Fireflies, lizards and Tilapia

A fine day in the last frontier. Belize. Here in the southern edge, I meet friends, the jungle, ideas. Working in the morning with big Larry, a displaced Canadian pharmacist, we clear his lot of hacked jungle brush. The Trade Winds play in the palms, curious lizards cling to mahogany trees, while this gentle overweight man sweats profusely. He talks of his dream here, a house on stilts in a jungle lot, as leaf cutter ants carry off his fledgling tangerine tree. He talks of his greedy consuming Canadian wife, carrying off his small wealth like another busy bug. We stack the profuse hacked vegetation, insects scurrying for some new protection, others working on a meal of leg or arm.

Then lunch of Creole beans on a cafe veranda, the sea beside us with it's beautiful endless wind. We talk of Mayan civilization, so close to us here, it's ghosts of kings and temples all around. Big Larry has a truck. I talk him into driving us into the interior tomorrow, to find the lost temples, the caves filled with jade idols. Large Larry is not hard to convince, for lonely Larry lacks sincere company. Company that is not out to extract his Belizean bucks. So HELL YEAH!!! Ruby eye here I come.

In the evening a power outage. Belize blackout. Who knows how big, why, where, or when or if it will be fixed. For hours, the hostel owner and I sit and talk of the Belizean economy. He is a self proclaimed "planner". A thousand planes woven within plans. Plans for sustainable development, Mayan land rights, agricultural development, and a thousand curses to colonial conceit controlling the country. We talk power and politicians, the poor and ponds Tilapia ponds.

The fireflies dance their blinking beauty all around us, strobing from one spot to another, flying in and through the open everywhere house. Incredible. I am transported by this luminous light show, and squeal in delight as a bright one flits by. To the local, I am obviously loco, that is of no concern of mine.

Tilapia ponds are twenty feet in diameter and a breeding pair produces 2 1/2 million offspring a year. The excess fry are fed to chickens, who's shit is flung on the pond making alge for the fish to eat. Which comes first? A pond is made by laying banana leaves down, covering with pig shit, then another few layers of the same. A glutinous impervious seal is made. Larger fish are transferred to other ponds to grow with some fin room, and sold for dollars a pound everywhere. Be-fouled pond water is pumped on gardens where the nitrogen saturated fluid blasts verdant vegetation from the jungle floor. This to feed pigs ... to make more ponds ... and round it goes to the Belizean bank.

I see other ruby's now. The opportunities’ of economy. The chance to help poor people rise from their crushing poverty with sustainable systems. Wind power in excess unthought of, undeveloped. Cyclic farms, tourist transits, and my own tangerine tree. A chance to do great things in this frontier, change myself, change this world. The ruby gleams bright tonight.