Moving To Benque Viejo Del Carmen

Benque Viejo Del Carmen, situated on the bank of Mopan River, the western branch of the Belize River, is the westernmost town of Belize and the only official way to enter Guatemala from Belize by road. It is in the Cayo district and is approximately 80 miles due west from Belize City with the capital Belmopan about halfway between Belize City and Benque Viejo. Town of San Ignacio, Cayo District capital is 8 miles east on the Western Highway and the Town of Melchor de Mencos in Guatemala is a mile west of Benque Viejo.

History of the area goes back to the Mayan times. The presence of Tikal, Caracol, Xunantunich (see images of Xunantunich www.subratabasu.com) and several other Mayan sites in the proximity clearly indicates that this area was an active center of Mayan settlement which peaked during the Maya classical period from 200 to 900 AD. There are a number of theories why Maya civilization declined, but historians and archaeologists believe that the decline was a result of many complex factors such as possibly unsustainable agricultural practices, tribal wars, displacement by Spanish and just a breakdown of the social and economic systems. The declined occurred at different times in different regions.

The British loggers started arriving in the area as early as 1600s. The early settlers harvested logwood, which was the source of dyes. The dyes were used to stain beaver furs. However, by the end of the eighteenth century the demand for the natural dye was replaced with synthetic dyes and the loggers turned their attention to cutting down mahogany trees. Loggers set up logging camps along the Mopan River bank.  Benque Viejo which means “old bank” refers to the logging camps along the river bank. The loggers would float the logs downstream the Mopan River to Belize City, from where they would later be exported to England for making furniture. The area was still dominated by Mayans who were employed by the British loggers. There were two well established Mayan villages, Benque Viejo and Succotz, with their own Alcaldes.  Subsequently, town of Benque Viejo has been populated primarily by Spanish speaking Mestizos who are the descendants of Mayan and Spanish speaking Peteneros from Guatemala and Yucatecos from Mexico and eventually by 1900 dominated the area. The village of Succotz remained Mayan as the Mopan speaking migrants from San Jose village in Peten department of Guatemala settled in Succotz, although today most people speak Spanish as opposed to Mopan. The first visit by a Catholic priest in Benque Viejo was believed to be in 1865 with the continued presence and influence of the Catholic Church in the area. The Spanish speaking Chicleros were involved in harvesting Chicle, which was used to make chewing gum. Both mahogany and Chicle industry flourished at the turn of the century and Benque Viejo enjoyed its boom days during the first part of the twentieth century. However, due to lack of any forestry regulation, the mahogany reserve gradually ran low and the invention of synthetic Chicle ultimately caused the demise of both the industries and severely impacted the major livelihood of the area by the middle of the twentieth century.

A Statue of a Chicklero
in Chicklero Park

Benque Viejo Town Hall

Benque Viejo was established as a town in 1904. The original town was approximately an area of quarter of a mile wide by a little over a one half of a mile long. The streets were laid out in a grid pattern, parallel to the Mopan River with a number of open civic spaces scattered through out the area and with commercial activities primarily concentrated on the northeastern quadrant of the town. Relatively narrow, mostly one way streets were lined with typically two story wood frame clap board houses with overhanging balconies that created a community that was quaint, walkable, safe and friendly.  

George and Victoria Streets

Church Street

Currently, through annexation, the Town with a population of approximately 8,000 has grown more than twice of the original size creating sprawled developments with very little public service and inadequate infrastructure.

Reminiscent of  British
Rulers

Under the British authority, in 1962, Antonio Kuylen became the first Mayor elected by popular vote. In 1967 the town was dedicated to the patron Saint Our Lady of Mount Carmel and the town was renamed as Benque Viejo Del Carmel. Belize was granted Self Governance in 1964 eventually gaining its independence from British and joining the Commonwealth Countries in September of 1981. Today Benque Viejo Del Carmen has lost its lustre and its importance as a centre of commerce, but remains proud of its Mestizo heritage, a distinctive blending of primarily Mayan and Spanish history, culture, architecture, and art.

