Did That Really Just Happen?!?

So this past week I have been traveling the 10 or so miles to Guinea Grass to help my friends Melissa and Coy run a chess camp. We are teaching about 15 kids the basics of chess in the hopes of starting a club at the school. The idea behind it all is to use the game as a way to build life skills...yknow, cause and effect, thinking ahead, patience, self control, processing wins and losses etc. Its really fun to see how into the game these kids get.
The camp started each day at 9AM. Now I live only ten miles from Guinea Grass, but TIB, (this is belize!) Each day I was on the side of my road at 730 waiting to catch a hitch the 3 miles to the junction that leads to GG. I wait half an hour before a dump truck full of sand comes rolling out of the village. This is no ordinary MACK truck you might see rollin outta a construction site, no, this bad boy was built in 1964 (I asked). It had that classic 60's bubbly everything rounded off style to it. The thing might as well have had fins. So with a grind of the gears we are bumping along the highway at a very sensible 21 miles an hour. Those three miles were not the quickest of my life, but I got there and got dropped off on the side of the road. Before long I am joined by a Mennonite fellow who looked about my age. We are both sitting on a bench waiting for a hitch west. He's going through GG to get to Shipyard, the big Mennonite settlement out here, to buy parts for his tractor fixing business. One of the ironies of the Mennonites is that they don't drive cars but ride in them and they don't operate tractors but are the only ones in the country who fix em. Go figure.
It doesn't take too long before we are chatting away. His particular group lived in Mexico before Belize, so we are speaking spanish, him with a germanic accent and my flawless native tongue exhibiting its prowess...(riiight) We talk about life, he asks what Im doing in Belize, I ask about the Mennonite communities. (If youre reading this and dont know who I am talking about, look it up online, The Belizian Mennonites run this country; eggs, dairy, tractors, prefab buildings, poultry, beef and so on. They look like the Pennsylvania Amish)
We finally manage to catch a ride with a pickup truck heading down the dirt road. This was one of the good'uns too, there was a bench seat that had been taken out of another pickup bolted backwards in the cab. Hitchhiking in comfort...Posh Hitch...Pitch? Potchiking? Now at this point on the journey I love to break out my ipod and ride the last few miles through the countryside while rocking out to something fun. (Think Allman Brothers, The Roots, Marshall Tucker Band, Tribe Called Quest etc) Just something with a solid traveling beat. Now we are sitting shoulder to shoulder in this truck bombing down the road and I see the Mennonite eyeing my ipod. I think to myself "this could be fun" and offer him one of the earphones. OK...what do I put on?? I know...CCR! Southern Rock at its best. Somehow "Heard it through the grapevine" just seems to work so well in the bush! The guitar kicks in, then the drums, and I see this huge grin stretch across Joe Mennnonite's face. Those of you in Belize already know, its pretty rare to see a Mennonite smile. "Not bad" i think to myself. But thats when things start getting silly. This guy starts bobbing his head and tapping his feet. I'm sneaking peeks at this impromptu show(thank god for dark sunglasses) when the dude really lets loose. He whips off his straw cowboy hat and turns it into an impromptu air guitar. Seriously. Black overalls, steel toe boots, longsleeve flannel shirt, hat in the crook of his ars as he pretends to rock out the riffs and high pitched whine of the guitar. I can't help it and start to bust out laughing. He looks over at me with this huge grin, yellowed teeth poking out all over and yells something lost over the sound of the truck and the music. "Why not?!" I think to myself, and pull up my feet and start playing the air drums. My feet are tapping, my hands are banging out the rhythm on my imaginary cymbals and the last few minutes of the ride are spent rocking out side by side. By divine intervention the song ends just as we are heading into town. He gives me back my earphone, I shut down the ipod, roll up the headphones and put it in my bag. By the time I look over at my new friend his face is back in that unreadable Mennonite stare. I knocked on the side of the truck to let the driver know I wanted to get out, shook hands with my new bandmember and jumped down from the bed. As the truck pulled away the Mennonite shot me a smile and tipped his hat. I never even got his name.

How's THAT for cross cultural exchange?!?!?