Shades of Red by Kalilah Enriquez

ALSO BY KALILAH ENRIQUEZ

Unfettered (Poems)

SHADES OF RED POEMS, SHORT STORIES, AND SELCETED TRANSCRIPTS OF “MY PERSPECTIVE” BY

KALILAH ENRIQUEZ

WITH A FOREWORD BY

DR. CORINTH MORTER-LEWIS

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in any retrieval system, or transmitted by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior permission of the author with the exception of brief mention in critical articles or reviews.

A publication of

8 Moho Street Belmopan, Belize

www.myspace.com/kalilahthepoet

Back cover photo by Linda Blease Printed in Benque Viejo del Carmen, Belize by BRC Printing

ISBN: 978-976-8197-15-3

FOREWORD By Dr. Corinth Morter-Lewis "Poetry is when an emotion has found its thought and the thought has found words." Robert Frost (1874-1963) These words by Robert Frost aptly describe, in my mind, Kalilah Enriquez’s collection of Poems, Short Stories and Perspectives, the latter written for Radio Broadcast as a part of the News Report and Talk Show she co-hosts on week days. As I read the pieces I looked for one that carried the Book’s Title, “Shades of Red”, or for references, symbolic or otherwise, to red, but could find none. As I neared the end of the manuscript, however, the source for the title became evident – Red in its various hues (light and dark, pinks and reddish browns) represents joy, passion, sexuality, sensitivity, love, friendship, vigour, will power, rage, anger, leadership, courage, longing and wrath. Enriquez’s pieces are, essentially, all rooted in emotions and feelings of varying degrees of intensity, among them, the passion of a conviction, the anger of an injustice, the sadness and pain of loss, the joy and rapture in the consummation of love. These strong emotions and convictions that pervade many of the pieces in this volume are the genesis of the title “Shades of Red Enriquez’s use of language in many of her poems defies convention and dares the reader to condemn them; she does so in a voice that is remarkably consistent in its directness and in some instances, with an immediacy that demands the reader’s

attention. The book is, in part, a collection of texts to be read, in some cases, at least twice, to fully appreciate their meaningfulness. One such piece which I found intriguing is the Short Story with the title “An Unusual Canvas”. The piece left me questioning what was actually depicted in the picture that was the stimulus for the Story. Was it a slave and his woman fleeing for freedom? Was it a slave being flogged at the request of his slavemaster? Where was the locus of the picture in this story, at the beginning, the middle or the end? Enriquez’s use of speech rhythms, colloquial diction, parallelism and juxtaposition as structuring devices, makes her poetry not only personal but at times very intimate and vulnerable. Listen to what she says of true love, in “Winged One”: “It has not withered even though you have not nourished it. It is like the stubborn weed in the garden but also like the flower, beautiful.” In this poem there is an inherent timelessness of love, I do not hate you. I carry you with me every day in the lessons of love learning to be gentle with the hearts of others to tread lightly take time take time listen.

But immediately following these words of love, she writes a piece with opposite sentiments, with the apt. title, “House Cleaning” Although this poem is dismissal of love and caring in its expression, it is stripped of artifice; here the poet’s voice is as present as possible to itself and the moment and, in metered stanzas, she, artfully, bids goodbye to love, in a single day, using familiar and ordinary images to drive the message home: today I Cloroxed my sheets Disclined my floor scrubbed down my tub and mopped you out the door; She continues later in the poem with: today I vacuumed you outta my car Armor-alled you off my seats took your CDs out my radio and drove your memory down the street; Enriquez strives to look at life with honesty and, at times, with a lonely stamina at the centre of her being; this creates in some of her pieces a combined air of gentility, fierceness and compassion that produces an epiphany through sharpened particulars. In the poem “Walking Tall”, she expresses her native vulnerability and sensitivity, while avoiding any sentimentality or preciousness: your tirades can’t tear me down your shades of noir won’t blacken me I already love the black in me I fight the negative that I’ve inherited

