Pixie in Paradise

Do you know what’s harder than dealing with culture shock in a country you’ve just moved to? Dealing with it when you’ve suddenly found yourself ill in that foreign place. On Monday morning it was very clear that I was a couple days in to some sort of tropical cold virus and Rasta got home from a long night shift at the airport, his bike had been stolen right before dawn, when he stepped away just for a moment to double check something near the runway. Someone must have thought the bike was left overnight since night shifts are only a thing out there right now while the runway is under construction. Unfortunately the camera that caught the guy was way too far away and we haven’t been able to find the bike for the last three days. We are a one-vehicle household again and need to replace that bike very soon because once this jungle illness leaves my body I’m going to want to socialize and be out and about at my new usual spots. A little structure always makes me happy so I like to see a few of the same people every day in the same locations. I miss the familiar faces on my walk to the northern part of my new village and I miss the cafe I go to almost every day to write when the main level of our tiny apartment gets too hot to sit and write in. I miss the productivity for fucks sake. Until today I haven’t been able to write much, just spending most of my time trying to nap and hydrate between the sneezing and constant coughing. I told my boyfriend that despite the mild illness and stolen bike, it would still be a good week. I don’t know what kind of Suzie Sunshine bullshit I was on, but clearly that’s out of character for me, we all know it.

Fast forward two days and my cold and cough is worse, now accompanied by frenetic sneezing but at least I was able to go for an early morning walk again. Once the heat and excess humidity really kicks in, being sick is that much more miserable. From the airport night shift I got a photo of a huge snake taken by Rasta around 1am. First off, I was dying to know what kind of snake was in his photo, and when he casually said “boa constrictor,” I almost fainted. Though I knew they were native to Belize, I guess it’s surprising to find one on the runway at the airport. That isn’t maybe all that surprising considering he has sent me photos of small crocodiles just off the actual runway, in the little brackish water pond next to it. So yeah, that happens. When I asked what happened to the boa he said he had to kill it with a machete (machetes are not only a common work tool but also a weapon in hand-to-hand combat in this country – and I will skip over that for now). There is some old belief about how if he didn’t kill it, there would be a curse on the family, or it’s a message to or from his enemies. I don’t know, to be honest I had already mentally blacked out a bit when I saw the boa photo, so his weird voodoo reason for killing it escaped me. I will have to ask again. For those of you who are wondering, he’s not into voodoo, or hoodoo or anything, but all cultures have their old wives tales and such.  

After the morning walk I was pretty spent and the sun had come out making it ghastly hot. I came home in hopes that I could rest enough to find some energy to either read or write. Last night at bedtime I tried reading for a while and thought I was doing pretty well but woke up almost an hour later completely knocked out, Amazon Kindle™ e-reader laying next to me on the bed. Today as I laid down for the tenth time after getting up to hydrate, pee and blow my nose, I thought maybe after a short nap I could be productive. At this point one could only hope, since there was laundry to wash then hang to dry, American stuff all over the place in this apartment that still needed to find a home and we still hadn’t cleaned the apartment or organized the overflow of dishes and cookware that came with the kitchen. Rasta is a bit of a zombie working night shifts but he also probably doesn’t require a house to be as clean or orderly as I prefer, so that part is up to me.

About to lay down I lazily leaned backward to plug my phone into its charging cable and knocked over a small cup of water, which landed on my bedside table. Saving the items now drenched, I jumped to pick up the cup and grab a towel to wipe everything off. While this is going on Rasta yells up from the bedroom below me, “Babe – what’s going on?” I yelled back that I had spilled water but all is good. It’s a small apartment but it takes effort to yell over the A/C I’m under and the fan he’s laying next to. He sleeps during the day after night shifts in the main level bedroom because he prefers fans to air conditioning. While I am not a big fan of A/C, at the level of heat and humidity that we have in Belize during the rainy season, I have to have a little bit of cooling. A fan by itself won’t cut it for sleeping.

As the spilled water situation seemed under control I somehow reached over the nightstand again and tipped the glass back onto the floor. Poor guy trying to sleep underneath this noise I’m making, yells up again and asks what’s up. I reply again that it’s no big deal. I’m just wiping up some water that I spilled. Rasta goes, “Babe. It spilled, I’m wet.” WHAT?! There’s absolutely no way what he said to me is going to sound less ridiculous in my brain processing it a second time. I’m still trying to wrap my head around the boa constrictor situation and now he’s telling me that water I spilled on the second floor has fallen to the first floor and onto him? Come on!

I go downstairs, down the scariest most narrow staircase you’ve ever seen in modern living – and calling it that here is indeed a stretch – to find his mattress stood up along the far wall as he just stares at the bed frame. I’m speechless yet ask him how in the hell water fell through the floor to land on him. I mean, it’s a hardwood floor! As I am not a contractor and have already acknowledged that there are no building codes or health inspectors anywhere near this island, I apologize for waking him up and then proceed to hysterically laugh at the impossibility of what just happened.

The replacement bike – not mine! I didn’t want this weird electric scooter. I just want a basket put back on my regular bike after reshaping it last week when I hit a parked golf cart while I was going a fairly decent speed. (If you’re not familiar with how the bike basket got “reconfigured,” check out the post from August 26th).