VENEZUELA offers Belize free medical treatment!

photo/image of Hugo Chavez, President of Venezuela
Map of Venezuela

VENEZUELA OFFERS BELIZE FREE MEDICAL TREATMENTS

Two SOCIALIST countries now offer Belizeans free medical treatment. Both CUBA and VENEZUELA offer Belizeans, free round trip plane trips, accommodation, meals and all medical treatment free.
Cuba has been supplying Belize, our Cuban doctors for years. We would not have medical personal in our rural village clinics, if it was not for our friends the CUBANS. Now we are also being offered by President Hugo Chavez SOCIALIST government, free medical treatment.
Last year, the Venezuelan Embassy had mentioned to me, that they had intended to put a 737 jet liner on a weekly schedule between Caracas and Belize. This to serve the growing Venezuelan population moving here for associated diplomatic and Embassy reasons. I think later this month I will check with the Venezuelan Embassy, next time I’m in Belmopan and get the full story? According to local television news casts, the program will start with eye operations, like cataract surgery, but will be available for other medical surgeries, not available in Belize, but can be performed in Caracas, Venezuela. The sole criteria will be a pre-screening exam, before such a surgical trip can be offered.
I think Venezuela is to be admired and congratulated on their efforts to change the world, or at least the Caribbean countries with such a socialist medical service. The USA medical service and health system is bankrupt, with about one third of their population lacking the means to get treatment. Those that remain, even with medical insurance, often cannot get decent medical treatment either. The medical system, particularly USA hospital corporate groups are also known to be preying on sick older people and putting LIENS on their house and assets, for outrageously bloated costs for medical treatment, that should cost pennies, not millions of dollars. The medical system in the USA is very bad and not a good example to follow for Caribbean governments. Belize does get USA PRIVATE doctor and volunteer medical groups coming to Belize during their COLD WINTERS, to ostensibly treat remote rural communities here, from the USA. This is to the good of course and Belizeans are grateful. It is a fair trade, a working vacation in our tropical paradise during their coldest snow winters for medical treatments that can be used, for a tax write off in the USA medical and tax regime.
All through Central America, US retirees are moving here for the climate and one of the big reasons mentioned is affordable health medical treatment.
Here in Cayo West, we are proud of our CUBAN doctor medical staff, in the Twin Towns Government General Hospital, they do a darned good job. We welcome this new move by VENEZUELA.
Check out: http://folkmusicfl.tripod.com/retirementinbelize/

Belize Tourism WAAAY down for January!

Typical overnight backpacker traveler tourist.



Just checked with tour operators and the Tourist Business in Cayo West is WAAAAy Down. We await the BTB statistics with much interest.

One Belizean just back from CANCUN, says he got a suite on the beach in the most expensive hotel, for $80 a night, had his own jacuzzi in the suite, all food free, all drinks free, everything free. CANCUN is FULL, overbrimming with tourists.
The story was the Mexican government got the airlines to halve their fares to CANCUN and the hotels to cut prices by 50%. IT WORKED for them.
The whole overnight tourist industry in Cayo West is complaining of the scarcity of tourists during the month of January. Blamed are rapacious airline ticket costs to Belize.

Belize Port Town Creole Aristocracy

One of the main leaders of the age of post colonial ROYAL CREOLE aristocracy in the port town of Belize City.



