Pixie in Paradise

Most importantly: Rasta found his bike a few days ago, never thinking we’d see it again. He was driving around the north side of the village in a golf cart and noticed his bike next to some random dude. Telling him that it was his bike, and handing it over, the guy said he bought it off someone for $30 BZD. Seriously? That’s $15 USD. 

As I rode home the other day, Joseph (random plant medicine guy) was walking the other direction with a wheelbarrow full of random items, it may have been trash. Joseph works for the village and I’ve seen him do many things, including pick up trash and sort of fill potholes with gravel. He called out my name from the other side of the street and said he wanted to see me so I pulled my bike around and parked next to him. Joseph pulled two long dry brown pods from this huge mound of miscellaneous stuff in the wheelbarrow, saying they were moringa pods. He proceeded to open each pod and gently relieve them of their seeds, collecting them in one hand and telling me about the plant. I told him that my landlord back in Tucson grows moringa in the front of her house. She is from the Philippines and the plant is widely grown and used there too. While I’ve seen this moringa pop up every year I don’t recall long pods ever growing on them.

And here we go again: he takes the shell off one of the small seeds and puts it in his mouth and I know what’s coming next. He takes the shell off another one and hands it to me and walks back over by his wheelbarrow. I can’t believe I’m doing this again! I’m taking a plant I haven’t fully identified yet and putting part of it in my mouth assuming it’s not going to kill me or make me hallucinate. Joseph returns with a green plastic bottle that looks like Sprite. It’s completely full and he opens it, telling me to take a sip. Since this bitter but turning oddly sweet moringa seed is absolutely assaulting my tastebuds, I agree, only because he’s letting me take the first sip. My friends ALL know If they want me to taste their drinks, I get the first sip otherwise I won’t try it. It didn’t even occur to me until now that it wasn’t a fresh bottle of water! He was reusing a plastic bottle like I do most days so I don’t know if he had previously drank from the thing or not. I am not going to dwell. Drinking water after a moringa seed is an odd experience because now it’s making everything that follows it taste sweet. It stays sweet in the mouth for a while!

I thank Joseph again for his knowledge as he hands me all the little seed pods and tells me to take them with me. As I ride my bike down the street the odd sweetness in my mouth moves back to bitter and I again wonder if this is what poison tastes like. At this point I’m feeling very Alice in Wonderland meets Disney’s Snow White, and Joseph could very much be a little Mad Hatter! Anything is possible here.

I’ve been saving this next one for two weeks: 

I may have given someone the impression that I’m a prostitute while lost and looking for my apartment one night, prompting my 5pm curfew. It gets dark very early in this part of the world. Right now nighttime descends promptly at 6pm. There may be a few lights along the main road in the village but way back on the southwest side where I’m at, we don’t have lights, but we have the largest concentration of tropical jungle and mosquitoes. Everything is in darkness and even as the sun sets, side streets were looking all the same for a while. I came home one night after hunting a few grocery items on foot and passed out from exhaustion. I had taken a few wrong turns and went way further than I actually needed to to get back home. Somehow ending up at a small grocery store further away from home than the grocery store I was at, I stopped to ask the kid sweeping the front steps. It became clear I needed to switch into Spanish because we weren’t getting anywhere in English, but the problem is,more times than not I’ve discovered Belizean Spanish is nothing like the Mexican Spanish I’m conditioned to and more proficient at. I use the term “proficient” VERY loosely in this context. We’re making some progress but I tell him I live near the high school and he doesn’t know where that’s at. I then tell him I live “cerca de La Sirenita.” I live near the Little Mermaid bar. He ponders that for a moment and I stop a moment and think, “Well shit, I said that correctly, my Spanish accent and accuracy with word choice is correct here.” He then starts to say “Dir-” and I go “Yes, I live near Dirty Woods. Dirty Woods (Dur D Woods) is where LIttle Mermaid bar is located, and loud reggaeton can always be heard while walking down the street toward home. BUT Dirty Woods is apparently also a somewhat seedy location where known prostitution takes place, around the corner from my apartment.

As this grocery store worker asked, “You need to go to the Dirty Woods?” I internally rolled my eyes and said that that is where I need to go, as it was the quickest way to let him know the direction I needed to head, despite what he might assume I’m doing there. If he thinks I’m headed there to do something naughty I’m taking my bag of bread, eggs and toilet paper too. Kinky.

When Rasta got home the next morning I told him it would be best if we initiated the 5pm curfew rule: I have to be home by 5pm, not allowed out again until daybreak. I even went so far as to tell him it might not be a bad idea to head down to the Caye Caulker Humane Society and have me microchipped so that he can track me if I get lost. He just hugged me and laughed hysterically.

I was able to use that microchip joke again when we finally went to the internet store and signed up for a Belizean cell phone with a hotspot, and modem for the apartment. The monthly package comes with a small allowance of 50 texts, 100 phone calls and TV channels for the apartment as well. That same customer service agent was there again and he still wasn’t overly warm. With a dry professional personality and seemingly very much by the book, he looked relieved that we were just going to hook up the account with a Belizean ID card instead of trying to put it in my name. Because of all of the amenities provided by the bundled package selected for our needs, I asked him if it could come with a microchip to put in my neck since I kept getting lost. He finally cracked a huge smile and probably thought I was dumber than ever because the island is so small and surely no one can get lost. It’s possible, sir.

And finally, wildlife…

Full disclosure I haven’t traveled to the mainland yet to maneuver through the jungle with the jaguars, crocodiles, monkeys, boa constrictors and various other fauna. Check out the jaguarandi! It has a permanent expression on its face like my precious house cat, Pesto, when he’s not pleased with the lack of treats I’ve given him. This cat is supposedly not much bigger than a domestic house cat but way more ferocious. They even have kinkajou (honey bears) in Belize! The sweet little faces are too much to resist. I have a feeling my last words are going to be, “Oh my goodness, look how cute th-” right before something carries me up a tree in their teeth.

A couple of months before arriving in Belize I had a somewhat horrifying conversation with a Tucsonan who had lived in Belize for a few years. Apparently she and her husband did not have an enjoyable time. While we spoke she told me about several things I should look out for, from laptop theft, geckos pooping on me at night, to an inordinate amount of snakes and anything and everything that might dissuade someone from a very modern civilized living situation in moving to a tropical country in Central America.

Listen bitch, first of all, I’m from Arizona. Step outside and take a gander at the flora and fauna we deal with daily there. I’ve previously written about those experiences from encountering my first scorpion, black widow spider, tarantula, rattlesnake and any number of plants and animals native to Arizona that seem like they were created by Wes Craven for one of his horror movies. As for laptop theft and crime, I was mugged at gunpoint in Dallas, Texas and someone was shot at the end of my driveway four years ago in Tucson, Arizona. Bad stuff happens everywhere but my head is always on a swivel and I brought as many tools with me to mitigate danger as I was legally allowed, before Customs got suspicious. Actually, Customs was suspicious – as you might have already discovered reading, “The Tiny Ho Has Landed,” blog entry.

I’d like to tell you that we’re all caught up now but we are never fully caught up. There is so much to say, so many adventures and encounters I’m having just on the island. We haven’t even stepped foot back on the mainland yet! Stay tuned and be prepared – get out the cocktails and popcorn.