New Years Eve

After what seemed like an eternity, we finally reached Dangriga. To our utter dismay, it was a tiny, poor, ramshackle town. We had booked a room at Val's Backpackers, which was a sketchy concrete building on an isolated corner at the edge of town next to the ocean. Luckily, the interiors were clean and simple, the internet was fast, the shower ran hot water, and we were given an entire 4-bed dormitory in lieu of a private room. However, shortly after I stepped into the shower, the power went out. Being naked and wet in a huge, dark, foreign bathroom is SCARY.

The lights came back on after a minute or too, but not the hot water, and I had a minor meltdown. I am four days passed needing the vacation part of the vacation to begin, and it seems like every place we come to is crappier than the one before it. Everyone lets on like Belize is this sparkling diamond in Central America, but it seems every poorer and rougher than Guatemala. The roads are shit, the bus system is unreliable, the “cities” are merely towns, and everywhere is dirty. It does make me feel so incredibly lucky to be a middle-class American, but it makes me second guess why we decided to come here in the first place.

(Look at the picture at the top and notice that the beachside swing-set is the saddest swing-set you've ever seen because there are no swings.)

Shortly before midnight, we ventured out to hear some Garafuna drumming and see the fireworks. I was expecting a ton of fireworks based on what I saw last year in Panama and how much we saw and heard last week for Christmas in Guatemala. The display here is lacking (like everything else!) and lasts a minute or two. There are people in the streets, but they don't seem particularly excited and when we pass, my mom is always the first to offer a Happy New Year salutation. We are again weirded out that Dangriga kind of sucks.

Bar time. We enter one of the small, wooden clapboard buildings in the center of town, but this one is hopping with people coming in and out and a quartet of black men playing traditional drums on one side. The community here is Garifuna, black Caribbean people descended from shipwrecked African slaves from the island of St. Vincent. The drumming is very energetic and people start dancing one at a time in the middle. One woman does a very slight butt wiggle. She is barely moving and we are not impressed. The men do a better job, wiggling their hips and also moving their feet to the drums. But I have to say, I have seen WAY better dancing in the shanty towns of South Africa and my 3rd grade students from South LA.

Something else interesting about the Garifuna – all the men are these tall, skinny, lanky things wearing big, baggy t-shirts and shorts. All the women are fat and wear short, tight dresses that leave nothing to the imagination.

We eventually leave the bar and chat with a cute Garifuna guy on the side of the road who does not shed any light on the weight discrepancy in the town. Then we go to sleep in our clean but ugly dorm room. Happy 2012!