Junglepixiebelize - Recollections of a Gringa Pioneer ​

​Nancy R Koerner - Copyright@2022 - All Rights Reserved
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
"Sticks and Stones"​​  
As much as I’ve tried to create a mental picture of the Macaw Bank area, it still seems an impossible task. From the frontal view of the house on the hill, one can hardly perceive the profound drop into the river valley behind it. And, from the river perspective, it is equally difficult to visualize the steep ascent back up to the top. Again, I ask my readers to remember that we had no cameras back in those days. But, decades after-the-fact, I received this vintage photo of Alta Vista, taken by a gringo friend in 1977, and pointing to the river valley behind. The photo also shows the stick fence—the construction of which shall be the topic of this episode. 
The crude fence around the house started with the digging of fencepost holes. Unable to afford squared hog-wire, we had to string barbed wire, and then weave sticks into the spaces between. The workmen went off into the bush in search of hog-plum and gumbo-limbo. These would make ideal fenceposts, as they would eventually take root in the ground, and become shade trees.  
​Belize’s geology is that of limestone karst, old sea bed, one of the first land masses in the Western Hemisphere to emerge from the ocean in the Cretaceous Period. So, although Belize is abundant with rich soils and nutrients in alluvial areas, the bedrock beneath is still karst. Sometimes, it is friable (crumbly) and can be broken up into chunks and removed. Other times, it is solid limestone base, and all a man’s strength wielding a 70-inch iron bar, weighing over 16 pounds, may only dislodge a stone the size of your thumb. 
​The men had been toiling away all morning but, by noon, the palms of their hands were blistered and torn. It those days, heavy-leather work gloves (so commonplace in any U.S. hardware store) did not exist. With each blow against solid rock, the pointed iron bar rebounded, and the friction of resistance further tore their hands. 
​As usual, I had been up since dawn, tending to the animals, to my son, and doing other typical women’s work. Cleaning, sweeping, and cooking. And cooking. And cooking. Grocery stores in the States had multiple levels of built-in convenience; they were frozen, packaged, dried, canned, boxed, plastic-bagged, some with see-through windows of civilized cellophane. Kalim Habet’s sold provisions scooped by-hand from wooden bins, and put into small brown paper sacks. Nothing was ready-to-eat. Beans had to be soaked and cooked for hours. Flour, baking soda, and salt were not foods, but rather ingredients to be made into foods. For tortillas, first the dough was rolled into balls, allowed to rest, pressed out, and then cooked on a griddle or comal. Vegetables and fruits were bought at market, or taken in trade, and painstakingly packed-in from town. Back then, we had seedlings in the garden, but as yet, no harvest. Food was never fast; food was a process. And these men, with their phenomenal daily output of calories, ate like ravenous animals. I had nothing but respect. But cooking three meals a day for five adults and a child had become a full-time job, in addition to my other full-time jobs.
That morning, I had stirred the pots. Then my small son had accompanied me to milk the goats, and feed cracked corn and kitchen scraps to the chickens. The old thatched fowl coop—north of the house and garden, between the giant custard apple and the lime tree—was divided into two sections, half for the chickens, and half for the goats. Afterwards, back at the house, I strained the goats milk, and set it aside to later make cheese. Again, I stirred the pots. Hanging the wash would be next. That, and more stirring of the pots. 
​My son had just gone outside to see the men, who were now taking a break under the cedar tree to the east. I suddenly realized just how tired I was of women’s work. So I followed, and stood in front of my husband and the workers. Like the others, his calloused hands, red and raw.
​“Give me the iron bar,” I said, holding out my hands, palms up. “Mine are the last good pair on the farm.” He arched an eyebrow, and smiled. 
​Alternately, I had wielded the heavy iron bar and the posthole digger with alacrity—anything to get out of traditional female drudgery. Luckily, I’d hit friable limestone and managed to get two post-holes down to depth. Then I’d used the spirit-level to make sure they were plumb, filled around the post with the same crushed limestone, and tamped it down hard. I stopped to breathe, and realized exhaustion had replaced frustration. I had only lasted about an hour. Now my hands were torn up too. Apparently, I’d worked out all my mad, and was now thoroughly depleted of previous attitude. Mounting the steps to the house, I went back to the stove, and took the spoon from the disappointed workman who had been reassigned to bean-stirring in my absence. Suddenly, women’s work wasn’t all that bad.
​The Belizean workers had thought the whole episode amusing, but I later found out they had also come away with some respect for this lee maaga* 24-year-old white girl who “wore pants” instead of a skirt. It pleased me that I’d turned out quite a bit tougher than they’d thought.   
​Once the posts were in, the barbed wire pulled and stapled, we wove in what must have been about two thousand sticks. The end result was a truly ugly, but serviceable, perimeter fence. If course, it wasn’t a real  barrier. There were still plenty of wild predators in the area, ocelot and jaguar. But it was, at least, enough to roughly demarcate our territory as human.
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* lee maaga – Kriol expression, likely derived from “little, meager,” describing my small stature