Pixie in Paradise

During a visit with family two weeks before I moved here, my mom and I were sitting in her living room one afternoon and she was asking me some questions about this trip. I answered them and she finally exclaimed, “Well it sounds like you’re going to be on an episode of Naked and Afraid!” First off, at that moment I should have asked my very conservative church-going mother how she knows about that reality TV show where the producers throw a group of idiots into a crazy location to survive wearing no clothing and possessing no survival skills. (According to their website the premise is, “Each male-female duo is left with no food, no water, no clothes, and only one survival item each as they attempt to survive on their own). What can go wrong? 

Whether you want to call this a six-week check up or check-in, I’m still here in one piece! There’s a steady stream of stories that need to be written, but today there’s just a bunch of random thoughts and observations about life on this Central American island rolling through the old gray matter. I’m also trying to reflect on any small growth and evolution based on the drastic life change from early August to early October. I mean it’s not night and day, but maybe night and brunch hour after a pitcher of bottomless mimosas.

Trying to assess how much I’m learning about myself and the environment around me is not a very island way of life process in the first place. No one is even considering metrics like that. We’re all doing the same thing here on a basic level though: hoping a hurricane doesn’t hit us, hoping the utilities stay on and functioning on our less than stable power grid, and hunting for groceries most days at a minimum of three of the 15 grocery stores that all have limited inventories, so that we can eat at least one meal per day. Given the randomness of musings today, we will most likely have to self assess at a later date.

Basics first. I LOVE hanging clean clothes to dry on the ropes that wrap around two sides of the apartment. I discovered that many people don’t have washers but this apartment came with one, and recognized how narrowly I escaped living the pioneer life. Of course then I discovered there was no hot water, which is also the norm in Belize. I had no idea. I pulled my privilege card and bought an on-demand portable water heater that the landlord installed for me. There was no way around that one. This was all discovered on arrival to Belize August 14th, which also led to the discovery that there were no keys to the apartment. It had locks on the doors, just no keys. There were a lot of fun discoveries that first day and first week. Keys were purchased the following day by my landlord’s husband along with a new deadbolt. 

My landlord is very sweet and accommodating but again, we all run at different speeds due to our culture. While apartment keys are vital to me, no one else locks their door on the entire island. I also came with two laptops, other various technological devices, cables and trinkets that have monetary value. Don’t even get me started on the hundreds of dollars of medications and supplements, higher end beauty products and sunscreens. (Incidentally for my Americans – did you know your HSA/FSA cards sometimes allow the purchase of bug sprays and sunscreens? I went nuts on Amazon, ordering tubes of HSA-approved sunscreen right before suitcases got packed).

Thank goodness cornstarch isn’t as expensive as sunscreen or bug spray because I would be in trouble. As I’ve mentioned many times, my desert body is in shock over the amount of humidity here. Every day we are over 80% humidity, and still in the hot rainy season, the temperatures are also over 80 degrees day and night. While I am used to temperatures between 90 and 115 degrees at this time of year back home, the humidity stays between 11%-60% year round, usually on the lower end. This makes those temperatures a bit more tolerable, certainly more breathable. My skin can’t get enough of this dewy hydrating place but my lungs are pissed, don’t get me started about sweat dripping all the time, but that does bring me back to the corn starch comment.

The doctor in San Pedro said to put cornstarch in every crevice of my body that we didn’t want moisture in, from a health standpoint. Well if I did that, I’d look like a powdered donut so I’m picking my battles. I would like to not have sweat in my underpants so that’s where we’re tossing our kitchen products for now. I don’t wear tiny shorts too often unless at the beach but around the house I don’t usually wear pants so I have felt compelled once in a while to explain that no, it’s not cocaine in my undies, it’s just cornstarch to combat this satanic humidity. 

Standing in the shower one morning after fully drying off to throw the cornstarch on I saw my toenails and wondered why they looked so oddly clean and pretty. Six weeks ago I arrived with black toenail polish but walking in sand all the time and hitting toes on my bike or any number of things living life in flip flops and bare feet, I let the polish fall off. With the golden tan I’m rocking now even on these feet, the toenails look somewhat angelic and very clean, almost polished. That I might also have the sand to thank for helping me with. However, I do miss the Dazzle Dry™ black polish system that kept my nails strong and perfectly shaped. Working harder in every way out here – except in Corporate America – than back home, I had to cut my nails short. They get much dirtier out here, no idea how there are women walking around on this island with the long pointy nails. Most do appear to be American tourists though. I have yet to see too many female tourists speaking languages other than American English and a little Spanish that have anything but short plain nails.

