messaged me - she was in town, and in the community pool, if I wanted to join...? Damn my luck! Waiting on a contractor... She's from Detroit originally (as am I) but lives in Connecticut; she and her husband own a condo here and come down when they can, they are a few years younger than us.
As I wrapped up that chat, the contractor (surprise, surprise) had to reschedule for Thursday morning. I packed up my floatie and headed to the pool!
Another small glimmer of positivity: I made a friend. She's not here often, but I'll take what I can get.
Thursday morning contractor #3 was only about 15 minutes late, but took his time and actually took measurements. You may laugh at that, but contractor #2 did not, he high-tailed it out of here pretty fast, then called the next day to tell me he fell off scaffolding and couldn't work for a few weeks. I've been very up-front with them all, sending a list of what we want done before setting the appointment. #3 said he needs about a week to get pricing together.
We had a call with an architect to go over the process and pricing to design our beach home; he said it would be 4-6 weeks to draw up plans. I do like him as his company is focused on sustainability - in fact, he has a Master's Degree in Sustainable Architecture! But it's a fairly new company, and that gives us pause.
After work, Nathan and I did some work in the front yard, moving rocks around, babying our coconut sprouts, and planting some seeds. When we were finished, I turned on the front hose to wash our shovels and...nothing. There was a planned water outage in town from 1-5 (it was after 5, and we are north of town). The back porch hose worked, and we had water inside. What now..? Nathan couldn't figure it out before it became too dark, so we came in and I showered first.
The water pump never turned off, so something was wrong. Nathan saw it was hot as hell and not getting pressure, but couldn't figure out why. He checked the breakers and guess what..? Our brand-new septic pump's breaker was tripped, and it hasn't been running. Fantastic. He gave up on it for the night, unplugged the water pump, and took a fast shower while there was still some water in the tank.
This morning at sun-up (because he didn't sleep), he plugged the pump back in, and it shut off like it should. The front hose had water. We found out south of town, that planned outage until 5 actually ran until nearly 9 PM. We can only surmise that water was also off north of the bridge, and that's why we had issues. We have a 3,000 gallon cistern in our front yard and no one can explain that, either - why didn't the pump pull water from there...? Oh, and it occasionally, without anything being changed, will draw and overflow gallons of water until someone notices it.
We have grown to hate this money pit of a villa.
After a few errands in town, I swung by Caribbean Queen to see about our paddle boards they received on Tuesday, but had not delivered nor called about. The warehouse manager said they were out for delivery, so I texted that to Nathan and headed straight home. The truck pulled up shortly later, and the kid who knocked on my door said it would be $100.
"Excuse me, how much..? It is 2 paddle boards shrink-wrapped together.".
"$100, but I won't charge you that..."
"...Then how much is it...?"
I couldn't even understand what he was saying, and our last small delivery used this same tactic - tell us the big bad office said it was more, hoping to get a bigger tip. Unfortunately for this kid, Nathan overheard this exchange and came out from his office. They charged us $2,000BZ to deliver 117 large and heavy boxes, 2 trucks' worth, including a pinball machine. They charged us $40 for 5 medium boxes and slightly more cubes in size than the boards a few weeks ago. Why in the hell was this $100..?! He had the kid call the warehouse, saying in Spanish, "The Americans with the paddle boards..." so clearly, the M.O. was to make money where they think they can. The warehouse manager claims it was a fee to cross the bridge that raised the cost. They had a truck full of deliveries, certainly, when you divide out the fee to cross the bridge by the cubes, it doesn't justify $100, and none of our other deliveries were out of line. Nathan told them not to deliver anything else in the future, we'll go pick it up. Here's $100, no tip, sorry - especially when you claim you can charge me less to get a bigger tip. Take it up with your employer.
