Book 194: Belize (English) – Beka Lamb (Zee EDGELL)

The rain, which quickly developed into a violent, whirling storm, started to fall at first with hardly any display at all. Then the howling wind whooshed inland, the lights went out, the radio went dead, and soon tons of rain deluged the town. Beka had not expected such a ferocious sound. The house shook and Beka was sure the wind would tear it right off its concrete foundation. Granny Ivy, Beka and her parents sat in the space between the boys’ bed and the bathroom wall. A single kerosene lamp burned on the floor and Beka kept her eyes fixed on that. There were about twenty-five people in the house, but everyone was absolutely quiet. Beka laid her head in her mother’s lap, listening to the lashing wind and rain. She meant only to drowse for a while, but the next thing she knew, Lilla was shaking her shoulder.

In 2000 I did a trip to all the countries in Central America, and I took the bus from Tikal in Guatemala to Belize City, and got straight onto a speedboat to Caye Caulker with the intention of letting my brand spanking new scuba licence loose on the Blue Hole. It would have been a good idea to catch up with the news first, for category 4 hurricane Pete was bearing down on the country and it was not a good idea to be heading to an atoll barely above sea level at the best of times. A couple of days later, after one of the two most frightening experiences of my life, I managed to get off the flattened island and back to Belize City. I thought everyone back home must be panicking as to whether I was safe. All communications were down, but the US embassy was amazingly kind and let me phone my mum back in Australia. No one at home had heard of the hurricane…

14-year-old Beka Lamb is a congenital liar. She even hopes for a hurricane to come, to wash away the school records and expunge her bad result (she had failed but lied to her parents about it.)

She is a budding politician and lying would seem to be good practice for that profession! To try to cure her, her mother gives her an exercise book in which she is to write any lie she feels like telling, rather than actually saying it. I hoped that her experiments with the truth could be turned into literary creation instead!

Anyone who has been to Belize City will probably remember its unique swing bridge. Beka has a dream in which she misses it opening and falls into the dirty river.

Her life is recounted in flashbacks (so I hope I’m not revealing too much of the plot) and punctuated by a series of incidents – little Belize is in a political ferment, about to become independent from the UK (Beka’s grandmother is a dyed in the wool supporter of the People’s Independence Party) and is threatened by Guatemala (which claims all of the country); THAT hurricane; and… what happened to her three years older best friend Toycie? (After getting pregnant she was expelled from their convent school and put in a mental asylum euphemistically called the “Sea Breeze Hotel”. But Belize had no “head doctors” unless one happened to be passing through. She dies soon afterwards. Did she throw herself off the bridge?)

There is also the theme of a multicultural society where each ethnicity seems to look down on the others (but still seems to get along with the others reasonably well), and of the struggle of the Catholic Church to gain dominance over the people’s more liberal values.

This was a quite nice coming-of-age story. It gave me a great sense of Belizean life and a particular moment in time. I’d love to find out more about the author – by the time this book was published, she had lived in Belize, Jamaica, Britain, Afghanistan, Nigeria, Bangladesh, the USA and Somalia! It was great to ‘revisit’ Belize. And maybe some day I will finally get to dive the Blue Hole…

Edgell, Zee (1940 – 2020), Beka Lamb (Caribbean Writers Series), London, Heinemann, 1982, ISBN 0-435-98844-1

Book 144: Panama (Spanish) – Roberto por el buen camino = Roberto Down the Right Track (Rose Marie Tapia R.)

There was once a peasant’s donkey which fell into a well. The animal cried for hours, while the peasant tried to somehow rescue it. Then, the man decided that the donkey was already old; what’s more, the well was dry and needed to be covered somehow, so he decided not to get the donkey out. He invited all his neighbours to come and help him. Each grabbed a shovel and they began to throw earth into the well, one shovelful after the other.

The donkey realised what was happening and cried. Then, to everyone’s surprise, it calmed down after a few shovelfuls of earth. In the midst of its misfortune it had seen a glimmer of hope.

When the peasant, finally, looked down at the bottom of the well, he was surprised to see that with every shovelful that fell onto his back, the donkey shook itself and stepped up on the earth which was accumulating under its feet.

It was in this way that, very soon, to their great surprise they all saw the donkey getting higher and higher, until it made it to the mouth of the well. When there were only a few centimetres left, the little animal gave a graceful leap and trotted off towards the grass, to the admiration of the peasants, who thus received an unexpected master class.

[my translation]

That little story was actually my favourite part of this short novel! (My insincere apologies for sharing it here). For someone billed as Panama’s best-selling author, I found this book a bit disappointing. It’s the story of how the gangs recruit youths, and how Roberto (renamed from Tuti), with the help of the mother of one of his victims, escapes them and finds redemption. Which is great, of course. And I’m as much a sucker for a happy ending story as anyone. So what’s not to like? I suppose it came across as a little too goody-goody with a maybe too obvious preachy undertone.

Basically, the gangs take the under-aged because if they kill someone they only get a slap on the wrist from the law.

The story starts dramatically enough with a robbery, including a murder. Since the legal response is too weak, one of the victims’ parents goes with a bunch of assassins to wreak revenge on one of the perpetrators, but pauses when she sees he’s only a boy. The rest of the story consists of the rescue of Tuti/Roberto from his life of crime.

It reminded me of the Bible’s story of the Prodigal Son which – I’m sorry – has always troubled me. I get the message of forgiving those who have wronged you and giving them a chance for a new start, but why should they be favoured over those who have never sinned in the first place?

As a suggestion for helping those living in poverty, I think Luis Carlos’ idea of getting poor mothers sterilised will horrify many readers. I suppose that’s one way of stopping children getting into gangs, if they’re not even born…

Basically, I felt that the scenario was unrealistic (for example, that the gangs didn’t fight back), and I doubt that the legal situation would even permit what happened in the story.

The author is one of the best-selling authors of Panama. From this novella, I can’t really see why. It’s really a children’s book, with simple themes and language and healthy morality, and in that role would no doubt work well. I did enjoy the fact that the Spanish was easy to read!

TAPIA RODRIGUEZ, Rose Marie (1945 – ), Roberto por el buen camino, Mazon Edition (self-published), 2004, ISBN 978-9962-00-801-9Translated into English