Cabin Progress & Life with Neighborhood Boys

After finishing the first room in the second cabin just in time for Marjie and Chuck’s visit, Tom and Selwyn got right back to work when Marjie and Chuck left for southern Belize. Tom has started tiling the shower in the second bathroom, and has been working on installing the sink. Tom and Selwyn dismantled the quickly assembled bed, and those two and Wilton have been working on finishing the rest of the pieces and sanding it.

Wilton, by the way, is over being Bad Wilton. According to Olmi, he avoided Tom for most of the week because he was ashamed of having lied to him. But, we had lunch here with Damion and Olmi and the kids on Sunday, so Wilton could no longer avoid Tom. While he was here, Wilton realized that Tom wasn’t mad enough at him to not let him work, so he agreed to work with Tom on Monday, which was Garifuna Settlement Day, a national holiday in Belize. Before starting work, Wilton apologized, and we talked to him a little bit about trust. We also told him that we’d been kids once and might have even possibly lied to our parents or other adults so we could do something we wanted to do that we knew wasn’t allowed. We ended the discussion with smiles all around, and Tom and Wilton spent the morning working on the bed and other carpentry work in the second cabin. We had to laugh, because a few months ago when the BDF was doing military maneuvers up the road and the road had lots of military traffic, Wilton wanted to be a soldier when he grew up. More recently, he’s been studying how governments work in Social Studies, and he’s wanted to be somehow involved with running the government. Now, after a morning of sanding, he wants to be a carpenter when he grows up. Being ten, I guess he has a few years until he has to make up his mind.

While Wilton has been avoiding Tom, Hector has been avoiding me. Hector, a year older than Wilton and the only boy in the family with five sisters, has the habit of moving around very quietly, probably for good reason since none of his sisters would hesitate to let him have it if he ended up in the wrong place at the wrong time. Around here, there have been a few times when he’s come up behind me and startled me, at least partly intentionally, so Tom and I have both talked to him and told him that we don’t like him sneaking up on us. We understand why he does it, but we don’t like it, and don’t want him doing it around here. He’s been pretty good, until the end of last week, when I was riding Glinda down the road, and he snuck up behind me and Glinda, and then jumped at us and shouted my name. I jumped and Glinda spooked – fortunately to the left and not back onto Hector. I was mad, mostly because I’d been scared – not only did Hector do something I’ve asked him a few times not to do, but he did it behind the horse, who could easily have kicked out at him, and one or both of us could have been seriously hurt. So, I yelled at him, in the street in front of his house, and explained in both English and my version of Spanish that what he did was not only bad because I don’t like it, but because it was dangerous and one or both of us could have been seriously hurt. Julian, Hector’s father, came out from behind the house, and I suspect Hector was further reprimanded after I went on my ride. In any case, I haven’t seen Hector in a few days, and should probably go over and talk to him and his parents so he knows that I don’t hate him, I just don’t want him to get hurt.