Extend a Hand

“I would like to one day see snow,” he said, standing where he always stands, on the side of the one sandy road that runs through the center of the only town on Caye Caulker, an island 18 miles off the coast of Belize.

Ed first met him as he was passing by, a tourist in a town full of tourists, not full of really, but made up of many various travelers-slash-vacationers looking for water, sun, and a mellow good time on the Caribbean Sea.

He was not a large man, but possessed the presence of a peaceful giant. He wore a black tank top, a grey knit cap on his head, filled with hidden dreadlocks, a gray curly grandpa’s beard on his chin. His skin was very dark, and his eyes, the same, and yellow, and they never seemed to blink. He wore brown leather sandals and tan pants rolled up at his calves. Ed walked past and noticed he held a file in his hand and on a small table beside him was a beautifully carved wooden shark.

In a town that is supported by tourists, white tourists, a town where most residents are of African descent, or from some part of central America, there exists a simmering tension, a racial tension, a tension that Ed, being aware and concerned about such things, may have noticed to an extreme degree; but it exists nonetheless there on Caye Caulker and many other locations where wealthy foreigners mingle with, and are sometimes the life blood of, poor locals. For two days Ed had been dealing with this, as he wandered around Belize with the intention of going to Guatemala and studying Spanish, leaving his half-finished book in a basement in his brother Dennis’ house in Providence. Ed felt the anger in the eyes from the hoods on the street crouching on the curbs. Their eyes spoke more than any diatribe could, eyes that projected an almost hereditary hate, and resentment. And sometimes from a restaurateur, or a shopkeeper, or a woman selling hand made jewelry up by the bar at the end of the island, Ed would get a blast of this hostile energy. Again, Ed was in-tune to these vibrations, and may have been better off to be ignorant to them as most people choose to be who go to a foreign country and snap pictures of cute black babies and beat-up fishing boats and palm trees.

One can sense a deeply sullen, reluctant tolerance, accepting the presence of the white tourist as a necessity for survival, but definitely not usually interested in or eager to engage in anything personal or any interaction beyond the simple transaction of goods and services. The skin of a person means so much, and racism and racial skepticism is prevalent every where you go on this planet. Ed understood it, of course, but refused to accept it. If you wound a person, any person, they will bleed the same color blood. The earth beetles devour every one no matter what shade of skin.

That day Ed was ambling down the sandy street, digging the slow and easy Caribe pace, actually recognizing that his walk had become slower, without places to go, on an island without cars, and in a part of the world where the heat and isolation have made people take things a little easier, mon. The man nods to Ed and nods back, nearly passing him by, when he is hit the realization he wants to meet this man, to know his fellow man, to reach out and transcend those very real barriers that exist between people. Ed walks over to him and says, “How are you?”

“Good, mon.” he says, in a deep baritone voice. Then, looking down at the shark that is his livelihood, he says, “You like that, mon? I can make anything you want.” Ed looks closer at the carved shark and sees it is not yet finished. Wood shavings are on the table and below on the sandy floor.

“Yeah?” Ed says, “This is excellent work.” He picks up the shark. It is exquisitely done. An exact proportionate wooden carving of that amazing aquatic beast. The wood is dark brown with strains of a lighter, tan color. He found out later it comes from the Ziracote tree. The shark stood on the point of its two fins and the lower point of its tail. The dorsal fin and tale are sharp, and the slight curve of its body is sublime and captured the exact shape of a shark in motion.

“This is incredible” Ed says, as the man looks on silently.

Ed puts it down and reaches out his hand, “I’m Ed.”

The man takes his hand, and they shake in one of the many versions of the global human hand shake, slapping the palm together, thumbs up, and then easing into the traditional white western clasp where the hands are horizontal.

“I’m Rolan, mon.” he says, and brings his hand in a fist to his heart, “Respect, mon, respect.”

He exudes a peace and a calm, his eyes are steady, deep and dark and unblinking. He was probably around 50 years old, but fit and emanating a vibrant vitality that stems from more than physical strength.

“How did you learn to do this?” Ed says.

“I was a fishermon, for nearly terty years. I always live on the sea anyway, so I know the creatures very well.”

“You are from here?” Ed says.

“Yes, mon, me whole life.”

“It is very beautiful here, and peaceful.”

“Yes mon. Jah Blessings, mon.”

“Where I come from right now, it is very cold, and snowing.”

Rolan nods his head and looks at the sandy ground.

“I would like to one day see snow,” he says.

Ed feels good to be standing beneath the blazing sun, speaking with this peaceful, gentle and wise man, in the warm Caribbean air, with people passing by, tourists in shorts and hats and shades, little local children playing, and stray dogs strutting around shitting or trying to hump each other.

“I got many otta t’ings, over d’ere, mon” he says, motioning behind him to a larger table, that was in a sort of little store, just in the front of a restaurant called Rasta Pasta.

“Oh yeah?” Ed says, not really interested in those things, but more in speaking with him. He walks over and into the shop. In the restaurant he sees a man holding a toddler high above his head. The child is laughing and the man is smiling. On a table there are other wooden carvings, a duck, a fish, a pelican, its wings spread as if drying in the wind, and other necklaces and bracelets and things made out shells and stones.

Ed comes out and walks over to Rolan. He is standing still, the metal file in his hand.

“That’s really great work.” Ed says, and he nods. “It was good to meet you, I’m gonna wander on down now.”

“Yes, mon.” he says, and they shake hands again in the same manner.

“Respect, mon, respect,” Rolan says.

Ed walks on down the sandy road, his nerves a bit jumpy, just as pleased to have met Rolan as he is slightly troubled by the obvious dynamic that exists between tourists and locals. He thinks how ideally it would be great to simply meet the man and have no consideration of buy this or buy that. But he knows everyone needs to make a living, and is satisfied with having a more personal interaction with a man who Ed knew was deep and soulful and a natural born artist.

Walking down the sandy road, thinking, and slowly discovering, as he would more and more during his stay on the island and in other parts of Belize, that he did not particularly enjoy being in the tourist, or in any category. He turned down a little lane off the sandy road that lead to the beach, and seeing the green water stretch out and wide under a line of 4 or 5 palm trees, leaning out over the water, as if they were reaching for the sea, Ed is relieved of these analytical and self conscious thoughts. A pelican coasts by with wings straight out and its beak a sword pointing down at the sea. He drops into the blue water appearing instantly and tilting his large beak back, a fish thrown up in the air, and swiftly swallowed by a bird that doesn’t miss.