Emily and Sebastian Sept. 29, 2007

I introduced Emily and her aunt Florencia in my last report, but it was brief and didn’t convey the length and depth of my friendship with her.

Emily is about 10 yrs. And her brother Sebastian is about 7 yrs. They are appealing children, they are mixed Caucasian and Maya blood, so their features are very au’ currant.

During the summer they started coming up to the ½ Acre Ranch to sell homemade coconut candies. They were always dressed up, with Emily typically wearing a full skirt and a peasant blouse. She would have her hair dressed with barrettes and wearing her nice shoes. She walked in her slippers (which we would call flip-flops) and then change into dressy shoes when they approached the gate.

Sebastian was always clean, but little boy sweaty, wearing a short sleeved dress shirt and khaki shorts. He was usually barefoot. Sebastian doesn’t speak English, so it was harder to know his personality than it was to get to know Emily. Sebastian was always rather wide-eyed and openly curious about my house, but didn’t touch anything.

I had to teach them not to just walk right into my house, but to call out to me and wait on the porch until I came to the screen door. Sometimes I would invite them in and they thought it was so funny that I let my cats nap on the couch and chairs. They witnessed my big Thomas, the Belizean bush cat open the screen with his paw and muscle himself inside and flop right on the couch like he owned the place.

I have a mama and papa cat, their two 9 month old babies, and now a new litter of three. That is why I’d leave the screen door unlatched, because I don’t like being the cat maid. The cats are often safer in the house and not a meal for the wildlife.

The kids came up once or twice a week. Sometimes they would be selling avocados which go for a dollar each in the market. My trees were full of avocados, so as a donation I would give them thirty or more to increase their stock.

One time Emily hung back and wanted to tell me her mother was very poor and had too many children. Well, I could have guessed that one! She asked me if I could give her some money. I explained that my money was very short, but I had given her $30 of avocados and that would have to be the way I helped her this week.

A couple of weeks ago they came up and were selling candy, but I really couldn’t stomach any more and said, “let me just give you a dollar this time, I’m too fat to eat candy”. They giggled because by foreign standards I’m just right for an older mamacita.

I said, “Oh, Mimi had her kittens this week, do you want to see the new babies?” Of course, and we came inside to see the three newborns.

Then we went back to the kitchen and I took my wallet out of my purse and gave them their money from the change pouch. I laid the wallet on the work table and ushered them out the screen door adjacent to the table.

I went back to my writing and was immersed again until I heard “something?” “Out on the porch?” The cats trying to come in? The neighbor’s dog eating the cat’s food? Humph, I thought, it’s nothing.

The next morning my friend Ron came over and said, he would have called first but he lost my number. “Did I have another card, and ‘promise’ I’ll hold on to this one. Sure, and I went for my wallet to pull one out of the card slot.

Ron! My wallets’ gone! Where did you use it?, he asks. That’s just it. I haven’t been anywhere. I keep it in my purse. I used it yesterday to give Emily and Sebastian some school supply money and I either left it on the table or put it back in my purse…….

Well, God, I hope you find it. Listen if you don’t want to go to Spanish lookout, I’ve got to get going. He’s as distracted as I am and had just popped by to see if I wanted a ride.

“No, no”, I’m lost in thought trying to track my wallet, which is now lost in space. “No, you go on. Next time, thanks”. And he’s off to pursue the parts to a broken butane refridge.

By now I’m convinced that Emily and Sebastian have something to do with it. This is the first theft, out of all my teefings, that I can, without a doubt, trace the sequence of events and know for certain the Who, What, When, How, AND MOTIVE! I’m half sick to think it is the kids, and hesitant to start going around shaking down suspects. BUT. Dammit. I am absolutely fed up with the petty teefing, and my wallet ranks way off the chart compared to a hammer or even a drill.

I’ve got to act on this. My bank card and driver’s license are in there, besides the $60 that means most of a week’s groceries.