We feel as though because we're American (or Canadian), some locals believe our pocketbooks are filled to the brim with gratitude and cheer, and we'll gladly pay whatever they say. WRONG. And we are not flashy people; no big jewelry, our villa's a shithole, we have the cheapest rental cart we could get. Nick, our electrician-help who also is a General Contractor said his trades try to jack up the price when they find out the clients are North American. I blame the entitled ex-pats before us that "don't care what it costs...I want it like my home in (insert previous city)", that throw money around town, showboat...I am starting to realize why the ex-pats who aren't wealthy and/or drunk all the time don't smile as much. It's disheartening. The island isn't the same as it was 10 years ago when we started coming here. Or maybe it was headed in this direction, but because we weren't here all the time, we didn't notice the transition. We feel it now.
I get why locals would want to charge more; minimum wage is $2.50U.S. and they see "us" come in and buy $200U.S. dinners, get expensive Polarises and boats, walk around town with authentic (not cheap Chinese knockoff) handbags. The division between the "Haves" and the "Have nots" is far more extreme than in the U.S. We are generous with tips and do not take advantage of people; we expect the same in return.
IF our sofa ever arrives, I am not expecting Caribbean Queen to handle it delicately. I reached out to our community Facebook group and they conferred - Caribbean Queen charges whatever they think they can get - so I won't be using them moving forward.
After our second gouging of the week, I needed a reset. I gathered my loot for SAGA, the local humane society, and took it to their office.
I got a little teary-eyed before going in; the stress of this week and feeling taken advantage of, and knowing there is only so much that we can do to help, but I do want to be an active part of this community and no, I can't bring home more cats.
SAGA is about to move to a new building - a concrete, air-conditioned one! It is mostly (or maybe totally) funded by donations. Since they were about to move, I checked before I unloaded my goods on them - I could hold them until after they moved if they didn't need any of the items right away...? No, they wanted everything right now! Poop bags - the thing they might have been the most excited about. I bought all of my items off of Nellis Auction (in Vegas, Phoenix, Houston, and Philly) - it's mostly Amazon and occasionally other stores' returned goods and overstocks. I only bought brand-new items and SAGA can use them or sell them to get income to keep the lights on, depending on the item. For example, I had a 12-pack of cat collars that I bought for $1, so my money can go a lot further and SAGA gets a lot more stuff!
They have so many adoptable dogs, cats, and kittens...they do a great job marketing, however, it is very expensive to feed and care for pets here...especially on $2.50/hr wages. If you are visiting and can bring them anything at all, or a cash donation, they are so appreciative! And if you fall in love with a cat or kitten, they are very easy to take home to the U.S. with a little bit of paperwork. (Dogs are tougher, but still doable.)
Really wanted that black-nosed kitten. And a ginormous tuxedo they had in a kennel outside.
On my way home, I stopped at Ms. Gotay's Fruit Stand - she might be my favorite, she is outgoing and gives out samples! - to ask what she does with her overripe bananas. She pointed to a full milk crate on the ground and said, "I sell them for $20 for a crate to the people that feed iguanas". She let me buy a crate - it must've been 100 bananas! - which I put into a bin. Nathan is currently adding water to it to make a stew of vitamins for our plants.
Adding to our shit week, my Godmother/Aunt Joyce passed out and broke a vertebra, has been in the hospital in Phoenix all week. She and her husband, Keith, are the extended family I am closest with. She won't need surgery, however she has a kidney infection - and only has 1 kidney - so it's imperative they cure that up. Then last night, Nathan's parents called to say his Uncle Mike, his last remaining uncle, had a stroke and is also in the hospital.
This was a TOUGH week, with only a few bright spots. I expected we would have some, no longer being "on vacation" but having to deal with "real life". Nathan's incredibly handy, but we are not familiar with water pumps, septic systems, concrete construction...and apparently, neither is a large portion of the trades on the island. Nathan's re-organizing the bodega now to make room for the paddle boards, so hopefully, he can relax this weekend and we can go see our land...have drinks on floaties...the way we intended.