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and press on with the attack in me what hasn’t killed me made me stronger no longer am I anybody’s bitch which, come to think of it was an experience rich with wisdom Several of Enriquez’s poems are inward-looking, with autobiographical details that are not shared merely to “validate” or advertise the existence of the self; instead the voice is often the speech of a mind trying to come to terms with the most complex feelings, in order to make sense of them. Listen to her words in “Ceiling Fan”: I want to be like Jesus in those forty days and forty nights, with self-imposed inhibition and austerity, and emerge strong. I am fasting. Instead of food, I allow myself to be devoured; instead of water, I allow myself to be drowned. But I am weak. Eventually, I surrender to the tears. The main theme running through piece after piece, story after story and in many of the commentaries of this young authoress, is the challenge of living in all its forms. The sentiments she shares, the perspectives she presents, the themes she explores, in poems, in commentaries, which are short treatises, and in stories, speak to relationships with lovers, children, parents, friends

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and community. Read her poem, The Unbeliever, where she rejects Catholicism: I cannot be a part of you was never really a part of you only in sacraments taken young penance in Stardard Two communion in Three confirmation in Five as a child I believed the way I believed in Santa Claus but it was never true In the Short Story, Garifuna Drummer, Enriquez uses highly sensual language about love that is very moving. The story opens with the drummer playing his drums which she describes in terms of love making between the drummer and his instrument. His hands expertly traverse her smooth, naked skin with superior knowledge of all her most vulnerable areas. He snaps his fingers in a motion so intense that she gasps and breaks, erupting in an orgasm of excitement. Pleased with his results, he beats on. On, on, he beats on into the night. The story closes with the Drummer making love to Nirisi, a young Garifuna woman who is slowly learning of her Garifuna heritage: There in the sand, he touched her with his beautiful hands, which moved slyly across her skin with no pretense of shyness. Nirisi moaned as he touched her, smiled when he

stroked, caressed. His hands expertly traversed her smooth naked skin with superior knowledge of all her most vulnerable areas. Years of experience had molded him into dexterous perfection. Some of the pieces in this volume are moral in the best sense of the word, because they are devoted to exploring the ways in which we live, both within ourselves and with each other. There is nakedness in these pieces which are found mainly in the section titled My Perspective, these short treatises address a wide array of issues that are catalysts for discussion, that are thought-provoking or that are instructive. In this volume, Shades of Red, we see the works of a writer with talent in using words creatively and effectively, to deliver messages on a variety of issues and in different genre. My one difficulty with reading some of the pieces, is the sometimes very personal and intensely private nature of her discourse; such pieces made me feel like an eavesdropper on a conversation I was not supposed to hear. This volume of poems, short stories and short treatises, presents us with an experiment in which we are able, in one place, to explore themes with threads that connect poem to short story, to treatise, as in the Poem “Kriol Dilemma”, the Short Story “Garifuna Drummer” and the piece “Garifuna Identity”, from the section entitled My Perspective”. A writer’s only tool to express him or herself are words, which often prove to be woefully

inadequate. Kalilah Enriquez has, in Shades of Red, given us wonderfully refreshing approaches to using words, which makes this collection particularly appealing. It was a distinct pleasure to have had the opportunity to read and comment on the work, in manuscript form, of this young authoress. I recommend this, her second publication, as a must read for all those who write and publish, for all those who aspire to become published writers and for all those who love to read and who are interested in sampling the creativity and perspectives of one of Belizeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s, young and maturing writers.

For Mom and Dad (Hubert and Margaret Enriquez)

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In the fell clutch of circumstance I have not winced, nor cried aloud. Under the bludgeonings of chance My head is bloody, but unbowed. --WILLIAM ERNEST HENLEY (Invictus)

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CONTENTS POEMS Shapes Sun Child Driving in Belize City Love U 2 Life Youth on the Corner And Children of the Street Justice is Dead State of the Nation Already Bus Lady My Mother’s Heart Valentine’s Day ’04 The Flu KBY #1 Morning After Speaking Poetry Taste When We Love Other Half (KBY #2) Lover Wonder The Happening Resurrect Me KBY #3 To Forget Delirium Poet Hurt The Last Calcified Heart Of Stars Restrained Untitled

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2 3 5 6 7 8 9 10 12 15 16 17 18 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 32 33 34 36 39 41 42 43 44 45