It’s only 7:30, so I have time to talk to them before they go to school. First I go over to Carolina’s and ask one of her little brothers where Emily and Sebastian live. Oh, Christ, it’s one of those involved, confusing set of directions that make no sense, so I tell Selwyn to hop in my truck and show me. Good grief, their house is at the foot of the road. I would have been driving all over the village looking for it!

Selwyn asks if I’m going to take him back now, and I do a U-turn and run him back up the steep hill. Back down the hill, park, get out, and hobble a dozen yards up their hill to their front porch. I call out to Emily and good grief; out come 4 or 5 grown women, half of them pregnant, and practically 15 children. Man, this is going to be hard.

Emily gives me the most open, friendly, innocent expression on her face and asks, “What? Que?” I say, “You know what! You know why I’m here”. And she shrugs with a questioning look to her mother.

I address myself to her mother. “Buenas dias. I am Miss Dana. I live up the road. I think you have been to my yard sales. I am sorry to come this morning, but my wallet has gone missing. Emily and Sebastian were at my house yesterday, and now my wallet is gone.” While I am explaining, in more simple words, using a bit of Spanish, I am scanning the crowd for their reactions.

Sebastian tumbles first. Now, he does not speak English, but all of a sudden he is coming out with an agitated torrent of words to his mother. She says, “Did you give them money?” I say, "One dollah, for the candy!”

Lot’s of silence, big eyes, and shuffling feet. Emily holds firm. She portrays the picture of innocence and we are at a standstill. I apologize for “tinking bad thoughts about her children. Please, but I am so worried about my bank card and driver’s license. They are very important to me. I will keep looking.” And I leave.

I drove home a jumble of nerves and resentments. There was nothing to do but pray. I took down Marianne Williamson’s Illuminata, and turned to the prayer list. I was thumbing for one on “Being Stolen From, numerous times, and Dissolving Resentments, at the whole village and god-rotting country, but had to settle for “Betrayal”.

Dear God,

I have been betrayed. Take away from me this pain. Let me not be tempted to wrong those who have wronged me, or to hate those who hate me. But rather, dear God, please use Your power on my behalf, that through Your love I might invoke the light, that through Your forgiveness I might speed resurrection, that through Your grace the spirit of the Lord might enter and make all things right.

Let me not be tempted by darkness, even though it is all around me. Let me continue to see the good in others, even when they have turned the arrows of their fear at me. Be my shield, dear Lord. And please be my protector. Awaken in others the truth in their hearts, and awaken the same in me. I have faith in You, dear God, to right all wrongs, to make all things clear, to bring light out of apparent darkness.

I hold to You. I bless those who have not blessed me. I forgive them and I forgive myself. Or so do I wish to do. I ask for Your help. I pray for comfort. Thank You very much.

Amen

Ok, that’s it. So let it be written, so let it be done, and now for the dishes.

I’m washing several day’s of dishes when emissaries from the family arrive. It’s Aunt Florencia and one of the not pregnant (yet) women. I invite them in and offer bottled water out of nice glasses. We sit on the screened porch and I wait to hear what they have to say. I could have waited till past lunchtime for them to begin the conversation, so I introduce the likely topic of “I wonder where my wallet has gone to?”

They look at each other and shrug. I tell them how I walked up and down my road looking for the wallet but the bush is so high, I could not find it. I wonder if maybe it is lost in the bush.

How much money was in the “pocket”, they ask. I say, oh maybe $50 or maybe $80. I say it was to pay for the current and the water, but now I do not have the money and I don’t know what to do. (I give an exaggerated figure hoping at least the little shits will get lashed for not giving all the money.)

I say the biggest problem is the bank card. I cannot get any money without the bank card, and I cannot drive without my license. What do you think I should do?

What do you tink happened? I ask them, and go on to say that I have had many little teefings. My yellow line, a stalk of bananas, my hammer, all dees little tings gone missing. What should I do?

What do you think will happen now? What do you think happened? I ask a series of open ended questions designed to let them come up with a story and a solution. Throughout they say very little, but their body language is reacting to the amount of money, the bananas, and the “lost in the bush” concept.

I end with “Oh, this makes me so sad, I hope the wallet comes back to me.”

