The End of the Line

I just looked up Jaime Awe on Wikipedia. He's not there, and I'm tempted to write an entry about him and encourage people to embellish it. He's had what I'm pretty positive is one of the most interesting lives I've ever encountered. I'd love to just sit and talk to him for a while.

Today was not only one of the best days I've had this month, but maybe one of the best days of my life. I wormed my way into the lab and cleaned bones with Christopher all day, and he taught me a lot of cool stuff, and we had good conversations with Hope and Pete and Martin, and after work he and I went and washed clothes in the swollen muddy river. I may have wrecked my field boots, which I need for tomorrow, but that's okay. When I realized it, I took them off and went barefoot, in the river and even on the walk home. (Up until now, I was afraid to walk barefoot on Belizean roads, even though I go without shoes pretty much all the time at home.) Now I'm at Hode's waiting for dinner, after which we have our final exam (fingers crossed for easiness), and I'm hoping people will want to go out afterwards so Hope and I can try to meet up with the guy we met in San Pedro last weekend who's now stopping in San Ignacio for a couple of days. (Don't worry, he's not sketchy at all, and even if he was we would have been much better targets alone in the Cayes than here surrounded by people who know us.)

I look around and find it hard to believe that these are my last days in Cayo. Tomorrow I will leave Central Farm for the last time, eat my last meal at Hode's, and drink my last 1 Barrel. On Saturday I will troll the market for cheap goodies for the last time before getting on a bus and speeding across the Western Highway for the last time. It feels like I've been here forever.

I suppose Belize will keep calling me back, in the same way London and Arizona have for years.

I will miss some people here. Sam and David and Martin and Suzan and Flex and especially Hope and Christopher. I will miss the dogs at Midas. I'll miss being on the farm. I'll miss pickup trucks. I'll miss seeing horses on the streets. I'll miss rum. I'll miss Coke in glass bottles. I'll miss the rain a lot. I'll especially miss my hammock and the sounds of the jungle at night. I'm afraid I won't be able to sleep in false silence and fake light listening to the sounds of machinery and passing cars. I suspect returning to an air conditioned world will be a much harder adjustment than leaving it. I wonder if I'll have a hard time being inside all the time after a month of being outside up to eighteen hours a day.

But I won't miss being dirty all the time. I won't miss Hode's. I won't miss the smell of the pig farm we pass every day. I won't miss the roads or the men I encounter on them. I look forward to milk and juice and dessert and good bread, and to having my own room and clean clothes and hot water. I love Belize, but I don't want to stay here forever.