Belize
The cool air, similar in density to unmerged clouds, fogged the cabin of the DC-8 jet on its flight to Belize in Central America. I had never been on an airplane before, except for the Boeing 727 connection flight in Texas from Milwaukee to Belize. Flying was a thrilling transition to an unknown world different from the United States of America. My world not be the same ever again.
In 1985, airlines served full meals in flight. The attendant served Cordon bleu with a full plate of vegetables, a dessert and a beverage. The dish was delicious, and this meal my last supper. I would not eat another meal of this type until I return to the USA.
The DC-8 landed safely within the jungle, on what appeared to be a little sheet of concrete in a long field of stretched grass. The airport was a small building in the jungle’s pounding heart. I entered the undergrowth from the plane. I meandered into a tiny customs checkpoint building where a friendly native inspected my American birth certificate and passport. The door behind closed, and, big hugs I greeted Gita, Collen, Tom and his wife. Kelly arrived later that summer after her contacts in Panama, Central America. This was my new family for the summer.
Tom’s wife Judy worked as a public health nurse at Belize Family Life in Belize City. It was a small agency in a small building operated by a staff of three paid by modest grants that Judy received, subsidized with the country’s meager funds. Belize Family Life taught me as much as any University of Wisconsin School of Social Welfare course. The agency posted the inner walls of the building with anti-drug and family planning messages.
These same messages were taken on home visits in bulletin form. I and two other travel teachers went home to home with Judy, teaching family planning and positive lifestyle messages to the Belizeans. The home visits foreshadowed my experience ten years later with the Department of Corrections when I made in-home contacts with those on probation and parolees.
The 23-year-old man easily adapted to the third world conditions. Locals see social worker students as rich Americans. It wasn’t like I really was that image of a rich, well-to-do American. Still, the feeling of sacrifice was there, as living conditions were not the same in Belize as in the USA.
*
Freedom is homelessness — living from my backpack, moving from village to village, coast to coast, from village school to village school, into the great coral reef, the jungle or the Mayan mountains. Belize is a small country bordered by Mexico, Guatemala, and on the east by the Caribbean Sea. It was a British colony and English is its official language. The children in small villages spoke both English and their native dialect, too.
Belize was born the same year I graduated high school and entered university. On the 21st of September 1981, Belize became an independent nation. Guatemala refused to recognize the new nation because of its longstanding territorial dispute with the former British colony. The military patrolled the border to deter incursions. Contra terrorism in Central America was the political game in the 1980s. Belizean soldiers posed to get their pictures taken, by the one who flew into the jungle.
*
In the third world, I could find everything I need, and nothing I wanted. Indulging in a bottle of apple juice was excessively costly, and each bottle was nearly a full month’s income for a Belizean.
A one-level brick building was not much. This particular residence was not well-kept. Dirty dishes filled the sink, and the stink? I said to myself, “Oh, that stench.” The stink and filth from the sewage drains that lined the dirt-covered streets fumed their way in through the sink; additionally, sewage dripped colorfully from the faucet. This was a good lesson not to drink pipe water while in Belize.
There was a modern Coca-Cola plant in the city. People couldn’t afford food, but they could afford carbonated soda. So, I drank Coca-Cola from the small bottles to quench my thirst. Drinking the cola was refreshing, but there was no sugar-free choice. I hadn’t consumed processed sugar since my freshman year in high school. Sugar goes straight to the brain. If the sugar wasn’t natural and unprocessed, it was like a narcotic in the sober one’s body. Oh, well. The extra energy wasn’t a bad thing.
Dehydration became the theme of the summer. The opportunity to drink fresh water from coconut seeds was mana from heaven. It seemed most of the Belizeans didn’t drink the water, either. In villages, rainwater was available.
Belize City was a place of contradictions. There was extreme poverty, yet women purchased expensive baby formula despite the Belize Family Life message.
The people in Belize City spoke good English, some of the time, and I understood their pidgin English as time wore on. Drinking coffee with natives in small stores along dirt roads was an enjoyable experience and pastime.
The Belizean people are friendly. However, in stark contrast to the friendly multi-ethnic population, a filthy small river in the city was enslaved to stagnation. Large amounts of garbage filled the channel to the top of its banks.
A Belizean asked, “Why are you taking a photograph of the river?”
I replied, “Because it is descriptive of the physical condition of the city.”
The extremes of wealth and poverty were easily observable and disturbing. There were clear differences in the distribution of wealth, power, and prestige. The British area was like Europe; the rest of the city was poverty-stricken, marked by small brick homes or two-by-four buildings. The squalor of these tiny homes, most on stilts, still had on display large satellite antennas to capture American television and the local station, too.
In the small house, the local TV station played canned programing of the Belize coral reef. Why, I wondered, would anyone watch the beautiful multi-colored fish and teeming, living coral on a small screen? The real thing was a short, half-hour boat ride away.
*
During my lifetime, friends and family have asked me, “Why are you in such good shape?” The reason? The choices I made. One can choose to watch television or to dive under the waves of the Caribbean.
