Dorothea Shaw is 71 years old and nearly blind, and she chose to live alone far away from people. She lives in Belize —— a county the size of Wales with a population only that of Swansea. Her home is at Gales Point, a tiny village which can be reached only by sea or air; after a 10-mile walk into the hills one finally reaches a piece of land and two small houses so hidden in the thick over-grown forest that only a handful of people know Dorothea is there.
She lives happily and totally alone – growing her vegetables, looking after her trees and dogs, cats and chickens. Once a month or so an old friend passes by with her food supplies and letters——usually including a letter from her sister in Scunthorpe and some bits of clothing from friends in Canada. Sometimes a local man will come and cut wood for her and a group of British soldiers will come across her and be greeted with the offer of a cup of coffee.
At night she lies in her tiny sleeping room with the dogs on the floor, the cats on the table near the typewriter and one of the hens settled down in a corner of the bookshelf, and listens for hours to any Spanish, English, German or French broadcasts she can find on her radio. Sometimes she gets lonely but most of the time the animals and the radio are company enough.
But recently the very things which she had tried to get free from so well have begun to catch up with her. The peace of the forest has been destroyed by the noise of earth-moving machines not many miles away. What she once only heard of distantly on the radio is now on her doorstep. Things began to change three years ago. The new main north-south road in Belize was cut through the forest only four or five miles away. “Now more people know I’m here.” She says. “I feel more and more uneasy each day.”

多萝西娅肖71岁，近乎失明，她独自生活在远离人群的地方。她住在大小如威尔士市而人口仅如斯旺西市的伯利兹。她的家在Gales Point（伯利兹一地名），一个只能通过海上或是空中才能到达的小村子。要走上10英里山路才能到达一小片陆地以及被簇叶从生的森林覆盖的两座小屋，只有少数的几个人知道那里就是多萝西娅的家。
她很幸福地独自生活着，她种植蔬菜照看她的树她的狗，她的猫和鸡。每月只有一两次一位老朋友会给她带来食物和住在Scunthorpe妹妹的书信以及一些加拿大朋友寄来的衣物。有时候当地人来为她伐木，一些英国士兵会来造访她喝杯咖啡。
晚上她躺在她的小卧室里听她所能找到的收音机里的西班牙语，英语，德语及法语频道节目，狗躺在地板上，猫躺在打字机旁边的桌子上，鹅躺在书架的一角陪伴她。有时她也会感到寂寞，但大部分时间动物们及收音机足以陪伴她。
但是近来发生的事既让我们找到了她也让她想近可能快地摆脱掉。森林的寂静被几公里外的推土机的轰鸣声所打破。她曾经在收音机时听到的声音如今已近在咫尺。一切都是在三年前发生的。一条纵贯伯利兹南北的路就在四五英里外横穿森林。她说到“现在有更多的人知道我在这了，我一天比一天不安起来。