Our Man in Belize

Book excerpt: A settlement established by shipwrecked English sailors in 1683, Belize is now a country of wildlife refuges and spectacular snorkeling reefs. Conroy vividly and hilariously recounts his adventures in a very different Belize. Conroy admits in Our Man in Belize that his tales "have taken on a life of their own"--tales of disasters, for example, like the dinner party at which an Obeah witch doctor blew up the consulate oven, causing the suddenly bald cook to quit in mid-meal , and the equally unsettling occasion when huge tropical roaches, attracted by the gracious candlelight, plunged helplessly from the ceiling into the guests' bowls of gazpacho. He describes the unorthodox social mores of the town, whose bordello was a barely hidden enterprise of the town's most respectable citizen, and he brings to vivid life the charming Belize people and their ways. Conroy also recounts the tragedy of Hurricane Hattie, which killed four hundred people on Halloween Eve in 1961 and changed the Belize way of life forever. None of the cheerful chaos and disorganization was what Conroy expected when he arrived in this small Central American country with his wife and two daughters, to face some of the most bizarre experiences of day-to-day diplomatic life.