I come this week. No next week. Or this week. Friday I take the ferry from Livingston. No change of plans, from Puerto Barrios. Oh ok, from Livingston but not Friday. Probably Tuesday. Or if I get a ride on someone's boat maybe earlier. Monday. No, Sunday.
This is how I communicated with my poor Couchsurfing host Hakeem. I told the guy my arrival dates are flexible as I never really travel with a schedule, but this is probably a bit more than he bargained for. Still, he kept on replying nicely and changed his plans continuously to receive me... So I figured it must be a good guy. For who's interested: I went Saturday, from Livingston to Puerto Barrios, back to Livingston and then to Belize, as that saved me 2 bucks. Yes, I'm cheap. However, I had to spend a lot in general: $12 to get out of Guatemala and over a $30 for boats. As that's about the same price of the ferry from Argentina to Uruguay, I expected about the same standard. I'm so naive. Life-jackets were handed out up front… and considering the state the boat was in this was a splendid idea.
Imagine how a 3-year-old draws a boat: That's the boat that drove me to Belize.
Just an open floating shack. Of course it started raining. The Guatemalan solution? Hold some plastic in front of you as a flattering rain shield, while holding on to the sides to not be blown off the boat. I love travelling on a budget.
Once there I tried to find my first Wi-Fi in days to let Hakeem know I arrived 1 day earlier due to a failed Garifuna Day in Guatemala (for that story and the adventures on the Caribbean Coke Boat, check my blog: www.budgetbucketlist.com/rio-dulce). He 'forgot' to pay his bill however and wasn't online. Luckily: People are nice in Belize, and when I told my friendly money exchanger I was looking for him, the rice-and-beans-lady called "Beno" for me, as he is known around town. A few moments later a car made its way into the street, pumping on gangster-rap music. "Peace up, welcome to ma 'hood yo, I didn't got no sleep last night as I partied like a motherfacka, but ya can still come to ma crib, all chill."
He stroke his hand through his rasta hair, gave me a big white smile and continued rapping along to the beat about brothers and b*tches. We carried my stuff through his swampy yard flooded by the rainy season, right into his modestly designed apartment. As soon as he sat down he rolled something I know very well from the streets of Amsterdam into some brown tobacco leafs and inhaled deeply. In a cloud of mist he told me "You know me (not really), smoke weed all day every day yo, keeps the days rollin'. Wanna hear some Lil' Wayne beats?" I looked at his 'Thug life' tattoo and nodded.
You wouldn't be surprised if I say I have nothing in common with this Garifuna man. But honestly, that made it even more interesting. I decided to let go of everything I think is normal and lead his life for a few days, observing and participating. In some kind of rap-Caribbean-version of broken English (the local "Kriol" accent), we talked about everything from travelling to relationships. That seems to go a bit different here than what I'm used to. First of all, you wouldn't have just one woman. You would tell you have, but in reality your penis isn't part of that commitment. That doesn't matter though, women love sex as much as men do here and can't resist the constant temptation. To have a full brother or sister is uncommon. Most women have 6 or more kids, from 6 or more different men. And the same goes for men, which makes families very big and interconnected. While texting all ´his girls' he told me if I would be a male Couchsurfer he would have called a pay-girl for me, as that's how you give back to a big branch of the local economy. I needed a nap to process all this information... So Beno stood up, handed me some mosquito spray, directed the airco at me and covered me with a clean blanket... as even bad-ass gangster rappers have a sweet heart sometimes.
I woke up to some angry ghetto ringtone. Beno's homies. If we wanted to hang. In the car he warned me about a lot of foreseen "sweet-talkin'": "Don't be scared. As long as you're with me nothing will happen to you, momma. They just have a strong need to express themselves to a girl like you." We drove into a sand road under a tree, close to a slummish neighborhood.
There we met Snoop Dogg and Dr. Dre, or their Latin cousins.
With a lot of cables they installed some laptops and boxes under the tree, under which a little club of black men were dancing with wild and macho arm movements. They drank rum and passed the joint, listening intensely to the music's lyrics to see if they're "street" enough. The fact that there was standing someone in between them with another skin color or gender didn't seem to matter: I was one of them. Or “like the girls we only see in movies here", a Rasta said. They taught me some slang and Kriol and gave me a box once I knew an Eminem or Jay-Z lyric. But more importantly, they taught me to have a good time wherever, whenever and with a minimum of resources. Dancing on my most street-wise way in between these men for which my mom probably would have warned me back home, I suddenly remembered the last times I danced in between men of a different culture: On a market square in the souk of Marrakech, on the music made by Islamic Berbers in white dresses on drums and banjo's made of goat hair... On the bar in a gay club in the vibrant queer nightlife of Madrid, together with my 2 homosexual hosts... Barefoot on the beats of the djembé in Australia's Nimbin, celebrating some legalize-marihuana-festival. Travelling made my experience so much wider, interpreting similar situations in so many different ways, forms and contexts.
The weed made his eyes shrink smaller and smaller, so the big promises of hitting the bars slowly vanished (gladly, considering the tired state I was in). I offered to cook some dinner, like pasta or rice. He looked at me weirdly. Pasta and rice for dinner? "No shiiiiit." Instead, he made me cook him something local: Beans, coconut bread and a liter of hot sauce. Rice and pasta are for lunch, layered with meat. And eggs and hot dogs for breakfast. Right, ok.
During dinner he asked me what my parents do for a living. His mom was unemployed and his dad in prison since 5 years. I shouldn't have asked why. I did it though. "Murder. Was pissed off and shot a guy. Not sure if he died." A curious remark for someone who just gave me an entire speech about how safe Belize is.