PORT TOWN CREOLE COLONIAL ROYAL ARISTOCRACY

Charles X in the weekend’s AMANDALA lamented in his article “OH WENDY” the loss of the Creole majority on demographics, in the Belize population, to the Mestizo majority of Belize today. Wendy had argued in a previous week’s article that she would have rather have had, a CENTRAL AMERICAN passport, than the ARISTOCRATIC townie colonial attached lawyer and current party leader/Prime Minister of the UDP made, when going for the CARICOM passport decision on behalf of all Belizeans, without any public consultation, or even a REFERENDUM for the two choices.
Out in Western Belize most people, where half the population of Belize the nation live, would have more use for the Central American passport and that is a fact. The number of roads, four lane paved highways, bridges and speedy road communications that our Central American neighbors have built and continue to build, joining all of Central America together, including Belize, is nothing more than staggering. You can drive to San Pedro Sula from Santa Elena Town in the Cayo District in about 8 or 9 hours. From the Rio Dulce you can do it in 2 or 3 hours to San Pedro Sula. You can do Salvador in 9 hours and Guatemala City in 9 hours. By the end of the month I will be able to tell you if the road to COBAN via Xayache and onward from Coban to Panachjel on Lake Atitlan is actually paved or not, as reported in the TRAVEL FORUMS of tourists, because I intend to check it out myself. If so, this interior central highway route will by-pass that over trafficked, BARRIOS to GUATEMALA CITY valley highway route that is a dog leg of another 300 miles from Santa Elena Town and the Benque border post, saved for Central American travel, joining the Pan American highway system. It is a fact, that Belize communications and transportation with the rest of Central America is now by paved highways and in some cases they are brand new four lane asphalted highways. We need to connect Jalacte in the South with the Guatemalan highway system.
The crux of Charles X article using Wendy’s letter to the editor as a fulcrum, was lamenting the loss of the coastal Creole population by migration to the city metropolises of the industrialized world in the Northern Temperate Zones, with which they are more familiar as a culture, in their slave salaried job mentality. The past education system taught them to be salaried people, another name for slave. The slave salaried job mentality always suffer in economic downtowns. The majority of the population of Belize live as entrepreneurs in an agrarian society off agriculture and such private sector service functions in the shape of stores and services to feed the needs of the farmers. It is agriculture, that is the core of the taxes that support the Creole population in civil service jobs. Except for a minority of Creoles, mostly involved at the subsistence milpero hand machete level in agriculture, nearly all of that native born ethnic, port town, Creole group have insisted on civil service clerical work, rather than the more labor intensive, uncertain, but better paying agriculture farm building choices open to them. It is the Maya and the Mestizo, a few Creoles and a growing number of Caucasian immigrants that are pioneering and developing the country of Belize.
Clinton de Luna has weighed in from up North, in the Corozal District in this debate, with his defense of the Mayan population, who have been living in Belize since the last Ice Age. The Maya are too busy with the work of agriculture and wresting a living from the land, to be bothered with the sophistry of the debates favored by the port city intellectuals. He actually says they can take their BAYMAN history arguments and shove it. The rest of us applaud him for speaking evident truths. He and his fellow Maya and Mestizos born in Belize, do not identify with the Creole history created by the port town Aristocratic, European loving, Colonial minded intellectuals. Even the National Flag is a travesty of Creole salaried role mentality creationism. The flag was certainly not created by the many pioneers building this nation. We would rather have something more distinctive, like a coconut tree on a green background for a National flag.
Outside of the port town, the rest of the country disagree with the CARICOM joining, in such a form as a CARICOM passport and Wendy is quite right, in that if a REFERENDUM had been held, it would have been chosen to use the CENTRAL AMERICAN passport. Unfortunately, we were not asked by the port townie ruling political Creole aristocracy, who are self centered on getting rich off politics, from the taxes paid by the pioneers and nation builder producers, in the districts.
It is sad to even read articles and editorials by the AMANDALA writing inflammatory stuff, that reflects Central America and Guatemala of 40 or 50 years ago, rather than that of the past two decades since the Reagan Cold War came to an end. The editor is so woefully out of touch with reality, that progress and change has left him behind with his old man memories of his youth. Sort of like Generals of the last war, being asked to lead the soldiers in today’s war. If you do not change and move with events, you are going to lose and lose big.
It is not only the Central American passport versus the Caricom passport issue either, being led by the so-called aristocratic Royal Creoles, but economics is suffering as well. Caricom as a market for Belize, at this point in history is laughable as a joke. A common currency even a worse joke, as of the 14 countries in Caricom, only one, or maybe two, actually have a fiscally sound government. All the rest are basket cases of debt economics, with debt ratios to GDP even worse than Belize. On average about 170% to GDP. This ratio also indicates the managerial skills of the island nations comprising CARICOM. They are 95% pure LOSERS for management skills. About the only tie we have left with CARICOM countries, is the legal system and training of lawyers and foreign policy as a joint voice. Our education system over the past dozen or more years has surpassed and diverged dramatically from Caricom norms and now follows the more successful USA Community College model. One could say we do not even have a common educational system any more with the British Commonwealth. Which is why Belize is more successful than the rest of them, in the Caribbean, who still export their brain drain to industrialized countries of the Northern hemisphere. Belize is growing and our losers are migrating also. Only the tough are surviving in Belize and doing very well indeed. Pioneering and nation building, only caters to the strong of heart, the patriotic and proud. The rewards are good, but the weak will always flee to other pastures, which seem greener, taking their slave salaried mentality with them. So be it, the population left, will be one tough sons of guns. Survival is the name of the game, whether for a family, a community, or a nation.
Right now our future economics and trade are tied NOT to CARICOM, but to Central America and North America. Just think, by crossing the border at Melchor de Menchos I can telephone anywhere in the world, including the USA for 3 cents Bz. a minute, while in Belize under the British engendered monopoly telecommunications piratical system, the same phone call runs about $3 a minute, my neighbors in Hillview say. I wouldn’t know, I cannot afford to use the telephone in Belize. I have a cell phone to receive phone calls, but very rarely call out and only SMART gives me erratic reception. The BTL monopoly has no signal in our lower Hillview community on the slope of Green Parrot Valley. I had some guests visiting today from Guatemala and they were trying to use their BTL phones and I laughed and told them they were useless in our section of Belize and loaned them my SMART telephone, which is only marginally better.
What was shameful to read in recent newspapers, that the CROOK REPORT states that 70% of our policemen, do not have, or only have a Standard Six education, which is equivalent to Grade 8 in North America. Not only that, the literacy comprehension rate of such policemen is near to zero. What a sad state of affairs! This is leadership by a port town political aristocracy?

