by Pauline Fisk
‘Before I do a thing I always think. And many years ago I thought to myself, our people grow okra, corn and pumpkins, and we keep pigs and hens but we have nowhere for our own. That was when I came here first to this place. In those days, I worked at the sawmill down at Golden Creek. On the way home, which would take many days, I would sometimes sleep here by the river, and I saw that it was good. I found the spring, which remains clean in the rainy season, even when the rest of the river turns to mud. I tested it, and it was good to drink. And this was a good place to rest. Many times I stopped here on my way back home.
‘Then I thought to myself, why not bring our people here? It would be nearer to work for the men, and it has the river of course, and the land is good for farming, and the forest is nearby so we could go and hunt.
‘So I went to the government, and I put it to them that they should allow us to settle on this land. And it seemed good to the government too. They allowed me a thousand acres for a village, houses and farms for all our people. So families started coming. Our family came, and other families too, including Reuben’s one. They made houses, and took land to farm. Some of them took land by the river, down on the other side of the track. But then the river flooded in the rains and nearly washed them all away. Their cats and dogs, their hens – they all went floating down the river. The water came up to the tops of their houses and we had to take our dories and go and rescue them.
‘So no one lives down there any more. We all live up here on the high ground. And I helped to build the Baptist church. I founded it. And other churches were built too, to suit other people’s ways of worship. The school was built as well, and more people moved in and we set up a village council to take care of our people and organise the maintenance of our land. We appointed an Alcalde to be our village magistrate and judge all our disputes. The people vote for him. They choose the best man. And, at the minute, that best man is me.
‘So that’s how we do it here in our village. That’s how we live. No one is poor here because we have everything we need. In Belize City we would be poor, and maybe where you come from too, because we’d have no money and everybody there needs money to get on. But here, if we need fish we go and catch it. If we want fruit to eat, we pick it. If we want to go somewhere, we borrow a friend’s horse or wait for a truck to come along and put out a thumb.
‘We are Mayan people, you know. And once we were the first people in Belize. Before all the others came, we Mayans were already here. And now we’re here again, the Kekchi in Toledo District, the Maya-Mopan up round Cayo. Proud Mayan people. All of us.’
26
THE HURRICANE SHELTER
At the end of the following day’s school, Kid found a message waiting for him from the village council. Teacher Betty passed it on, trying to hide her relief. It didn’t take Kid long to understand why. The village council had requested that Kid be released from his teaching duties in favour of a special project that would benefit the whole of Blue Bank Springs.
The village desperately needed a hurricane shelter. Five years before, a hurricane had flattened half their houses and trees, and it would happen again some day. No one doubted that. They were able and willing to do their own building work but they didn’t have money to buy materials. To this end, they wanted Kid to visit the government offices in Belmopan and secure a grant on their behalf. That he’d succeed they seemed to have no doubt. The old government had only ever given money to its friends, but this was their government, the one they’d just voted in, and it would hear their application with favour.
Kid tried to take this in. He’d wanted to be useful, and this was his chance – but how to start? Going to Belmopan was all very well, but what to do when he got there? Which government department was he meant to approach? Who was he meant to speak to? And how was he meant to persuade them that he had the authority to act on the village’s behalf?
‘Who’s going to take any notice of me?’ he said to Teacher Betty, when he’d read the message through. ‘I’m just a kid, and a foreign one too.’
Teacher Betty advised Kid to talk to Reuben, and Reuben advised him to talk to Joseph because he’d secured an entire village for his people and knew more about the government than anybody else. But it was a new government now, Joseph said, and, besides, he couldn’t remember which departments he’d visited all those years ago. He was old now, he said. Old and forgetful. But he was sure that if Kid only went to Belmopan the thing would become immediately obvious, especially to an educated person like him.
