Just as we finished our lunch, a young woman named Lorena came down to the beach with five children she was babysitting, all between one and eight. The children started splashing in the surf, and we chatted with Lorena. As the kids were splashing, Nock and Lou were barking at them and wanting to play, so the kids started throwing handfuls of sand towards them because the Jacks would try to jump where the sand landed. We told them that if they threw the sand in the water, the dogs would go after the splashes. The kids started tossing handfuls of sand, we let Nock and Lou go (dragging their leashes so we could catch them if they took off for the Virgin Islands), and the kids and the two dogs started playing in the shallow water near the beach. Lorena found a stick and tossed that in the water, and the games really started as Nock and Lou gave up trying to catch sand that was never there and went after the stick. They both got to the stick at the same time, both grabbed it, and started swimming for shore, much to the delight of Lorena and the kids. Then they found another stick, and as fast as the kids could throw the sticks, the Jacks swam out to retrieve them. Lou and Mel had a brief tussle on the sand because Mel tried to grab the stick, Lou dodged, Mel tried to grab Lou, and then they decided it was more fun to bicker with each other than over the stick, but when I got the stick, the bickering stopped. Lorena pointed out that they’re just like the kids – sometimes it’s much more fun to bicker than it is to play together.
Nock gave us a brief scare because she went under at one point as she and Lou were both trying to grab the stick in the water. Just as Tom and I started to panic because she didn’t pop right up, she came up, stick in mouth, and started swimming to shore. She didn’t cough, or even shake her ears, so we think she just went under to keep the stick away from Lou. Nock also had all of us in hysterics because she started swimming in circles out in the deep water rather than bringing the stick to shore, so Tom went out to get her. When he lifted her up to send her in the right direction, her little paddles kept paddling just like she was in the water. Every time Tom picked her up out of the water, she’d swim through the air, even if no part of her was touching the water. It seemed that once she got the hang of swimming, she was just going to keep doing it!
After a good hour and a half, another group of kids came along, the pace picked up, and before too long the dogs, not to mention Tom and I, were exhausted. The kids that had started playing with the dogs were also worn out by this time, so we decided to take the dogs for a walk through the small town of Hopkins so they could dry off before we headed back to San Ignacio. The second group of kids followed us, and asked us if we were from America. When we said yes, one of the girls pulled a US nickel and dime out of her pocket and informed us that she was going to visit America some day, and she already had money to spend. We had a container of US change in the truck that we hadn’t bothered to change in when we left the country, so Tom found a quarter for each of the kids. He handed them out, and explained how US quarters look different from each other because of the state pictures, and he told them a little about each of the states that were on the quarters. As we walked down the road, we looked back and the kids were still in a huddle, comparing details of their newly acquired treasures, and talking about what they could buy when they visit America. We didn’t have the heart to tell them that $.25, or in the case of the one little girl, $.40, wasn’t going to get them too far in the States.
We went through one of the police checkpoints just outside of San Ignacio on our way back to our “home” (camper), and the policeman who has been dutifully checking our paperwork every time we go through because that’s what they have to do for vehicles that aren’t registered in Belize, looked at Tom and very politely suggested that if we’re going to stay in Belize, we should think about getting our vehicle registered this week so that they don’t have to continue to stop us and check the papers. I guess it doesn’t take much to remember a beat up old Ford truck with horns on the front grill. Back in San Ignacio, we stopped at the local ice cream stand for a pre-dinner dessert, and realized again that all small towns are the same. The owner, whom we had met last week, popped his head out of the window and asked us if we’d had fun in Hopkins. After watching Tom and I both do a double take, he laughed and told us that he’d stopped by to see if we wanted to meet him and his wife at the bakery for pastries some morning during the week, and Greg, the campground owner, had told him where we had gone for the day. Just like home…somebody always knows where you are!
Mel is annoyed. The ocean is still salt water. All that water, and none for him to drink.
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