Investigating the diversity of life can provide a greater awareness of consciousness, as well as a feeling of expansion. If you decide on the fake world, you won’t have the taste of the real thing. Only in commercials do young, strong people drink alcohol and live a full and complete life of adventure and joy; societies’ exaggerated canned bullshit lie. The truth of the matter is if one is caught up in the illusion of images and all its traps that feed compulsive behaviors, those temptations that twinkle and shine, the deceived will not have the real, bright beauty available. It is only available to those who make wise choices.
*
It was time for me to leave the small house and go to Dr. Ahmadi’s residence. Dr. Ahmadi, a Continental Counselor of the Baha’i faith for the Central American countries, was extremely educated in the Baha’i faith and its history. Dr. Ahmadi was expecting me. My friends provided me, with a helpful direction to the house. I walked down the dirty, smelly road, which was covered in mud and muck. The last rainstorm had turned the road into a river, as indicated by ruts.
I said to myself, “I could easily, mistakenly walk into anyone’s house if I get the direction wrong.” I mumbled, “Well, as the saying goes, you are not in Kansas anymore.”
There was no need for police officers in the city, as the mangy, mean and wild dog packs would rip apart any unfortunate who stayed out too late. I heard their growls as I moved down the road. The sunshine was fading out.
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The rabid dogs could rip me apart. The word dog could be a spelling error or a reversal of truth, a bad, barking dogma. One should always be cognizant of God, not reversals. What one person regards as superstitious, someone else may regard as true.
Dr. Ahmadi had an orange and some clear water for me upon arrival. He was a busy man and entertaining guests was not a top priority. Yet his hospitality didn’t require a show, since he was kind and friendly. His Persian to English translation wasn’t the best. His house included a full library of books that lined the walls. They were written in Persian, though, and of no real use to the wandering American who spoke and wrote only English.
I imagined that Belize City was purgatory. In it, there was a wealth of knowledge that I couldn’t access; there was hunger, dehydration, stifling heat, stench, and loud barking dogs. The night was humid, and the heat, oppressive. The floor space for the sleeping bag was a den for cockroaches. I left my sleeping bag unzipped in the heat; despite the roaches. The size of small mice, yet they didn’t seem gross. Exhausted to the point of disregarding minor problems left alone. Morning arrived, and the tired one made a mental note to close the duffle backpack to prevent creepy roaches from making a home.
*
The following days were full of adventure and visits with people in Belize City was a pleasure. I enjoyed visiting Ahmad, his wife, and their two children at their clean home. They provided delightful meals, snacks, and a comfortable sofa to sit on. Ahmad was an Information Technology Technician. In 1985, Ahmad, as a computer specialist, was at least a decade ahead of his time. Not every Persian could get a visa to relocate to the USA, Canada or Australia. Ahmad and his young family were refugees from the Iranian persecutions of Baha’i as a result of the Islamic Revolution. Iran had for a short period of time experienced relative prosperity, then in 1979 the Islamic republic, under the theocratic rule of a totalitarian, the Ayatollah, a Shiite sect religious leader, replaced a pro-Western monarchy. Baha’i persecution runs parallel to religious intolerance in Iran. Bahà’u’llàh, the founder-prophet of Baha’i faith, had begun his mission in Iran, and the Iranian authorities deemed Baha’i devotion a criminal offense punishable by death or imprisonment for up to a lifetime.
Ahmad made an enjoyable life for his family. He was a beautiful example of a Baha’i. Years after the summer trip ended, I learned that Ahmad was killed after he traveled into a jungle village to teach the Baha’i faith. Water swept away his car on a flooding wooden crossover bridge.
This was a common way to die in Belize, as Dr. Ahmadi died in the same fashion.
*
The sweet smell of pineapple filled the air of a farm surrounding a humble house. Tantalizing pineapples piled everywhere, I discovered they make a tasty meal. (And that scorpions that scurry on the floor make bad sleep mates.)
I traveled all around Belize from south to north and stayed in city centers and villages, too. The Mayan civilization ruins got explored. Climbing to the top, above the tree canopy, these ancient temples offered a splendid view of the unblemished Guatemalan jungle that bordered Belize.
I left the mundane city and lived in the Central American jungle to listen to jaguars, parrots, monkeys, and other creatures. Mesmerized, I explored the humid jungle, hot in the dense shade.
The city is the world of the body and the country the world of the spirit. I was happy to leave the worldly Belize City, the place with one light over the dirt road intersection, and go into a Garifuna village several hundred miles into the jungle. I prepared for a three-week summer school initiative and my experience of a lifetime.
In the Garifuna village, fresh mangoes littered the ground. The people in the Garifuna village were poor materially, but not spiritually. The Garifuna do not have an official religion, but their practices show their respect for their ancestors and an all-powerful god. A shaman is the head of all Garifuna traditional practices. The spiritual practices of the Garifuna have qualities similar to the voodoo rituals performed by tribes of African descent. Mystical practices are widespread among Garifuna. No one wore shoes in the Garifuna village, just like some of those living in poverty in the United States; yet there is a difference between being poor and being impoverished.
