Placencia? – Day 2: Nightmares and Resilience
PLACENCIA?
Day 2: Nightmares & Resilience
September 25, 2022
The place I had come to call my ‘safe haven’ quickly stopped being that as the streak of nightmares went on. I knew the few hours of respite were too good to be true!
At around 1AM, I heard shouting and screaming coming from the cabaña to my left. Being the observant person that I am (most would describe it as nosy), I took it upon myself to spy from my window, sliding the curtains just enough to fit one eye. I froze. A guy, and who I assumed was his partner, were screaming and yelling in each other’s faces. Then he slapped her – hard. Then he shoved her, pushed her aside, grabbed her hair and dragged her to the floor. After more shouting, he put both hands around her neck and started choking her. She managed to break free, and the fighting continued.
It all happened in a matter of seconds and I could hardly do anything from my lodge. Also, I had no idea what to do. The only thing I knew for sure was that she was in real danger. The only advice I’d ever give anyone in that situation was to call the police – so that’s exactly what I did. Instinctively, without thinking much of it. In all my panic, I managed to find the police station’s number and recounted what I had just seen in a quiet hush. Meanwhile, the fighting only seemed to escalate. One yelling over the other. Seconds felt like hours.
“Should I go over there? Should I call the police again? Should I call the host?” – but none of those felt either safe or effective. Then things got quiet all of a sudden. I didn’t even want to look out of the window. What if he had killed her? What then? My god, I couldn’t believe what was happening. More insecurity and doubt crept in. “Did I do the right thing?” What if she didn’t want to report him? What if he retaliated in one way or another? What if I’d just made things worse? And, as egotistical as it might sound, what about me? Had I just put myself at risk by calling the police? I mean, someone capable of domestic violence would surely be capable of getting his hands on the defenceless guy who got him into trouble, no? It’d be a no-brainer that it was me – the guy in the middle cabaña – who called. It was a mix of “Why is this happening to her?” and “I don’t want to make this thing about me.”
Throughout this internal conflict, I kept pacing back and forth in my bedroom, compulsively plucking my eyebrows – the only outlet I had for my anger and fear. I felt so damn helpless, almost as if I were an accomplice just by standing there and doing nothing. They kept arguing, but much more quietly. Hearing her yelling actually brought a strange sense of relief. It meant she was still alive.
After about fifteen minutes, the police showed up – and that’s when I decided to back off and let them handle it. The police would take control and that would be it. That night, I cried myself to sleep. What I had thought was a safe haven turned out to be a horror house after all.
As the night crept by...
Needless to say, I didn’t get an inch of sleep after the whole incident. The raucous thunder and constant flashes of lightning didn’t help much either.
The following morning, I received a call from my host. She apologised on behalf of the couple, stating that their behaviour was repugnant, to say the least, and that she had also called the police on them after the other neighbour had reported the incident. She told me the guy had already checked out, and that his partner would be leaving soon. Anything more than that, I felt I didn’t even want to know. I just hope she’s doing okay – that she got the help she might have needed, and that she never has to go through something like that ever again.
As for me, I can say just about the same thing. Again, I don’t want to make it about me, but this episode really did scar me for life. I know domestic abuse is a thing – we’ve all heard stories from friends and family, seen it on TV, read about it in magazines. Hell, I’ve had patients come in all beaten up blue by their partners. But it was the first time I had witnessed something like this with my own eyes.
Good morning!
I guess I can’t say it was a surprise when, that same morning, I got a call from an agency telling me the tour I had booked with them was off.
I was meant to be visiting the Cockscomb Basin Wildlife Sanctuary – a reserve established as a protected area for jaguar preservation, boasting a tremendous diversity of flora and fauna along the surrounding mountain ridge. There, I’d have had the best shot at setting my eyes on my favourite mammal – the oh-so-elusive jaguar. Back when I was planning my itinerary for mainland Belize, this was the thing I was looking forward to the most, so you can imagine my disappointment the minute I got the call.
Turns out, Hurricane Ian – which at the time had been classified as a Category 4 hurricane – was so strong that even from hundreds of kilometres away, it was still affecting Belize’s weather systems. By that time, I had practically become a meteorologist, always checking out weather maps and predicting its course. I swear, Windy had become a close friend of mine. That said, this was not what it had predicted. I was genuinely devastated by the news.
I tried calling every tour agency in Placencia, but no one in their right mind would go. “The river is too high, the trail is too muddy, the winds are too strong!” they all asserted. And of course, I knew they were right. They also assured me that none of it would change in the upcoming days, given how high the river had risen – which meant postponing by a few days wouldn’t even be an option.
I knew this would be part of the deal when I set out on such a journey – that I’d miss out on a lot of the stuff I’d planned to see and do. I knew it. But, up until then, I had counted myself lucky, because not only had I not missed out on anything – on the contrary, I had done so much more than I had planned. But there was no way around it this time, no matter how on point my organisational skills were.
Regrouping...
My feelings of resignation and defeat lasted only a short while. Lost in my writing and accompanied by an unlimited supply of coffee, I was in my element. And, given that the storm raged on, I decided to forego everything and just enjoy the cabaña. To just relax, find myself, read, write, and consume ginormous quantities of coffee. I had been on the go for almost two months by then – I deserved a day to myself.
I was in the perfect place for that. In between long sessions of writing, I’d go out on the porch, stare at this one agouti who’d disappear the second I approached it (I genuinely thought it was a capybara at first – and mistakenly, and quite idiotically, asked my host whether it was a Chupacabra instead), and have a chat with Clara – the lady staying in the cabaña to my right. German-born and raised, this trailblazer had worked as an anaesthesiologist with the government for the previous 32 years before joining the Red Cross a couple of years earlier. I swear she was as charming as they come, and I had the most pleasant conversations with her!
Then it’d be back to more hours spent writing. Traumatised though I felt, I still got to spend my day in the cabaña doing everything I had been looking forward to the previous day. Man… What I’d give to be back there…