wonderous dance

This evening I noticed the ongoing sound of a police siren. Gradually it creeped into my awareness that I had been hearing the siren for many minutes. Here in Corozal Town that can only mean one thing.


I lept to the door, we muted the TV, and off in the distance was the distinct sound of a police siren and drums. There was a parade somewhere, for some reason. Unusual in that it was well after dark.

Christopher and I went out into the night to see the parade. We homed in toward the road that runs by the bay. Arriving there we saw crowds of Belizeans watching the parade. But there was on their faces a bit of happy confusion, as if they were surprised by this as well.

Advancing toward the back of the parade it became clear as to why. Dressed in their beautiful traditional cloths, following a truck with speakers lashed together and stacked to the height of a second floor house, were the Hindus. Very probably every Hindu in town. As the music pumped out of the giant mobile speaker system and into the night, they danced joyfully with their hands in the air. Processing past crowds of happy onlookers, we followed them for a while, stopping eventually at children's park. There, as the moon rose over the bay, a cool breeze dried our skin, and as an alien music so complex that one would need six arms to dance to it properly filled our ears, we watched as they danced onward down the road.

None of the Belizeans I met knew what the celebration was, only that the Hindus were having a parade, with strange exciting Hindu music. As I came to recognize the truly wondrous moment that I had just experienced we turned to go home. The moment, once recognized, is mostly gone. But as we returned home, I knew that happiness is contagious. Some of the spirit of joy from that ancient culture had seeped into both of us.