TWIN TOWNS ELECTIONS - 2009, Belize

Town Councillor of the TWIN TOWNS, Western Belize town board


CAMPAIGNING FOR TOWN COUNCIL OF THE TWIN TOWNS OUT WEST IS HOT AND HEAVY.

Latest gossip I got from a Santa Cruz resident, was that we are being cheated over in our side of the Macal River of the twin towns. I was told and I don’t know if this is true, or not? But I was told that the San Ignacio Town side of the river has 11 weed eater machine workers cleaning street sides and 4 trucks to pick up trash and garbage. While on the Santa Elena Town side of the Macal River only 3 weed eater machine workers are assigned and 1 trash truck. I do know that we go a month sometimes and even longer before our garbage is picked up quite often. I had put that down to insufficient funds. They tell me in the suburbs of Santa Cruz nobody is doing anything from the Town Council, because they have no voice on the Town Board. I’m not sure about this, but it is my information that a Santa Cruz resident is running as an Independent, Alfonso Cruz Jr. for the Twin Towns board.
That we get some attention in Hillview, is due to my articles about Hillview. Hillview and Santa Cruz are like two suburbs that are growing rapidly and probably have more houses than the center of old San Ignacio Town of by gone days, some 30 years ago. They are up in the hills from the Western Highway and all these houses out here are not observable when a person normally drives past on the Western Highway through Santa Elena Town. The other day I was over in the KON TIKI area. There are a lot of bad streets and many, many houses out there as well. Hundreds of them! Totally neglected by the TOWN BOARD. I hope the KON TIKI people have a resident running for the Town Board as well. The party doesn’t matter.
Interesting story about the current TOWN BOARD UDP Council, that are running. The word I got, and have to admit I don’t really know the truth. But the current slate of candidates running for re-election as incumbents in the UDP Council, never got appointed by a UDP Convention out here in the West. I’m told there was no UDP CONVENTION and no DEMOCRACY in the process, just an acceptance and appointment by the UDP party leader DEAN BARROW.
Today, the PUP campaigners came by, and actually gave me an expensive flyer in color, for their slate of PUP candidates. In the news somewhere, the PUP make an allegation asking the existing incumbent UDP Town Council where $5 million dollars they received for something or other disappeared too? They claim there is no UDP TOWN BOARD accountability and transparency. What I did get from the PUP campaign flyer was the probability that the PUP will raise PROPERTY TAXES.
There is a move afoot by the UDP to install the new Building Permit ACT laws created by the PUP in the previous National Administration and generally speaking I am against that, as it means a monopoly by Belize City architects on the whole darned country, as the rules get expanded, requiring people to shell a couple thousand dollars out for useless plans. It is just a money making gimmick and racket for those in the process to squeeze people for more money in various ways. After seeing this work in the USA, I don’t think our country of Belize is going to be better for this Building Permit system.
I understand there is a method of social welfare used by previous Town Boards and this TOWN BOARD we now have; to help the aged and others who want $20 for food and other reasons. I’m against that system of political patronage and paternalism. If we want something like a social welfare system for citizens, then it should be formalized in an accountable process and put through some INDEPENDENT CHARITY like the Salvation Army. The Salvation Army are professionals and could and should disburse vouchers and stuff for social assistance. They do in Canada and the USA. You need to take the social welfare out of the hands of the Town Council members. What is missing in this social welfare business, of hand outs for the needy, is that if you have an INDEPENDENT NGO doing it, a Charitable Organization, you can by soliciting abroad, get the whole shebang of funds COVERED by FOREIGN AID in the form of GRANTS. What is hurting Town Boards practicing paternalism political hand outs, is that it eats into Council funds longer term and eats up the SUBVENTION money. While the TOWN BOARD could establish a slush fund for social requests administered by say the SALVATION ARMY, this money would eventually be recovered by FOREIGN GRANTS if done right.
When the campaigning started I was pretty much satisfied with the UDP Council we now have, but since then, I’m going to VOTE for YOLA FLORES a Hillview neighbor running for the TOWN BOARD on the PUP ticket. Not interested really in the party affiliation, just that HILLVIEW my community, has a voice on the next TOWN BOARD, if possible. We don’t have one now and get slighted a lot on our side of the river. If Alfonso Cruz Jr., is running as an INDEPENDENT and is going to speak for SANTA CRUZ, then probably I would vote for him? We need some muscle in TOWN BOARD meetings. That leaves two of the UDP candidates that will lose votes from this side of the river. Which ones I don’t know yet?
Far as I understand from UDP party people, the current UDP TOWN BOARD slate are illegal by UDP rules, as they never went through a PARTY picking CONVENTION. Other UDP would be contenders are really angry about this meddling, by the National UDP party and Mr. Barrow. They felt, if you are going to be DEMOCRATIC, then a CONVENTION should have picked the slate of candidates. There should have been some competition. I hope I’m not being misinformed here?
Everybody running, is in it for the money apparently? Think the Mayor gets around $4000 a month, don’t know what councilors get? This is before a stick of work is done on cleaning, or repairing streets. Past councilors on the TWIN TOWN BOARDS claim there is a lot of opportunity for SKIMMING and nepotism. Kind of an interesting campaign though. First time I and my wife are really going to vote in this one, in this geographical location.

TWIN TOWNS ARE CAMPAIGNING FOR OFFICE PLUM JOBS IN BELIZE.

Belize Flag image photo.


UDP AND PUP ARE CAMPAIGNING IN THE SUBURB OF HILLVIEW FOR THE MARCH TOWN COUNCIL ELECTIONS.

I believe we have a local nurse in Hillview running for town council from the opposition PUP and the incumbent UDP Mayor and councilors stopped by to campaign today. One UDP councilor works for BTL the telemedia company and announced that BTL was going to put in a new radio wave system, with longer radio wave lengths and lower frequencies, for both telephone and internet usage, so that suburbs like Hillview and Santa Cruz behind the ridges in the canyons and little pocket valleys of the Twin Towns, would be able to get reception for both wall telephones and internet antennas. The system is supposed to be active by the middle of February, 2009. About two weeks from now. We will not hold our breath! -- As an update the wife went into BTL today, to sign up. BTL customer service denied they were putting in any such internet service and HILLVIEW definitely WILL NOT get any internet from BTL. The UDP Councillor gave out BAD INFORMATION even though he works for BTL apparently.

The incumbent UDP Mayor running for re-election said they were getting some public works equipment, such as a grader, roller and trucks for maintaining the streets of the Twin Towns. They didn’t say WHEN, but said the finances were coming mostly from Central Government, who have made FOREIGN LOANS for such things. In the meantime, on the way into town this afternoon, a PUBLIC WORKS GRADER was actually 80% along with grading of Hillview Avenue leading into our community. It has been about a year to the week, since last done. Surprise, surprise! Maybe because the TOWN mayor and councillors were campaigning here yesterday?

The TWIN TOWN BOARD elections are in March, so the campaigning is getting hot and heavy. We were visited by both UDP and PUP campaigners. Generally speaking we are in favor of the current Town Board, as they have been fairly responsive to requests for action, within the budget limits they have. There is one exception, in that if a Hillview resident runs for the TOWN BOARD we shall also vote for that person, as we believe our valley suburb on the slope of Green Parrot Valley needs a VOICE on the TOWN BOARD.

