Paget's Belize Journal
The Preliminary Trip-
It Begins The Actual Stay-
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Jan 25, 00 The Last Few DaysWell, I'm back home, taking hot showers and goggling at all the white people. But I have a few more thoughts in me about Belize. If it's not as interesting because the dramatic tension is gone (or for any other reason), just let me know and I'll take you off the list. First I want to tell you about my last few days. One of the special treats when I was feeling up to it (or had been thoroughly awakened by the busses) was to get up and watch the morning dispersion of the black birds. The crow-equivalent in Belize is a beautiful bird -- large and very glossy with an ivory beak and an ivory eye and a few longish, trailing tail feathers.(That's the males, the females are a much muted version, of course, and quite a lot smaller. When I first saw them, the only way I could tell they were the same species was watching the mating behavior.) They all roost together in a grove of trees down by the river about a mile and a half from my apartment. And apparently I'm lucky not to live down there, because they get up at dawn and they're very noisy about it. I can hear them where I live, but it's just more background, like the dozens of roosters. After waking up their neighbors, they scatter throughout the town, swooping along several fly-ways, one of which goes right by my balcony. They fly about 4 or 5 feet off the ground in batches of 10 to 20, throwing in some interesting acrobatics every once in a while. This parade goes on for about 20 minutes. It's a great way to start the morning. I got up and watched them on Wednesday morning and was so pleased that I decided to do it again Thursday, my last morning in my apartment. I got up early enough to get the coffee made before the show started, poured a cup, unlocked and opened the balcony door, sat my chair outside and prepared to be entertained. The first thing I saw was a dead cat in the road. And no matter how I maneuvered, I could still see that dead cat. So I went back inside and finished packing. I don't mean to hit you over the head with this, but I will point out that it seemed to me to be a perfect image for Belize --nature with all its finery and teeth, pulling on your sleeve if you're tempted to romanticize too much. The only thing that might "improve" the image would be the buzzards (called locally "John Crows") gathering, but the cat was too fresh. Thursday night, however, we were back to lyrical. Tony and Therese had a going away party for me. None of the staff from Pelican could come (it's high tourist season and everyone's working overtime), but the Naturalight staff and their families were all there, as well as Therese's cousin Marlon and Dr. Pete and two visiting physicians, the husband, Mark, an opthamologist and the wife, Kathy, a pediatrician. They were in town as part of a 3-week sweep through the country (sponsored by someone, I forget who), examining eyes and children. I had noticed new glasses on a few of my acquaintances, but not too many, Mark said that in general (except for diseases) people's eyes in third world countries tended to be better later in life than in "civilization." He is starting to work with another opthamologist whose theory is that the natural light rhythms for babies, unmodified by night lights and often subject to practically no artificial light at all, is a big factor. So try that out on your daughter-on-law and see what she thinks. Phyllis and Rose (Tony and Therese's domestic help) had put their heads together and decided to make my favorite Belizean meal for the going away party. No, not stewed chicken and rice and beans, but "Black Dinner." Black Dinner is a mestizo dish, flavored with a paste made (I think) from burned tortillas, peppers, tomatoes, onions and herbs. It's basically a chicken stew -- sometimes with vegetables, sometimes not -- that you eat with corn tortillas and hard-boiled eggs. Since this was a special meal, we got the kind without vegetables. I never *did* manage to convince these people that I really like vegetables. They're still eating plenty of protein to generate energy for fishing and farming. I brought some of the flavoring paste home with me -- recado -- and intend to work on a "healthier" version. The entertainment that night was the eclipse of the moon. Tony and Therese's new place is right on the beach, so it was another spectacular lunar experience. Of course, it was warm enough to be out on the verandah and since I was the special guest I got to lie in one of the hammocks whenever I wanted and also have my wine fetched and dominate the use of the binoculars (I was polite though). One interesting part of watching the moon disappear was having the reflection on the water disappear, almost as soon as the first discernible "bite" was taken out of the bottom of the moon. Until we figured it out, everyone just had a sort of edgy feeling of things not right and too dark before much of the moon was even gone. The peak (nadir?) of the eclipse was about 10:30 there, about the time I went back to Pelican Beach to spend my last night. So I got to watch some of the end of the eclipse lying on the dock in a last farewell. The little fidgety birds were somewhere else for the eclipse though and I didn't stay awake long enough for them to come back. So that was the end, except I convinced the cook to make me fry-jacks for breakfast even though they were feeding 150 members of the US Army who are in the district building new schools. That is, if their barge of supplies ever comes. I was sorry to leave at the beginning of another interesting event. Unfortunately, the most evidence of the Army's arrival at that point was a number of dead stray dogs and cats (my morning experience apparently among them) because they and the strays just don't have the mutual rhythm of driving and dodging that has kept the strays alive so far. I will resist the temptation to reach for a tortured allegory about the "help" we give third world countries. With a little more perspective, though, I might have some more observations about the society. But not for a while. And actually I think it may take the next trip before I'm up for writing some more. I hope you are all well and that I see many of you very soon. (Well, I'd like to see all of you very soon, but it's not going to happen that I go to Florida, Alaska, Pennsylvania or Georgia. Maybe Washington though. Thanks for listening. The end |
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