In the recent past as a result of leadership and persistence of several community leaders there has been a cultural resurgence in Benque Viejo. A “House of Culture”, one of four in the entire country, under the auspices of National Institute of Culture and History (NICH), was built in Benque Viejo in 2001 to promote cultural awareness and to inspire creativity. The town also hosts several major cultural and religious festivals that draw people from around the country and also the neighbouring countries. Visit
http://www.nichbelize.org/houses-of-culture/benque-house-of-culture.html or join their Facebook 

House of Culture

I moved to Benque on June 11, 2011 and to start my two year service. I am assigned to the Mayor and the Town Council of Benque Viejo Del Carmen. My primary assignments are to develop a master plan to revitalize the historic downtown and to create a comprehensive tourism plan for the town eventually improving the town’s economy and allowing for increased tax base. I am excited about the potentials and couldn’t have asked for a better assignment. Between my primary assignment and several secondary projects that I already know I will be involved in, I will have two busy years. The main challenge would be to work around the lack of basic resources as well as the lack of support staff to accomplish the tasks. Needless to say I will have to get very creative. My initial assessment is that the key to the success will really depend on how I can keep the community engaged through the process.

There are two other Peace Corps volunteers, Roger and Tracy, currently living in Benque Viejo. Roger works with the Town Council as I do and Tracy is a Health volunteer who works at a free dental clinic in the next village Succotz. They are both getting ready to COS (Close of Service) this October. I will be the only volunteer here for the next two years. Town Council also has a JAICA (Japan International Cooperation Agency, a Japanese version of Peace Corps) volunteer, a young Japanese architect Kota Murakami who is working on a bunch of projects.

The Peace Corps requires that every volunteer spend the first two months at the final site with a host family before moving into his or her own place. I have been staying with Guerra family in the neighboring Succotz Village.   Guerras are a young couple with two little daughters Marianny (5 years) and Belen (9 months).

Marianny

Both the Guerras are teachers and work long hours for very little pay like teachers everywhere else in this world. Unfortunate reality of our times. I have a comfortable living accommodation, but I am looking forward to moving to my own place beginning of August. It will be nice to finally have your own place after four months of living out of a suitcase.

Drive with care
Your family awaits you
Have a good trip

My life in Benque Viejo next…..        

Finally a Volunteer.....

June 10, 2011, it was one of those beautiful Belizean summer days, clear blue skies, sunny, hot and humid. It is the day when we would be magically transformed from Trainees to Volunteers to start our long anticipated service. The day started with trying to get some breakfast, which is always a challenge around the Garden City Hotel because there are no places around the there to have any kind of breakfast. There wasn’t enough time to go to the market place either. I think I got three little tacos for a dollar from the lady who puts up a makeshift taco/burrito stand every morning across the hotel and an orange juice from the Chinese grocery store, which is commonly referred to as “chiney” here.  With that taken care of, we needed to get ready for the big event: Swearing in Ceremony at the Belize House, which is the official residence of Belize Governor General, at 10 am. We all got dressed in our best outfits and got picked up and delivered at the Belize House at 10. As the guests, host families and other Peace Corps volunteers (PCVs) started to arrive at the great lawn of the Belize House and started gathering under a huge tent with about a dozen fans blowing in full blast, thirty seven soon to be volunteers were busy enjoying the moment and mingling with the crowd. I was pleased to have my host family from Salvapan come to the event and I was especially honored that my future workpartners Mayor of Benque Viejo DelCarmen Nick Ruiz and Vice Mayor Ana Castellanos representing the Town Council came all the way from Benque Viejo to join me at this special occasion.

Volunteers

With Roger German, Vice Mayor Castellanos and Mayor Ruiz

Picture taking was probably the most important activity of the morning and everyone wanted to have someway of remembering this special day. The day was truly a special and emotional day for all the volunteers of all ages, the new and the current, who made conscious decisions to serve humanity and consider it to be important enough to give up twenty seven months of their lives and to make the commitment to uphold the core tenet of Peace Corps to promote Peace and Friendship around the world.

