Page 99 - Exile-ebook

98 AN EXILE OF THE MIND THE RIVER OF LANTERNS 99

Downtown Belize in the 1960s. Fishing boats moored on the Belize River.

complexion were suitably Caucasian The town echoed noisily a watch the fishermen mend their nets Creoles, descendants of black
to use for the statue of a man born muffled din in my head and I rested and women wash clothes in the river African slaves, indigenous Maya, a
under the scorching sun of Galilee my ‘aeroplane ears’ in the quiet of a to the beat of loud Spanish music. A sprinkling of European civil servants
in the Middle East. I planned to weathered boarding house in shanty bowl of rice and beans cost 15 cents and criminals on the run, made up
return and check it out. town called ‘Sunshine’. It overlooked and 10 cents for a shot of rum. Ba- the Colony’s population of a mere
An ear-popping flight on the the Belize River, the colour of diesel nanas and oranges were one cent 100,000, much of it unemployed.
local airline cut short my intended oil and a smell of dead fish. It was each. I could stretch out my meagre Tourism was yet to discover the
trip to Mexico City. The flight my 24th birthday. funds for years in this place. potential of this pocket-size corner
attendant resented passengers on Day dimmed to dusk, stretching of the Caribbean. It has the world’s
her shift. And I, the only passenger, long shadows across the landscape second largest coral reef after
bore the brunt of her rudeness. “Yo where hundreds of lighted kerosene Australia.
no soy Americano,” I wailed. I put it lanterns glittered starrily in the riv- Expats avoided me as I walked
down to frazzled nerves. An airliner er from dilapidated shacks, streaked the dusty streets of Belize. Their
the day before lost an engine into grey along the riverbank. Fishing minds addled by the midday sun not
the jungle below. Uneven cabin boats were in better shape than the to recognise one of their own with a
pressure imploded my eardrums houses and stores they were moored hand outstretched in Kiwi friendship.
and I staggered off the plane in to. With my auditory senses restored I later discovered why. My boarding
Belize instead of Mexico. I sat on the Sunshine’s front steps to Archaeologist Hamilton Anderson. house was a house of ill repute,