February Belize Agriculture News 2009

One of the green parrots who are carrying tales of news around Cayo District to my window.



AGRICULTURE NEWS AND GOSSIP IN CAYO WEST UNDER THE BREADFRUIT TREE!

Can’t vouch for any of the following, but the rumor mill, in the shape of a few tiny GREEN PARROTS stopped by my house and told me the following, while sitting on the branches outside the living room window.
SPANISH LOOKOUT had TWO BIG OIL SPILLS about ten days ago. None of the media have been alerted, or reported same in newspapers or on television, and the government is to be congratulated on keeping a lid on this environmental disaster. Must be what they call a D notice in the UK?
Genetically modified seeds are sporadically and selectively being banned in Belize, but there seems to be no rhyme or reason to it? You can buy genetically modified vegetable seeds of sorts, except like corn and beans. Papaya grown for export are supposed to be genetically modified varieties. We also import all of our genetically modified cereals like Corn Flakes from the USA, which are genetically modified produce sold in cardboard boxes, mostly by the USA and Mexico for human consumption.
The BIO SAFETY committee that makes these decisions does not have a single respectable big farmer on the committee for decision making, so it is said. Farmers over in Spanish Lookout say there is more danger from the massive insecticides they have to apply, than from genetically modified seeds, approved by UK research, or from the USA FDA.
You hear a lot about government agriculture assistance and protections, but one farmer reported that he just had to pay 90% duty on his PVC irrigation pipes for his crops.
Some farmers want a FREE TRADE DEAL with our neighboring Central American countries. The argument is that we can compete, because of the transportation costs, versus bulk production. They allege our GOVERNMENT is saying no! The CABINET of course is run by non-farmers from the port town mostly. Very intelligent people down in that port town on agriculture issues
There is a bureaucratic and political desire for us to export to CARICOM, but the only market that works is for small loads of beans. CARICOM seems to be a loser for economic trade policy. When the bureaucrats are asked to provide foreign export markets, they back off, even though the CABINET keep announcing in press releases, of all the various government departments, that are SUPPOSED to locate export markets, presumably collecting big time salaries to do so? There should be some sort of supervision and report card for bureaucrat market researchers in government departments. We need a scorecard to see how well they are performing. Any chance of getting a list of names and phone numbers? The bureaucrats tell producers they must find their own information, but we farmers have no internet and can’t do so. The government according to farmers is dysfunctional in the export marketing realm.
There was more gossip, but the last parrot had flown away, before I could write all this stuff down, so I tend to forget.

ICA Stones and the Brontasaurus in Peru

Map of valley where ancient engraved stones found.
Over 15,000 stones going back 150 million years, with humans and dinosaurs co-existing
Dinosaur and human




GIANT HUMANS RIDE BRONTASAURUS 150 MILLION YEARS AGO

Some years ago I put forward the theory that humans farmed dinosaurs, back in the dinosaur age. Based on fossil footprints found in Texas of humans and dinosaurs together, frozen in TIME and MUD casts, which were excavated.
Well now the ICA stones of Peru have opened Pandoras Box of human history. Thousands of stones, carved with all manner of prehistoric dinosaur creatures have been found in a remote desert valley of Peru. THOUSANDS! Some of the carvings show Giant humans killing Tyronaus Rex with a weapon and others show humans riding the Brontasaurus. This would make humans over twenty feet tall. We did have a different environment, air quality and other factors during that ancient time. That is a lot of ICE AGES ago though. Look up ICA stones and see what you think. Tihuanaco is still a puzzling ruin and while dating says 13,000 years, it may be a millions of years older than that.