About 8 years ago, when the Hillview housing project was then a dozen years old, and barren of trees and shrubbery, with mud everywhere and vandalized government shell shocked houses, under the control of the Development Finance Corporation; we envisioned a future for Hillview, on the slope of Green Parrot Valley, on the edge of Santa Elena Town as a tourist village, like we have on Caye Caulker. We know from pioneering tourism on Caye Caulker back in the early 1960’s, that it takes a long time to get things going. Hillview today though, is quite nice, with lots of fruit trees, decorative shrubs, polite people and painted houses with additions and extensions being added as people can afford them. We already have a few small businesses located inside the community and are looking forward to accelerating the changeover into a tourist community. The timeline we envisioned back 8 years ago, was about 15 years for community development and we are 8 years along. We have our Falconview Adventure Hostel finished pretty much, this Spring, with beds for 16 persons and are currently debating what to do with another house in the community we bought to re-model. In order for Hillview to become a Western TOURIST VILLAGE MECCA, we need as the next step, to get 5 or 6 culverts installed at corners of streets that wash out during the rainy season, and also to get the streets here inside the community and entrance road up from the Western Highway, asphalt paved. We told the Mayor and Councilors campaigning of our village plans and asked for them during this time, when the Town Board and the National Government are of one political voice, to do these things as the community needs to progress. CULVERTS and STREET PAVING are the requests. The private sector will do the rest. This is called INFRA-STRUCTURE productive sector investment on the part of the two government entities. Which should be a priority on spending for creating future government revenues. We shall see what we shall see!

WESTERN BELIZE TWIN TOWNS GET FANCY INTERNET CAFE AND STARBUCKS STYLE COFFEE HOUSE!

This is the NEW INTERNET CAFE ( BELIZE DIGITAL EXPRESS ) across the narrow main street of Santa Elena Town in Western Belize, Cayo District, Recreational Area, across from the AGRO PRO feed and fertilizer store. The girl is Maria Jiron, who is 21 years old and has a daughter. The unique thing about this Internet Cafe in Santa Elena Town, a typical dusty Central American agriculture and tourist town, is that it is the first place in the TWIN TOWNS to combine an Internet Cafe with Vivians Coffee House. They serve Frappuccino for $6.50 which has ice cream in it, they also serve frozen coffee for $5.50, hot Cappunicio for $4.50 and hot Latte. There are Nachos to munch on, ice cream, Sundaes and other good stuff. This is the first time the WESTERN BELIZE RECREATIONAL AREA has seen anything modern like this. They seem to be doing good business as well. I was surprised to see teenagers and people in their twenties queing up to buy what for me is a rather expensive delicacy. I myself usually eat at the Hindu Restaurant across the river and $2.50 will buy me a Ginger Lime juice in a big glass and a Somoza, which is a kind of pastry that has inside it various vegetables. $5 for a coffee strains my Scottish frugal genes.

Dutch University Fraternity student backpacker group stay at budget dormitory Falconview Adventure Hostel

Nine DUTCH University Student fraternity backpackers arrive at Falconview Hostel, booked by Hostelbookers.com, UK. They are from somewhere near Rotterdam, Holland.
They got in midday and in a rush we tried to accomodate them with a courtesy afternoon trip to the two Mayan ruins of Xununtanich and Cahel Pech. Today, four of them are off with Pacz Tours to the ATM ( Actun Tunichil Muknal Cave system). This is the XIBALBA, or one of the ancient entrances and sacrificial sites to the underworld planes of existance of the Maya spiritual mythology. About a mile underground using head lamps with a guide, they will arrive at the sacrifical site, where the archeology department of Belize have left skeletons and pottery as it was found. Tourists must walk carefully in stocking feet around the remains. This is an all day trip and you must traverse three underground rivers in the cave system to get here. Have no idea of how terrified captives must have felt back centuries ago. The other five on a cheaper budget were going to share some canoes and paddle the Macal River Gorge exotic jungle scenery. Tomorrow these nine will be off to Caye Caulker by bus for $6 Bz and water taxi for $30 Bz round trip to this fabulous Great Barrier Reef small island, surrounded by sheltered emerald green waters of the inner lagoon, protected by the reef itself. ( exchange rate is $2 bz for $1 us dollar )
These Dutch kids were TALL. Six feet six inches at least. Must be all that milk drinking in Holland? Made my five feet, 11 inches feel like a midget.
http://folkmusicfl.tripod.com/actuntunichilmuknal/
http://folkmusicfl.tripod.com/adventuresinbelize/

Best Internet Cafe in the twin towns until now!

In the last month another second internet cafe has opened up in Santa Elena Town side of the river Macal. They claim they are charging $3 an hour, haven't tried them yet. I've been going to this one on the San Ignacio Town side of the Macal River for a few years now and kind of feel at home there. It is air conditioned, got fast DSL speeds when the place is not packed, that is! Greg Aguirre is the proprietor sitting behind the counter. For prices he is the lowest in San Ignacio at $3 Bz per hour, rounded out to the nearest quarter, or shilling as we call it here in Belize. Greg has done a fair amount of repair work on my two old computers as well. Though I'm hoping my daughter Tina will bring a new E MACHINE back from Houston, as my other daughter Wendy in Houston said yesterday they were on sale at WalMart. I really need a new one, as these I have, are constantly breaking down now. This internet cafe for Greg is in the Del Rio Mall, which is on the next street over from Burns Avenue, the main street in San Ignacio. The street is called West Street and as I sit here in this internet cafe, I can hear some kid practising on the Cornet, next door in the Chinese owned music teaching shop. Next door to here is a Hindu restaurant where I normally eat a very cheap lunch of Somosa and Ginger flavored Lime Juice, Hindu style.
The BTL monopoly have been promising us internet service in our section of Hillview, a suburb of Santa Elena Town, for about 14 years, but they lie every year about it and never do it. They only want the icing on the cake and serving only town centers where the land is flat and easily reached by either land line, or cell phone towers. We can't even get their cell phone signal in Hillview, as we are behind a ridge and they will not put in repeaters around the South Side of the Twin towns for the growing population and suburbs. Too many hills they say! At any rate we cannot get internet service of any kind where I live, so I have to drive the two miles once or twice a day, to do e-mail and tend to my business interests. This is the place I must come to communicate with our tourist guests who are making enquiries for our budget Falconview Hostel Adventure selling place.

TINAS HOSTEL IN BELIZE the TOP WORLD PARTY PLACE FOR BACKPACKERS !

NEWS RELEASE!


Hostel world travelers have rated my daughter "Tina's Backpackers Hostel" on the beach front at Caye Caulker, just inside the Great Coral Barrier Reef of Belize, as one of the TOP Party places in the whole world. Beating out many even in Thailand.

Here are some links on the internet.
http://tinashostel.blogspot.com
http://lifeinabananarepublic.blogspot.com
http://falconview0.tripod.com/tinasbackpackershostel/

Germans are a particularly rowdy party crowd. With 32 beds, she crams them in somehow.

