I recently returned from a 5-day adventure which took me way down south to the Mayan hinterland of San Vicente, just a hop, skip and jump from the Guatemalan border. I took the cramped 6-hour bus ride to Punta Gorda on Tuesday, where I stayed overnight with John & Mica. At 6 a.m. the following day, Dov and I were on Bol’s bus to Jalacte. Upon disembarking, we trudged down the hill from the center of town, through the most tenacious mud I’ve ever encountered. It nearly claimed my flip flop (along with my entire leg), at which point I decided to switch to the mud boots Dov had grabbed from Mike’s house before we left PG. Obviously, I’d come completely unprepared for the realities of rural Toledo in the rainy season. Didn’t help that it was Josh I was going to visit, who apparently doesn’t think people from the comparatively dry and paved north need instruction in how to pack. Or maybe he just delights in watching us flounder through what has become his life over the past year. I could see him getting a certain perverse pleasure out of that.
After strapping on my mud boots, Dov and I contracted with a young boy to give us a ride across a small though slightly swollen river on his horse. He was a masterful salesman – “You wait for me? See the black horse? I be back. Wait for the black horse!” After mounting the horse, I was handed the guide rope, and immediately proceeded to convince the horse to turn around so we were facing the wrong direction. Couldn’t help noticing the folks on the river bank chuckling at the useless gringa. But our young entrepreneur managed to drag me and his horse across the river, at which point Dov paid him 20 quetzales with the understanding that he would wait to take us back across the river once we’d concluded our business across the border in Guatemala.
So we headed up the muddy hill toward the border, which is marked only by a wooden & barbed wire fence, and is completely absent any sort of official border guard. We simply passed through a narrow gate and made our way into Guatemala and up the hill to the small village of Santa Cruz, where it was our mission to buy vegetables for dinner at Josh’s over the next few nights. In order to get produce of any kind, Josh has to either make this trip to Santa Cruz or take the 2-3 hour bus ride in to PG. We climbed across brilliantly green hills and up to Santa Cruz, where we used our elementary Spanish to get Dov the requisite Bruce Lee t-shirt, along with four pounds of tomatoes, two pounds of onions and a pound of sweet (green bell) peppers. The boys in Guatemala and southern Belize are a bit obsessed with action movie stars, and can pretty much always be seen wearing worn t-shirts sporting sweaty, muscled pictures of Sylvester Stallone, Arnold Swarzenegger, Jean Claude Van Damme or Bruce Lee. They’ve also become collector’s items for a number of our PCV guys down south.
After powering up on a bottle each of Super Cola, we headed back down the hill to cross back into Belize. Upon arriving back at the river, we found that our friend with the black horse had taken Dov’s 20 quetzales and fled the scene. There being no other young entrepreneurs in sight, we waded through the waist high water, carrying our bags on our heads. We trudged up the first in a long series of hills, only to find our young friend and his horse lounging in the center of town. “Where’d you go?” asked Dov. “He made enough money for today,” responded the man we assumed was the boy’s father. Yeah, no kidding. But why put up a fight for the equivalent of somewhere around $1.50 US? So instead, we laughed and left them lounging while we headed out on the 4-5 mile hike to find Josh in San Vicente.
Dov had prepared me for a hellish walk from Jalacte to San Vicente. Hilly and hot. He wasn’t exactly wrong, but it wasn’t nearly as bad as he’d prepared me for. There’s definitely no shade to be found along the way, but I was entranced enough by the lush, rolling green hills to not worry too much about the trek. It’s roughly a 4-5 mile walk through uninhabited green hills dotted with corn fields. So beautiful. And so unlike the “densely” populated stretches of road I’m accustomed to in my part of the country. (Funny how I’ve adjusted to the point of considering ANY part of Belize to be densely populated.)
About an hour or so after departing Jalacte we saw San Vicente approaching, perched in and around a valley. Dov steered us up the side of a hill near the middle of the village and straight to Josh’s verandah, which has an insanely kickass view of town. We spent an absurd amount of time there over the course of the next few days. I can only imagine that’s where Josh spends the majority of his time. I know I would.
And it’s a great spot to sit out thunderstorms. The verandah is covered, which shelters you from the rain while you lounge in the hammock, watching the weather move across the hills. Very dramatic. Just how I like it. It’s also an incredible place to watch the fireflies. I’ve never seen so many of them in my life. They start appearing around dusk, dotting the entire hillside surrounding the house. The numbers taper off as the evening progresses, but a few stalwarts could be found hanging out as we headed off to bed. It was pretty freaking magical.