Life is magical, one extreme to the other. I got seized and swept away with rapture by the wind and mystery of life.
*
I never got bit by the tarantulas that shared the back of the banana truck used to travel in and out of the Garifuna village. I learned to live without fear within the village by the Caribbean Sea. One night, the rain covered me as the wind blew a storm through the slits in the wooden boards of the two-by-four hut on stilts which hovered precariously above the ground. I flashed my attention from the hut into the nighttime jungle. The sky lit up like daytime each time the lightning flashed. Its reverberating thunder followed immediately after each bright light. There was no need to count the interval between sounds and light: the storm was present. The cumulus clouds were gigantic, mountain-sized and silhouetted the palm trees which bent diagonally toward the ground from the powerful blowing winds of the summer tropical storm.
The energy of nature is more powerful than fear. God is the sound of the jungle and resounds, reverberates from the thunder. That night the thunder echoed into the light-filled jungle which expanded for hundreds of miles. The god-intoxicated one was not alone while trapped in the wooden hut embedded in the jungle and next to the sea.
I thought about God and pondered sleep, since death seemed like a real possibility. Death is a beautiful maiden that visits the wise. Serenity and acceptance is her gift. A powerful lesson of Belize: there is no way to control reality. It just is.
In time, yoga taught me how to let go of control and live. Belize, for me, was a time to realize how beautiful life really is. Wisdom visited the seeker, an experience reinforced with yoga in midlife; until that point, I had the Baha’i Faith in the spot in the hut. Only when I gave up on complicated philosophies did I learn to live.
Life exists in the moment… this moment, every moment. Life is without interpretation. The darkness of the jungle can be light of the conscious mind. When the youth on a quest stopped his thinking and gave up on the desire for control, he found acceptance in the present situation, a homecoming to reality.
What it is in the present moment is what it is, and it has everything. Fear and ego do not exist. These false beliefs are imagined in a person’s controlling brain. Without fear, I closed my eyes, and immediately slid into a dreamless sleep.
Rain and storm ended. It was a beautiful new day. The sun glowed in the village along the Caribbean Sea. In Belize, I woke up to new life under the all-encompassing, beautiful blue sky. The Crayola crayon sky-blue color: a faithful lifelong friend, again. I was swept away by the wind. This day arrived in no time.
I slept atop bundles of bananas on the truck, undisturbed by the tarantulas which shared my ride out of the jungle.
*
Sensory overload: over-stimulation from the environment, too much color, too much beauty, too many changing shapes. The multicolor fish added more allurement to the exquisite nature that lies within the coral reef. The surface of the Caribbean Sea was flat and monotone, yet under the waves a whole magnificent world waited. It is too immense to describe in mere words. Simply, there is no physical language for it.
The clouds approached, and the rain viewed above the surface ended in a calm serenity under the surface of the sea. Two bottlenose dolphins swayed in a synchronistic, choreographed dance. My swimmer’s heart skipped a beat: I got too close. Their dorsal fins are quite similar to sharks’, and their flippers are incredibly aerodynamic. Yet their exquisite symmetry quieted my heart. The dolphin’s shared movement proved their gentleness despite their overwhelming physical size and almost mechanical appearance.
I dove deep below the surface to experience tranquility and peace. Snorkeling in submission to joy, I descended into deep water and held my breath to swim with giant manta rays resting on the blanket-like bottom. The sea sand settled as the manta rays gently flew away. The water so clear that it was like flying in a world without gravity.
The little and larger fish swam up to my snorkel mask in curiosity, a curiosity not unlike that of the swimmer. Enthusiastic and able, I swam into unblemished coral toward the edge of the reef. I reached the edge where it dropped off into depths of a bottomless ocean. It was as if I swam to the end of the world and there was no more. My brain, my mind, so capable of dread — time to turn around and return the safety of a perfectly crafted seascape.
I stretched out into a superman pose and let the Caribbean waves push me back to the healthy, shiny coral reef. The white coral below my chest was thin and razor sharp. The edge tips cut lightly into my chest. If I was a little heavier or if fear moved my body slightly downward, I would have filleted my chest open. Bleeding in the shark infested ocean would not have been a good idea.
It is through the human body we exist. The body is an instrument for growth and development, which we experience through embodiment. My body gave me a sign if I lost my sense of direction in life. Purpose is not discovered in the past, nor in the future, nor in my autobiography. Tune into your body and let it guide you, feeling a sense of oneness and connection to all that is. The great paradox is infinite transformation in finite time and space.
Life isn’t an obstacle. Life is to be played and not to be feared.
The U.S. “Hustle Culture” paradigm remained stagnant upon my return, I’ve changed and I am unaffected.
“We eat when we’re not hungry, drink when we’re not thirsty. We buy what we don’t need and throw away everything that’s useful. Why sell a man what he wants? Sell him what he doesn’t need. Pretend he’s got eight legs and two stomachs and money to burn. It’s wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong.” — — Harrison Ford, The Mosquito Coast movie filmed in Belize.
