Paget’s Belize Journal #18

October 13: Cleaning and Culture

Well, the weekend did not go quite as I had planned. I got
felled by one of those lovely stranger-in-a-strange land bugs
and wasn’t too lively for most of it. But I did get moved. On
Saturday Francine, the woman who cleans here at Naturalight and
works part time at Pelican, came to help me clean up the new
place. It was pretty dirty. Mostly dust and sawdust and dead
bugs which a vacuum likely would have made short work of.

But we didn’t have a vacuum. What we had was a broom, bucket,
mop, scrub brush and one rag. (Here’s some advice. If you’re
going to live in a foreign country, take more than one rag.)
We also had Joy and bleach. So we scrubbed everything up as high
as we could reach and called it good. The advantage of that cement
floor is you just slosh to your heart’s content and then mop
down the floor when you’re done. I discovered that plastic-coated
metal louvers are waaaay harder to wash than windows and learned
how to wash screens in a shower that sort of droobles a wad of
water.

Washing the body is interesting too. Anyway we worked for
about four hours with some help from Francine’s daughter (about
14 yrs old I guess) and lots of help from her 3-year-old son.
In case there was any doubt, three year olds the world over like
nothing better than playing in a bucket of soapy water, even
if it is full of dead bugs. I was a bit concerned about how much
to pay them and finally settled on offering BZ $50 (US $25) and
watching for the reaction. It must have been okay, because Francine
crossed herself. Lady Bountiful, that’s me.

The place is still not very comfortable, nothing but a foam
slab and an ice chest, but I did sleep there last night. I have
2 or 3 geckos in residence, which I’m of two minds about. They’re
kinda cute and have nice little chirpy voices, but they leave
little poops here and there. On the other hand, Francine claims
they eat cockroaches, which I saw some evidence of. Cockroaches,
not geckos eating them. As a matter of fact I haven’t really
put away anything but my clothes until I deal with the cockroach
problem.

The new neighborhood is certainly in the middle of things
and quite liberating. I have hardly been out after dark (which
arrives at 6:30 this close to the Equator), because of the safety
concerns of Pelican staff. I guess they think I might get hit
over the head walking the 3/4 mile back from town to the resort.
I was a little nervous too. Stores close at 5:00 pm but then
re-open at 7:00 pm, so I had a grand time last night wandering
around “shelf shopping” (no windows). But I ended up
eating the Top Ramen equivalent, because I didn’t want to chance
a restaurant and I don’t have anything to cook with yet, except
a hot water pot. Then I watched the passing scene from my balcony.

While we were cleaning on Saturday, there were two funeral
processions. Everyone commented on how unusual to have the processions
so close together, one funeral party had to wait for the other
to leave the cemetery before they could enter. I think the procession
down the main street was part of the ceremony, not just the route
from the church. It appears that there are no hearses here, or
perhaps they’re very expensive to rent, because one casket was
carried in a pick-up truck and one in a station wagon. A four-member
combo – snare, coronet, trombone, clarinet – of older men, playing
the traditional songs I associate with dixieland funerals, led
each procession. “Just a Closer Walk With Thee” “What
a Friend We Have in Jesus” and so forth. Then the casket,
then walking mourners, then a few vehicles.

All of the stores and businesses along the route close their
doors for the five minutes or so that it takes for the procession
to pass by. In many cases, the clerks came out of the stores
and stood quietly. But most of the guys in the bars just stayed
there and drank beer. Apparently there is an intertwined set
of customs, encompassing both Catholic elements and the deep,
mysterious obeah, in all major life events. In this instance,
there is no return celebratory parade, but there will be a lively
ritual on the “Ninth Night.”

The Garifuna appear to have done a remarkable job of maintaining
their culture over hundreds of years. But like so many others,
modern communication and transportation opportunities have a
terribly corrosive impact. The young people are leaving to go
to school and few are returning to maintain the culture. All
of the musicians in the two funeral processions, for example,
were well over 60. More in future editions. Time to get back
to work.

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