TELECOMMUNICATIONS BTL CEO DEAN BOYCE gives tame interview on own Channel 5

photo/image of Dean Boyce, CEO of BTL in Belize


DEAN BOYCE INTERVIEW ON CHANNEL 5

Saw the morning interview on Monday, on Channel 5, in which Dean Boyce got to put the view of BTL for Ashcroft. Dean was a smooth talker, rationalized his arguments well, made lots of PROMISES, PROMISES, PROMISES about the future, etc.

I’m reminded of a childhood rhyme. It went something like BERTIE BUNNY SO SMALL AND WEE, went traveling the world to see. Along the Nile he met a CROCODILE, who invited him to dinner beneath the NILE.

The essence of the TV interview with Dean Boyce was a hardening of my opinion and history of BTL. This is a ROBBER BARON company in my opinion. They want a MONOPOLY, they want guaranteed PROFITS that can be pulled out of the country and invest in other countries, etc., etc., with promises of services to come in the future. BALONEY I say! Pure disingenuous MALARKY. They want to expand their investment in Belize and profitability and value at Belizeans expense, for later sale of the company down the road. Great if you can convince the amateurs in government to do that, from a company viewpoint.
He wants to eliminate any more competition, change the tax rate with vague promises of lowering service rates. We all know that to be liard from decades of BTL history.. The stupid arguments about TRUSTS owning most of BTL is pure nonsense and would get thrown out in the USA court system.
This is a disingenuous company. I think the Government should nationalize the company before it gets too big and too expensive to take over. What the hell, nationalize and give them BONDS. Play their own hardball game. Or alternative options would be to invite the Mexican telecommunications to come in and service the Northern half of the country and the Guatemalan telecommunications company to come in and service the southern half of the company in competition.
The crux of the matter is; that darned fiber optic cable access. Local competition can’t operate without access to the fiber optic cable. Or can we make a deal to get access from over the two borders of neighboring countries, we are adjacent too? Via microwave maybe? Thus to enable competition.
The TV interview cemented my belief that MUSA was BLACKMAILED into that ACCOMODATION AGREEMENT. HOW is the question? I can’t believe that the accommodation agreement is LEGAL, if it never was approved by the CABINET and the HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES. How the heck can you give ONE COMPANY guaranteed tax relief and guaranteed PROFITS, if you don’t give the same deal to all the rest of us. Does the RADISSON HOTEL get 15% guaranteed profits? Does the San Ignacio HOTEL get guaranteed profits and elimination of competition? We need a FAIR AND LEVEL playing field for foreign and local investment.
We know from BTL history, that the company promises are worth nothing. It is all about pulling out PROFITS to spend abroad. Also in increasing asset worth and sticking the customer with the cost of technological upgrades. The latter is a stockholder responsibility, not a valid argument at all.
If you guarantee profits, then you have to insist those profits are re-INVESTED in other areas of Belize and development companies. You can’t take them out of the country. Monopoly time is over for BTL, or should be after all these years and decades. Sure technology changes, that is supposed to be the private sector company responsibility to pay for their own investment changes. Since such investments change their profit profile, this is part of EVERY business problem in the country. You deal with it as a business, as part of your operating costs. It is no different from our place, having to buy a satellite system, to do what BTL transmitter just a mile away cannot do. Or upgrading our computers every three years. These are costs of doing business for everybody else in the country, why not BTL?
I thought Dean Boyce presented his arguments well, but it was a pure CON job! That is my opinion! That was the JUNIOR CROCODILE speaking for DADDY crocodile. There was a lot of talk about what other regional companies are doing. Baloney again! Who cares except as an exercise in theory. If the GOB cannot get satisfaction with BTL, I think they should NATIONALIZE, or invite the microwave links from over the borders of Guatemala and Mexico.. Dean would work as well for a new master if we nationalized as his old master I’m sure? Anyway, he is not indispensable.
The arguments about country size, dispersed populations and per capita incomes, etc., are valid from a PROFIT generating viewpoint that DEAN made, but basically irrelevant if you want your investment worth, to grow with the population that is set to DOUBLE in less than ten years. You re-invest for the future. Every company in the country is doing that, from Drug Stores, Pawn shops, to hotels, to hardware stores, etc. What BTL wants is a money machine, where the customer pays for everything and allows them to reap a crop of FOREIGN EXCHANGE to spend in some other country. I wish I could do that with my business. Hey Prime Minister Barrow, I want guaranteed 15% profits too!

