The Best Gift

Sam the Fisherman by a fishing shack

In my family, we always joke that our Jack Russell, Sam, is the top fisherman. He fishes in the shallows, scales fish on the deck, and all around flips out whenever he thinks there’s a chance one of us have a line overboard. Even when we just say the word ‘fish’, his little ears perk up and his brown eyes look at us expectantly as his tail wags madly. But no matter how enthusiastic our little “fisherman” may be, he is nothing compared to the Belizean fisherman we've met.

We got invited to spend 

the day on a fisherman's cay. 

This was the house he and 

his wife lived in.

Many Belizeans who live along the beautiful coastline revolve their lives around the fishing industry. They part with their families for weeks at a time, giving up privacy and everyday amenities, just so they can catch enough to make a living. Some people have built shacks on the outer cays (islands), motoring every day from their cay out to the reef to fish in long, open motorboats. Others opt for a more traditional and cramped environment, taking small sailboats loaded with fishermen, tackle, canoes, and ice chests out to the reef. It was our meeting with these sailor-fishermen that impressed me the most.

The fishing boat under sail.

Early one morning, while I was still in my pajamas, my puppy Banjo started barking his head off. I groggily peered out of the hatch, fully ready to yell at Banjo for being so loud, when I almost fell down the stairs! There, just outside the cockpit, a fishing boat, fully loaded with gear, had just pulled alongside Jasamine! The men onboard grinned at me as I blankly look around at their boat and then at Jasamine, my brain not yet awake. I think I had half a cylinder firing.  

“¡HOLA! ¡Hola, Capitán!” a Hispanic man shouts from the stern.

Oh that’s cute, they expect me to be able to talk like a normal human being. At six in the morning. Of course. No problem. Now what language was he speaking in again?

All EIGHT fishermen! What you see is what you get, 

all the men live up on deck.

The man rattled off some more Spanish and looked expectantly from me to my dad. Here’s the thing about my dad; he’s a wonderful guy, but languages just aren’t his thing. He jokes that he can speak English and a foreign language, but that no one can understand his foreign language. Near as I can read it, he’s made it up of 14% French of some or other dialect, 10% Spanish, or what sounds like Spanish to him, 0.5% Pidgin English and 0.5% Afrikaans. The remaining 75% is made up of wild gestures and dramatically added emphasis on English words. I hated to break it to this Belizean fisherman, but even one-sixth awake, my Spanish was better than my dad’s foreign language gumbo. 

After some confusion and lots of laughs from the fishing boat at my six AM Spanish, we figured out that they needed some throat medicine and one guy had lost his snorkel diving. As Mom made up a bag for them, we got to observe their boat a little and listen to what the men told us about life aboard.

Putting up the sail.

Here’s the picture: 

One twenty-foot fishing sailboat loaded almost to the scuppers with fishermen, gear, canoes, and gasoline. There were eight men aboard at the time, but the captain assured us the boat could take at least two more! There was no toilet, and no downstairs sleeping quarters. The most protected place aboard that we could see was reserved for the ice boxes full of fish. As my sister pointed out, there was no covering to protect against sun, wind, or rainstorm; the most we saw was another such sailboat crew covering everything up, including themselves under a large tarp during a nasty storm. There didn’t appear to be a galley or stove anywhere aboard, but perhaps they used a camp stove. Either way, I could not imagine living in such close quarters, without any amenities, exposed to the elements, for, as the Captain said, sometimes several weeks at a time.

The fishermen's generosity gave
us quite a catch! Yummy!

What amazed me the most about these men though, was their cheerfulness, gratitude, and generosity. They didn’t seem to be bothered by their small lot next to our large boat and surplus of provisions; they just seemed very grateful for what we could provide them with. And when it cam time to leave, they insisted on giving us a enormous fish and four large conchs, the whole lot already cleaned! Considering this was their livelihood, and the price they could have received for the catch, their generosity knocked me off my feet! But, without a doubt, the best gift they gave me was not seafood, but a new perspective. We of the first-world countries have been so blessed with resources and opportunities, and with them, we have been given a responsibility: the choice of how we use these blessings.  As change-making organization “Impact Junkie” ’s motto goes: “Do more with what you have been given.”

I intend to; do you? 

"Do more with what you have been given."
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