Festivities started with Belize and U.S. National Anthems: Land of the Free and The Star Spangled Banner with the Governor General His Excellency Sir Colville Norbert Young, U.S. Charge` d’Affairs Mr. Jack Diffily, Peace Corps Country Director (CD) Nina Hernandez and Peace Corps Training Manager (TM) in Belize Jaime Brancato seated at the Head Table. All the honored guests, host families, host partners, volunteers, staff and the trainees were welcomed by Jamie, who never leaves anything for chance and has everything planned out to the last detail. She had the whole three months of training meticulously planned out to make sure that we were well trained not only worthy to be Peace Corps volunteers and to represent the United States of America well, but also be prepared to integrate well into the host country, which is one of the important aspects of Peace Corps’ approach to serving a host country. Country Director Nina Hernandez’s inspiring speech reminded everyone that we, as volunteers, bring the greatest gift of all, “gift of nothing”. We don’t bring any material gift but instead we bring love, friendship and peace. U.S. Charge` d’Affaires Mr. Jack Diffily  filled in for the Ambassador who was out of the country, told us about his own life changing experience as a Peace Corps volunteer in Togo forty some years ago and how proud he was to be swearing in the new volunteers. He then did the formal swearing in of the Class of 2011 and presented our Certificate of Completion of Pre-Service Training.

The keynote Speaker Deputy Chief Education Officer, Ministry of Education Carol Babb related to us how she was inspired to have the best penmanship by a Peace Corps volunteer when she was a student many years ago and even today she cherishes that friendship. Roger German, who I have the distinct pleasure of eventually replacing when he ends his tour of duty in October, welcomed us on behalf of the Class of 2009 and in his characteristicly eloquent way explained how Peace Corps  changes one life at a time through love and care. He talked about how Tracy Hodson, a health care volunteer  helped a little Mayan child overcome her fear of “white people” by being caring and loving. Zachary Pullin, on behalf of the Class of 2010, greeted us and applauded us for embodying the spirit of service, a service that is not about our personal goals, personal vision or personal responsibilities but it is about shared goals, shared vision and shared responsibilities

The session concluded with thank yous from the class of 2011. On behalf of the Class of 2011, Rogelio (Roy) Flores II, Melissa Ng and Taylor Munz thanked everyone in Spanish, Q’eqchi and Kriol respectively followed by a wonderful Vote of Thanks by Breezie O’Neill. We lunched on a typical Belizean dish: beans and rice, chicken, patato salad, bread pudding and coke.

Class of 2011

Cayo District Volunteers

Goofing around

In the afternoon we had our traditional “mock” rivalry of a friendly football (soccer) game between the new volunteers and the current volunteers. We beat the veterans hands down 3-0. I had to nurse my old knee for the next three days after the game. Later we got ready for an evening reception at the U.S. Ambassador’s private residence, a treat we will not forget. Everyone looked very elegent in their evening dresses as we were received by the Charge` D’Affaires and his wife at the Ambassador’s very lush and sprawling residence.

After formal welcomes, some tasty hors d’oeuvres and wine we were treated to the most delicious dinner we have had since we arrived in Belize. The menu was ceasar salad, grilled red snapper, steamed vegetables, potatoes au gratin, and chocolate cherry cake. Charge` D’Affaires was most gracious and spent time talking to all of us and shared stories of his Peace Corps days and of the various State Department assignments he had over the years. 

With Peace Corps Country Director Nina Hernandez 

With U.S. Charge` d’Affaires Mr. Jack Diffily

Well all good things come to an end and so did our wonderful evening and we headed to the hotel. Next day it was time to say good byes to each other as we got ready to move to our respective sites and start our long anticipated two years of service. Moving to Benque Viejo Del Carmen next….