The following day, Kid gave it his best shot. He didn’t have Joseph’s confidence, but what else could he do having failed so spectacularly on the teaching front? He started off badly, missing the morning bus, which meant he had to hitchhike instead. Renata sat with him, waiting for a car or truck to come along. It was a long wait too and, by the end of it, she was left in no doubt about how apprehensive he was.
‘If I was in your country and I needed help,’ she said, ‘I’d phone the Queen. She seems like a nice lady. And, because she’s queen, she must know everything. So, here in our country, if you don’t know what to do, you should do the same.’
‘What, phone the Queen?’ said Kid.
‘No, phone our new Prime Minister, Mr Dean Barrow,’ Renata said.
Kid opened his mouth to explain that people like the Queen and the Prime Minister were out of reach to ordinary people, at least they were in England where he came from. But before he could say anything, an open-backed truck pulled up, driven by a dusty American woman with plaited hair who wanted to know where he was heading.
‘Belmopan,’ Kid said.
‘I can give you a ride most of the way there,’ she said. ‘Jump in the back.’
Kid climbed over the tail-board and settled on a plank bench. Renata stood in the road, waving him off. ‘Don’t forget,’ she said. ‘Mr Dean Barrow.’
The day was overcast and no sooner had she disappeared than it turned to rain. Kid thought the American woman might let him into the front seat next to her, but she drove as if she’d forgotten he was there. For miles he bowed beneath the rain, feeling as if he was being flayed by whips. English rain was soft, but Belizean rain felt like iron rods.
Occasionally the woman stopped to pick up other hitchhikers who crammed in together next to Kid, grumbling that the rainy season was coming early this year. Some blamed global warming. Some blamed God. But all of them hoped fervently that the rain would stop before the Southern Highway became waterlogged.
Finally the truck pulled into Dangriga, where the woman dropped Kid off, saying he’d be able to get a bus from here to Belmopan. But the next bus wasn’t for a couple of hours, and Kid was left dripping on the sidewalk, looking for somewhere to dry out.
He started walking down the street, darting in and out of doorways, and sheltering under awnings. The road was full of puddles. Those shops which had their wares on the street were covered in tarpaulins.
At the end of the street, Kid found a bar with music playing, no one in it except a man with dreadlocks and a pretty tot of a child. She had the man wrapped round her little finger, fetching drinks and toys for her as if she was a princess. He had to be her father, without a doubt.
Kid went up to the bar and asked for a drink. In London, if he’d walked in dripping wet like that, trailing puddles behind him, he’d have been shown the door. But the man took a Belikin out of the fridge, removed its cap and wrapped it in a napkin. He pushed it across the bar, and Kid paid out of his wallet, which was stuffed with money.
‘Keep the change,’ he said, like a big man. Why he did that he didn’t know.
Three hours later, Kid was still there in that bar, listening to punta rock, telling himself he’d be back there on the street once the rain had stopped. What had happened in all that time, he wasn’t at all sure, but his clothes had dried out, the table was full of empty bottles and the bus, he realised glancing at his watch, had long-since gone.
Kid hauled himself to his feet. A shu
tter had been pulled down in front of the bar and the tables were all empty except for his. The man had disappeared, and so had the little child. It was hours since the morning when Kid had started out, and nothing he’d done since had brought a hurricane shelter for Blue Bank Springs any closer.
Outside on the street, Kid discovered that the rain had stopped some time ago, and even the puddles had dried out in the baking sun. He started walking along, his legs as heavy as lead, his head spinning as if he’d been drugged. A man approached him, asking for a dollar. It was the first time since Belize City that anyone had done that. Kid automatically went to check his wallet, only to find that it had gone. His pocket was empty. What had happened? Kid didn’t know – except that he’d been robbed.
Kid walked straight past the man and carried on along the road, feeling as if everybody was watching him. A woman selling coconut-shell jewellery from a roadside stall asked if he was all right, but he ignored her too and staggered on. He couldn’t think straight. He didn’t know what to do. What were the chances of his getting his money back if he reported the theft to the police? And what were the chances of his getting out of Dangriga in one piece? He, the canny London boy who thought he knew it all. How had he let this happen to him? Worse still, how was he going to catch a bus to Belmopan with no money to pay his fare?