An hour and a half later, during the school lunch break, here comes Auntie and Emily, with Sebastian running behind. They are all sweaty and flushed. Sebastian has tear streaks down the dust on his face. Emily is wide-eyed. Auntie says, “We found it in the bush”, and Emily holds it out. I examine it, the money is gone, but the cards, and everything else is undisturbed. I look at them for a fairly long count, and some measure of compassion enters my heart.

I give them each a hug and say, "I know what happened, but we won’t speak of it again". “Go back to school now, it’s over”. I am so relieved. The lost money is a real bite, but at least I don’t have to write my daughter to send me a card replacement or change accounts, or any of that awful rigormarole. And the lost driver’s license hassle I can’t even imagine.

Thank you God in heaven and all my angels and all the spirits of my goods (who have been AWOL), and anything else that helps and protects me.

I’ve reflected on this, because it is a big deal. I had befriended those children. Emily had even come up to show me the school supplies she had bought with her candy money and I had added some more pencils and sharpened them all. I was really shocked that they had sneaked back into my house and snatched the wallet, it was so bold. I think Emily did it. Sebastian would have been too scared and clumsy. It is Emily who is the business person of the outfit. She was such an actress! I couldn’t have done better myself and I am a supreme actress, liar, and thief. I was truly impressed.

What troubles me is that she feels so responsible for getting money for the family at this age. It is troublesome what she will do for money at this age and my mind goes to scary scenarios in the future.

Right now I’m enforcing a cooling off period in order to see how I feel about seeing them again. I haven’t spread the story in the village because I don’t want them to be branded. They are too young and I hope salvageable. One would think so!

It was a lesson for both of us. I must keep my purse in my bedroom, and ideally latch the screen. Maybe the kids were scared straight for now, but not without some continuing re-enforcement.

There are all sorts of energetic ideas to be implemented, but right now I just want to heal my own knee-jerk resentments and bitterness, not only the thieving, but like my whole life. And for that, really I have learned, prayer and meditation work the fastest.

Macaw Bank and Belize City

Yahoo, a hurricane free weekend! First Dean, then Felix.

I have 3 computers and all of them fritzed. For days and weeks I haven’t had a computer and I really missed them. Fortunately, I’ve been working for Ron and Al at Macaw Bank Lodge, being their liaison with Mexico Mike who is building their website.

It can get pretty wild over at Macaw Bank. Yesterday I was answering Mike’s emailed questions and sending him photos, maps, text, etc.

They are adding 3 new cabins and we had to name them. We started shouting out really awful names like the Tapir, the Scorpion, the Botfly… when some guests rode up to the gate.
Ron and Al were back and forth into the kitchen, where the computer is, and were telling me all sorts of suspicious sounding descriptions of these two. They were rattily dressed, they looked like hicks, they had missing teeth. Then we heard what sounded like a single shot down the road. Henry, one of the worker bees reported that the police were looking for a blue car.

By then the solar batteries had died and I needed Ron to fire up the generator, so it was a good excuse to see these characters for myself. I took the camera down to the dining room and posed some shots with them in the background. I could hardly look at them they were such knuckle-draggers.

Ron asked, when we went back to the generator, if I really thought those two would be good website material. I said, oh god no, I want that picture to be on the camera if they rob you. He said that one of them said that he’d worked in a nuclear arms factory, and I said My ass, he was sniffing the paint on the nose cone!

So a $100.00 later, they hadn’t robbed them and got on their ATV’s to go visit another place. Ron said that after getting pretty drunck they started talking about having gotten out of the meth business just in time. That, I said, makes sense. They looked like they cooked meth in an Arkansas trailer.

He said it was a good thing I didn’t stand at the gaate in my little Jr. League suit and make everyone pass muster.
Humph, I threatened to name his next cabin The Meth Lab.

I’ve used the extra money from Ron and Al to get my laptop fixed. It has really perked me up to start "working" again. Darryl gave me the card of a small inn owner who wants a web site. Keep pluggin’.

