White Eggs

I had the good fortune of being able to watch an episode of one of my favorite television series while I was with friends in town last week, and the strangest thing happened while I watched the characters making breakfast.  I found myself puzzling over what they were making to eat, when I realized that they were using white eggs, something that I haven’t seen in nearly a year.  In Belize, the eggs are small and brown, and they are never refrigerated in the shops.  This was a big adjustment to make when we first moved into site, because I didn’t trust eggs that hadn’t been refrigerated (assuming, of course, that the American and best way to store eggs was in a cardboard carton in the refrigerator). Even the process of buying eggs seems so normal to me now that it should be pretty funny to go back to a grocery store to pick up eggs when I return home.   “Going to the store” now consists of walking down the dirt road through my village to the muddy path lined with palm trees and thatch houses to the Ack Shop, a small family home that doubles as a store front.  Eggs here are three for a Belizean dollar ($0.50 USD) and literally come from the chickens you step over to get inside the shop.  They are small, sometimes speckled, and always brown.  The family keeps them in a large egg holder on the table at the front of the shop, and gives you a “shilling bag” (a small bag that holds about one shilling’s worth of masa, hence its name) to fill with eggs. 

This shop is incredible because it not only sells eggs, but masa (ground corn for making tortillas on the comal), raw rice and beans, as well as ice-cold glass bottled Mexican Cokes, butter, laundry soap and, on some special occasions, frozen Snickers bars from Guatemala. 

On warm evenings I’ve been known to wander down towards the river and stop by the shop for cold sodas to have down by the water as the crickets and gentle breeze take turns stealing the show in the night air, as the burnt orange sunset sneaks behind the lush green hills of the Maya mountain ranges.  As my young host brothers and sisters greet me excitedly on my walk back to my home in the village, jumping up and down and grabbing my hands to “satul” (a Maya word for “to twirl”) them by taking their arms and swinging them in circles, I realize how easily the time passes in such a beautiful, life affirming place.

If missing the comforts of home means listening to absolute silence interrupted only by the wind in the high grass and the constant conversation of the clear water over the impossibly smooth river rocks by our bridge, then I think I can put up with missing white eggs for a couple of years.