The Hat

"Come in, I've been expecting you!" I pass the stranger on my way to the market in San Ignacio, a colorful Creole town bordering rain forest in Belize.  He motions from the door of his yellow house.  Although my stomach is growling with the thought of johnny cakes and pineapple, something in his smiling, crinkled face makes me forget where I'm going.  

Placing a surprisingly firm hand on my shoulder, he guides me into a room that looks as if there has been an explosion of collected objects-- plastic floor mats with checkers, paisleys, and polka dots, a sofa with cushions from entirely different pieces of furniture, vivid folk art paintings of Garinagu life, photos everywhere.  I take a seat in a worn armchair with mismatched armrests.  

"My name'"-- he says in a thick Creole accent-- "is Godsman.  I am pleased to meet you."  We swat flies as the conversation flows.  He speaks of his culture as a descendant of Arawak, Carib, and African people and his Garinagu family, laughing at their horror when he bought his own casket.  

Finally, he reaches up to a palm frond hat on the wall display and beats a cloud of dust from it.  "An elder from my village wove this hat for me.  He told me to give it to someone special, but it has been sitting on my wall for eight years."  As he holds it out my heart skips a beat.

The hat becomes my treasure.  During the remainder of of my journey in Belize, I wear it proudly, clutching it tightly on a rough boat ride over turquoise reefs, and letting it soak under steamy rain forest showers... but the hat has something else in store.

Near the Honduras border, the small fishing village of Barranco is an assembly of huts with wandering chickens and a stubbornly unique traditional lifestyle.  At a community gathering in the local schoolhouse, young girls with thick braids dance the hip-shaking punta.  A conversation with a voluminous woman gives me sudden insight as to how small the Belizean community can be: she points to the back of the crowd and I find myself face-to-face with the old man who wove my hat eight years ago.  

Wearing a plaid work shirt that shrinks his hunched frame, the elder nods with squinting eyes as I show him the hat.  I can't hold back a rush of words, and he continues to nod.  Then I hold my breath and wait for his response to this profound moment...

"Will you buy a basket?  Only four dollars.  Cheap."

I realize I am still an outsider and that having the hat does not make me Garinagu.  Yet despite my disappointment, the drums are overwhelmingly loud and I can't help but dance my foreign-version of the punta.  As it turns out, it's not a shared culture that brings us together, but the fact that we are simply sharing.

I still wear the hat.