Junglepixiebelize - Recollections of a Gringa Pioneer
Nancy R Koerner - Copyright@2021 - All Rights Reserved
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
"Mennonite Auction at Spanish Lookout"
It is hard to overstate the importance of the Mennonites in the mid-1970’s, when the unlikely community of Spanish Lookout bridged a vital gap in a small country with little commercial infrastructure. Especially for newbie gringo homesteaders, Spanish Lookout would provide important items and services that were otherwise unobtainable. When modern-day Americans ask me what it was like living “off-the-grid” in Belize, I have to laugh. There was no “grid.”
In 1976, it was generally accepted that there were approximately 130,000 inhabitants of Belize, about 30,000 in Belize City, six towns, hundreds of villages, no marked roads, and not a single stoplight in the entire country. Nearly the entire Western Highway was a dirt road, taking about three and a half hours to cross east to west. San Ignacio had only one phone – the BTL office, halfway up the hill from the Police Station/Post Office. Kalim Habet’s store had rice, beans, flour, lard, soap, matches, canned goods. etc. Fresh produce from a few vendors on Saturdays, and gas from Poppy Habet’s Shell station at the foot of the Hawkesworth. If you could find a place that served |
food, you either ate what they had – rice-and-beans, “boil-up,” or cowfoot soup – or you asked for something else and heard the familiar refrain, “we no got dat.” However, if you needed a mechanic, a roll of hog wire and fence staples, a spot-weld for a leaf spring on a Land Rover, some nuts-and-bolts, pullets, baby chicks, or some corn, bran, and molasses for feed, you went to Spanish Lookout.
There were three different sects of Mennonites in Cayo. Some were rustic. The women wore full-length drab dresses, and bonnets with wide-arched brims that almost entirely hid their faces. The men wore long sleeves, with loose-fitting pants held up by suspenders, full beards, and rode in wooden carts with iron-spoked wheels, pulled by a pair of horses. They lived in remote areas like Barton Creek Valley, growing crops on the rich floodplains near the cave. The Pilgrimage Valley Mennonites were a little less severe in dress, and their teams drew carts with pneumatic wheels – at least, a modicum of comfort. But the Spanish Lookout Mennonites were modern. They wore plaid shirts, jeans, and cowboy hats; they drove pick-up trucks, had machine shops, and knew how to fix things. And now, there was to be an auction at Spanish Lookout. And we were going.
It was March and the dry season was on. With the help of some Cristo Rey villagers, the men had managed to push, pull, chop, dig, and lever the great white turtle out of the bush and get it back on the Cristo Rey Road towards Santa Elena. Now, instead of mud, there was choking dust, but better than slaloming through the sloppy red quagmires. Monkey Fall Hill, again, was daunting. This time, my husband willingly left me at the top with our baby, to gingerly walk down the side on foot. But I stood there first, watching him skate, slide, skid, and counter-steer that damned vehicle – again with the scraping and rending of metal-on-stone – in expert moves that were more akin to snowboarding than driving.
After crossing the Belize River via the ancient hand-cranked ferry, the auction was a unique gathering of colour, cultures, and commerce. The atmosphere was almost reminiscent of a county fair, although a bit more subdued. We surveyed the goods that were to be auctioned, mindful that we weren’t really sure how we, ourselves, were going to get home – let alone take back any purchases. Although the van was not listed in the goods officially for auction, our primary purpose was to let a large number of people know it was for sale, and find a safe place to park it in town until then.
Meanwhile, the auctioneer began calling bids on everything from washtubs and glass corrugated scrubbing boards, to lumber, machine parts, mason jars, electric motors, livestock, and vehicles. Being a Mennonite himself, the auctioneer was not someone you’d describe as jocular, but he did have a not-quite-concealed sense-of-humour. I don’t remember the name of the particular Espat who could not hide his zeal that day, but the man had no “poker-face” whatsoever. He wiggled and squirmed, as he wanted to buy everything, until the Mennonite bidders actually started playing him to drive the bids higher. They may have been a little conflicted in doing so – being a religious lot – but even I could not help smirking, watching the uncontrolled Mr. Espat play right into their hands.
