CLINTON CANUL LUNA
After the meeting, John sat at home thinking to himself, “Several weeks have passed since I’ve tended my backyard.” He was not used to paying someone to clean his yard. Personally, he liked to do it, since it served as a distraction. So, he began to clean here, there, to pull out the weeds. He put it in a garbage bag which later, when finished, he put in the garbage drum so that when the truck with sanitation workers passed to pick up the garbage, they could take it. He spent the day cleaning around here, moving this and that. Around 2:00 in the afternoon, the usual delivery person brought John’s order of food. Another thing that John liked was eating fish with vegetables and mashed potatoes. After lunch, he rested a bit while mentally planning what else needed to be done. Then he continued cleaning, passing the time. Around 4:00 in the afternoon he realized that it was starting to get cloudy, and he wondered, “Is it going to rain?” He hadn’t heard the news, so he wasn’t aware. Anyway, another of the things that he was in the habit of doing was bathing outside in his backyard. Obviously, he wasn’t completely undressed; he wore shorts.
Sometimes when he was in the midst of his bath, acquaintances who walked by would greet him and he would answer them, at times not knowing who they were. He liked to bathe not with pipe water but with rainwater, which was collected in a large black rotoplas. In the town where John lived, it’s not like those cities where there is a lot of smog and the rainwater is polluted. No. In the place where he lived, extreme toxins did not exist in the air, so the water was clean. He filled a small tub with water, and took out his soap and shampoo and his towel, and began to get ready to take a bath, when he felt a strong wind coming from the east and also began to hear the rain. “Oh, it’s raining,” he thought. But that didn’t bother him. It was not the first time. At the moment when John wanted to throw onto himself a container of water, the rain was already upon him, a heavy rain, not a drizzle. And he began to soap up. But just as he soaped himself, the rain washed it off; still he continued. He had fun bathing under the rain. He put on shampoo, but it was quickly washed off. He was playing a game of tug and war. Anyway, it took about half an hour of bathing.
He reached out for his towel and realized that it was soaked with water. So he couldn’t dry off with it. He hung the towel on the clothes line, adding a pin so it didn’t fall and left it to dry when the sun eventually came out. John went up to his house. The house was a little high, like 6 feet, so he had to climb a few steps, and soaking wet he went up. After entering his house, about 3 or 4 steps away he had another dry towel hanging. He took it and dried himself. After drying off, he took the wet clothes to the bathroom so that it could dry off and proceeded with putting on his clean clothes. By then, it was already about 6:00 in the evening. He was a little tired of the activities he did all day, and decided to lie down for a while to rest, but he fell asleep. He didn’t even listen to the news. That was another habit that he had. Every time he went to bed in the evening, he turned on his radio to listen to the news, but this time he fell asleep. He woke up around 10:00 p.m., hungry. So, he got up, he started to fix something for supper and ate.
John enjoyed his solitude. He loved being alone. He wasn’t worried about that; it didn’t affect him at all. After eating, he took the newspaper and began to read the news that happened in the country. Well, time passed and it was midnight, and he decided to go to sleep. When he went to bed, he couldn’t sleep, for he had slept through the evening into the night. John lay in bed, turning from one side to the other, trying to fall asleep. He did not drift off until around 3:00 in the morning, when shortly after, he heard the chachalacas begin to sing. It woke him up, and he had barely slept an hour. “Well, what’s going on? Why are the chachalacas singing?” Thinking to himself, he began to listen carefully, since these birds have a different way of singing during various circumstances. They sing a certain way when there is danger lurking, trying to warn the others. But not this time; he heard a different melody; their song was of thirst for water, asking for rain. About 10 minutes later, the roosters started crowing and John said, “Oh wow! There is going to be a change of weather.” And he hadn’t been wrong. About 15 minutes later, a satisfying north wind began to enter through the windows, which put him to sleep. The good thing is that he had set the alarm clock; otherwise he wouldn’t have gotten up early, and he had to go to work. It was Monday, and his driver Tony always arrived early. John’s morning walk had to be postponed, for he was already running late. He hurriedly got up from bed, went into the bathroom to take a bath, and while showering he heard the vehicle approach. He quickly dried off and got dressed, went into the kitchen and prepared a cup of coffee, locked the door and went down the steps. He addressed Tony,
John: “Did you check the truck well?”
Tony: “Yes, boss. I reviewed it well.”
John: “Is everything okay? Is the steering wheel oil, the radiator water, the brake fluid, the gasoline, is everything okay?”
Tony: “Yes, boss, everything is in order.”
John: “Did you put cold air in the tires?”
Tony: “Yes, Sir.”
John: “Because you already know that by adding room temperature air in the tires and when the sun heats up the road, it turns out that the tire heats up, it can burst, but when it’s cold, it won’t.”
Tony, his driver, already knew all of this.
Tony: “Yes, boss, I put cold air in the tire.”
John: “Okay. Then let’s go.”
John had to go to Belmopan. He had to deliver his weekly work report and receive orders of his other tasks, such as other places he needed to visit, the inspection of the jobs done, etc. He was given orders, and he complied by giving a weekly report. He did his work diligently; he was very responsible. Whether they read his report was a very different thing, but he made sure to deliver it. So, he arrived safely, handed in his report; they gave him other things that he had to do, and he left to comply with the assigned duties his boss had given him.
July 23, 2022
Finca Solana
Corozal Town