24.5 C
Belize City
Friday, March 29, 2024

World Down Syndrome Day

Photo: Students and staff of Stella Maris...

BPD awards 3 officers with Women Police of the Year

Photo: (l-r) Myrna Pena, Carmella Cacho, and...

Suicide on the rise!

Photo: Iveth Quintanilla, Mental Health Coordinator by Charles...

Sobbing in my rum

FeaturesSobbing in my rum

In the wee hours on Sunday morning some men went to the house of one of my neighbors, Mr. Chen, and killed him. The story is that they broke into his house with the intent to rob, and he saw them and they shot him. I found out about it when I was going out for my morning walk and run on Sunday, and “Panza” Arnold, who lives two houses from me, told me to hold off because there had been a murder in our neighborhood.

Mr. Chen has been living in Camalote a few years, and I’ve been over to his shop for some electrical work on my vehicle a couple times. I am angry and saddened about what happened to him. I pray that his family members have the kind of hearts that readily forgive, so the anguish over their loss does not stay with them too long.

The children in my yard took it pretty hard. Mr. Chen’s son, Bing, has a snack shop and all the kids in my yard frequent it to buy biscuits, sweets, chips, and other such delights. Our yard has a snack shop too, but we sell pizza and other hot food, and smoothies.

My in-laws and I (we live in the same yard) don’t worry about the children trekking the 300 yards or so on foot or on their bicycles, to Bing’s shop, because they don’t have to go on the highway to get there. It’s an outing for the children. They are daily shoppers, and there are no vehicles zinging by them, so we rest easy.

I told you, they took it pretty hard. I was having my lonesome drink on Monday evening when I saw them, a little group of six, ranging in ages from four to eleven, gather and head in the direction of Bing. They carried a vase filled with flowers they had picked in the yard, and they had candles. I saw their faces, forlorn because of the heaviness in their little hearts, and it reminded me of how heavy the hearts of my neighbors who had suffered the loss must be, and all that made my own heart become full, and it heaved in my chest and I started sobbing.

How sad are my people in our crime-infested country. Our leaders are protected by government intelligence, and government security personnel, and high fences and guard dogs and electronic security systems, so they are insulated from the horrors our people are going through. That’s why they have done little to solve crimes, which is the greatest deterrent to criminal behavior.

I heard the police say that they don’t have suspects for the murder of my neighbor, but they are following some leads. A few years ago two youth in my village were shot and killed in broad daylight. Those murders still remain unsolved. Sometimes, in some cases, the police make arrests. But they are ill-equipped to see the cases through.

Camalote pathway committee

It seems that some people intend to do nothing about this mad highway they are rehabilitating between Roaring Creek and Santa Elena, so it looks like I’ll have to get in some faces. Years ago I formed a committee to get some jobs done, and it looks like I’ll have to step forward again.

Before I go on, it is nigh impossible that I’ll be voting for the UDP in the next general elections, if I make it to that point. If the UDP was absolutely excellent I still wouldn’t vote for them, not for a 4th term. They are nowhere near excellence. It is my opinion that the present government is a let-down to the principles of Philip Goldson, and to the Liberal faction of the party too. This ya crowd noh shame fu teef. I heard their Wave mouthpiece, Joe, say one day that the shame in teef is when yu have to ker back. I’m not so sure he understood what he said. Guy, that noh mek sense.

Last year, when the government went to the House and asked for $14 million more, to purchase some properties and to improve safety features of the road, I thought, hurray, they will be putting in an even better pathway than the one I had been told they would be constructing.

I thought the money to purchase properties was to open pathways in other villages, and to give a little something to newcomers in our village who had built their fences in the buffer. Camalote has always had a buffer on the north side of the highway, and it was respected by villagers. I find it shocking that the original project did not include a pathway, and the 14 million is not for that. I can’t figure out why the Cabinet signed off on this highway design.

The architects said they interviewed people who live along the roadside. I have had a column in the Amandala since 2003, and I was very active in my community for many years. I must have more published articles on road safety issues than any individual in this country. I’ll yield to Mr. Torres on many traffic issues, but he rarely, if ever, discusses pathways in villages. He is excused: he’s a city slicker soh hihn noh understand.

I don’t need anyone to like me, but the road architects should have visited me. They didn’t have to visit me if they were about doing the right thing. On the matter of this road, what they did here is criminal, and any leader who doesn’t see it as criminal is malicious, or ignorant. There, I said that.

These political leaders, it is clear that they have ambition, but they don’t possess anything related to empathy. If they had empathy they would have seen themselves riding or walking home late from work or school in the evenings, and their mamas by the fire hearth praying that they get home safely.

Whoever designed the inner road in Western Paradise (Mile 8, George Price Highway) had empathy and intelligence. The people who designed out here are clueless about safety or have no hearts. It’s not really a matter of cost. All the materials, labor and equipment to make a pathway are in Belize. When it comes to construction, building roads is good for Belize’s economy, because the only thing we have to import is asphalt. Of course, you build roads with a good purpose.

I was instrumental in getting the unfinished pathway in Camalote, the one that was obliterated by our progressive leaders, by aligning myself with John Saldivar, when he was an unelected political officer, and by going to Glenn Tillett and asking him to talk to Joe Coye for me.

I don’t want to rehash the story of my relationship with John, how I got him to help us with a fence for our softball field, a gym for our young people, and a start to our pathway. John isn’t ignorant about what goes on in Cayo South. He was the area rep here, and the information I have is that a lot of villagers from our area are still in his camp. Look, most of our political leaders travel on this road, so they all have guilt. It is not impossible that they didn’t even read the plan.

I most likely will be voting for Julius Espat in the next election, but on the matter of this new committee that I am going to try and set up, I am going to call on Ramon Witz, the political officer out here for the UDP, because they are the ones with the resources.

If you are any kind of leader, you will go against your colleagues when they do wrong to your country or to people in your constituency. A leader must strive to do right. It might not pay off at the polls immediately, but a leader doesn’t measure time by the length of their nose.

For my purpose I want Ramon to remember he got my vote in 2008. There are other villagers and other villages, and who knows that he won’t win some votes if people see him doing the right thing. The road is not half complete, so the villages west of where I live, in Teakettle, Blackman, Ontario, Unitedville, Georgeville, Central Farm, and Esperanza, should support the initiative. If we can arrest the crazy, criminal plans and get a proper pathway here, they should get theirs too.

PUP railing, but what are they doing

When I scrolled the Vibes Wednesday morning I heard the hosts say that the media should pick up on dishonest registration of voters in some areas of Belize City. I have some knowledge of this kind of story, and it is not the media that will bring things to order here. The party making the complaint, the PUP in this instance, has all the innards. If they are serious they will go to court, and they will spill all the beans they have to the independent media, so the independent media doesn’t end up making fools of themselves chasing a case that the party making the accusations might just be playing games with.

Ah, some time ago a political party did all their background, and then they went to court. But they didn’t want to take the magistrate to the residences they were complaining about, so the magistrate could do the firsthand report.

Mr. Harry Smith

Sorry I couldn’t make it to Shuga City over the holidays to have a chat with you, but I can be reached at my email address, [email protected]. Looking forward to communicating with you, Sir.

Check out our other content

World Down Syndrome Day

Suicide on the rise!

Check out other tags:

International