Aubrey and Shaun Diaz tour 149 acres for the Belize Eco Village. Photo by Michael Morningstar.
For people who are curious about the country of Belize and our Belize Eco Village sustainable community, welcome to our first Belize Bulletin monthly update. We are fortunate so many people are asking for planning and progress reports on our green, renewable and sustainable Belize Eco Village that it became beneficial to post a monthly Belize Bulletin progress and project report. The first Thursday of each month we will post our Belize Bulletin dedicated to sharing insights, pictures and stories about our planning and progress for the project. Our Morningstar NEWS blog posts share the values, vision and vocation we hold for a healthy lifestyle and our Belize Eco Village. We find many people are eager to build and create a healthy lifestyle and place to invest, live, visit and work; while enjoying a better quality of life and improving their long term happiness and health. While searching for information and insights for living in Belize many people are also seeking new openings and opportunities there.
There are many reasons to take a closer look at Belize for a tropical peace of paradise retreat and retirement haven. With some basic education and information you will be able to decide for yourself and make better choices regarding whether Belize might be a great investment and lifestyle opportunity for you. If your health and well being are high priorities than Belize may very well be a great choice for you. The goal of the Belize Bulletin posts is to educate and inform readers about the benefits of our Belize Eco Village and Caribbean Eco Tourism Treasure.
Belize Eco Village
Photo by Michael Morningstar.
When you type Belize Eco Village in the search box on our website blog you will find numerous posts about the values, vision and visualization we are creating for a happy and healthy lifestyle. Finally the long rainy season is over and the dry season is allowing us to make progress with our development. The March 2018 trip was primarily focused on meetings with the architect and contractor to finalize details for our Stabilized Compressed Earth Block (SCEB) homes. We also had WE Ltd. do some drainage, excavation and road repair work in preparation for beginning construction. The two main front drainage trenches have been properly reopened and retrenched with the dirt berms rebuilt to help keep excess rain runoff from washing out our roads and trails during the rainy season. This is the third time a bulldozer contoured parts of the land and along Cabbage Hall Lookout road to return them to their previous engineered state and the first time for an excavator. Now berms, drainage and fire lanes are in place to help protect the land from the excessive rains during rainy season and grass fires during the dry season. The berms will also provide ideal areas for planting coconut trees, lime trees and pineapples. The dozer also widened the food forest and community garden area along the electric poles. We are currently looking into retaining ponds and tilapia ponds for holding surplus water on the land longer. We are also designing our permaculture plan to create contour swales that also help maintain more water at higher elevations during the rainy season to be available later during the dry season.
Bulldozer repariring Cabbage Hall Lookout road. Photo by Michael Morningstar.
The next trip in April 2018 is planned to build a concrete foundation with concrete columns for an elevated caretaker house. Once the house is in place on the top floor we will build out the bottom floor for another caretaker family. Once we have the caretakers and security on site we will be ready to bring in the construction materials and begin the first foundation for our first Stabilized Compressed Earth Block (SCEB) home. There are numerous previous posts that outline the many benefits of using SCEB for home construction. Basically they will provide a cool and cost efficient eco friendly home that is bug proof, fire proof, mold proof, storm proof and weather proof. Each house will have rain gutters and cisterns for rain cache and storage of rainwater. We also hope to meet with a drilling contractor for drilling a well as an additional source of water. Belize Electric Limited installed poles and power to the property in 2017 and next we will have the electrician install the electric panel so they can install the meter and activate our power.
Andy Olerud rode a rented dirt bike from Motorbike Rentals Belize in Hopkins up to Cabbage Hall Lookout through the Belize Eco Village property to the mountaintop, one of the highest points in Belize. Photo by Michael Morningstar.
Building CSEB homes will enable us to have a low carbon foot print and low water footprint and provide homes that are easy to maintain and extremely energy efficient. Once someone has their lot paid for and SCEB home built they will be able to live in our Belize Eco Village very comfortably on a small retirement or Social Security benefitt of less than $1000. per month for two people. With our current planning and projections we are confident our packages for Pioneer Pre-development will provide a small SCEB house and lot for under $100K. Since our community is at 16.5 Mile Southern Highway we are right next to a well maintained main paved road which offers regular bus services to the beach and other towns and villages throughout Belize. Many residents and owners may not even need a car for transportation.
It was very exciting to see that Belize is adopting the Plastic Pledge to ban single use plastic items and Styrofoam by April 2019. This is more Great NEWS to help maintain the eco systems and environment. With Hilton and Wyndham hotels announcing projects in Belize things keep looking good for even more Belize eco tourism. The recent announcement by Marriott International for the Alaia Resort project is also creating a lot of buzz.
Healthy Habits & Habitats
In 2018 Morningstar NEWS will focus 50% on Healthy Habits and 50% on Healthy Habitats. Researching and role modeling proven principles for a transition town drives us to share words with wisdom. Our vision is attracting a wide variety of eco friendly people to help design, build and live in a more healthy and sustainable way. We invite ideas, insights and inspiration to help us focus our planning and progress. Sharing solutions, strategies, suggestions and systems will help us all design and develop better eco communities.
Where is Your Gap?
What actions, behaviors, beliefs and decisions regarding your habits and habitats are impacting your happiness and health? What is your motivation for making better choices to avoid health hazards and adopt healthy habits? Investing in our long term health helps protect our long term wealth. When we are happy, healthy and holistic we naturally shift to a more sustainable ecological, economical and environmental friendly lifestyle.
Mastery Action Plan (MAP)
Our daily habits and habitats directly impact our happiness and health. There are many reasons to consider our Belize Eco Village for a healthy future. What are you willing to do differently starting today to embrace better choices in 2018? Creating a healthy habits code of conduct and mastery action plan will enhance our quality of life. Our happiness and health benefit from healthy challenges, changes and choices.
Call to Action
What comments, commitments or concerns come to mind regarding healthy habits and habitats?
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