Dad's hostel is not so busy in the party sense. We deal more in adventures each day. This is home base for adventures in Western Belize, at "Falconview Backpackers Adventure Hostel". As we get more crowded and expand, I presume we will get to partying as well. We are just entering our third season and just in the guidebooks this year. All our ratings are 4 and 5 star so far.

http://folkmusicfl.tripod.com/adventuresinbelize/ ( main website )
http://westernbelizehappenings.blogspot.com ( news of life out here in Western Belize )

Nazarene school children at lunch in San Ignacio Town, Cayo West

Nazarene school boys, eat lunch at the Hindu Restaurant in San Ignacio Town of Western Belize. You will notice a mix of ethnic races. There are Maya, Mestizo and Creole in this group of boys. My wife and I usually eat lunch at this Hindu restaurant, as I am in town to use the internet café, in the next door Del Mar Plaza, a very small one building, shopping center, which has a very small movie theater, a music store for lessons, a clothing store, the internet café and a jewelry store. The Hindu restaurant is convenient as it is on the side of the building. The second floor has recently been converted to expensive hotel rooms. The building is owned by an immigrant Mexican lady who is now Belizean. Between her and the bank loans, she keeps trying to make money from rents and pay her loans.

Of the school boys during the lunch hour, only three of nine boys actually had the money to buy lunch. One fat boy had his own bowl of soup and two other boys had bought the big plate of French Fries each. Everybody sort of shared the French fries, which cost $2 Bz a heaping plate. During school lunch hour, a half a dozen Nazarene schoolboys usually gather at this Hindu restaurant to watch cartoons on the television behind the counter. The Hindu immigrant owner has two children of his own. His wife and he cook here. There are four tables, with chairs and a bar type counter with stools; and expatriates of both European, South American and North American residence, from rural areas around the Western Cayo district, eat here during the lunch hour. Mostly because they are using the internet café, which is air conditioned, has the fastest DSL speeds in town and the lowest prices at $3 Bz ( $1.50 usa per hour ). Restaurant patrons live in rural areas of the twin towns, or other villages and towns, which do not have internet service available. So a shopping trip to these twin towns, the center of the Western Cayo District, usually includes an hour at the internet café to keep touch with the outside world. This is a daily, two mile trip for us, from Green Parrot Valley, a suburb of Santa Elena Town across the Macal river bridge, to check “ Falconview Backpackers Adventure Hostel” bookings on the email. We look forward to chatting with gringo expatriats from the USA, England, Rumania and Colombia, we have come to know as friends, here at the Hindu restaurant. Most of who live; either in Bullet Tree Falls ( five miles away ), or Cristo Rey, ( five to eight miles away ) or San Antonio Town ( 16 miles away ), or even far distant Barton Creek ( 16 rugged bad roads away ), this latter a survivalist type remote area in the Appalachian type tropical hills, favored by Mennonite farmers who live the no modern electronic frills life style. They grow most of the potatoes in Belize, with horse labor and transportation. Expatriat immigrants, or residents in Western Belize, usually run a wide range of fiscal capabilities. From enormously rich multi-millionaires, to poor young people into self sufficiency type organic agriculture. Most enjoy the agriculture, or tourist service, life style.

On this particular day, it was my 71 st birthday, so I splurged and treated myself to the more expensive, $5 Bz ( $2.50 usa ) lunch; which included a thick bowl of vegetable soup, hot, spicey with seasoning and curry flavor and a bowl of steamed white rice. A very filling meal. Normally, we eat a Somoza, which costs $1.25 Bz and is a pastry type filled container full of vegetables, along with a Ginger flavored glass of lime juice, fresh made Hindu style. Sometimes we have $1 Bz panades, which is three small, hot fried pastries with a little ground meat inside it. We normally have these for lunch to try and stay on a diet and lose weight. You can eat and drink for lunch, for a total of $2.50 Bz, or $1.25 usa. The ginger lime juice, a Hindu specialty is a sharp and biting cold drink on a hot day. Many expatriates have various types of milk shakes. There are an assortment of Hindu dishes with fluffy and really light foods, I find peculiar for my palet.

Not all school children eat even one meal a day in Belize. This is mostly found in town areas for illiterate parents who rely on day labor, or low paid jobs, at about $125 Bz a week ( $62.50 usa ). Inflation has made it extremely hard on the majority poor laborers. These are usually children of immigrant parents in this school, who in turn have no skills. Corn tortillas, with Red Kidney beans stewed overnight over a wood fire place, and rice are the norm for a meal for a child of the poor classes. Vegetables are cheap enough. You can buy 10 bananas for $1 bz., or 4 oranges for a $1 any day of the year. The poorest people though, do not have steady incomes, or work and so often lack even the dollar to buy anything. Belize primary schools are mostly CHURCH/STATE schools. There are many religious schools. Though no Hindu, Muslim, Jewish, or Tao schools that I know of. Most schools are of variations on different Christian professing cults. The government pays most of the salary for school teachers in church/state schools, so any aspiring demagogue or charismatic preacher, can start his own religion and school and end up with a government salary of sorts. The catch is; you must first build your school and run it for three years, before you qualify to get a teachers salary subsidy for your school. These Nazarene religious school boys in the photograph, they have uniforms and most religious cult schools have identifying colored standard uniform requirements for children. This itself is an enormous financial burden on the lower classes. Not having shoes is more of the norm for rural and poor class people as well. If an immigrant can get a piece of land to build his own house, even a shack and grow a bit of corn and vegetables, you can usually with very little work, have something to eat almost all the time. Most schools are severely overcrowded. Producing babies is something Belizeans and immigrants do very well.

CAYO DISTRICT FLOOD REPORT - BELIZE

CAYO DISTRICT FLOOD REPORT SUNDAY NIGHT Oct.19,2008

by Ray Auxillou

There has been a video showing on Bayman Cable in the Cayo District, this evening, taken by compliments of a plane ride from Central Farm. We had actually seen them flying overhead this morning when the sun was out. The video was over an hour and covered from Belmopan westward, to the Guatemalan border and over much of the agriculture areas bordering the rivers feeding into the Belize river. It will be edited into a shorter version for the Love FM, News Program on Monday. International readers can watch the video by streaming internet news service out of Belize. The rivers are deep brown with silt, flowing rapidly in the main channels, but sort of still and quiet like a lagoon, where they have flooded over the banks for a mile or more in places.

What we saw and the reports coming in on television, in the Western Cayo District, are that there has been extensive flooding. Bullet Tree village is underwater. Calla Creek, Santa Familla and many small village and rural communities are flooded. From the plane flight video, we could estimate roughly 200 buildings, homes and businesses, mostly in remote farms, are either completely submerged, or partially submerged. Crop losses look to be roughly $35 million dollars. Fruit orchids and corn and RK beans and some vegetables.

The hydro electric dams have been topped and water is pouring over the top of the dams, to conflicting reports of up to 14 feet higher. The dams are on the Macal River. The Macal River itself is being backed up at the junction, where it joins the Mopan River coming in from Guatemala forming the head of the Belize River. The Mopan is heavily flooding, more so than the Macal River. The two rivers join in San Ignacio Town, to make the Belize River, that runs across the width of the country, to the Caribbean Sea. In San Ignacio town; of the two bridges crossing the Macal River between the two cities of San Ignacio and Santa Elena, the low bridge is completely submerged and has been for several days, and previously it was covered for about ten days. Traffic is being routed in spurts across the Hawksworth Bridge, first one way, then the other. These bridges are only one lane bridges and we probably need a new, very high, six lane bridge in the near future and a by-pass highway around the twin towns. Traffic jams are very bad in the one way narrow mule train streets of San Ignacio..