Feeling a fool, Kid went through his pockets again, as if sure his wallet had to be there somewhere. But all he came up with was a phone card he’d bought when he’d first arrived in Belize City, but had never used. He stuffed it back in his pocket, cursing himself for getting into such a mess. By this time, he was back at the bus terminal, which was thronging with people who all had somewhere to go and the money to pay for it. He turned towards the ticket booth, reckoning his only choice was to try and plead his case, when suddenly – completely out of the blue – the sound of singing came wafting his way.
Kid stopped in his tracks. The singing was as sweet as honey, and yet there was something gravelly about it too. It sounded so alive and personal that Kid expected to find the singer behind him in the terminal. But he was standing opposite a music booth selling pirated CDs, and the song came from inside.
Kid went in. ‘What’s that?’ he said.
‘That’s paranda,’ said the boy behind the till.
‘No, but who’s singing?’ Kid said.
‘That’s Paul Nabor.’
There are some things you never forget. Your first banana milkshake. Your first kiss. The first time you got drunk. And Kid would never forget the first time he heard paranda being played, beating out the rhythm of Belize, or that most singular of singers, that magician of music, Paul Nabor, electrifying him with the wistful beauty of his voice.
Kid closed his eyes to hide the feeling welling up in him. Suddenly a music shop in downtown Dangriga was transformed into something close to Paradise. The singer’s voice was full of birds and beasts and tall white stately ceiba trees. Flowers were in his voice, and clouds of butterflies, and Kid could hear rivers flowing through the booth, and hear people too. He could hear their voices caught up in the song, and he didn’t feel lonely any more. He didn’t feel despairing. It didn’t matter about not making it to Belmopan. Didn’t matter that the day hadn’t worked out as planned.
Afterwards, Kid went outside, found a pay phone and dug out his card. No way was he going to get through to the Prime Minister of Belize but at least, when Renata asked, he could say he’d tried, and that might go some way towards redeeming him in her eyes. He tapped in the code on the card and waited to be cut off as a nuisance caller the moment he asked to speak to Mr Dean Barrow. Nothing prepared him for the operator’s responding with a quiet and efficient, ‘Hold the line. I’m putting you through,’ as if phoning the Prime Minister was something that anyone could do.
In the end, Kid didn’t get the Right Honourable Dean Barrow, Prime Minister of Belize in person. But he did get his wife at their official residence. Her husband would be back later, Mrs Barrow said as if it was perfectly normal to be rung up by stunned British teenagers in need of advice.
‘He’s at work just now,’ she said. ‘But perhaps I could help?’
Afterwards, Kid convinced himself that he’d dreamed the whole thing up, either that or he’d definitely been drugged. But, if so, where did the information come from that the government department dealing with Kekchi-Mayan affairs was based down in Toledo District, in the town of Punta Gorda, not Belmopan?
Kid stumbled out of the phone booth. Parked right in front of him was a pick-up truck full of old men. They pointed at his T-shirt, which bore the Wide-World logo, and one of them said, ‘We like yu boys an girls. Yu doin’ great tings fi Belize. Where yu goin’? Yu wanna ride?’
Again, paradise.
A couple of days later, having returned to Blue Bank Springs and recovered from the biggest hangover of his life, Kid took the early-morning market bus to Punta Gorda. The rains had stopped at last, the sky was clear and the pretty coastal town on the Gulf of Honduras shimmered in the heat.
Kid could have spent hours exploring the market which, like the one in San Ignacio, was full of clothes, exotic fruit, Mayan wares and Guatemalan weaving. A morning spent mooching along the waterfront wouldn’t have gone amiss either, looking at boats on the smooth expanse of silvery-blue sea. But Kid was determined to be disciplined. No messing about this time. No getting side-tracked. Apart from phoning Craig with a progress report on how he was settling in – and getting an earful for not having done so sooner – he cracked straight on with the job in hand.