Boledo Man 46 Winged One 47 House Cleaning 49 Lady in Waiting 50 The Unbeliever 51 Walking Tall 54 At Di Dance 57 Ex Boyfriend 58 Kriol Dilemma 59 Question from a College Classmate In New York 61 Retreat to Caye Caulker 62 View from the Sky 63 SHORT STORIES An Usual Canvas Garifuna Drummer Beggar Boy The Happening (Continued)

66 60 83 86

MY PERSPECTIVE Tax the Tourist On Justice Child Sex Tourism In Defense of Kriol The Men on the Flag Stamp Out Corruption A Righteous Anger Port Loyola Black Youth and Crime Mandatory Military Training Passa Passa Garinagu at 25? Tourist “Village”

92 94 96 98 100 103 105 107 110 112 114 117 119

One Less Belizean Americans Christmas Come Home Capital Punishment Pedophiles in the School System Genocide and the Drug Trade Redefining Gender Relations Garifuna Identity The Belizean Dream We Must Never Forget Connecting the Sugar Cubes Why I Support Gay Rights Where’s the State in Church-State? I Don’t Trust the ICJ Six Reforms The Gentrification of Port? Those Damned Dams Emancipation Day

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121 122 125 127 129 131 132 134 136 138 140 143 145 147 149 151 154 155

POEMS

SHAPES if only hearts came in the shape of stars and could invoke the quality of starfish to regenerate a lost part once broken

SUN CHILD I brown skin was made for sun kissing warm rays on cheek shimmer on brow sun is to face as star is to night creator of glow illuminator i’m a sun child i go where he go let light flow throw arteries brown skin show iridescent II melanin flirts with him saying, “come, sun bring your warm lips kiss the curve of my hips and the tip of my nose the arc of my forehead the crease between my toes “make me blacker and stronger

blacker and stronger blacker and strongerâ&#x20AC;? III iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m a child of the sun i let him bathe me and then I bathe in him make his waves burn me brown me like the top of kriol bread (the good part) love me darken me make my pigment smile brown skin was made for this brown skin was made for sun kissing

DRIVING IN BELIZE CITY is the special art of squeezing into and through exceedingly small spaces

LOVE YOU TO LIFE These are my men. I am selfish with them over protective by necessity. I’d rather they say they want to live for me than die for me. I would love them to life if I could. If they’d let me I’d treat them real good. Food to fill them for a lifetime and loving like they never had. But always they leave me and so I hold tight to the next one until he too disappears.

YOUTH ON THE CORNER cudda been a handsome guy if there wasnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t such despair in his eyes i cudda loved him

AND and his blood spattered on the wall like toothpaste on a mirror in the morning except it was crimson far darker than white no innocence and there was no looking glass to watch himself die and five men came to his funeral (he called them his boys) the rest were all women and children bawling his mother wanting to jump in the hole the men let it rain only inside their lungs stood there blank-faced sunken-chested as if awaiting their turn and his ghost will never bother a soul not even his killer because the first time he rested in life was in death he lives now only in the nose the lips the eccentric laughter that his children borrowed the reflection in their eyes when they turn just so and the light hits their cheekbones

CHILDREN OF THE STREET They hold their bellies in their hands Offering them to strangers to fill As their legs maneuver through pot-holed streets The council fills the holes with white marl And the chalky sand gives them their only socks But their motherâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s pot gets no fill Their bellies stay open, empty Tonight their midnight eyes With no star to light their corner Will devour sky juice and wind pie Tomorrow they will empty buckets in the canal With the waste of those who hustled food yesterday But their bowels will stay frozen With nothing to pass

JUSTICE IS DEAD justice was murdered today the threats duly fulfilled justice was killed there was no hollywood clutching of the heart no sudden resuscitation before the final breath no time to cry out murder name the killer call the cops save its soul with a final prayer the killer crept quietly from behind raised the 9 and the pulled the trigger killed that nigger dead nigger nuisance nigger no name nigger who he unidentified nigger body bullet sped through the brain and justice was dead before the expended shell hit the floor justice was no more who will pick up justice rush it to the KHMH fill out medico-legal forms

perform the autopsy bring out the bullet mark it as evidence who will pay for a casket space at Lord Ridge say, â&#x20AC;&#x153;all family and friends are called to this announcementâ&#x20AC;? and who will tell the undertaker what to inscribe on the tombstone something along the lines of Here lies justice Builder of civilizations Creator of history Changer of hearts May it forever rest in peace