The water has risen to cover Constitution Park, which is the little park and band stand, near the bus and Savanah taxi stand, centrally located in San Ignacio. Most of those ground floor stores in that central area of San Ignacio Town have at least a foot of water in them. Before the hydro dams on the Macal River, San Ignacio regularly got TOP GALLON floods that did that, but we haven’t seen this for about 15 years, now the dams had been built.

The Mopan River starts in Belize, way down south, a hundred miles away in the southern Belize Alps, separating the Toledo District from the interior highland jungles and flows into the Peten District of Guatemala. This Guatemalan Peten used to be wild jungle, home of the ancient Mayan Feudal Kingdoms, sparsely populated by remote Mayan communities in the jungles. No longer, as abut 30 years ago, population was being moved from the Western Guatemalan highlands into the lower Peten and some 5000 square miles of Peten jungles of my youth, have been cleared and made into ranch pastures. The Mopan River winds through this area and there are many branch rivers feeding into the Mopan River in the Guatemalan Peten area. The Mopan River comes back into Belize at the Melchor de Menchos and Benque Viejo border and flows to our twin towns and joins with the Macal River, draining the more Northern and Eastern Belize Alps. These two rivers then cross the width of our country as one new river called the Belize River, winding to the East, exiting by the port of Belize City on the coast. The deforestation of the Peten in Guatemala has contributed to faster moving water drainoff, along with massive erosion of limited top soil. This draining of the Guatemalan Peten basin into and through Belize is now changing past flood patterns and causing whole new areas that were once unknown to flood, to be in flood zones. These new flood zones in Belize, have not yet been mounted on the internet, by GIS mapping data in Belmopan our capital. The flood crest takes about three days to reach the coastal towns, villages and the port of Belize City. Population explosion needs this flood zone data via internet and GIS.

People who are old, remember back as far as Hurricane Hattie in 1961 and say the floods have never been as bad as this one. The major cause is deforestation of the Peten jungles.

The subject of loss of top soil in Belize along the river banks has been discussed, debated and written about for some 30 years, but no five year, port town controlled national government has ever passed any preventative progressive legislation. The major idea is to create a 500 yard wide, barrier of woods along river banks and prohibit cutting down of river bank forests. Tax relief could be given to property owners to encourage them to do this. Thus making wildlife preservation corridors as well as holding back scarce soil erosion. Perhaps this political term under the UDP, the political party in power will revisit this subject of loss of soil, by erosion and flooding and make some much needed legislation? The Western Highway has cut off Cayo District from the rest of the country. Reports late Sunday night indicate the Roaring Creek bridge is flooded over, by twelve feet of water, at the Belmopan junction, and San Jose Succotz western highway and Benque Viejo Town going to the Western border has also been flooded in two places, cutting off transportation into Guatemala. The bridge at the Guatemala border is also reported to be under high flood water. Spanish Lookout and the farms throughout the HEARTLAND OF BELIZE, the biggest mixed farming,agricultural area in the country, heading north through Orange Walk and Corozal Districts is also reported isolated. Schools throughout the Cayo District have been shut for Monday and probably through Wednesday, announced by the Ministry of Education over the radio and television, as the Metrological Office is reporting two more days of rain, for Monday and Tuesday.

NEMO, the government Emergency Committee are working and have been evacuating people from flooded houses and small farms and communities. These people are being installed for the time being, at the ITVET Community College system in San Ignacio. Mr. Chan of DFC bureaucratic fame, has been giving a telephone report from his position on the NEMO committee Sunday night, over the local Bayman Cable television station. He lives in San Jose Succotz. NEMO was active on Sunday, mostly with immediate areas that could be reached and are not totally cut off by the floods, accessible to evacuate anybody that wanted to. There is considerable assistance being given by many local volunteers to submerged house people along riverbank flooding. Reporters have been doing fly overs with assistance from tourist ultra light TRIKE aircraft and a Cessna from Central Farm, municipal airstrip for the twin towns. There has been no report from Chaa Creek Jungle Lodge and the grass airstrip there, with many planes, we presume, had already flown out to Central Farm municipal strip on Friday past? One doesn’t want your plane bogged down in wet grass and mud. There was a helicopter overflight we saw from our house in Hillview on the slope of Green Parrot Valley going along the Belize River valley water course on Saturday, we presume that was ASTRID helicopter charter?

We phoned Phylis over at EK TUN Jungle Lodge, high on the jungle clad wall of the Macal River Gorge Sunday night. She reported she was fine, but out of food supplies for her and her watch dogs. Her swimming pool had 10 feet of Macal River flood over it, she had reported earlier, by e-mail to the Belize Culture List Serve on Saturday and she cannot get in and out of her Lodge. The dirt track along the river to her place would be deep under water right now and she is on the opposite slope of the Gorge. I wonder if her landrover was parked there. If so it is under water AGAIN! Let us hope the famous troop of Howler Monkeys in the Macal River Gorge jungles are doing alright. The river is up about 70 feet high in the Macal River Gorge at her place. Phylis’s jungle lodge is still higher than her swimming pool about another 20 feet. Her jungle tourist lodge and Jane Beard’s home about a mile and a half from Santa Elena Town, on the Cristo Rey road are reported otherwise okay, but running periodically on portable small diesel generators right now, as they do not have BEL national electric grid connections, due to the high charges for running electrical lines into those properties. BEL wants something like $50,000 to run several poles and an electrical power line to Jane’s home on the Cristo Rey road, about a 1000 feet, so she has to do without the BEL electrical grid. This despite the many new subdivisions being cleared and plotted all through those hills and valleys. The solar battery banks at both places are otherwise dead, as there has been no sun for two weeks, with low cloud cover, due to the local convection, during the rainy month of September and October. Mostly October this year, which is better than in September, which normally accompanies passing hurricanes off shore. Jane Beard is in London, on a training course for the British High Commission trade office, while my brother-in-law Gustavo Pinzon is feeding the watch dogs and playing night watchman sleeping over there. Jane has her Permanent Residency, as she is retired in Belize and Gustavo awaits his Permanent Residency. A check last week at Belmopan immigration, showed his file was stuck in the police department someplace, for the last five weeks. Our Belize bureaucracy rivals that of India, another Commonwealth country, for obstacles and slowness. Good job he checked last week before the flood cut us off from Belmopan. Word is that; Immigration will charge him a $100 a month while he waits for the bureaucracy to process his application. That could take years one would think?

Gale and her husband, USA expatriates in their mid 70’s from Oregon in the USA, were due to arrive by plane Monday, for installing a wooden cabin, prefabricated by Reimer at Spanish Lookout. That will have to be postponed for two weeks I’m sure, as their property is somewhere around Bullet Tree Falls village, which is temporarily flooded. Spanish Lookout Mennonite community shopping is inaccessible right now. With the housing crisis in the USA, Gale and husband, were never able to get their capital out of their home by sale in the USA, as the housing mortgage market had collapsed. So, retirement funds are tight. They are stuck, holding a home in the USA they no longer want, preventing them from moving full time to Belize and starting a farming business. Janet a Mennonite widow, famous for her yogurt at the Macal river, Saturday market and her many daughters are still milking their 32 holstein cows, early morning and evening. They live lower on the Cristo Rey road below Jane, alongside the road, which is dry.

