editorial

    This column does not reflect or represent the views of the U.S. Government or of the Peace Corps, and are solely the views of the writer, Peace Corps Volunteer Roger German.

    I'm not sure I've ever mentioned it in this column, but I've been writing a monthly newspaper in Benque... started off as more or less a town newsletter, then morphed into what I would consider a newspaper.  Anyhow, I've never written and editorial for the paper...just didn't think it was my place, that I didn't have the time in grade.  But this issue, the 15th, I wrote one, and thought I'd include it here.  If you're interested in the newspaper, El Chiclero, you can see back issues at www.belizenews.com.  Back at least to January of this year.  Anyhow, here 'tis: 

    As editor of El Chiclero, I have worked hard to maintain high journalistic standards while publishing this newspaper.  Though I work in the office of the Town Council, I have never been pressured to toe any particular party line, nor would I entertain the thought.  Since October of last year, when I first started selling advertising, the paper has been self-supporting, owing allegiance only to the promise of accurate, objective reporting.

    Much of the content of this newspaper has to do with Town business, because my work as a Peace Corps Volunteer with the Mayor and Town Board puts me in contact with that business.  But I do actively search out other news important to Benque Viejo Del Carmen, although since it is not my primary project here in Benque, I am not able to pursue many of the stories that pique my interest.

    For much the same reason, I have not chosen to write editorials, as it is not my opinion that matters here, but my work.  But as I come into the home stretch of my service, with only 4 months remaining, I do have a few observations I would like to share.  And for those of you unfamiliar with journalism, permit me a minor digression here to explain the difference between news and opinion.  Though it is hard to imagine, there are many who confuse the two, not only here but in the U.S. and elsewhere.

    News allows you, as the reader, to gather unbiased information, digest it, and form your own opinion on matters that you might otherwise not be informed on.  Opinion pieces, on the other hand, are written to persuade or influence you, the reader.  Much of what fills the pages of newspapers and the airwaves that passes for news is, in fact, opinion.  There is nothing wrong with opinion as long as it is not passed off as news.

    So this is an editorial, it is not news, and with that, I welcome you into the tangled depths of a Midwestern gringo mind.

    I was walking to the office this morning as two men were working on a pile of sand just off Humble Street where I live.  I would estimate the pile at about cubic 4 yards, about 8 tons of sand, give or take.  They were shoveling it into a wheel barrow, and wheeling it across the road, across a 2 x 8 spanning a ditch, to another pile nearer where, I would assume, they will be pouring footings, laying block and pouring a floor for an addition.

    I walked by, we exchanged pleasant greetings and I went on my way, but I went on my way thinking.  I had recently had a conversation with a Belizean friend who told me flat out “Belizeans are lazy.”  I understood this to be his opinion, but it troubled me, because it has not been my experience here in Belize.   Those two men moving 8 tons of sand are not lazy; I have wheeled sand and concrete and it is not work for lazy people.

    I have watched Belizeans pour a second story concrete floor, bucket by bucket, scaling hand-made bush post ladders with the 50 or 60-pound buckets on their shoulders.  I have gone into the bush to the family farm to chop weeds or gather corn.  I have gone into the bush to chop palms for Palm Sunday, and marveled at the loads the young men could carry through the rough, slippery terrain.  I have burned the midnight oil with your Mayor working on presentations for the World Bank loan process or planning for the Clean Belize campaign.  I have traveled with your amazing back-country guides into rivers and caves, dependent entirely on their expertise and skill.

    Belizeans are not lazy people.  In Benque Viejo Del Carmen, the Town Council has issued 276 Trade Licenses.  That means 276 independent business people setting up shop to try and make a living in this town of 8,000 or so (6,000 if you believe the census, which census few Belizeans believe).  Given half a chance and some training, I believe Belizeans work as hard as any people I have worked with.

    And I think that is beginning to be felt in this country where for 150 years under British rule it made little sense to try to get ahead, because there was little chance to get ahead unless you knew the right people, had the right connections, got the debilitating handouts.  Of course, vestiges of that system remain.  That system is a cancer in most organized societies, including the U.S., and equally hard to root out.

    I have of course run into lazy Belizeans, as I have run into lazy Americans.  But to say that Belizeans are lazy as a people, as a country, has not been my experience here.

 

Comments

[Sandy]

I hope one of the 276 Trade Licenses is for the continuation of El Chiclero.