Faces and Names

There is a man in Belize who wears a gravel sack for pants everyday. If there’s a chill in the air he may put on a shirt, a gravel sack shirt of course. He sits with his wheelbarrow by the side of the road and waits. He waits for his customers, who buy his gravel. He collects his gravel from the ground, puts it in his bags and sells it to people who will use it for gardens and other random purposes. This is how he lives.
Gravel man, whom I’ve so gracefully nicknamed, is silent. I pass by him and say hello, or give him a nod, and he just looks straight ahead into his own little world. His eyes set and focused with a curly beard framing his face, he survives in this quiet, but legendary existence. He is probably oblivious to the fact that Belizeans claim him as their own quirky character. I can only guess people are intrigued and astonished at his meager existence. Not many people would live a life as raw as this man.
Though gravel man seems to ignore me (for now), other Belizeans are beginning to recognize me. I’m finding it difficult to take a ride or go to work without someone noticing me along the way. The problem is that the amount of people I’ve met does not keep up with my brain’s capacity at remembering names. I also have the unfair factor of being the new one among a humongous group of acquaintances. And the ‘I’ve-seen-you-twice-so-now-we’re-friends’ deal doesn’t help much either.
Among the factors against me, Belizeans’ car windows are tinted to what has to be illegal shades and doesn’t make recognition easier. When a car passes and honks I glance to the side to see a black screen where windows should be, I can only hope the driver realizes I can’t make out their face in the shadowy darkness.
It is nice to be accepted into the daily flow. I feel like I belong as I ride by a person who calls out my name. It’s also nice that most people around here assume I’m Belizean until I open my mouth. I kept up the charade with Anita, the lady who sells bananas at the road by my house, for some time. She started by speaking to me in Spanish, which in the beginning was Spanish I could keep up with. “Cuantos bananas?” and “Hola, cómo estas? Ningunos bananas hoy?” and “Dónde está su bicicleta hoy?” were all things to which I could respond. But, one day when I stopped to buy bananas and she began to rapidly talk to me about my job, I struggled to find some words and she caught me. It was “fun” explaining to her why I was in Belize in Spanish. I’m 50 percent sure she is very confused about my stay. She kept saying something about my skin color – which once again threw someone for a loop.
I’m hoping the Spanish class I’m taking at the Mexican Embassy will help me eventually clear things up for Anita. Three nights a week for an hour I sit with my Spanish-challenged friends to try and improve our non-eloquent childlike babble. Our teacher is a spunky woman with what seems like too big a personality for her small crumpled body. She is older, wrinkled and mostly immobile, but is quick as a whip and more flirtatious with the men than Paris Hilton. The students in the class range from 20 – 60 and are all in the same place. We come together to laugh at each others mistakes and have debates intermingled with long pauses and multiple “ummmm’s”.
This class is where I met some of my Peace Corps friends. We gather before and after chatting about our week’s adventures. They are slowly preparing me to be accepted into the Peace Corps family, telling me the secrets of the club. My impending Peace Corps position comes closer every day. April 2008 I’ll be off again to a new place in Africa. Most of the volunteers found out only 4 months before they left, so my country placement remains question marked. I do know I’ll be teaching ESL and doing youth development.
I’m lucky, because in Belize connections are inevitable. I found a woman, Dylan and Anna’s friend Deb, who teaches ESL in Belize. She is letting me in on the ways of successful ESL courses. I am welcomed into her classes so I can see her in action, and she has all the resources I could ever dream of. Everything I come across seems to make Peace Corps more real to me. But for now, I’m La Vie Bohème Belize.
It’s a wonderful feeling to become familiar with a new place. I have got my daily grind down and my weekly schedule set. I’ve learned to roll my pants when I bike to interning to keep the grease off the right pant-leg and to carry a plastic bag to put over my seat when I lock it up in case of rain. I’ve also found that it isn’t that hard to ride a bike in heels (I love pant/heel intern clothes combo and a bike isn’t gonna stop me). If I walk, then I have to pack flip flops in my bag for a more comfortable stroll – walking home in heels on a gravely road isn’t desirable.
As I was walking home the other day I heard a honk. I turned expecting a dark window or another face I couldn’t place a name to. But, it wasn’t. It was the beautiful shining face of my cousin Kaya. Her hair set in braids, bright smile and athletic build; she called my name out from a car blaring with bumping beats.
“Need a ride?” she asked.
I ran across the street and hopped into the car with her friends.