The water in central San Ignacio Town was lapping below Maya Walk place and the German restaurant. The shopping mall with the French Bakery is flooded to one or two feet. All of these places are downtown, central San Ignacio Town.

As I edit this piece this Monday morning, waves of rain pass over every 30 minutes, making a loud drumming noise on our tropical, corrugated galvanized zinc roof, for our Falconview Backpackers Adventure Hostel hammock room verandah. We rent dormitory bunk beds and furnished apartments, with bathrooms and kitchens. Our place is a FOUR STAR HOSTEL otherwise. We have no University and College age guests, this being the dead FALL three month OFF season. Our construction finishing work on two new furnished apartments for winter rentals is held up also by the rains. Our lettuce crop in our organic hydroponic nursery is growing great though. We were hoping to shop in Flores in the central Peten, Guatemala, this coming week, but doubt the condition of the Peten road will be any better than our dirt roads in Belize. Though still better than my memories of pushing my old VW camper bus across flooded rivers in the Peten of my younger years. At least there is a dirt two lane road of sorts now. I can remember when the Guatemalans built that road and big D9 caterpillar bulldozers could get half buried in mud. We can’t find flat clip on lamp shades for overhead protruding 75 watt ceiling bulbs, or 200 thread bed sheets here in the twin towns stores, for our two new rental tourist apartments, being prepared for winter visitors. We were also planning a vacation trip to El Salvador in November, by the mini-bus through the mountains. Lets hope the rainy season abates in a few weeks and things dry up. The trip is through back country mountain roads in Guatemala and Salvador, to save time. Undoubtedly going to be a hair raising trip.

It is 6:30 a.m. and the nighting gale birds are chirping and singing their beautiful songs, on the branches of the orange tree outside our hammock room window, while the flowers are blooming like crazy in the window shutters, with all this rain. The birds wake us with song and close the evening with very loud songs. Everything is okay with the world here. Even though there are rain showers, lowering cloud cover, it is a fine day for the rainy season. With a pot of water on the butane burner, to make some nice hot morning tea, with a tot of local rum, some local raw flavorful and healthy brown sugar, a bit of imported condensed milk and a dollop of fresh local raw bees honey in the tea; my hammock, a book, the cable tv and warm weather, all is right in the world. I would rather be here than anywhere else I can think of, reclining in my living room hammock. It is warm and peaceful, relaxed and comfortable. Certainly I do not envy people living in anxiety and fear, in places like Iceland, the USA and European countries. Those foreigners seem to always be living from one crisis to another. Nope, things are great here in Western Belize, despite the temporary floods.

SIX MONTHS WINTER APARTMENT VACATION RENTAL DEAL

WINTER VACATION HOME IN TROPICAL WESTERN BELIZE

We have now three apartments for rent. Normally they are an annex of FALCONVIEW BACKPACKERS ADVENTURE HOSTEL, for University age youthful world travelers and adventurers, we rent them in tourist season by the night, week, or month.
It has been decided that from our first apartment, which turned out very popular, that we completed two more apartments and are contemplating renting them for a block of six months to people who are escaping the cold of northern climates. If you would like a more economical rental deal, then a six months prepaid rental for just $2000 USA, would secure any six month block of time you wish. You can probably split the time and share it with relatives or friends.
We are located in the foothills of the Belize Alps and are a 100 house village, mostly civil servants, on the slope of Green Parrot Valley. We have fine views over our valley and also across the wider Belize River Valley to the Yalbac Hills. This is a rural suburb village of Santa Elena Town, which is part of the TWIN TOWNS, which includes San Ignacio Town.
The area has a steady low key tourism industry, built around the Mayan temples found here, underground caves and day trips up into the more remote Belize Alps. There are assorted things to do, along with attractions, like horseback riding, canoeing and kayaking the rivers and a small artist colony into Mayan pottery and oil painting artists. For more information check our website at: http://folkmusicfl.tripod/adventuresinbelize/
The major thing it is warm and the climate is one of eternal spring. Our summer is during April and May.

For apartment photos, take a look at: http://stellapinzon.tripod.com/apartmentwesternbelize/
We will have up photos of two new additional apartments by Xmas. They are just being finished. You can walk to the center anywhere in the twin towns in 45 minutes. Taxis around here are about $4 usa. There are car rentals. Most of our economy is based on agriculture and includes, cattle ranching, citrus orchids, regular Mennonite type mixed farms, small scale dairy farms and such things. There are spas, VERY EXPENSIVE luxury resorts ( $2000 us a night ), jungle lodges and that sort of thing.
As a base, our apartment is wonderful, you can go and explore the offshore Barrier Reef islands, which can be more expensive and come home to your apartment in a more low key type foothill affordable atmosphere. There is no rush around here. Do it today, or do it tomorrow.

THE BEAUTIFUL LEAF COLORS OF TREES IN BELIZE

WHIMSICAL THOUGHTS IN OCTOBER, 2008

My daughter Sharon and family, living in Homestead , Florida , are off for the long Columbus Day weekend, yachting in the sailboat Columbus Day Regatta, which goes from around the Coconut Grove Yacht Club to Elliot Caye. Over there, hundreds of boats anchor in the lee, in the shallow waters of Biscayne Bay and you see nude sun bathers, lots of boat hopping and drinking of beer for several days over the long weekend. Big long weekend party restricted to people with boats, due to distance over Biscayne Bay . I wonder if there are any yacht crowd left in Houston ? They usually sail and race out to the Oyster shallow bar in the middle of Galveston Bay and party for the long weekend.

Last night, here in Hillview of Santa Elena Town, on the slope of Green Parrot Valley , I was up in the hammock on the third floor of our hostel annex and enjoying the sunset. It was a lot like FALL months, with the turning of the leaves in Canada , before they drop from the trees. Down here on the other slope of Green Parrot Valley , the trees were bathed with Golden Sunlight as the sun disappeared behind the ridge from where I was reclining. The leaves of the trees were all the colors of a FALL season up in northern climates. Russet, brown, auburn come to mind as colors. After it got dark of course, the leaves turned green again. Even across the eight miles or so to the Yalbac Hills, across the Belize River Valley , ending at the TWIN TOWNS, the slopes of the hills and trees over there were covered in the golden sunlight, brown, yellow and different colors. What was particularly beautiful was five acres of corn tassles just down the hill from us along the edge of the Western Highway . The golden tassles were rippling in the colors of the sinking sun. It was a really beautiful moment in nature out here in Western Belize . One looks at the fear and panic in the so called civilized world and is humbly grateful for rural life in Belize .

http://folkmusicfl.tripod.com/adventuresinbelize/

BELIZE AGRICULTURE COLLEGE RE-OPENS FOR 2008

AGRICULTURE COLLEGE OF BELIZE RE-OPENS !