Let’s see, we’ve covered skin with the hot water heater requirement, cornstarch for crevices, shiny natural nails… Ah, how about eyes? I was on social media reading a post on one of the island’s group forums and in the comment section where people try to answer the questions people ask, a man – clearly local, not tourist – wanted to express his disgust at the constant stream of “blue-eyed devils” that were coming to his country. I actually read that post when I had only been here a couple weeks and might have been when I got taken down by that island bug for several days so I was feeling a little vulnerable already. But now, six weeks in, I don’t give a shit. We all have people that irritate us and I get a little agitated by the other blue-eyed devils that come to “my” island too, and even the ones with other eye colors. So far there are two nationalities that seem worse than the others – and one is American. Obviously I will not be stating the other one, but just, wow. Entitled as fuck, them and us Americans. 

Entitled, whiny sons of bitches. The day I got here and had the taxi drop me off at the dock to catch the boat to Caye Caulker, a loud group of around six ladies – I’m guessing from Atlanta – were also making their way to board. While doing so I heard everything from complaints about the heat to the humidity to someone that gets motion sick, everything. I knew all of these women would suffer if the motion sick one couldn’t get a grip so I gave her an entire sleeve of meclizine, my favorite anti-nausea motion sickness prevention drug. My first thought though, was why hadn’t they checked into when the hot, rainy season was to maybe avoid it. I mention the weather a lot because I’m trying to illustrate how wildly different it is from my desert climate. Also, I’m a storyteller. I’m dramatic for effect, setting the scene out here because when I say I walked from my apartment to a grocery store and back with a broom, a mop and a bucket, you don’t truly understand what context that is in. But when I explain that it was half a mile in the sun with 85% humidity in 87 degrees, sweat running down everywhere – everywhere – some of you may get visions of Vietnam, or Indonesia or the gateway to hell, whatever you’ve seen that you can compare this weather to.

I’ve seen an American tourist on the water taxi from San Pedro back to Caye Caulker looking into a compact mirror at herself while holding a personal fan. I didn’t even know what to do with that. There’s already air blowing because we’re on a boat but she needed a teeny bit more air for her face? 

P.S. don’t wear makeup to the beach. It won’t stay on and why would you? It happens though. I saw it yesterday while sharing my chicken caesar salad with a shelter cat named Princess. She hangs out by the cafe on a bar countertop all day long and the owner feeds her lunch. I’ve seen this cat many times and pet her once in a while because I miss ol’ Pesto back home, my sexy sassy three-legged cat. Princess is laid back enough to sleep on the bar for hours each day while people sit there and drink but she doesn’t actually like everybody. She’s incredibly selective and somewhat skittish. While I was feeding her chicken bites yesterday a woman was near us with her husband and child in a hammock. The woman was standing in a cute green sundress, huge gold earrings, makeup and big sunglasses. Princess would take off every time this woman would get any closer than 20 feet to us as if her energy or demeanor made the cat nervous. When the woman wandered to the other side of my table, Princess would come back and we’d resume eating. My friend saw this happen and said that even the cat knows you don’t wear makeup to the beach!

There is such a stark difference from many of us who vacation or are temporarily living in Belize on this island, compared to the locals. Some of us aren’t considered wealthy in our own countries but we are considered extremely abundant compared to the Belizeans, whether they’re from the mainland and have come to the island to try to make a living or whether they were actually born here. I’ve met only two people so far who are truly born and raised in Caye Caulker and even one of them went away to school as a child to the U.S. and returned at age 14. A few weeks ago I was ordering tacos around 6am and waiting for them to be wrapped up. As I was waiting, a tiny old man, leathered from the sun and a hard life, walked up to the food vendor window to see if the cook wanted to buy any of his fresh catch of the morning. He had about six whole fish in a plastic grocery bag in one hand, that’s how he was carrying them from restaurant to restaurant to see if he could make a little money that day. Turns out the cook didn’t want fish and the old man turned and left to find another little street vendor or restaurant that might be able to unburden him of these fish.

And in closing, three very random musings:

1. I had the best Indian food of my life so far, in Belize City last week. An Indian couple who has a tiny kitchen behind a barred metal door, tag-teamed our lunch. We ordered a chicken quesadilla and butter chicken. I do not count the quesadilla as Far Eastern Indian food – I’m not that uncultured. The quesadilla was to die for and the butter chicken had all the delicious spices you’re used to in Indian food but there was such a smoothness to the flavor and the flat breads were all made right there while you wait. 
2. A high percentage of people on this island openly pick their nose in public. Like, really dig for gold. They appear to see no shame and nothing wrong with this.
3. If I ask one more person where I can purchase essential oils they may ask me to leave the country.