And wonder-of-wonders, we did sell the van that day. A Spanish businessman with a delievery had made a hard offer, and followed us back to San Ignacio to the Royal Bank. It was the strangest of vehicle transactions for two reasons: 1) The buyer had withdrawn the money from his account and paid us in cash. And since Belizean “bluebirds” ($100 bills) were yet a thing of the future, the stack of brown $20 BH bills had been about 8” tall. And 2) we now needed to figure out how to catch a ride back to Marsh’s house on the river – not only for ourselves, but also for the two very pregnant nanny goats we had purchased at the Spanish Lookout auction. Too hot to remain in the van, they had been casually tied to the bumper, right there on Burns Avenue, under the watchful eye of a small Spanish boy for the price of a shilling, and (cho!) were they pissed…
There were three different sects of Mennonites in Cayo. Some were rustic. The women wore full-length drab dresses, and bonnets with wide-arched brims that almost entirely hid their faces. The men wore long sleeves, with loose-fitting pants held up by suspenders, full beards, and rode in wooden carts with iron-spoked wheels, pulled by a pair of horses. They lived in remote areas like Barton Creek Valley, growing crops on the rich floodplains near the cave. The Pilgrimage Valley Mennonites were a little less severe in dress, and their teams drew carts with pneumatic wheels – at least, a modicum of comfort. But the Spanish Lookout Mennonites were modern. They wore plaid shirts, jeans, and cowboy hats; they drove pick-up trucks, had machine shops, and knew how to fix things. And now, there was to be an auction at Spanish Lookout. And we were going.
It was March and the dry season was on. With the help of some Cristo Rey villagers, the men had managed to push, pull, chop, dig, and lever the great white turtle out of the bush and get it back on the Cristo Rey Road towards Santa Elena. Now, instead of mud, there was choking dust, but better than slaloming through the sloppy red quagmires. Monkey Fall Hill, again, was daunting. This time, my husband willingly left me at the top with our baby, to gingerly walk down the side on foot. But I stood there first, watching him skate, slide, skid, and counter-steer that damned vehicle – again with the scraping and rending of metal-on-stone – in expert moves that were more akin to snowboarding than driving.
After crossing the Belize River via the ancient hand-cranked ferry, the auction was a unique gathering of colour, cultures, and commerce. The atmosphere was almost reminiscent of a county fair, although a bit more subdued. We surveyed the goods that were to be auctioned, mindful that we weren’t really sure how we, ourselves, were going to get home – let alone take back any purchases. Although the van was not listed in the goods officially for auction, our primary purpose was to let a large number of people know it was for sale, and find a safe place to park it in town until then.
Meanwhile, the auctioneer began calling bids on everything from washtubs and glass corrugated scrubbing boards, to lumber, machine parts, mason jars, electric motors, livestock, and vehicles. Being a Mennonite himself, the auctioneer was not someone you’d describe as jocular, but he did have a not-quite-concealed sense-of-humour. I don’t remember the name of the particular Espat who could not hide his zeal that day, but the man had no “poker-face” whatsoever. He wiggled and squirmed, as he wanted to buy everything, until the Mennonite bidders actually started playing him to drive the bids higher. They may have been a little conflicted in doing so – being a religious lot – but even I could not help smirking, watching the uncontrolled Mr. Espat play right into their hands.
And wonder-of-wonders, we did sell the van that day. A Spanish businessman with a delievery had made a hard offer, and followed us back to San Ignacio to the Royal Bank. It was the strangest of vehicle transactions for two reasons: 1) The buyer had withdrawn the money from his account and paid us in cash. And since Belizean “bluebirds” ($100 bills) were yet a thing of the future, the stack of brown $20 BH bills had been about 8” tall. And 2) we now needed to figure out how to catch a ride back to Marsh’s house on the river – not only for ourselves, but also for the two very pregnant nanny goats we had purchased at the Spanish Lookout auction. Too hot to remain in the van, they had been casually tied to the bumper, right there on Burns Avenue, under the watchful eye of a small Spanish boy for the price of a shilling, and (cho!) were they pissed…