I can find just about anything we need for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and movie snacks in the village of San Antonio, just two miles from our home. There’s a farm store, a few small grocery shops, a meat shop and places to buy tortillas and ice cream, but every five days or so, I make the 25-minute drive to the “Twin Towns” of San Ignacio and Santa Elena for a “Big Shop.” It’s in town where we stock up on essentials we can’t get in the village, like dog food for our eight unruly rescue dogs and the bread we prefer, and it gives me a chance to get out of the house and see humans who aren’t my husband. Wonderful as he is, we go for days seeing no one but each other, and sometimes I just like to interact with other human beings. Jim’s stay-at-home record was a whopping 12 days. He’s the founding member of the Cayo Jungle Hermit Society.
The day of the “Big Shop” involves multiple stops, but unlike how I might shop in a quaint French or Italian village, strolling down the narrow streets, stopping into the bakery for a baguette, the butcher for my bacon and the fromagerie for a slice of fine cheese, skipping down the cobblestoned alley with my hand-crafted basket (at least that’s how I imagine it), I hit the large town farmer’s market and a row of grocery stores that all carry the same items with a few important differences here and there.
Making the rounds to buy food for the week is an adventure and it takes a lot longer than it used to in part because I sneak away from all the dogs to have a nice lunch but mostly because I know more people now and when I run into them, I can’t just nod and walk on by. Nope. I stop and chat, and that’s a big indication of just how much Belize has changed me. This introvert is now a very chatty person, so much so that my Aunt Allie commented last year, “You seem a lot more outgoing since you moved to Belize!”
It all starts with my farmer’s market visit and a stop at one of the corner stalls, where, thanks to a single potato, I’ve finally cracked the stoic demeanor of Gisselle, the young woman who runs it. Whenever we get Russet potatoes in Belize, which is quite rare because they’re imported, I stock up, not knowing if I’ll see them again for months or even years. A couple of years ago, I rooted through the potato bin and voila! There was the largest Russet potato I had ever seen, weighing in at a whopping 6 pounds. I held it up to Giselle, yelling out, “Look! Look at the size of this potato!”
She paused her calculations and receipt jottings, gave me a deadpan stare, and in a weary voice said, “Yes. That’s a very big potato.” She was not impressed, and that was my call to action. Now, I hold up various fruit and vegetable items, showing her their crazy shapes. “This yam looks like a duck!” “How about this carrot! It looks like someone sitting down!” A few months later, she finally cracked a smile. Now, we chat about local gossip in San Antonio village where we both live, her life, my life, and once in a while, when I see her out and about, we stop and catch up.
Next, it’s off to another stall for my breakfast burrito. The woman who makes them, Marla, vowed to speak with me only in Spanish. Even after more than 900 days on Duolingo, I was still reluctant to speak the language, but Marla is holding me to it. “Mami!” she says when I lapse back into English, “¡Hablar sólo en español!”
The New French Bakery is next to pick up a loaf of olive sourdough bread and maybe an apple turnover, but along the way, I might run into Hector from the village and we can discuss why our Plumeria has leaves but now never any blossoms and then “Quick” who cuts Jim’s hair and plays piano at Soul Project, a fun art and music center open only two nights a week. We catch up on his new love interest.
Then it’s off to the big grocery stores, New Flags, Sansco, Chen’s, maybe even a trip up to the Helen store. These larger grocery stores are owned primarily by Chinese and Taiwanese immigrants who came to Belize during the country's citizenship-by-investment program in the mid-80s. While born Belizeans do own butcher shops, bakeries and some small grocery stores, a larger supply run means a trip to the “Chinnee” as the Belizeans say. I only recently learned that a trip to the electronics store is called “going to the Hindi” because most of the appliance and small electronics stores are owned by members of the East Indian community. It is what it is.
I have to visit more than one because the New Flags will have the dog food we need, Sansco the juice and the salsa we like, and the Helen store might have gotten in some of my precious Hellman’s mayo, which pops up on the shelves about once a year. There’s always something new, too, an item recently “allowed” into the country like a supply of odd spicy snacks from what looked like Nepal after my research or a new brand of coffee to try.
Hours go by on The Big Shop day, not only because I have to stop into so many places to get everything, but because I meet up with people I both know and don’t know, stop to chat, then go on with my day knowing I’m closer to “fitting in,” well, as much as I can as an outsider. When I finally get home, Jim greets me at the car to help bring in my bags of food, always asking, “How was your adventure?” I try to tell him in the most entertaining way possible. He’s gotta get out more.