STATE OF THE NATION You say we should be more positive. The people in the hills and countryside will still give their Xs to you and then you will leave them be, leave them living the way they do. Fetching water from the river, using candles in the night smelly, zinc outhouses are not poverty but the rural way of life. And pitiful children still lining up for 6 o’clock parade in 2007. I see heaven in their eyes when they look at me as if I personify glory, as if the shilling I lay in their palms is their salvation. That’s a sad salvation. Their story is lost on the ones who risk millions on bad securitizations. Now generally, I hate generalizations but I’ve come to the realization that the people we give power in this nation don’t have our best interest in mind. We come last

after power, profit and privatization Should we not be laden with wealth? Yet, health is for the rich. Those unfortunate enough to be less than affluent, they die and no one asks why and no one asks why except immediate families, brothers and sisters whose sanity depend on how loudly they cry. They do not shed tears for vanity. It’s the profanity they cannot accept. The amity displayed at election-time didn’t spare their loved one from death. And they’re still six feet in debt for the funeral. And we’re still six feet in debt for the funeral riches buried beneath soil in caskets of corruption. The populace, the means of production made ready for our own destruction working for our own destitution. It’s the prostitution of a people and we’ve been taking it for what? so worms can eat our bodies and devils take the souls of those who’ve sold them for houses on the beach

and bank accounts in Panama and Montevideo but you can’t even walk the streets without twisting your feet in potholes (if you can still call them that). You’ve got a hold on power but holes in your hearts. You’ve got a hold on power but holes in your hearts. You’ve made the whole country sour and we must somehow eat the gas you pass sky juice and wind pie sky juice and wind pie but you’re no Jesus can’t turn farts into food. There’s an art to poly-tricking but there’s also an art to war soon enough, our art will show when power rises from the poor.

ALREADY she wears the same uniform i did when i started school blue blouse khaki pleats today she brings a note the kind i used to take home valentineâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s photos pta tomorrow school trip friday already.

BUS LADY my baby finds a seat in a woman’s lap an aged lady beautiful in the love lines on her face that crease her yellow skin she takes my baby under the little one falls asleep on her breast I watch the woman as she strokes my girl’s hair and rests her chin on top of my child’s head the way I often do watching her I know she’s mothered many all who’ve come to the hem of her skirt she’s held fed loved and rocked to sleep her charcoal eyes soft and cloudy from cataracts meet mine her lips turn up in a smile I want to be like her someday

MY MOTHERâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S HEART

I often wonder how my motherâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s heart manages to remain so full when she seems to empty it every day cooking for the hungry husband counseling the misguided son babysitting for the single-mother daughter mothering the motherless niece raising the wideeyed questioning grand free of charge free of charge free of charge free of charge free of charge With all the love she dishes out daily, I wonder if she ever has any left to give herself

VALENTINEâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S DAY 2004 in a land far away from love i stand swaying rocking my hand forms part of a pole of flesh each constituent holding its owner steady the bodies sway in unison although they move to the same song they hold dear their differences seal their stories behind expressionless stares eyes defensive revealing nothing among them I see her seated privileged a young modern Indian woman glossy hair jet black olive-brown skin thick eyebrows long eyelashes she stands out because her eyes are open for anyone to read

she clutches not an iron pole but a single rose soft delicate almost beautiful as she i see her replaying the story of how she came by the rose and i invent the story for myself fill in the blanks i can see that more than the rose has blossomed stand clear of the closing doors please her daydream is rudely disturbed she shakes her head quickly lightly as if awakening the stars leave her eyes momentarily but her consciousness is brief she feels the rose in her hand looks at it smiles and goes back to half an hour ago i wish i could have been there to watch quietly from a corner see him kiss her gently

watch the animation in her eyes when he confessed the love now I watch her as the light reflects off her cheekbones touches the halo of her hair i am tempted to approach ask her to share the story of the rose and beg to borrow some of her love

THE FLU How I hate having the flu! Makes me feel like all shades of blue It keeps me in bed Clouds up my head And turns “hello” into “A-choo!”

