The power of an emoji

Published: December 28, 2021 / Updated: January 3, 2022 Vilma Life in Belize

You know how whenever you look at your phone you always find a text from somebody, or en email. Or even just a message from your network provider. There is always something.

The other night, though, I checked my phone, and there was nothing.

‘Why isn’t anybody texting me?’, – I casually asked my daughter. More of a rhetorical question, of course. What could she possibly say?

‘Because nobody loves you’, – she told me with a straight face.

The wisdom of a 3 year old! She made me laugh and almost cry at the same time. At that instant I thought to myself: ‘I love my life and I love this little girl’. Although I do hope her smarty pants comments aren’t so deep next time.

And just like that… If you haven’t watched it yet, do so. Especially if you are no longer in your 20s. More so, if you used to be a big fan of Sex and the city. Watch it if you had lost the man you loved. Or simply because you have nothing better to do on a Thursday night.

This being a Monday night, I do have a story of my own to tell you.

And just like that, Costa Rica escaped me again. Because of…

This.

It took me a couple of days to reach Santa Ana in El Salvador. During those couple of days I had no internet connection, didn’t really need it. But once I settled with Mar and crashed, literally, on the bed in my room, I was eager to check my messages, especially the ones from Beno. What I found was an emoji.

I don’t know when we all first started using them. I do remember that years ago emojis didn’t exist. And so a few years back I was shyly putting this

or that

to the messages I wrote. Never this.

That emoji had a different meaning for me. Today many of us don’t hesitate to use it when talking to friends and liking their pictures. I am still cautious about using it, though. To me it signifies love. And I don’t give out love left and right. Years ago I didn’t expect others did, either.

And as far as I could remember that was the first time a guy had sent it to me. I don’t remember whether I told this to Beno, but here you have it. The emoji was the reason I went back.

‘Will you take me with open arms if I go back to you?’ – I asked him replying to his message, a.k.a emoji.

‘Yes, I will’, – he answered.

And just like that, I made an important decision in my life (one of the most important, I should add), based on an emoji. And no, I wouldn’t call myself reckless or irresponsible, flaky or lacking reason. I’d say that I made the decision that I wanted to make, and the emoji was just a sign I was making the right one.

Weeks later, when I asked Beno if he was happy when I told him I’d come back, he replied that saying I’d come back was easy. Any girl could say that. Showing up was different.

Show up I did. And I felt happier than ever when he met me with open arms.

Wish upon a star

December 20, 2021 Vilma Life in Belize

I keep thinking that what I really want is a man – rich and good lookin’. That would be nice, wouldn’t it? However, I was saying a little prayer the other night, and what I wished for was this:

  • health
  • rest
  • patience

The man, any man, is nowhere in sight, as you see.

I guess we forget that our health is our wealth, when all is well. But when things turn sour, we need that more than anything else.

Rest? Please! I feel like I have never had a day off in my life. Not one that involved no cooking and no cleaning. The past couple of years had been especially hard. I was hoping and praying that before the year ends I’d get a couple of days to myself with absolutely nothing to do. Sadly, looks like that is not going to happen. Next year, then!

And patience… I used to read this book about patience to my little girl (long gone, destroyed. The book, not the girl!). ‘Remember that patience is your friend’, – says the girl’s father in the book. ‘But why do I need patience when I have plenty of other friends?’ – the girl then asks. I wouldn’t have thought of a better question myself. Patience is something that I simply don’t have. Not with myself, not with others. Somebody once said: ‘I’m surprised you managed to stay pregnant for 9 months, when you have zero patience!’. Joke’s on you, funny guy, I was pregnant for 8 months only! Still, this is something I need to work on, desperately. I need patience, now!.. Told ya.

Back in Belize, men were not on my mind either. Although I found Beno very attractive and interesting, I was not going to change my plans. This was my trip, this was the time to discover the world on my own. I had fun while I stayed with Beno: I got to know his friends, listen to him play drums, cook and eat his delicious food, play silly card games, talk and walk around town.