Finding the government office though, proved more difficult than Kid had expected. Punta Gorda – or PG as all the local people called it – might only be a small town, but the right government department seemed impossible to locate. Kid went through from one side of the town to the other and back again, asking for directions in shops and on the street, only to be told something different by everyone he met.
Finally, however, he succeeded in tracking down an airless office where the air-conditioning had broken down and the sign outside the door had longsince been hidden by bougainvillea. Here a sleepy-looking official handed over a stack of forms and explained what needed to be done with them, where they had to be filled in, what figures might be involved and what supporting documentation would need to be brought back if Blue Bank Springs wanted a government grant.
Kid left the office in a daze, his head ringing with advice, the last of which had been, ‘This is Belize. It’s going to take a long time.’ But at least one office had done it. At least he didn’t have to go anywhere else.
Back on the bus home, an ancient-looking little Mayan woman came and parked herself next to Kid, balancing a massive bundle on her lap. Kid guessed she must have been in the market, selling her wares. Her toothless face was crumpled into hundreds of lines. He reckoned he’d never seen anyone so old before but, astonishingly, her long hair was black with almost no grey in it.
Kid slept for most of the journey, and so did the old woman. But when the bus reached Blue Bank Springs, she awoke and said something in Kekchi-Mayan, poking Kid in the ribs to wake him up as well.
Kid stumbled to his feet, not at first realising where he was. The old woman pushed past him and headed up the bus. It had almost pulled away before Kid had the sense to follow her. He stood on the side of the road, blinking sleep out of his eyes, thinking he was becoming thoroughly Belizean in his ability to drop off anywhere. The old woman said something again in Kekchi-Mayan, and thrust her bundle at Kid as if he was some errant grandchild who didn’t know his manners.
Kid carried it up the bank into the village while the old woman waddled ahead on bare feet, snapping at Kid any time he dared walk ahead of her. Kid felt like the browbeaten retainer of some ancient monarch. Halfway up the bank, Renata saw them and rushed down to greet them, followed by Renaldo who wasn’t crying was-yur-name this time, but ‘Xa-an, Xa-an, Xa-an …’
Kid was ignored in the rush to reach the old woman and lead her
into the house, make her comfortable in the best hammock and slash open a coconut to provide her with a refreshing drink. He and his hurricane shelter grant forms were totally upstaged. The old woman rocked back and forth, her eyes like dots of coal, her smile stretching like a rubber band across her face, talking in Kekchi-Mayan and refusing to stop.
She wasn’t just the family’s grandmother, Renata explained. She was her and Reuben’s mother’s grandmother, or maybe even their grandmother’s mother – she couldn’t quite remember because the old woman went back so many generations that people had lost count.
‘Some say that Xa-an is the oldest woman not just in the Mayan villages of Toledo District, but the whole of Belize,’ said Renata. ‘But certainly she’s the wisest, as you’ll soon find out. No one could spend time with Xa-an and not realise that. She knows things that everybody else has forgotten about. In fact, there’s nothing she doesn’t know, so you’d better watch out.’
27
THE SWEAT-HOUSE
That evening Xa-an’s arrival was celebrated with a feast of armadillo followed by mugs of lub.
Nobody else seemed to have a problem afterwards, but Kid was up half the night, sharing the long-drop with a black, hairy tarantula, too sick to care if it dropped on his head.
Next day, Lydia was mortified to find out that her English guest had been sick, and blamed her cooking. But Renata blamed the armadillo, which Reuben had found dead on the track, and Xa-an informed them that it was nothing to do with what Kid had eaten, but a portent of things to come.
A shadow hung over Kid after that. It was as if Xa-an had spoken something into life. He rocked in his hammock, feeling doom-laden and weak. Across the room he could hear Xa-an still talking, and he wished she’d go back to her own village and take her portents with her.