KBY #1 i love to smell you breathe in your you-ness wash my hair with your skin so that it can smell like you and I can carry your scent on my head to inhale you upon demand

MORNING AFTER opened my eyes this morning saw you beside me instant glow got out of bed to make you breakfast while you snored wanted you to know there was meaning in the night glad you didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t show a hit-n-run kinda attitude didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t zip up leave me vulnerable again

SPEAKING POETRY he speaks to me in poetry, expresses the dream and it’s hard not to believe iambic pentameter his prose declares the love I want to wake up to your kisses, he says. Don’t go, he says. Can I hold you till tomorrow, till forever? Your fingers make my soul feel on fire, he says. I fall easily for alliteration. Will you write a poem for me? I ask. How about we make some physical poetry? he says. I can go for physical poetry. Bodies bending, burning, beating finding just the right stroke --of a pen I’ve always liked how rhyming couplets can close a poem so concisely, yet with grace. so when our conversations end, it’s always on a very special note to start again and on each other dote.

TASTE taste it, love sweet sweet mango smell how di room ripe? full yuh mout, babes no â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;fraid ah promise yuh ih nice, nice mmmmmmmmm wipe yuh chin, daalin tell yuh ih juicy

WHEN WE LOVE when we love we’re like blue sea, brown sand reaching every time the sea recedes kissing every time the tide returns the cooling comfort to the land when we love we are content with the world all else a triviality we’re each other’s sole reality each moment precious as pearls when we love we find peace in simple smiles daily worries brushed away evacuated from our day we shine together through the distant miles when we love we’re at liberty to be shed clothing for our naked selves delve deep until we fuse our very cells I am you and you are me

OTHER HALF (KBY #2) Now I understand what married people mean when they say theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve found their other half. I always figured human beings were born whole (so what they talking bout?). But then I saw how you fit me like a two-piece puzzle any two-year-old could solve and there emerges the big picture that I never could see when I was only half of human.

LOVER WONDER where do i how do i begin mid afternoon created time to make you part of my tuesday my mouth made words for your ears whether they beat your drums i still wonder

THE HAPPENING “Goodbye,” he whispered in my ear. I pretended not to hear, but I shivered, and the tremor may have betrayed me. He held me close, my back to his chest. I felt like vomiting, emptying the darkness from my body and having it drip from the corners of my mouth onto his shoes. Moments earlier I had looked into his eyes. They were small and dead. Mine were large and wet, probing his for clues about what lay beyond them, in his mind, which he had closed to me. He was precise: “I think it’s best that we go our separate ways.” I took a deep breath, as if I wanted to inhale the words to find out whether they would sustain me or kill me. With my best effort at composure, I managed to be curt: “If that’s really what you want.”

It was a decision I had been long awaiting, waiting for what seemed like a bumpy bus ride to hell to meet the devil, who grinned when he said, â&#x20AC;&#x153;Wellllcommmeeee.â&#x20AC;? What now of love, having convinced myself that love would fill me. Now, emptied, and I remain but a standing carcass, all rotten flesh and stagnant water, ready to submit to vultures. What now for a broken heart? Perhaps the break should be preserved as a reminder to all of the foolishness that was done to achieve what turned out to be an illusion. At the end of it, you find hot dry sand and humid air in an empty dessert, but not the oasis you sought, nothing to sustain life. Then you look at yourself for the first time in days, weeks, months. You see your cracked lips, hair that has begun to lock, skin turned to ash, and you realize the embarrassment you are to every other living organism, and resolve to do the only respectable thing remaining, to shrivel up and die. After lying there for fourteen hours, and realizing youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re still not dead, you resolve to complete the act in a

more dramatic way. You become creative, but for lack of equipment, and when that is resolved, for lack of courage. And then, after you have survived, you vow to never let it happen again.

