BY TONY DEYAL

MY TWO INFANT CHILDREN, Jasmine and Zubin, should be playing soccer for Boca Juniors (little mouths) and talking for Boca Seniors (big mouths).

About a month ago, when the World Cup was creating heart attacks and drama as high as the temperatures in the German stadia, a Belizean neighbour told me that he knew how I enjoyed "watching messy" so that moving would be no problem.

At that stage our house was confused indeed, since we were packing kit, caboodle, lock, stock, barrel and all but the kitchen sink as part of our leaving Belize, but messy?

It turned out that he was referring to Lionel Messi, the young Argentine soccer star who plays for Barcelona in Spain. It seems that our children had told him we were moving to Argentina.

The enormity of the error is like mistaking Maradona for Madonna, although I suppose they both have coke in common – her figure and its resemblance to the bottle in which the beverage comes, and his reliance on the drug that was the wonder ingredient in the original or classic drink.

I suppose I might qualify on account of my increasing age as a Newell Old Boy, one of the country's premier football teams, but like the previous comparison it is as bad (and perhaps as appropriate) as taking "sucker" for "soccer".

The fact is that we had told the children that we were leaving Belize for Antigua and perhaps in leaving out the country's full name of Antigua and Barbuda, they mixed up our destination.

I was in Argentina two years ago and the name became familiar to them since I provided them with T-shirts and other gifts from there. There are Belizeans, mainly refugees from the other Central American countries, who know only one Antigua – the one in Guatemala and my leaving Belize for that city might be seen as a retrograde step, reversing the flow of common sense and the survival instinct.

Argentina is not the most popular Latin American country. For instance, its neighbour Chile voiced serious concerns when the countries jointly decided to have a huge statue of Christ on the mountain border between them and the face of Christ pointed to Argentina.

There were public speeches, letters to the media and a growing controversy until a Chilean journalist pointed out that the statue was facing in the right direction since even Christ was afraid to leave his back exposed to the Argentines. It is the same type of explanation given for the belief that the sun never sets on the British Empire. God does not trust an Englishman in the dark.

The war between England and Argentina created both friction and fiction. Three men – one Irish, one English, and one Argentine – were walking along the beach together one day. They come across a lantern and the Irishman picked it up and tried rubbing some of the sand from it. Suddenly, a genie appeared and said: "For rescuing me from this horrible dungeon, I'll give you each one wish."

The Irishman said: "I am a fisherman, my pa's a fisherman, his dad was a fisherman and my son will be one too. I want all the oceans full of fish for all eternity."

So, in the blink of an eye and with a single wave of his hand, the genie caused the oceans to be teeming with fish.

The Argentine was so completely amazed at the genie's power that he went for an even bigger task. He said: "I want a wall around Argentina that will protect her so completely that no one will get in for all eternity and the British would never be able to attack us again."

Again, with a wave of his hand, the genie caused a huge wall to surround the entire country.

The Englishman asked: "I'm very curious. Please tell me more about this wall." "Well, it's about 150 feet high, 50 feet thick, protecting Argentina so that nothing can get in or out," the genie explained.

"Well then," the Englishman commanded, "my wish is that you fill it up with water."

I am not sure yet about Barbuda, having never been there, but I know Antigua reasonably well, having visited the country many times in the course of my work, first with the Pan American Health Organisation and recently with the Mainstreaming Adaptation to Climate Change Project.

My children first thought it would be flat and their boca juniors were wide open when they saw the hills that dominate the landscape. Life in Antigua will definitely have its ups and downs, I told them. What it also has is a constant view of the sea, which remains my element of choice.

My Argentina jokes would probably earn me the insult "hijo de playa" or son of a beach. I have told all my friends and family that when I die I want to be buried at sea and I will name them as my pall-bearers.

Consistent with Trinidad where elite is a shirt; Jamaica, where time is a foreign magazine; or Barbados and Guyana, where banks is an alcoholic beverage; in Antigua, the sun is a newspaper and if the present temperature is anything to go by, it will be hotter than the National Enquirer and Globe combined.

And even for an old fogey like myself, there will always be something new under the sun.

Tony Deyal was last seen entertaining his wife and children with the rhyme:

There was a young wife from Antigua

Who remarked to her spouse: "What a pigua!"

He retorted: "My queen,

"Is it manners you mean,

"Or do you refer to my figua?"