After eight long years, the Agriculture College at Central Farm in Western Belize has re-opened. The Agriculture College originally closed because of budget cuts, due to the previous government, gambling amateurishly, with a BORROW and SPEND type of trickle down economics theory. The end result was the country became after three years of PUP spend thrift policies, mired in International Debt, that drove the nation to a DEFAULT in the money markets of the International arena. The tight fiscal policies continue and will be necessary for another five years at least, before any marked improvement in financial self sustainability caused by international debt service problems. Due to the growth of the population numbers and subsequent growth of government revenues along with it, the government revenues have been increasing year by year at a rate of about 10%. This is allowing this year, for the first time in eight years, a small budget surplus, if tight budget controls are followed; extra money for doing infra-structure repair will become available in increasing amounts, year by year.. Slated on the top of the priority lists have been road bridges and agriculture expansion development. Should the new government of UDP maintain strict budgetary spending and the size of government, by the end of their five year term, the country should be well on the way to fiscal recovery and financial self sustainability. Political money management skills are the problem Belize faces.

This means a re-orientation to economic diversity and productive goals, particularly in our ability to feed our growing population, with excess crop products for export. The recent crisis early this year of 2008, worldwide, proved we were capable already, in the ability to feed ourselves, no matter what kind of outside disasters occurred. The short sharp lesson in shutdown of world food supplies during a very rapid oil supply cost spike in costs, early in 2008, made our new batch of politicians sit up and take notice. It so happened it co-incided with the Tropical Vegetable Research done by the NGO, the BELIZE DEVELOPMENT TRUST, in Hillview, Santa Elena Town, who had just prior to the world oil crisis and food crisis, published a series of experimental research books, as they were trying different methods of producing vegetables on a year round sustainable, continuous cropping basis in the tropical climate of Belize. The experiments worked and news was soon spread through the CABINET politicians, the agriculture community and government Natural Resources Department. Subsequently, a series of articles by the NGO research, on local list serves, emails to concerned government and education individuals, caused a meeting of minds at the political level and soon as some surplus money became available, the CABINET decided to put Agriculture year round production, on the front burner. The recipient of those GRANT FUNDS and increased agriculture budgets were shared with the University of Belize and Central Farm Research Station of the Ministry of Agriculture, earmarked for training of a new generation of farmers, in what had been discovered and proven in the market place, of new techniques in modern agriculture. The previously closed Central Farm campus of the Agriculture College , now part of the greater University of Belize small unit campus system around the tiny nation, has been re-opened in September, 2008 with a new lecture staff and curriculum and 28 students. The college is expected to expand rapidly as the private sector, mostly Mennonite farmers, and new immigrant investors from the USA , are already reaping good financial earnings from the newer agriculture technologies, proved by the research experiments of the previous three years. Oversight is being provided to the Agriculture College , administered by the University of Belize , as a two year Associate Degree program, in practical money making agriculture, overseen by the research staff and extension department of the Central Farm Research Station across the road, a few hundred yards away in the Western Cayo District. Which is also the largest Recreational Area in the country. Also nearby, is the Taiwanese Agriculture vegetable research plot, which is used to test new Chinese varieties of seeds and crops, for the major two different night time, temperature seasons found in Belize . Research has shown, February through August require different types of seeds not susceptible to 24 hour constant warm temperatures, during day and night. The rest of the year, temperate zone vegetable seeds can be planted. Just add water and fertilizer food. Soil preparation is a must, and small spaced plots to combat the tropical lowland increases of diseases and pests in a growing situation that has no seasons.. Inter-cropping will be taught. The Taiwanese overseas assistance program is also active in food preservation and packaging technology, to build not only a local market, for products on grocery store shelves, but also to fill niche gourmet markets for the export markets abroad. Belize already has a strong trade with Mexico and Guatemala in agriculture and also has expanded in recent years to supplying El Salvador with corn.

The Vegetable BIBLE of the new crop growing technology is the FOURTH EDITION of the “BELIZE VEGETABLE FARMERS BIBLE - FOURTH EDITION”. Written and produced by Ray Auxillou of the Belize Development Trust NGO, agriculture research project. A new standardized book is in the works, being got ready for publication on continuous YEAR ROUND vegetable growing. Several experimenters have succeeded in growing vegetables by adjusting varieties and planting weekly.

The new agriculture college course will be in mixed farming. Food preservation, processing and packaging also. Though the new techniques in continuous vegetable cropping on an all year round basis, point to the strong possibilities of fast money making export opportunities. We already have a growing trade with Mexico , Guatemala , Honduras , El Salvador and new roads along the Eastern side of Central America are making trade easier each year. This opens huge, new close by, trade markets. We are talking over 54 million people to supply. The nation of Belize is also short of milk production cows and dairy farms. The demand is greater than the supply, for value added products made from milk, like different cheese types. These should eventually include exports. Chocolates for export are another field of opportunity in the more traditional cacao tree production. A $100,000 a year income is not impossible today for these first 28 young farmer students on just ten acres, now studying at the newly re-opened Agriculture College in market gardening alone. Mixed farming would give them more diversified revenue stability and rising living standards. Processing, packaging and marketing are the larger problems to be faced as the population grows.

http://westernbelizehappenings.blogspot.com ( local news in Western Belize )
http://tropicalhydroponics.tripod.com
http://belizehydroponics.tripod.com

Weekend newsroundup in WESTERN BELIZE

WEEKEND NEWS ROUNDUP ( Sept. 21, 2008 )

HAND GRENADE CASE

Police have not solved the thrown hand grenade mystery, that was thrown into the 10th Parade last week down in the coastal port town. The grenade did not go off. Oh sure, they have a confession, beaten out of a young boy, who may, or may not be guilty. The police failed to establish a chain of evidence, as required for a court of law. No magistrate worth their salt, could convict a boy on the basis of a confession coerced into signing by any method of brutality, without the presence of a lawyer. Our police department, and seemingly Belmopan Police Headquarters are as stupid as ever, working with methods used back in the time of King Henry the VIII. Unless they have fingerprints on the grenade by Richard Flores, witnesses, that saw him throw it, or a witness willing to say they saw him with it in his possession, or something legitimate, there is no case. The police department have RUINED the case against Richard Flores otherwise, guilty or not. The court case must be thrown out. Coerced confessions claimed to have been made under torture are not valid. Do they have any other chain of evidence? That is the the question, or they must let Richard Flores go. The USA attempt to teach the Belize Police a method of forensic evidence seems to have been a failure? They still use British monarchists torture methods of ancient times.

MINISTER CARDONA

If the story of Minister Cardona in the Belize Times newspaper is true, then the Minister should resign his cabinet position and be consigned to the back benches. The story claims the Minister was in a traffic accident which he caused and fled the scene in Chetumal, Mexico. In Belize that would be a jailable offense. The Minister is required to give up his position in the CABINET. Not even referring to the SHAME and EMBARRASSMENT claimed in the TIMES story, for the people of Belize. This is not behavior needed in a CABINET MINISTER.