I couple of times during our walks he’d pick a pretty flower or a blossom and give it to me. A sucker for gestures like that, I melted each time.

At the end of my stay I said goodbye, he said: ‘Keep in touch, baby’, and I left. I had 2 more countries to visit, before going back to Mexico: El Salvador and Costa Rica. Costa Rica escaped me once, I was not going to let that happen again. El Salvador, not such a popular tourist stop, was even more appealing to me. So I was really looking forward to visiting both, and I was not letting any man (sigh) stop me.

El Salvador is considered one of the more unsafe countries in Central America. It’s no surprise the sign in the central park once I crossed the border caught my attention:

My host and her family ended up being the most amazing people, who treated me like one of their own. They would take their jewelry off before going to the market for safety reasons, and they would take precautions leaving the house after dark. Surrounded by their care, though, I felt safe and loved.

Mar was like a sister to me. An animal lover with a big big heart, she’s as adventurous as I am, good with her hands and has the sweetest personality.

She likes a good beer and makes damn good pupusas. She’s my kinda gal.

During my stay with Mar we didn’t stop talking. She told me a lot about herself and about her country. In return, I’m pretty sure the only thing I talked about was the guy in Belize who I really liked. And I wished to see him again.

Setting the house on fire

Published: December 6, 2021 / Updated: December 6, 2021 Vilma Life in Belize

‘Who does this guy think he is?’ – I thought of Beno after spending the first 30 minutes with him.

I arrived to PG and got off at the last bus stop before the University of Belize (UB) branch in town, as per his instructions. I put my backpack on the bench and looked around, not seeing a soul, and thinking how the hell I’d be able to tell my host I was already there. No phone, remember? I saw 2 snack shacks nearby and marched into one of them. When I asked if the woman working there knew where my host lived, by giving her his full name, she told me she did not know. Now, being older and wiser, I’m thinking one of the two things happened there: 1) she didn’t know, as she didn’t recognize the name. The guy was simply known as Beno, or 2) she knew exactly who I meant, but she didn’t want to tell me. Oh, I wouldn’t be surprised! Trust me, there’s a lot of undercurrent in that town.

It’s a small place and in a way it reminds me of Alderney. Everybody knows everybody’s business.

Not having luck in the first snack shack, I marched to the second one. This time I asked the woman working there if I could use her phone (much smarter, eh?) and called Beno. He quickly answered and told me he’d be there in 5 minutes.

And there he was. Wearing his blue overalls, covered in grass (he worked as a gardener) he approached me, grabbed my heavy backpack and led the way to his house close by.

He talked non stop for about 20 minutes.

‘I am just looking for the right girl’ – he announced at some point, having talked about nothing but girls.

‘This guy is trouble!’ – I thought to myself then.

The funny thing was that he couldn’t take his eyes off the mirror the entire time he talked.

Beno looked himself up and he looked himself down, he checked himself from the left and he checked himself from the right. That made me smile. I couldn’t remember seeing a guy do that for a very long time, if ever!

Don’t take me wrong. I couldn’t take my eyes off him either…

But hey, who was I to say anything? If he was looking for the right girl, I was hoping he’d find one soon enough. In the meantime, I had a roof over my head and a couch to sleep on. I was good.

Once his short lunch break was over, Beno went back to work at the UB steps away from his house. The town was really small and you could easily walk everywhere. So that afternoon I set off to explore it.

That first night my couch turned into bed. Beno kept the only fan in the house in his bedroom, and I was not going to sweat myself to sleep.

That same night my bed turned into the mattress on the floor. The house I stayed in was a simple wooden house. And the roof was leaking. When the rain came and the bed started feeling wetter, Beno suggested putting the mattress on the floor and I happily agreed.

That night I hardly slept. Not only because of the rain but also because of the person lying next to me. The sparks between us could have easily set the wooden house on fire. The morning came too soon and I woke up with ‘he’s my host and I’m just passing by’ thoughts in my head. Was I exhausted? For sure. Was I hooked? You bet.