Now that we had dipped our toes in the Belizean blue waters and reinforced our confidence, a second visit to San Pedro was planned. This time we would explore a bit further and taste the local food. JR’s (our driver) brother, with a less beat up taxi, accompanied by his girlfriend, ferried us around. Marney and I both were still determined not to rent a golf cart.
In Belize everything is flexible, which is as it should be because the tourist economy fluctuates and the seasons change. Belizeans have to duck and weave, picking up jobs when they can and using their networks to know when jobs are available. A steady permanent job like Roger’s, our caretaker for the six-condo apartment is a prize. Taxi driving is a lot more hit and miss but in San Pedro wages are higher than on the mainland. JR told us he was putting off marriage until his finances improved as he had bought some land which he hoped to build on eventually. Both parents had died last year from Covid so he was working as hard as he could to keep himself busy and not think too much. Such a nice man.
The news from the US was particularly dark with the school shootings in Texas so I was quietly grateful that in San Pedro they don’t have shops selling AR-15s to anyone over 18 (even if they could afford them) and American tourists seemed to be having a lot of fun without being armed to the teeth.
I digress. When I was four or five, I grew up in a vicarage in Lincolnshire. My grandfather, lately returned from India, was the vicar. Tombstones surrounded the church on three sides and this was my playground. Small iron fences around the graves made ideal forts from which to fire at imaginary enemies. Maybe because of that experience I find cemeteries comfortable and interesting repositories of history. After all, one and a half million people visit Westminster every year to see the graves of all sorts of famous people. Visiting or playing on ordinary people’s graves appeals to my egalitarianism. San Pedro Cemetery may not be Père Lachaise (famous cemetery in Paris) but you never know what you will see. Finding the cemetery was the first challenge.
JR’s brother, ever eager to please, had to ask around a bit because this is not a normal request and he had no idea where the cemetery was. With the help of a few locals in rapid fire creole, we found it hiding behind a six-foot wall along the shore down a narrow nondescript alley. Those who had designed the wall, sensitive to the needs of the dead, had included two-foot square cutouts, six feet apart along the seaward side. I assumed it was so that those resting in peace had some sort of view of the sea and felt more at home. Who knows?
The wind from the Caribbean is not noted for its preservative qualities. Most of the taps in our condo were already corroded and electronics seem to suffer badly from the exposure so it is understandable that graves older than 1900 had become unrecognizable. One odd grave, with no decipherable name, still had plastic flowers adorning it. Lesson to be learned? If you desire immortality – have plastic flowers on your grave. A wonderful custom in this cemetery was that when they carved dates into the tombstone nobody was either “born” or “died”. Births were described as “Sunrise” and deaths as “Sunset” which I found to be a much more cheerful way to describe people’s comings and goings.
As in all cemeteries class distinction remains paramount. Nobody in their right mind wants to be buried with the hoi polloi. The ornateness and grandeur of the tombstone attests to the social standing and importance of the occupant. The grandest grave I could find was a work of art and a unique beautiful reflection of what attracts so many people to San Pedro. He obviously loved the ocean so “burial at sea” might have been more appropriate. (You can see one of the “windows” in the background.)
My walk among the graves was interrupted by a 72 year old gentleman wearing a blue uniform with a government insignia and sporting a fearsome looking sheathed machete down one side. We had an extended conversation about his job caring for the cemetery, the ten-foot-high bushes he had recently cut down along the edge and his long dispute with a fellow worker. It seemed the co-worker who had been fired (because he went drinking rather than caring for the cemetery) blamed my interlocutor for telling on him and there was a considerable sense of grievance that he was being blamed for something which he hadn’t done. I assured him in no uncertain terms that I understood his upset and consoled him that there was nothing he could do to alter other people’s views because there was no controlling the calumny of others and that he should be consoled by his own virtue and the fact that after all – he was still in employment. Reputation is a hard taskmaster.
Marney in the meantime was waiting in the little lane outside the cemetery with a group of local men who seemed curious as to why she was hanging round the gates of a cemetery (JR’s brother having gone off with his common law wife to do other business, left her alone). She was relieved when I finally appeared and we departed down the street to the main square and the Belizian Chocolate Shop.
We then went for our first local meal at El Fogon where everything was cooked over an open fire.
The restaurant was directly adjacent to a busy narrow road so the rumble of heavy trucks, motorbikes and golf carts provided the background music. This was my first taste of conch, pronounced “conk” prepared from the meat extracted from beautiful conch shells, the sound from which called Fijians to battle and rallied the small boys in Golding’s Lord of the Flies. I later learned the meat is difficult to extract and requires a great deal of tenderizing. It was fried up in a ball of cornmeal and tasted vaguely fishy which is what I expected. The rest of the meal was perfectly acceptable and we were soon picked up and, after a visit to the French patisserie and supermarket, we were driven home, loaded with supplies. We both felt acclimatized.
Marney Here
That just about describes the day except I would emphasize my fear (and suffering from heat because there was no shade) while waiting at the cemetery gates. JR’s brother really shouldn’t have left me there alone as there were three guys in a golf cart in the alley looking like they had been drinking heavily or else indulging in and/or selling something more serious (you know bloodshot eyes and tremors that made one guy’s head shaking like a “bobblehead”.
I was relieved when Alan returned and we started our walk down the street to find JR’s brother but he was nowhere to be seen so I popped in a store (aptly named Toucan) to call and find out where he was and realized I was in the tourist store I had been reading about on line. No time to suss it out but thankfully it was air conditioned and I spotted a hat I wanted to come back for (and did) so we both got what we wanted – Alan got to go to the cemetery and I found the Toucan Tienda.
El Fogon was good and the conch was okay but I wouldn’t try it again. The shell is its’ asset and now that I knew it was a local favorite dish, I understood why there were shells everywhere – on counters, walls, patios, by pools, bathtubs, etc. No, I didn’t bring one home – I don’t have a home yet and my suitcases are full:-)
