Barbara Wheeler

Cuahi li Hix: A tale of hilarious and sometimes harrowing adventures in the jungle of Belize Barbara Wheeler

Imagine yourself at 22, barely a year out of college, and the United States government determines that you are qualified to not only teach but also to live on your own in a remote Mayan village in southern Belize: no running water, no electricity, no mode of transportation other than your own two feet. It could be a complete disaster...or a recipe for a delightful novel retelling the hilarity! "Cuahi li hix" (qua hee lee heesh) is a common farewell salutation offered by the Mayans to bring forth luck to the traveler. Literally translated, it means "Beware the tiger!" This may seem odd, since there are no tigers in Central America, but we volunteers soon learned that "tiger" comes in many forms: snakes, bats, scorpions, voracious insects, monkeys, turkeys, rabid dogs, illnesses, and, yes, sometimes even jaguars. Cuahi li Hix describes much of what it is like in the Mayan villages and how the people have lived for centuries. The book is a humorous, lighthearted retelling of one Peace Corps Volunteer's journey to a world where time seemed to have stopped.