My friends have made my days so enjoyable. Two weeks ago, I rode with my best buds to Belize City. They requested that I use fictitious names when I write about them, so they will be called Ann and Gene.

Gene has spent about a year getting a shotgun permit. Today was the day to finally go to one of the two places in the country that sells shotguns.

You have to imagine getting through the skillet of snakes that are the streets of Belize,.. then I knew of a parking lot behind RoMacs and that was a godsend. Through the lot, through RoMacs, across the street, through Brodies, up the stairs but no, that wasn’t the right department, find each other, through Brodies back door, down the block, across the street. All of this in the broiling sun, on mine filled sidewalks, no sidewalks, and demented traffic.
As a group we are like a herd of cats, going off on our own, getting separated, hobbling, and talking the whole time.

Dozens of people to help us and all of them looking wide eyed when we ask for the shotgun department. We were all thinking, jeez, we’re not going to use it on YOU. The correct department sold gardening supplies, appliances, and shotguns. First we were told the guns were upstairs, but we couldn’t see any stairs. (That was because they assumed Gene didn’t have a permit (who does?!) and he should go back over to the main store to the sporting goods department to get a pellet gun. That was where we had started, 45 minutes ago.
Ann and I were standing together, Gene had wandered off, and the saleswoman asked us what we wanted, expecting us to say a washing machine, and I said in my Texas way - Oh, yes please, we want a shotgun. Lord she jumped a foot.

After several conferences with higher ups, the woman took us to the back of the warehouse and into a walk in vault. There were four shotguns on a rack. Gene had a permit for a 16 gauge and there was one choice. He went through the motions of examining it, sighting it, looking down the barrel, hefting it up to aim. Ann reacted with Don’t point that at me!

Well, what do you think? Ann says, Is there any other store that sells shotguns? The saleswoman says Benny’s. And we say maybe we ought to go see what Benny’s has. Then she says, but they are sold out. Ok, Gene says, I’ll take the gun. He reaches in his fanny pack for the permit, and the woman jumps another foot like he’s going to take out a pistol.

Then he asks for shells. No, we don’ got no shells mon. By then we are getting numb. Does Benny’s have any shells? No, nobody don’ got no shells. Maybe we’re not too numb, because we are still amazed at encountering the unbelizalbe.

The next part of the operation was for us three wobbly old dudes to walk through the streets of Belize City carrying a package that looks just like a shotgun. We would have really preferred to walk back to the car with a LOADED SHOTGUN, but we had to rely on pink light and a cloak of invisibility to clear our passage.

On the way back we stopped at a hydroponics farm that grows lettuce and herbs. They don’t sell the plants or the seed, but we were given whole plants with the roots, and Gene and I kypted a habanereo pepper and some dill seeds. I better plant it and share it to cleanse my karma. I was di teef!

I have been helping six kids earn money for school supplies. One brother and sister come almost every day selling homemade coconut candies, crabboo, or avocados. I don’t dare eat any more of the candy, but I give them a dollar anyway. Today Emily and her aunt Florencia came again. After I gave Emily two dollah, her aunt wanted me to buy a raffle ticket. Damn, I should have given Emily 1 dollah, then had the other for the aunt.

The raffle was for a case of cokes. If I win, she said, she "has to buy me a case of cokes". What the hell?? I run into this all the time, the goofiest things. Well, dear, who is sponsoring the raffle, who get the money you are collecting? I do, she says, and produces an exercise book with the lines numbered 1 to 100. This is almost incomprehensible to me, then I burst out laughing. What a sucker scam!

It is so bold and she is so sincere with her plan. I am taken back to being five years old when Flossie and I peddled bouquets out of the FTD catalog to the neighbors. They were supposed to pick out the bouquet they liked and give me the money and I would deliver the flowers. It’s a long, prophetic story, but back to the girl’s before me.

I picked number 60 and prayed that she collected enough to cover the case of cokes, or more likely no one won and she kept the $5 from the 5 or so she’d signed up. Oh, I forgot to tell you, I asked her who draws the winner? And she smiled, "I do".