July 7
Life in the jungle: I had a strange dream last night that I only recall bits and pieces of. The gist of it was that this (dumb) couple asked for some of my bike ride content. And shortly thereafter, in the dream, they were making money from my content. And I couldn’t seem to understand why I hadn’t bothered to make money from my content and experiences, and how those (dumb) people were able to make money off of it. And then I woke up, and I found it quite disruptive that I wasn’t making money from my blog content and experiences from my bike touring and living in the jungles of Belize.
I am coming up on six years with no income. I have been working since I was ten years old. For six years, my daily frustration, emasculation, and regular source of anxiety has been that I don’t have a source of income, and trust me, I can’t afford that. I have considered a few options, but I am very limited in my options. One of my biggest roadblocks has been how much daily work I have on the farm. And now with the birth of AI, there are even fewer options for online employment moving forward.
Shortly after arriving in Belize, I built a greenhouse and a tiny apartment. I fairly quickly let another Canadian live in the apartment and use the greenhouse for a hot sauce business as a future investment for myself. I recently built a cabana in the hopes of attracting another community member. It wasn’t long before it was realized that, in the beginning, this cabana would need to be used as a commercial kitchen for the hot sauce business. I also had some heavy equipment build up a 10,000 sq ft area for future hot peppers to be grown. Last year, I started a 1,600 sq ft greenhouse expansion floor to also facilitate more hot pepper growing area.
1,000 sq ft shade cloth greenhouse, tiny apartment
The first cabana to be temporarily used as a hot sauce kitchen, and the newest cabana.
1,600 more sq ft of greenhouse floor space.
Lots of work, building, and investment, but no paycheck yet.
All I have to do is paint the floor (starting later this week), and the interior of the (kitchen) cabana will be ready for business. And I have to lay about 1,000 more cement blocks to finish the greenhouse expansion floor. I will have to wait for the cement blocks until the road dries enough for the delivery of the blocks by truck. Currently, being in the rainy season, it is a bit difficult to predict when that might be. For the most part, I see this as a conclusion to my share of investment in this endeavor. The rest is up to Andy.
Last week, I finished putting up (footings, floor, framing, exterior, and roof) for another cabana. My hope is that this cabana could be a source of income in the near future. But it’s anyone’s guess when the perfect community member is found.
So in under four years, I have built a greenhouse and three cabanas, plus, of course, a million other projects. Regardless of how much work I have on a daily basis on the farm, I 100% need to make a paycheck a priority. The other year, I had looked into types of life coaching, particularly in the area of “goal coaching.”
Between spending two years on a bike, pedalling 26,000 km through a Canadian winter, through Covid-19, across Canada, the US, and Mexico, and then spending four years living in the middle of the jungles of Belize and dealing with all the challenges that come from living in a jungle and living in Belize. Add in all the content I have produced on these two topics. My biggest stress point in my life is a lack of income; consulting and coaching on these two topics is a pretty obvious option. I have to make this happen; I no longer have a choice.
First thing, I spent time cleaning hen houses. Broiler (meat) chickens are such dirty animals.
After lunch, I posted for help with my website to nine Facebook groups. [No luck.]
I spent time going through all my old coaching notes and research. I spent the day building a landing page for moving and living in Belize consulting. I also had to figure out the code to make buttons/links for my blog posts. It took a lot of editing commands through ChatGPT, but I got it done. I would never have believed I could have been able to figured all this out a year ago without ChatGPT.
In one day, I have my landing page, link buttons, and calendar all set up. Crazy! My biggest problem now is that my phone camera lens is cracked, and I have no way to do video chats.
July 8
Life in the jungle: I went to the city for paint for the new kitchen cabana floor. I also went looking for the surveyor who surveyed my land many, many years ago. I have lost patience with not having my land titles after all these years. Now that we are in the rainy season, and I have accomplished what I have on the farm, and that I am mere weeks from learn about my Belize residency fate, I am determined to deal with this nightmare.
It took most of the morning to find the surveyor’s address, as Google Maps had no clue. The local police station didn’t even know of or had heard of the street. Welcome to Belize.
So, I Googled “land surveyors,” and another place showed up. I figured that most land surveyors knew of each other. This one turned out to be the son of the person I was looking for.
I realize that it doesn’t help that most streets there have no signs. But this street was less than a minute’s walk from the local police station. Anyways, I found the guy. He claimed, to the best of his recollection, that the job was never completed. This was news to me. He was happy to search his records for $100 USD and would get back to me.
Returning home, I spent the last part of the day moving my two Dutchman pipe vine pots to better align the pots with the trellis I recently framed up.
By building a trellis for my Dutchman Pipe vine, I hope to get tons of flowers and seeds.
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Glossary of Terms
Glossary of words or people that may or may not be part of this particular blog post. This glossary will be at the bottom of every blog post for Belize.
Wayne – He is the son of the original owners of the farm (both owners are deceased). The original farm was two – 30-acre parcels minus two – ¾ acre parcels for my house. In 2017, Wayne sold me 40 acres of land from the original 60 acres (one 30-acre parcel plus 10 acres from the second parcel). Wayne lives in his parents’ house and has a few cows on his remaining 18 acres of land.
The ponds – I have two large (300ft long x 50ft wide x 10ft deep) ponds on my 30-acre parcel of land, which is basically a jungle. I have about 60 coconut trees (mostly mature) around the ponds. In my first two years of living in Belize, I also planted about 250 assorted fruit tree seedlings (Lime, jackfruit, custard apple, pomegranate, and avocado).
The coconut field – I have about 400 coconut trees planted (various growth states) on about 3 acres of cleared land of my 10-acre parcel. I have planted about 350 assorted fruit trees (lemon, starfruit, mango, soursop, cashew, lime, orange), all raised from seed since my arrival in Belize in 2021.
The river lot – my house sits on a ¾ acre lot. I have a second joining ¾ acre lot that allows me river frontage on the Belize River. I call that my river lot.
The dry – Belize has two main seasons. The rainy season and the dry season (no rain). The wet is obviously the rainy season.
Chopping – using my machete to clear brush, vines, weeds, and unwanted trees. Generally, when I chop, I am removing unwanted vegetation around my baby fruit trees.
Andy – A fellow Canadian who rode his dirt bike from Canada to Belize at the end of 2023. When I offered Andy the use of an apartment that I recently built and the use of my greenhouse, Andy decided to stay in Belize permanently and start a hot sauce company here.