When I woke up I learned Beno did sneak out to hit the bars after all, as one of his girls offered to cover all of his party expenses. He came back at 6am. That didn't stop him from waking up at 8 again to offer me some rum and marihuana for breakfast (he was out of hot dogs apparently).
Instead I reminded him of his suggestion to take me out hiking, which despite some minor resistance he acted upon. The boy's got personality. First he drove me down to his boss's house, the dean of Belize's university, who owned some acres of land. After some boxes and other gangster-greetings (apparently thanks to Hakeem the man has got some extra mistresses, hence the appreciation) we were allowed to walk on his property and cut some exotic fruits of the trees with a machete. Yes, if you wonder, it did feel like Fruit Ninja.
Then he continued the pothole-dirt-road to a tiny entrance of a by nature swallowed trail. "You ain't see no tourists here yo, only locals do da shit." I understand why. That was some seriously steep path. The recent heavy rainfall didn't facilitate the process. As usual, up was doable for me, you just sweat a few buckets per minute. Down however requires some skills I am not naturally equipped with. I just hurt myself, period. Today I limited the damage to a bleeding ankle, a swollen thigh and a blue-purple-black butt. Nothing unexpected. Yet, I was happy with this little sporty distraction Beno offered me, guiding me carefully while making selfies along the way. From the top of the mountain you can see all surrounding villages located at the Caribbean Sea and there's even a mesmerizing entrance to an incredibly deep, hollow cave, occupying the entire inside mountain peak!
Expecting Hakeem to be wiped out after this intensive excursion and his self-inflicted insomnia I opted for a quiet night of watching a documentary about the corruption of the capitalist banking system, as I made my point of being against money in general when he showed me videoclips of women acting like (un)official prostitutes and men extracting a false sense of identity from this corrupted trading mechanism we grew to love so much (Inside Job, watch it). Nice try, but he is not a documentary man. After 8 minutes he was snoring out loud, asking me with 1 eye open to wake him up at 10 to hit the clubs.
My last day at the rapper's house I tried to blend in as much as possible by just chilling. While cooking Beno some lunch I noticed a big scar on his back. In the meantime knowing that behind everything I notice about this guy goes some extraordinary story, I asked where he got it from. "I got stabbed by some nigga man. Helped with a fight, but da bitch is dead yo." Eh, what? He killed someone? "No I ain't no troublemaker man, my friends shot da nigga when I was in the hospital. You ain't gonna stay alive in this bitch when you do dis shit." Ok. So his friends are in jail now? Of course not. When I mentioned DNA-research he almost choked in his lunch. That was the funniest thing he had heard in weeks, DNA-research in Belize! Nope.
When you kill someone, on purpose or by accident, you get rid of the body a.s.a.p. and you continue with your life. If anyone finds out you go to jail and get killed by the victim's family when you come out of it. Same if you see a murder happen: You shut your mouth and pretend it never happened, if you mention it ever again you get killed too. Strangely enough it's ridiculous and it makes sense at the same time. In my country you can get in your car hammered, ran over a child and get away with a few months community service and a little fine. If that would be my child I'd appreciate the liberty to hunt that person down to set things right. No rest for the wicked. Let's just conclude that no social system is inherently wrong or right.
For the last time I took a puff of his herbs as a gesture of companionship. I hugged the little desperado goodbye and took away some amazing memories.
“You think the only people who are people
Are the people who look and think like you.
But if you walk the footsteps of a stranger
You’ll learn things you never knew you never knew.”
Quick lesson in Bileez Kriol / Belize Creole English
During colonial days the Baymen (British buccaneers who settled along the Bay of Honduras, present-day Belize, in the 17th century) brought and used Africans to cut mahogany trees into logs which were then shipped off to Europe. Because of the enslaved Africans’ proximity to their British masters while working in the mahogany camps, they began speaking their own version of English: A mix of what they heard from the Baymen and of their own African dialect. This was the beginning of the Kriol language. In those mahogany camps were also female slaves, who prepared food and took care of the workers. The Baymen, who were far away from their British wives, took the African females as their local mistresses. The result of this mix created the Kriol population. The Ministry's 1999 School Effectiveness Report (p. 84) notes that "Creole is spoken as the first language in most homes." Other national languages are Garifuna, Spanish, and three varieties of Maya.
Weh yu nayhn? / Mi nayhn da... = What is your name? / My name is…
Weh di go aan? / Da how yu di du? = What’s up? / How are you?
Gud maanin = Good morning
Aarait = Fine, thank you.
Humoch dis kaas? = How much does this cost?
Ah mi gat wahn gud gud taim = I’ve had a wonderful time.
Ih noh mata = It doesn’t matter.
Fu chroo? = Is that so?
Ah gwayn da tong = I’m going to town.
Ah di eet mi rais ahn beenz = I am eating my rice and beans.
Deh mi-di daans aal nait = They were dancing all night.
Da weh time? = What time is it?
Si yoo lata = See you later!
Ah/mi tayad = I’m tired.
Haul your rass! = Get the hell out of here!
Wahnti whanti kyah geti an geti geti nu wahnti = You always want what you can’t have.
Yu kyaahn travl pahn emti stomak = You cannot travel on an empty stomach.
Wait bruk down bridge = Don’t make me wait too long.
One one craboo fill barrel = Every little bit counts.
Kriol grammatical rules: long a = ay (as in way) / long i = ai (as in bwai/boy) / long e = ee (as in eet/eat) / long o = oa (as in hoam/home) / long u = oo (as in hoo/who) / double short a = aa (as in yaad/yard) / tr = chr (as in chree/tree)
Mi love Bileez!
