One Response to “Anthony Rhaburn – Recording #2”

1. 

   Reply
   tom phillips
   November 22, 2012 at 6:27 pm

   The question is not whether there is or isn’t political corruption in Belize. The question is why American business people are vulnerable to the rampant scams. You are a perfect example of what I encountered during my year at the Royal Palm villas south of San Pedro (walkable to town before dark).
   Frisky x-patriots arrive daily with their money. Money is status and in a third world country no point in having the multitudes confuse your social station. The scams begin at the airport with enticing brochures. Then the beach vendors selling zericote carvings start crowding you on the veranda at Wild Mangos. Pretty soon the sob stories from the Guatemalan purse sellers. And the great opportunities to invest in real estate!
   Somehow you miss the incredible crud washing along the beaches, the slovenly shacks on the lagoon side of the island, the testicular Rastafarians foisting stoned out biblical buffoonery on undersexed christian sightseers. The pursuit of adventure does flatten our vision.
   Still walking the beach to town at dawn hoping to find the words to capture the power of the seascape just to speak it to reduce it to words and so transcend it, escape its grip on your senses.
   Writing a novel that is set partly in Belize, subtleties of consciousness are important and worth the hesitation between doing and speaking. Of course I had no idea who you were or that you were up stream from me though we actually have conversed at Sail Away. Your latest adventure is ringing bells and giving me insights I may have labored years for without.
   A novel is a lot different than a Blog. I write from experience (is there anything else?). Actual events are points of departure. Hopefully I am closely related to Mark Twain cause rendering the politicians in Belize requires fanatical humor. As a writer I have loved every minute of being a victim. I haven’t taken it to your extreme but close.
   One of my interests is high quality tropical timber. It didn’t take me long to end up at the saw mill of two Salvadorian brothers beside the Al-tun-ha ruins. Savadorians are known as the Germans of Central America and these guys and their crew produced beautiful flitches for me.
   To export them requires a permit which is obtained at the Department of of Forestry in Belmopan. Now the fun starts. As it turns out half the government is in the export business of veneer logs. At first a permit was simply expensive. Then laws were rewritten and my species were protected (still exported by the brotherly bamboozlers in control.
   It gets worse. But wht’s the point. As one of the local women told me at a Friday night social at Wine Divine: We don’t want your money or your help. We don’t care about your standards or your perspective.
   That’s the brass tacks of it John. We are not wanted or respected and we are definitely not idols to them.
   The guy that was killed next door to you probably violated a given anywhere in Belize. If you are living in a single dwelling you better have security. The point of the condos, mine included is the security at night. There are plenty of thieves here with guns and knives that will kill you for a dollar. The government is perfectly capable of setting you up and or killing you. After the loaded last election a prominent businessman ( in the losing party) and his body guard were coincidentally attacked by gang members in a barber shop in Belize City. The body guard was killed and the businessman only escaped by shooting his way out.
   This is the kind of stuff I attempt to transform humor in fiction.
   For you with the threat of absolutely untenable incarceration in their famously disgusting prison humor and fiction are probably not on the menu.