I realize this may not be an earth shattering observation, but it’s incredible how the presence or absence of electricity shapes the rhythm of a person’s (or a community’s) life. Most of the world has grown accustomed to the ability to do what they want when they want. Just by virtue of the fact that they can see what they’re doing. But Josh’s movements are limited by what can be accomplished during daylight hours and what can’t be once the sun has gone down and he has only a kerosene lamp and a small flashlight to light the way. So, bathing in the river, a 5 or so minute walk down a steep and muddy hill, must be done after he gets back from the school and before the sun goes down. Food prep is best fit in to that time as well, since chopping by kerosene lamp, while certainly not impossible, is a bit tedious. With no light pollution, night is truly night. It descends quickly and completely, and limits what you can do in a way I’ve never had to confront. I was struck by how early I started feeling sleepy. At home in San Ignacio, I often find myself reluctant to go to bed even after 10pm. I guess I still am a night person at heart – but would that be true were I to live by the natural rhythms of the world? There’s definitely a certain charm to spending a dark evening swinging in the hammock and talking with friends, but it was a rare night that we weren’t all ready to be in bed well before 9. What would feel absurd in town seemed perfectly logical and justifiable in the village.
The whole reason for my trek to San Vicente (though to be honest, I was really using it as an excuse to finally make my way to one of the more remote villages) was Josh’s HFLE camp. He recruited a bunch of the hundred or so primary school kids in the village to come hang out for three days and play health-related games. So, we had them running relay races back and forth between chairs set up to represent latrines and a bucket where they had to wash their hands, identifying health hazards in and around the house (like latrines placed too close to water sources and pigs running amuck throughout the village), and doing a number of activities which required them to identify healthy foods and place them in the proper food groups. The kids were fun and rambunctious, easily entertained and mischevious. They were far bolder and less shy than I was expecting, considering all I’ve heard about Mayans living in traditional communities. Several of the older girls took to me in no time, and like children everywhere, were fascinated by my piercings. How is it that I’ve worked with adults for over six months before they’ve realized I have my tongue pierced, while it’s a rare child who doesn’t notice it within 10 minutes of meeting me? Do we really lose our powers of observation that drastically as we age? It’s astonishing. I love it that all the kids in the village know Josh’s name. And though I’m sure it can be tedious at times to be such an attraction, I found it charming that they would come by his house to pay visits, and park themselves in his hammock for a stretch. Definitely a far cry from the town experience.
All in all, camp was a success. On our last night there we went by the village chairman’s house for a bowl of caldo (traditional chicken and vegetable soup) and fresh corn tortillas straight off the comal. That night the heavens unleashed an unbelievable torrent of rain. We had set the alarm for 2am so Dov and I could catch the market bus back to PG, but wondering whether we would end up getting rained in to the village kept me up most of the night. That, and the sound of rain pounding on Josh’s zinc roof. It was unrelenting!
We rose at 2, packed up our stuff and waited for the honking of the bus horn to signal its departure. Would the driver decide to risk a flooded road, or would he opt to stay in bed? We finally caught the sound of the horn from up the hill by the community center, and trudged down to the road in the pitch black, bidding Josh farewell. Lucky bastard got to return to the comfort of his foam mattress while Dov and I bounced down the dirt road, through the night, in yet another yellow bus. About a half hour down the road we came to a halt before a flooded portion of road. The river had risen above the road and had expanded to a width of at least two bus lengths and a depth of who knew what. And it was raging. Our driver stepped outside to assess the situation, and the conductor, after 20 or so minutes of deliberation, decided to brave the elements and the dark, stripped down to his skivvies and waded across to the other side. Guess the situation wasn’t quite as stark as it seemed to my untrained eyes, for as soon as he reached back to the bus and had dried and re-dressed, the driver started the engine and inched tentatively along. A few more river crossings and a few hours later and we were back in PG, in time for everyone on the bus to get in a full day of buying and selling in town before heading back where they came from. And they do this every week! Not exactly a trip to Safeway for the week’s groceries.
It's been a soggy week in Belize. Unrelenting rains from Tropical Depression #16 have blanketed the country, causing widespread flooding. Even in the face of last year's Hurricanes Dean and Felix, where I live in the west we saw very little damage. This time, however, parts of San Ignacio town have been sitting under more than a foot of water since Friday. The fruit and vegetable market, recently constructed on the banks of the Macal River, is under water, and one of the two bridges that grant access to the Western Highway (and thus the rest of the country) is nowhere to be seen. 
Many villages have been cut off due to road and bridge flooding, and people are being evacuated by the National Emergency Management Organization. School in the Cayo District has been canceled since Friday, and probably won't commence until at least this Friday, and businesses are losing out due to closures and a lack of travel and commerce. As the rivers out my way flow eastward to empty into the sea, the Belize District will continue to see rising water levels. On a personal note, my house has escaped the flood waters, though the water from my taps is now coming out brown. I'm thinking maybe it's time to spring for that 5-gallon jug of the bottled stuff.
