A Frog in the Grass
To Belize and Back on Expired Tourist Visas

The bathroom on the bus from Cancun to Chetumal was hot. Like, surface of Mars hot, but hotter. However, on a six hour bus ride with two five-year-olds, trips to the toilet were unavoidable.

I held on to Marina, careful to hover her bottom inches above the seat, which had burned me like a metal slide in summertime. The sink water was molten lava, and the liquid soap almost burned a hole right through my hand. By the time we left the bathroom my clothes were soaked with sweat. The bathroom on the bus, however, was a minor inconvenience compared to what lay ahead.

We were headed to the Mexico-Belize border. It had come to our attention that our children’s tourist visas had expired two months earlier, and they had not been included in our working papers. We asked our school administrator, a retired lawyer, what could be done to extend the kids’ visas. “If I were you,” she quipped, “I would try to sneak across the border from Belize where the customs officials are more lax than at the airports.”

Which takes me back to the Chetumal bus ride. We switched buses to cross the border from Mexico into Belize, disembarked and waited in a long line at customs. I was sweating and feeling faint, and it wasn’t even that hot. We instructed Benji and Marina, “Don’t say anything,” but Benji chatted blithely in Spanish to a young Mexican couple, “I live here,” he asserted. “I go to school at CES.”

But at the front of the line, the agent only gave our passports a cursory glance and stamped us out of the country. I breathed a huge sigh. “That was easy.” Steve chuckled, “Lon, the hard part is getting back in!”

Back on the bus we went, and on to Belize customs, which we passed through quickly. We walked the kids along the fence that separated the ingoing and outgoing Belize traffic, and we turned and headed back into Belize. “Why are we going back?” asked Marina. “Didn’t we just get here?” Benji chimed. It was 6 pm, and we had been on buses and in lines since 7:30 that morning. Desperately we promised them ice cream in return for continued good behavior. “When?” asked my son, the future lawyer, already sensing the improbability of our making good on the deal.

So, we walked back into Belize customs to exit the country. The agent smiled at us like a cat with a canary in his mouth. “Well, these children’s passports are expired. What you have done is big trouble for you.” My heart sank. I looked at my exhausted children and wondered how I would explain to them that Mommy and Daddy were going to jail. “Of course,” the official added smugly, “you could give me a gift and I could stamp your passport.”

I wasn’t all that surprised. We had experienced the “bribe culture” with the Mexican traffic cops already. “Uh-huh. How much of a gift?” The price was settled at $200, which hurt, considering our miniscule Mexican salaries, but we figured it could have been worse.

We walked in the dark back to the Mexican border. There, again, we warned the kids to say nothing. Marina ran to Benji just as Steve reached the security window and said, “Now, remember, Benji. Dad said not to say anything.” The Mexican customs official glared at us, took our passports, and beckoned us inside. The kids and I, energy dwindling, sat on the floor under the fluorescent lights while the agent shouted at Steve in Spanish, which he pretended not to understand. He noticed the kids’ expired passports, and called the Mexican entrance official to confirm that we had been allowed in today, or to find out if we had snuck past the fences. When he realized we had passed the initial border, he made us sweat it out for half and hour. Finally, he had word from his boss to let us go. We grabbed the kids and raced out the door.

That evening, in our noisy hotel room back in Chetumal, Mexico, we resolved to enjoy the remainder of our ¨vacation¨. The next day, we visited the lovely freshwater sinkhole, Cenote Azul, in Bacalar. The kids surprised me by suggesting that they take themselves to the bathroom to change into swimsuits. They grow up so fast, I thought, as I headed in after them. ¨We went pee, and now we´re changing,¨ they shouted from inside the stall they shared. ¨Good job,¨ I yelled encouragingly.

Then I heard a splash. ¨Oh-My-Gosh, Mom.¨ Marina opened the stall door. ¨Benji´s shoe fell in the toilet.¨ Gingerly, I fished out the offending shoe, and dried it out in the sun.

¨Let´s get back home to Cancun,¨ said Steve. ¨Where the beaches are big and the bikinis are small.¨

Worn out, and eager to return home, we settle into the six hour bus ride. We relaxed in the air conditioning and cushy seats. After completing seven or eight Soduko puzzles, there was only about and hour or two left until we would be in our cozy Cancun apartment.

That´s about when the bus broke down. We unloaded onto the side of the highway, but when the smell of urine and the swirling dust from the passing trucks became too much, I took the kids back onto the now-humid bus. Darkness had descended, and about 45 minutes had passed when a van pulled to the side of the highway. A group waiting outside rushed the van like eager fans at a Stones concert, and by the time we had gathered our belongings, the full van had departed.

Another hour passed before a local bus, packed with people, slowed to a stop to rescue us. Someone gave up a seat so I could sit with both children on my lap. As my legs grew numb, standing passengers bumped and banged their bags up against me. We sweated profusely and stopped every few minutes to squeeze a passenger on or off.

Benji and Marina fought for pole position on my lap. I gave them gum to quiet them. Moments later, Benji said, ¨Uh-oh, Mom. My gum just fell out of my mouth.¨ There was no way to look for it on the cramped, hot, dark bus, but an hour later, my hand found it, smeared and melted on his lap, ground into his shorts, and all over my hand and t-shirt, too. So little gum, so much damage.

Three hours past schedule, bedraggled, fatigued and covered in gum, we finally arrived home. But on that last, interminable bus ride, I had this epiphany:

I thought of the long, dirty walk between the Belize and Mexican borders. On that garbage-strewn road with trucks whizzing by, we held the kids´ hands as we trudged along in the noisy, polluted twilight. Suddenly, we saw movement in the grass. A frog was hopping into the darkness. ¨Look, a frog,¨ the kids shouted gleefully! Laughing, they hopped and hopped with excitement.

And in that moment I realized that the kids won´t remember the 14 hours of bus rides, the stressful exhaustion, the angry customs agents or being stranded on the highway. All they will remember is a frog in the grass in the dark.