By Deborah Vernon

When I arrived in Placencia nearly 19 years ago, there was one main grocery store and a hand full of walk-up shops with a few canned items, sugar, flour, the basics. One of the first things I learned (besides not to sit under a palm tree with coconuts) was that on Sundays, the new stock arrives at our one and only grocery store and you better be there first thing or you won’t get any.

On Sunday mornings there was no sleeping in. You got up early in order to get down to the market and pick your number. About an hour before opening, numbers written on cardboard were hung outside the door. These numbers were the order in which you would be served. You wanted to get a number, preferably before 10, because otherwise you would be waiting for hours. And to get a number before 10, you had to get there an hour early, so you still waited for a bit.

Everyone gathered outside until the market opened and our number was called. Seems that most people would go to the shop on Sundays, so while we waited to be served we chatted. It was a great time to catch up with people and hear about happenings in the village. I can remember going to a house nearby for coffee once or twice.

Way back when, Wallens Market was a small, dark wooden building with a long counter at one end, a vegetable bin in the center and the cash register by the door. All of the items were in the stock room. When you arrived at the market you brought your list and handed it to one of the women behind the counter. They went to the store room, picked out what they could find on the list and that was that. No browsing the aisles. No impulse purchases. No choice of brand. You had your canned margarine, Dutch cheese, milk powder, chicken, rice, beans. As a matter of fact, I believe most of the items sold in the store were on a shelf that lined the back wall. The only thing we did get to choose was the vegetables from the bin. Our choices were limited to primarily carrots, cabbage, onions and potatoes. You didn’t really expect to find much, but they had what you needed.

You may be wondering why we all rushed in for this? Well, Sunday was the only day fresh produce arrived in the village. Due to the tropical temperatures, fruits and vegetables don’t last long, so you wanted to buy on day one or you would be left with a few soggy carrots and rotten potatoes. You also wanted to get in early before they ran out of something really special like apples or grapes, which came in around December.

Times have certainly changed. Wallens went upscale with aisles and air conditioning. It may sound crazy, but the day Wallens put in 2 shelves and an aisle was very exciting to us shoppers! You can imagine after years of just handing over a list, to be able to browse the shelves and pick and choose....wow.

We now have 5 markets in Placencia alone. We can find things we never had in Placencia before. Yogurt, fresh milk, cream cheese, butter that isn’t canned. I can remember when each of these items showed up on the shelves and how exciting it was.

Our produce selection has blossomed into multiple trucks bringing in fresh goods almost daily. It’s not often you hear one say “I can’t find carrots.” We now get apples and grapes year round. Exotic fruits like kiwi and strawberries come in frequently. Lettuce! We get lettuce!

Even today, I still have the habit of shopping “when the truck comes in” on Saturday afternoons. The markets are still a great place to catch up with people even if there isn’t much time for socializing.

It seems our lives are busier now. Who could imagine going to the shop to get one bag of groceries and waiting 2 hours or so to do it? Back then, it didn’t seem like a chore. That’s just the way things were. What else did you have to do on a Sunday?

One of the things I love about Placencia is the slower pace of life. I realize that while our lives here are slower than most, that pace is gradually increasing. If we go to the market and have to wait more than 5 minutes in line we get impatient. People are driving too fast, when before, we all walked slowly to our destination. We are frustrated when our e-mail goes down for half a day, when before it took our letters close to a month to get from place to place.

Progress is great. I’m the first to admit that having multiple markets, a paved road and e-mail certainly make life easier. Maybe every once in a while, though, we all need to be reminded of what life was like in Placencia 15 -20 years ago. Next time you can’t find something at the market think back to the days when that item wasn’t even available. Remember back to the days when everything was expected to take time, no one hurried and no one stressed over the fact.

The more we have, the more expectations we have. If you expect nothing, you are pleasantly surprised when something does happen. Once you have expectations, you open yourself up to disappointment.

I think that’s why a simple life appeals to many people and why, in turn, Placencia appeals to so many. We can all achieve the bliss of a simple life by lowering expectations and learning to go with the flow, which here we call “Belize time.”