RESURRECT ME can you see my heart? wrench it out my open chest squuuuuuueeeeeeeeeeeezzzee force it to contract again pump life again this morning i died

KBY #3 i tried weed four times and never did get high i tried you once and

whew

TO FORGET I can hear the fan slicing through the stale living room air, leaves rustling outside, crickets chirping, frigerator humming, dogs barking, tires trekking tar. Everything external, I hear. I am alone on the floor, staring up at the white ceiling fan, watching it whirl mechanically, trying to hypnotize myself wanting to ride its blades to somewhere, anywhere other than the tropical rug on which I lay, so thin I can feel the hard tile below. I want to wallow, to pleasure in my pain. I want to be like Jesus in those forty days and forty nights, with self-imposed inhibition and austerity, and emerge strong. I am fasting. Instead of food, I allow myself to be devoured; instead of water, I allow myself to be drowned. But I am weak. Eventually, I surrender to the tears.

First, eyebrows knot, creasing forehead into lines, dozens of them mouth tightens, throat closes. Then they come, first like little leaks from a dripping pipe, then in steady streams, then in cunning currents. My body convulses on the floor as I cry myself into a headache and curl up on my side, fetal, suddenly longing for my mother to stroke my hair and kiss the hurt away. The tears become less I unfurl, and roll over into crucifixion pose—legs straight, together; arms out relax the muscles in my face and focus again on the fan, which is spinning, spinning on high. I hear it humming, whispering, “You are getting sleeeeeepy.” I find myself hoping for the delusion, hoping this ceiling fan can hypnotize me to sleep, so that when I awaken in this very spot, I will have forgotten the pain. But to forget the pain, I must also forget the love.

DELIRIUM I whisper your name in delirious breaths. The sound is the only thing that will escape and when it does, I cringe. when it does, I cringe I cringe I cringe I cringe to hear your name. Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m on the fringe of losing it, already lost you so Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m choosing it, choosing to let my mind slip away. The frustration has culminated in the termination the exacerbation of reason. The treason is my mind against my heart, the dilemma that supercedes the seasons whether cold or wet hot or dry, my heart sweats for you and now the resolution that we are through and now the resolution that we are through resolution we are through resolution we are through we are through we are through

I can’t compel myself to believe would rather continue my insanity whispering your name screaming your name whispering and screaming your name. In vain and vanity I’ve loved you, my absolute complement my heart’s only content. I never meant for pain to be the end. Wasn’t supposed to be like this. Was supposed to be bliss. but when I held you close, you let go, but when I held you close, you let go, held you close, you let go held you close, you let go you let go you let go perhaps faithful that love will lead us back but I’m not so sure. Why have faith in the future when the present is with us? I refuse to trust in destiny although for your sake and mine, I must. That’s all you’ve left for me. What’s left of me now is still yours I’ve lost in all ways, don’t know if that means you’ve won. are you happy now are you happy now happy now happy now

now now Yes, I blame you for pushing me to this low. Shame on you for walking away betraying the love you show have shown to me. I’ve always known I would have ended up alone, and now that I’m relegated to coarse moans on a cold floor I have made the pain my own. I want to unlove you I want to unlove you unlove you unlove you you you unlove you but I’ll accomplish that only by forgetting and so I submit to delirium, letting my mind go wild. Perhaps by saying your name enough times it will overload and erase itself so that I would never have known you

POET HURT I hurt real hurt as well as poet hurt which operates on hyperbole today I clutch my heart waiting for the explosion a welcome if it will end the hurt it starts in whispers no no no becomes a rapid succession of screams no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no nooooooooo nooooooo it is coming again the fit like a hydrant busted open on a

hot summer afternoon spraying tears I do not know where they fall I do not care where they fall I swim in my sheets which have doubled as warmth and tissue let it fall where it falls sleep refuses me too awake too aware of all the pointed sensations ready to bore me through my breath, laboured now I dig fingernails into flesh near my shoulder for control as I calm my head throbs I can hear it brain pulsing against my skull booming in my ear from the inside and I remember pain the hurt it is the return of the noâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s it is the fit again

THE LAST so that’s the last of us? i don’t believe you not the way you held me when you whispered goodbye faintly, weakly like you didn’t believe it yourself not the way you looked at me like you were swallowing me with your eyes and i would be inside you forever not the way i felt your breath warm the skin below the hair on my neck no, not that way not with the tears I saw inside you the ones you refused to release fearing i’d think you weak not with the longing that will haunt you in your most quiet hour, your busiest day when you will sweat for me

CALCIFIED you calcified my heart i keep it that way donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t be surprised when you find me cold no soul resides here it died you killed it i never bothered to resurrect it kept it buried in that stony mausoleum in my chest

OF STARS stars in the city donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t shine like they â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;posed to. they are dull, fade listlessly into the blackness around them when they bother to show. not long ago we watched them from my rooftop, tried to make out aquarius and gemini. how they shone then! were defiant against the night used their brilliance to dot the sky with gleeful twinkles millions of them more than enough for us to have one to ourselves. you now gone stars have lost their luster. i only hope but one can be daring enough to shine bright enough to lead you back home.