FALCONVIEW HOSTEL IN BELIZE gets RIO DULCE VISA RENEWAL CROWD

Rio Dulce marina in Guatemala
Winnie Estelle, home for Robert Smith
Rio Dulce owner/captains party crowd ( from the Rio Dulce electronic newspaper Chisme Vindicator
Two ROBERT SMITH, Rio Dulce captains at Falconview Hostel



There are several hundred yachts in the Rio Dulce marinas of Guatemala. It is a safe hurricane hole anchorage and in the fresh water, you don't get barnacles or toredo worms in your hull. Cheap place to stay. Boat owner, or captains though only get a 90 VISA to stay in Guatemala and then must cross the border of one of the neighboring countries and stay for two or three days and then return back across the border and get a new entry visa. These two boat captains, are Robert Smith, 70 years old ( retired ) on the left, owner of the Friendship Sloop DEFIANCE, a gaff rigged vessel he lives aboard in the marina at Rio Dulce and the guy on the right is co-incidently named Robert Smith, but they are no relation. This Robert Smith, known locally in San Pedro, Ambergris Caye where he has a home, is living this year on his Cheseapeak 68 ft wooden boat WINNIE ESTELLE, and living most of this year of 2009, he plans, in the Rio Dulce. I think he and his long term girlfriend are not getting along too well back in San Pedro ? At any rate, we call him CHINABOAT, as he originally came to Belize in the early 1970's with a Chinese Junk, that he trailed overland from San Fransisco through Mexico and launched in Chetumal and cruised and lived in Belize waters ever since. This Robert Smith must be around 68 years old now and a long term friend of 30 years or more, of Ray Auxillou from Caye Caulker, Belize and now retired himself in Santa Elena Town in the foothills of the Belize Alps.
The two gentlemen stayed overnight and were rhapsodizing over the advantage of having FALCONVIEW BACKPACKERS ADVENTURE HOSTEL for visa renewal people, living on their boats down in the Rio Dulce. Apparently you can shoot up from the Rio Dulce in one day by bus to Flores/Santa Elena bus station in the Peten, Guatemala and then by mini-bus ( collectivo ) to the frontier border crossing into Belize. The cost is about $18 usa and takes around 4 or 5 hours. Since the dorm bunk beds run $11 usa plus .95 cents tax, a boat owner can explore the local adventures and environs here in Western Belize and then return with a fresh Guatemalan visa in their passports for another 90 days to their yachts. Many Rio Dulce boat owners leave their boats and go back to their home country and work for half a year and return to their boats with more money in their pockets. Many are retired people on pensions, or with a good bank account behind them. Either way, the dorm bunk beds at Falconview Backpackers Adventure Hostel in Santa Elena Town just across the border in Belize is a convenient spot for the low budget yachtie from the Rio Dulce marinas and for the more expensive person, we also have two furnished one bedroom apartments at $45 usa per night plus 9% government accomodations tax.

website of Falconview Hostel in Western Belize: http://folkmusicfl.tripod.com/adventuresinbelize

News Blog of Western Belize: http://westernbelizehappenings.blogspot.com

The Rio Dulce yachtie crowd have their own newspaper called the Chisme Vindicator and can be found at: http://www.riodulcechisme.com/ The email address is: editor@riodulcechisme.com There is a watch for incoming boats on VHF Channel 68

In recent years, the yacht crowd do not come much to Belizean barrier reef waters. There have been too many stories of harrassment of sailboats by authorities in Belize. One boat owner said he was unfortunate enough to be going through Port o' Stuck at low tide and ran aground in the mud of the very shallow mangrove channel. Unfortunately a port authority boat was going the other way and ticketed him and he ended up paying a $500 fine for running aground in the mud. Since the channel is only 2 feet deep, but tug boats and sugar barges and yachts with up to five feet chug through the short muddy channel plowing through the mud, it is highly unlikely anybody could not go aground but a shallow draft flat bottom speedboat. There are myriad stories of being taken advantage of, by the new Coast Guard people and port authorities of Belize. The country of Belize is not yacht cruiser friendly anymore.