Genesis

Oblivious, perhaps. Naive, perhaps. I had no idea, didn't even consider, what "Strong Rum" meant until the next day, when Francois poured some into a coffee cup, held a lighter near, and we watched it torch above the brim.

But, despite not remembering much of the backseat ride from Belize City to San Ignacio, I was alert enough to chime in, "Can I help? Would you teach me to cook traditional foods?" when the caretaker at our AirBnB offered, for a vague fee, to prepare breakfast the next morning. 

Which was why I was in the kitchen at 6 am on day 2 of our winter holiday in Belize, sifting flour for Johnny Cakes. 

Johnny Cakes, it turns out, aren't my favorite Belizean food (not even close). But preparing them as a team evoked the same openness and vulnerability that other communal rituals, especially those in service of others, create. Even when conversation is halting, stumbling on words between languages, or ideas without cultural equivalency, working together somehow engenders trust.

So our conversation zigzagged. My son. Her son. Her garden and plant shop at the market. My work with technology. My ex-husband. Her ex-husband. And how he had beaten her. The day she thought he would kill her, and her fourteen-year-old son tried to rescue her. How she fled, with four children. Escaped to her mother's too-small house, where there wasn't space for them, and how she had no place to live when she had to leave there in two weeks. 

How her husband stalked her, destroying the plants she tried to save so that she could rebuild her business and provide food for her children, even while they had no home and no way to find a new home. The insecurity of her current life, although she was living with a new man, a kind man, a caring man. But they worked as onsite caretakers, and the property was for sale. Once again there would be no where to go should that relationship end or the estate they worked on be sold. 

I caught my breath, bit my tongue -- the tropes -- knowing that every parallel popping into my mind was trivial in this story. Yes, leaving my home was difficult. Becoming a single parent was challenging. I started over - place, job, friends, home. But I had resources. I had options. I had education. I had opportunities. 

And now I was on holiday in Belize, kneading biscuits and sipping coffee and thinking about the vagaries of fortune and birth place. Those thoughts stayed with me while we traveled, while my partner talked about wanting to grow vanilla and spices using traditional Mayan farming techniques, while my best friend discussed his food engineering work for major companies, while we fell in love with the country and its people, while every woman I spoke with told me that she or a family member was a victim of domestic violence and that although they had legal protection, they had no place to go and no where to work if they became single mothers. 

We kept thinking. We kept talking. We started dreaming. Until, ten months later, we signed the contract and transferred the money to purchase twenty-two acres in Belize -- and began to make Sunshine Nom@d Farm something more than just an idea.