ECONOMIC STATISTICS ARE PUBLISHED

The Belize Times printed a flurry of statistics on the economy for this year, from the Statistical Unit of Belize. While the Belize Times is an Opposition party rag taking the negative view of some statistics. The information is useful. There were no surprises! Remittances from abroad continue to fuel the economy and imports of goods; far in excess of our nation to afford otherwise. Inflation is 7% in round numbers, which is dangerous and worrisome, but for the most part out of control of our local government. We could not find statistics on borrowing effects by the new UDP government this year, but the National Debt is expected to have grown by about 5%. This in turn is inflationary, but more importantly leads to a potential DEVALUATION. Between inflation and devaluation, things get very hairy for the economy of Belize. The slide either way in the overall debt ratio will point to either good, or bad money management by the UDP. I fully expect the news to be bad to a certain extent, and because of the loan borrowing incurred this year, for political party propaganda purposes, the debt ratio is supposed to have gotten larger. We did not see the debt ratio in the published statistics yet though. The UDP seem to have caught on, and the last two months has seen a switch from foreign loan borrowing talk, to GRANT methods of development. Which is a very good sign from the new UDP government. The borrowing this year is expected to set back UDP economic management schemes by about 18 months for prudent self sufficiency goals. The Belize Times the Opposition newspaper, took great glee in proving that the UDP Election promises were lies and pure hot air. None have been fulfilled, nor expected to be, as the election was a rebound vote against a perceived criminal corrupt PUP.

MICHAEL REID

A very good article in the Belize Times by Michael Reid. He was formerly a politically appointed police press officer and very abrasive. Before that, he was supposed to have been a bad fellow in the USA, or someplace? In recent months his writings and vocabulary have been getting better. He could probably write better stories now than once infamous UDP writer, political party hack,Yasmin Andrews who has gone squirrely in her writings in the Guardian Newspaper since the election.

BAINBRIDGE COLLEGE

The study abroad program of Bainbridge College is expanding in Belize. Mentioned were Dr. Betty La Face and Ben White speaking at a Bainbridge Rotary club meeting. Dr. Le Face, is an Assistant Professor of English and also Assistant Director of Training Abroad. Library Director Bainbridge, Susan Ralph has a library project in Belize she is working on. These courses give credits for study abroad in Belize. We had Berea College of Kentucky ourselves at Falconview Hostel last Xmas and January, out in Western Belize Agriculture and Recreational Area for six weeks. More Colleges in the USA are using Belize as a STUDY ABROAD component for their students in a different culture. Colleges from New Hampshire and the University of Corpus Christi have used Belize for 45 years.
http://stellapinzon.tripod.com/bereacollegetravel/
http://stellapinzon.tripod.com/apartmentwesternbelize/
http://folkmusicfl.tripod.com/adventuresinbelize/

SALVADORANEAN COMMUNITY IN BELIZE OUTNUMBERS CHINESE IMMIGRANTS

There are about 30,000 Salvadoraneans registered living in Belize. They have formed a Community on San Pedro Island. In Western Belize agricultural area, most of them came originally back in 1986 during USA President Reagan’s Civil War in Salvador as United Nations refugees. They have turned into a valuable asset to Belize as we grow. They are into milk production, cheese manufacturing, cattle and milk cows and vegetables of many kinds. Their children have businesses in Belmopan and the Twin Towns of Santa Elena and San Ignacio and the grandchildren are now bi-lingual young people of the third generation who will build our nation of Belize, when they get out of school.


TOURISM DOWN 5% FOR THIS YEAR IN BELIZE

May was a DEAD month for us at Falconview Backpackers Adventure Hostel. The Belize Tourist Board reported it was bad all around the country that month. Otherwise our gross revenue stream tripled for the 8 month tourist season year. We are still in the red, after the first two pioneer years in Cayo Western Belize. Our own philosophy has been to expand more upscale accommodations and we are increasing our number of furnished apartments, from one to three; while maintaining our bunk bed dormitory for the low budget backpacker explorer.. The low budget traveler trend did not materialize from our AUXILLOU FAMILY GROUP tourist facilities on Caye Caulker island. We did not get the backpackers we expected from Caye Caulker and Tina’s Backpackers Hostel on the beach there. Which does very, very good as a HOT spot for University age, partying student travelers. The tourist season past, was not bad by any means. It just fluctuated, but as the biggest earner for our government revenues, a 5% fluctuation has the government worried. The Western Belize Recreational Area adventure tours offered locally, are improving in quality, variety and services and this is reflected in increasing numbers of tourist visitors overall. Western Belize is now getting referrals from all over the spectrum of Belize national tourist resorts. We also now have a direct Cessna 172, three passenger charter service from Caye Caulker and San Pedro tourist islands arriving at the Twin Towns municipal Central Farm airstrip to order.

MAYAN, SAN ANTONIO TOWN IN CAYO DISTRICT GETS A PRESCHOOL

Nestled in a small beautiful valley, what forty years ago was a small thatch roofed, palmetto walled typical housing style, Mayan village; at which I once did magic tricks for the children, when traversing with tourist groups; has grown into a widely dispersed community of vegetable farmers, supplying both the Twin Towns and the nation, and now have posh cement houses, drive cars, trucks and trail bikes. Television and washing machines are not uncommon. Well the little village now a TOWN of sorts, still small in population, but uncommonly wealthy, now has it’s first pre-school. Built by the Village Council and inaugurated by Rene Montero the local AREA REPRESENTATIVE ( elected government official ), the new preschool has a student body of 45 young children.

GALEN UNIVERSITY OF THE, WESTERN BELIZE RECREATIONAL AREA

Galen University located just past Central Farm agriculture research station for the Belize government and next door to the University of Belize Agriculture College now has an official five years in existence. This year they have 300 students. They even get foreign students and also have arrangements to give USA recognized degrees in certain subjects with associated Universities in the USA, with which they have agreements and distance learning programs. The major partner in the USA for GALEN UNIVERSITY in Belize is the University of Indianapolis. Undergraduate programs in Belize are recognized by the Higher Learning Commission of the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools in the USA. Foreign students are coming from the USA, Canada, England, France and Sweden. We had thought once, we would be a mecca for Central American students, but this never materialized. Chinese students once made up a big group to learn English, but this program has declined in recent years. Native Belizeans make up 90% of the student body. In my own lifetime, I have seen Belize go from a country, which had no people with even a Bachelors Degree, to two Universities now giving PH’ds, recognized abroad.

PHOTO FROM TOP OF XUNUNTANICH TO GUATEMALA

That ridge in the background is across the border in Guatemala. The photo is taken from the top of Xununtanich Mayan pyramid, on the top of a big hill, on the Belize side. The Maya still live here, in two towns. One is called San Jose Succotz at the bottom of the hill and across on a barge like ferry, hand cranked across the Mopan River that drains the Peten in Guatemala. The pyramid is for the last two thousand years, for the second Mayan Empire called the Classic period.

CONSTRUCTION BOOMING IN CAYO WEST

WESTERN BELIZE NEWS Sept 8, 2008

MONTERO’S LUMBER YARD OF SAN IGNACIO TOWN, CHANGES FACILITY TO CEMENT BLOCK MAKING FACTORY.

The long standing famous Montero’s Lumber yard up by the Y junction of the Western Highway in San Ignacio Town and on the by-pass boulevard around San Ignacio town is no more. The lumber yard has been replaced by a cement block making facility. Montero’s had trouble getting a supply of decent lumber for the past 20 months, and most of their hardwoods were termite ridden, or twisted. Their lumber business has been replaced by a competitor across the same corner, over the Western Highway , close by, at the junction of the Cahel Pech side road. This competitor was small scale about two years ago, but has been improving delivery of lumber supplies steadily and today is supplying some good supplies of clear grained medium and hard woods. We certainly like what we have been buying and currently we are buying lumber here ourselves in preference to Pine Lumber who have moved from the BULL RUN location five miles away to the East, along the Eastern highway, to a posh modern, new lumber yard facility dealing now only in imported pine lumber. Presumably from the USA in soft pine? They sell pre-dressed siding, flooring and assorted sizes. The new Pine Lumber location is even further east from Bull Run Meat production and Central Farm Agriculture Research Station, on the Western Highway , by Redmond Farm, with the tall Cuban Royal Palms growing along the fenceline as a landmark. It is probably 8 miles East of Santa Elena Town.

