In the House on Friday, Minister of Youth Dolores congratulated the Youth Parliament, a group of 31 young people who climbed the steps at the National Assembly Building and went in to play at being ministers of government, backbenchers, and opposition whips. I understand they made speeches that were filled with substance, and Dolores and her colleagues said listening to the youth gave them confidence that the future of our country will be in good hands.

I too want to join in with the cheers; we do have many gifted young people, some of whom are preparing themselves to play leadership roles in our country. Congratulations!

The way the Almighty designed this world, there are many followers, and few leaders. Of course, we all have the gene to lead, but in most of us, it’s recessive. Ah, some aspire to be leaders, some have something within them that pushes them to be the dog that leads the pack, and some have to step up from the crowd to fill a vacuum.

If you’ll lead, there’s something you must be told, and if you are to attain your potential, there’s something that must be demanded of the ones who went to the House and cheered you on.

I must ask: before you started ascending those steps that have kissed the shoe soles of men like George Price and Philip Goldson, and the spike heels of women like Sylvia Flores and Faith Babb, did you walk around the building and the market picking up paper and uprooting weeds?

I really hope that the people who organized the show gave you counsel about the importance of humility. There’s a lot of ego involved with leadership, it goes with the territory, so you have to do things that will keep you humble. Head tek is all too common in the leadership breed. Belize has had it up to the gills with that type.

You know that top cooks don’t like to clean the dishes. Well, their ego can run as far as it wants, because they have a simple chore: prepare tasty food. So much more is demanded of a leader of people. A leader must set good examples. The simplest task in this world, maybe, is keeping the place clean. From the cradle we are taught that cleanliness is next to godliness. But, as the top cook would tell you, it’s boring and tedious and menial work. Aha, a good leader, one like our Father of the Nation was, will make the effort to show all our country’s citizens that no honest work is beneath them, and the bonus there is the emphasis on keeping our jewel of a country clean.

Ouch, someone, don’t mek mi call name, threw out this madabig slap that we are subjects, not citizens. You call that throwing salt into an artificial wound. We know the motive for the bad mind. Down with purists! Investigate Professor Twist for callously saying his wife was devoured by a croc, not an alligator.

I wonder where our youth get to hone their leadership skills. There are no vibrant scouts/guides movements, only a tiny cadet corps, and well-organized sports programs are few. And what kinds of examples are our leaders setting? In 2008 we hired leaders that promised to deliver on transparency and accountability after the failure of the crowd before, and after 13 years of the new crowd’s rule we have yet to see the books. We hear talks of robbery, but as long as the books remain closed, all we have is mudslinging.

So many things we need to do to prepare our young people for leadership. Ms. Dolores and friends said our future will be in good hands because these youngsters that represented at the Youth Parliament show that we have a lot of good people coming up. That brings us to this question: in this rotten system we have that only allows for those who wear red or blue shirts, what chance do these brilliant young talents have to make it back to the House as elected representatives?

The next time we go to the polls, we must ask voters to tell us how positive their vote is. Did we vote OUT the UDP, or did we vote IN the PUP? What kind of country are we building here when brilliant talents get wasted if they dare to have a vision that is different from those of the two parties that presently rule?

From ever since, it is known that if you are a broom stick or a mule or a dirty rotten crook you can get a seat in the House if you play up to one of the two political parties that can win in Belize. As night follows day, there will be a swing, so your time will come. Third party leaders that blame our people for their voting patterns really must STOP. It’s a rotten system we have.

Those congratulations must not be hollow words. Belize is too small to be squandering talent the way we do. Only the status quo is enjoying this. Well, I’m disrupting their tea party, playing exposer of their hollow congratulations, letting the youth know that as Ras Indio sang, eena dis ya system many of dem a fraud.

Congratulations, Krismos cheer, and suggestions to share it

Congratulations to the government for its compassion and creativity in coming up with some Krismos cheer for its employees and the many of us who don’t have jobs or are barely getting by. Krismos, it is the great story of Jesus being born to poor people in a little crib in a stable, and of course we all know His purpose. Krismos, it comes but once a year, and it is such a big part of our culture that every effort must be made to keep it up.

I don’t know if anywhere else more gusto was put into the celebration than in Belize. In Belize everyone comes home for Krismos, from chicle and mahogany bush, from fishing, from everywhere, and everyone scraped up as much as they could to make the season bright with food and other trimmings.

Krismos comes with a cost, but the biggest expenditure is in home improvement, things that needed to be done anyway but were put off to add newness to the occasion. The expenditure in floor coverings, curtains, paint, varnish, fence repair, all those things go down in the home improvement department.

Jesus knew that all celebrations need to be spiked with something alcoholic, and for most of us our spirits were home-prepared spuddy and wines, and local rum. For food we ate turkey, and most everyone raised theirs, and for a couple weeks we moved from the tail of the pig to the shoulder and the leg. We ate more cake than bread between Krismos and New Year’s, but the flour for both was/is imported.

Making Krismos costs more than in days of yore, but with a little bit of help from the government we can still pull it off. We can’t be happy with China because of all the pressure they are putting on Taiwan, but we have to say thanks for their production of cheapish plastic toys. Bah, what a pity our boys can’t get to play with pop shot guns anymore.

Yaa I’m rushing, to get to here, the division of the spoils. The $1.5 million for public employees, instead of a hundred dollars for each of the 15,000, I say $300 each for the 5,000 at the lower end of the pay scale, or $200 for 7,500. The $3.1 million for the 31 constituencies, instead of giving each $100,000 we should share the money by registered voters. Give Stann Creek West $167,000, and Fort George $31,800.