I’m a native Californian… such a native Californian, in fact, I was actually born in Hollywood. I always lived in California but knew that I was going to live somewhere else when I retired.
I thought I’d end up in Mexico. It was always right in my backyard in California, so I spent a lot of time there. But, to be honest, my Spanish is terrible… like, not even tourist-level. And I’m someone who loves to talk!
I realized that if I couldn’t find someplace where I could converse, I was going to feel sad and alone. I’d been going to Cancún for about 12 years.
I kept going farther and farther south looking at land and opportunities and ideas… Eventually I ran into Belize. I came down and did all the touristy stuff: golf carting on Ambergris Caye, enjoying the tourist vibe in San Pedro… I went to Caye Caulker, walked around barefoot, and said, “Yeah, this is my speed.”
I’m an old hippie. It was perfect for me… I decided to join a Carmelita Gardens Discovery Tour while in Belize. They picked me up at the airport and showed me around…
I was here for three days, and by the end, I knew which lot I was going to buy. That’s how I got to Carmelita Gardens.
Carmelita is a master-planned community in the Cayo District.
The idea was to build a Midwestern-style neighborhood, so it has a town square, there’s a church drawn into the plans, we’re talking about a gazebo where we can have a bandstand… Just a nice mom-and-pop-style community.
Carmelita Gardens’ founder, Phil Hahn, got the idea from his dad and grandpa’s stories… They’d talk about their childhoods and how wonderful it was, even during the Great Depression when there were soup lines and all sorts of horrible things…
People looked out for each other despite the hardship. So-and-so gave piano lessons… they’d trade their skills for eggs… this other person was the baker who you could exchange goods with… They made it work.
Phil thought, “We can replicate what they had down here in Belize,” hoping that people like me would find it.
Today, we’ve got a growing community of people of all ages and building crews are working on new houses, too.
There’s more and more people who are showing up who’ve said, “I’ve had enough.”
We’re human beings; we hate to change. Most human beings wait until it hurts too much to stay the same. We have to be in pain before we change, whether it’s “I’m too big,” or “I should quit smoking”…
Someone asked me why I moved down here… I moved down here to simplify my life, and it has come back to me tenfold. My life is very simple now.
I sit on my front porch and watch fireflies at night… It’s like a free light show in the field in front of my house. I never would’ve done that back in California…
Carmelita is a place to escape the challenges of the modern world. Here, my biggest worries are what I’m going to have for dinner tonight or deciding which book to download to my Kindle.
My days look like this: I get up, and all of a sudden, it’s nighttime. I don’t know how it happens… I ride my bike almost on a daily basis. Some days I’ll spend a couple hours talking with my neighbors…
It’s what we all wanted to be able to do, but we all had to go to work every day. I don’t know about you, but I’d work five days a week and then spend my two days off getting ready to go back to work for another five days.
Between laundry and shopping and everything else, there was no time. Then I’d work 50 weeks a year to enjoy a 2-week vacation. I’m not on vacation every day here, but that’s how simple my life is now.
I found out that when it gets dark down here, people just go to bed… even at 8:15 at night! Wow, that’s new. It’s just idyllic.
Sincerely,
Donald Houser
Contributor, In Focus: Belize