FINDING FLOOR AND WALL TILES an imported construction commodity HAS NARROWED DOWN TO “CREATIVE TILE COMPANY STORE”, ON THE BY-PASS BOULEVARD AROUND SAN IGNACIO TOWN.

Our very small operation at Falconview Backpackers Adventure Hostel in developing real estate as part of the AUXILLOU TOURIST GROUP, has had a lot of trouble the past six months in finding affordable tiles. Most hardware stores, like Dito Juan, Lin’s Hardware, Western Hardware, Allen’s Hardware, Agro Tech Hardware, only have samples of tiles with outmoded prices, but with the oil price speculation on the world market, the imported tile prices they quote have been doubled or tripled. Even so, despite this, nobody has had any tiles in stock inventory for immediate purchasing around Western Belize . We eventual found Creative Tile Store and warehouse on the boulevard in the developing industrial area near the top of the hill, on the by-pass road around San Ignacio Town and they had both choices of tiles at lower prices in inventory stock. We ended up buying floor tiles by price and not by color, or decoration to fit the budget. We were looking for $2 tiles. We noticed that Benny’s Hardware down in the coastal port a hundred miles away, advertise in the port newspapers lower priced floor tiles, but our travails in trying to find floor tiles out in Western Belize, in Belmopan, Spanish Lookout, Santa Elena Town, San Ignacio Town, Benque Viejo and Melchor de Menchos across the border in Guatemala, were finally directed to Creative Tile Store and warehouse, a place we were not familiar with. They did indeed have tiles in inventory. Nobody else did anywhere in the Western Belize Cayo District Area. In the Auxillou Tourist Group, our family operations; Ilna Auxillou has one house under renovation and construction, Sharon Auxillou one house that is being worked on by a sub-contractor, Mrs. Silvia Pinzon Auxillou one house, Wendy Auxillou and Tina Auxillou, together have three houses they are working on for reconstruction and renovation in the Western Belize Recreational Area, all in the twin towns location. Floor tiling can run between $1500 and $4500 dollars depending on your choices per unit in the small houses common to this area. Getting tile at a budget affordable price is difficult out here these days. The construction business seems to be holding steady for the past eleven years in Cayo West.

GUATEMALAN MILITARY MARIMBA BAND TO PLAY IN BELMOPAN

BELIZE WILL ENJOY SHARING WITH CENTRAL AMERICAN COUNTRIES ON SATURDAY SEPT 13th of the BELIZE INDEPENDENCE CELEBRATIONS IN THE CAPITAL BELMOPAN - FOLKLORIC ARTISTIC FESTIVAL PLANNED.

The Belize Independence day is actually September 21st, but the Central American and North American countries of Costa Rica , El Salvador , Guatemala , Honduras , Nicaragua and Mexico will be sending folkloric artists to the capital of Belize in honor of our Belizean Independence Day celebrations. The artistic performance will be small, as befitting a small populated country. ( About 300,000 people ) and held this coming Saturday at 4 p.m., at the Governor General Field in the capital Belmopan , September 13th. 2008. The capital town itself has a population of 7000 people around the immediate area.

The childrens ballet “PILMIJTOIANIJ” from Vera Cruz, Mexico from a long way away, will be coming to perform, Chetumal , Mexico a frontier town, will be contributing a reggae group called “HIERBA SANTA” and will offer musical concerts. The entrance is FREE! I am extremely excited myself in hearing and seeing the Guatemalan Marimba group “UJUUM MAYAB”. The last time they were in Belize I missed them at a Benque Viejo town, frontier Fiesta on the Western Border with Guatemala . The Benque festival not being publicly announced to warn us. This Military MARIMBA ORCHESTRA is famous in the nearby State of Peten , Guatemala and belongs to the First Infantry Brigade of Peten. We nearly went to war with them back in the 1960’s and early 1970’s over Belize . They use two jungle made wooden MARIMBA orchestra instruments along with a drum set and the orchestra numbers twelve people. Three musicians play one Marimba instrument and four musicians play another different octave marimba wooden made jungle instrument. There are also up to five other musicians joining in with other instruments, like drums. This MARIMBA orchestra plays a wide repertoire of dance music. Belize will be contributing some ethnic cultural traditional dances from different sections of Belize .

Belize also has a declining population of traditional marimba players with over 150 years of history behind them out in Western Belize .

The Festival will also play down in the port on the coast, the political control capital of the country at the Bliss Institute on Sunday. The purpose of the Festival is to strengthen ties between Central American countries and Mexico in North America .

I’m really excited to hear and see this Guatemalan Marimba band as we have run Maya Mountain Folk Music Festivals for over five years, mostly to do with the Marimba. Photos can be seen on the internet at: http://falconview0.tripod.com/annualmayamountainsfolkmusicfestivalofwesternbelize2004/

http://falconview0.tripod.com/mayamountainsfolkmusicfestival/2005belize/

http://falconview0.tripod.com/belizeteenagemarimbacontestof2004/

http://falconview0.tripod.com/mayamountainfolkmusicfl/


WESTERN BELIZE HAPPENINGS can be found regularly on our NEWS SERVICE at:

http://westernbelizehappenings.blogspot.com



News Service presented compliments of: “Falconview Backpackers Adventure Hostel” Santa Elena Town, Western Belize .

Western Belize News Service of Cayo District- TROPICAL LIVING!

Life is tough in the tropics as you can see. I'm picking a papaya for breakfast. That is me at 71 years old. In the background you can see my brother-in-law Gustavo Pinzon, who flew in yesterday via Miami from Bogota, after selling out everything in Colombia to live and invest in Belize. Gustavo is about 59 years old, young yet.
You will notice the coconuts behind Gustavo for drinking fresh coconut water, with rum. Those plants in front of us are Elephant Ears, a beautiful decorative plant. We also harvest plenty of breadfruit, which we love and get oranges. All of these growing things in a house lot in Hillview of 75 ft x 100 ft, in which we have our two bedroom small house, surrounded by our HOSTEL catering to budget University age kids touring the world. We also have a three story annex on the same lot with a warehouse, three furnished apartments, garage and tool rooms, ncluding our nursery up on the top third floor screened in that gives us our salad vegetables all year round.
If you live in cold country with snow and blizzards, then you can appreciate that our weather is tropical. Our summer is April to August May is the hottest month of the year and June and July are very warm though humid. September is the start of the winter crops for temperate vegetable planting and you switch to summer varieties of vegetables around February planting. Crops grow all year round. Rainy season is January, September with scattered showers most of the rest of the year except April and May which is our vacation time dry season.
You cant beat living in the foothills of Belize or on the offshore barrier reef cayes.

urls to reference would be: http://folkmusicfl.tripod.com/retirementinbelize/
http://folkmusicfl.tripod.com/adventuresinbelize/