Paget's Belize Journal
The Preliminary Trip-
It Begins The Actual Stay-
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Nov 17, 1999 Night Noise, Settlement DayI've had a restless enough go of it the last two nights that I decided to complain a little. Although there are not enough people here to make a truly difficult noise pollution situation, it can be bad enough. The noise at night and early morning comes from two sources-the "natural" and the man-made. Natural is mostly dogs and roosters. Man-made is busses and trucks, drunks, drums, and churchbells. As I've mentioned before, most everyone keeps dogs as a security measure, but not in the house. Although some of the dogs are locked up in the yard or a pen during the day, they all appear to run free at night. How they know which territory they're guarding I haven't figured out. And how their owners know when to get up and investigate is an even greater mystery. These dogs bark ALL night long, in various combinations. There is never more than 10 minutes or so when there isn't barking. Sometimes they get in fights and then some dog or three howls and whimpers for a while. There also is the whimpering puppy problem. None of these dogs are fixed and so there are puppies around a lot. Although now that I think about it, not as many as you might expect. Female dogs are not considered to be very good watchdogs (can't imagine why), so probably they drown most of the female pups. Still there are some because there are puppies. The people who run the Chinese restaurant just down the street have a new puppy that they keep on their balcony, quite likely because they don't want to listen to it all night (their living quarters are air-conditioned and closed up.) It whines for hours. Well, I think it's the same puppy. Dog isn't on the menu but come to think of it, I haven't heard it for a day or two. Let's hope it just got over being lonely. Then in addition to the barking, there are multiple roosters crowing whenever the dogs wake them up (every 10 minutes or so remember). These roosters don't have a clue that they're supposed to greet the sun and in fact, by sunrise, only one rooster has enough left in him to do a proper job. This rooster lives just over the back fence from me. He is so excited to be up AND to be the only rooster on the job that he crows every 8-10 seconds for 20 minutes. I think he goes back to sleep then. With any luck at all, I could get a little sleep then between 5:30 and 6:30, but the busses start at about 5:30. Oh, and they ring the bell for 6 o'clock mass at 5:20 am. Why? To make sure the choir is up? Just a few little ding-dongs, but the church is only a block away. Then at 6:00 they ring it a lot. I've written about the busses and truck before so I won't belabor that one, except to say that I'm not getting very used to it. Sharon sent me some earplugs that help, but so far my ears get too sweaty and itchy to wear them all night. Actually, there's usually only 6 o'clock mass two or three times a week, but we're having it every day because this is a big celebration week. Settlement Day--commemorating the arrival in Belize of a large group of Garifuna people after they were kicked out of Honduras for being on the wrong side of a civil, political dispute. The Garifuna (more properly, but not commonly, called the Garinagu) are descended from two boatloads of shipwrecked and marooned Nigerians who were to be sold into slavery, but never actually were slaves, because they never got to the States. They knocked around the Caribbean for two hundred years intermarrying with the local Caribes before finally finding a place, Dangriga, where they could settle and be left alone. Anyway Settlement Day is a very big deal here, celebrated by lots of drumming, dancing, singing, church-going and drinking. There are apparently impromptu marches quite often. All it takes is the flag (the Garifuna flag, not the Belizean flag), a drum and someone willing to lead the singing. Then it takes off from there. The one Monday night was about 75 people, 3 drums and the flag bearer, 4 baby strollers and about 10 bikes. The marching people are just joyful and noisy and don't seem very drunk, but later in the evening, there are a lot of very drunk people roaming around and hollering at each other. Lots of belligerence and use of the "f word" (which rhymes with "rock" here), but no fights that I've seen. This goes on all night long though. I've been told that most people plan to sleep in the day and party all night for this week and I believe it. Don't they have jobs? you might ask. Well, actually no. Contrary to my first impression, the Garifuna do not work in the citrus orchards. This work is considered beneath them, so that's what all the Guatemalan and Mexicans are doing here. Therese told me that when her father (maybe grandfather) first planted a lot of citrus, the Garifuna wrote a song about how if he wanted them to pick his citrus, he'd better plant it in their back yards. Many of them fish and farm, so for this week, they just let things slide. And, unfortunately, too many of them just live off what relatives in the states send. So by next week things should be back to normal and the man-made noise should revert back to mostly busses and the occasional drunk. Tony and Therese have a big job in Placencia this weekend so I'm going with them. I will likely be helping to write up the web site text so it always helps if I can see things first. This is a destination guide, not a site for a specific property, so we get to do everything we can squeeze into 3 days. Should be fun. I decided I won't miss the big night too much and as Victor (Laura the wine lady's gentleman friend) said, they will do the same thing next year. Interesting how everyone assumes I'll be back. They're probably right. |
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