RESTRAINED You are my most quiet need. I carry you in silence, unuttered words, restrained gazes, prolonged sighs. When I rise each day, you’re the smell of coffee, the rousing of a cold shower— But I never sip and always warm my water, careful not to indulge lest I awaken. Would rather live with eyes half open in lethargic denial than admit I’m still in love with you.

UNTITLED Always amazes me how much And little weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve become From piercing ponders into your eyes to uncomfortable eye contact

BOLEDO MAN my mother warned me about the boledo man yet i clutched my ticket tightly every night at 9 palms dampened the paper ears cocked to the radio hoping my number would play

WINGED ONE You have chosen. I am not the one. I will continue to love you watch you from a distance as you fly wings clip the clouds, passing temporary shadows over the earth when you cut across the sun. I will watch you and cheer you higher from behind those shadows since wings are what you desired You have chosen not to love me. I have not died. From days and nights of questioning bargaining denying I have emerged stronger. You have made me stronger. As long as my blood remains warm I will continue to love and love you. I am only human. I hope you find happiness in the sky. I caution you only not to fly too close to the sun lest, like Icarus, you fall. Though I miss you deeply

back here on this little planet I prefer you return by choice than by accident My love will not cease just because you have chosen not to return it. It has not withered even though you have not nourished it. It is like the stubborn weed in the garden but also like the flower, beautiful. I do not hate you. I carry you with me every day in the lessons of love learning to be gentle with the hearts of others to tread lightly take time take time listen. I carry you with me knowing the worst can happen but I will continue to be.

HOUSE CLEANING today I disinfected you out of my life rose with the sun that shone through my windows then washed you off them wiped with damp cloth then newspaper until your reflection was gone today I Cloroxed my sheets Disclined my floor scrubbed down my tub and mopped you out the door; washed your smell off my clothes dusted your hair off my pillows polished you off my furniture and changed the keys to my doors you and I are no more today I vacuumed you outta my car Armor-alled you off my seats took your CDs out my radio and drove your memory down the street; deleted your photos off my desktop blocked you from my IM took your phone number out my cell and took back who I am every vestige of you has disappeared as if you had never been here

LADY IN WAITING No more lady-in waiting If I see him, I’m gonna date him I’ll take him to dinner Make him feel like a winner Love me, I’m gonna make him

THE UNBELIEVER I cannot be a part of you you who have refused me you who call Magdalene whore and Eve evil tell me your door is open always open not only on Sundays. You are unchanging predictable now that I understand I can guess you who invite me to prayer but donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t hear the words I give to God in my poem in my fight in me I cannot be a part of you was never really a part of you only in sacraments taken young penance in stardard two communion in three confirmation in five as a child I believed the way I believed in Santa Claus but it was never true

I cannot be a part of you who continue to deny me have denied me my sex stripped my divinity as Mother Earth had to unsex Mary before she could give birth you who fear the power of my womb insist my sex came from ribs refuse us our role as the creators the bearers the givers of life I cannot be a part of you not as long as I can remember and I will never forget the wars, the inquisitions, the crusades they continue unobserved to the ignorant in the name of God the father, the son and the holy ghost the trinity in place of Mother, Father, Child true Divinity I cannot be a part of you my hair, soft like lambâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s wool too thick, too tough to be welcome in your school

untamed you want to civilize me you want to deny me myself have denied me myself taught me that recitation on my knees was penance enough for sins that Our Fathers and Hail Marys would get me to heaven I cannot be a part of you when my child is taught to believe that Jesus is the image behind the death announcement you think I am ugly you hate me only smile to gain my confidence so you can teach me the ways show me the way to heaven if I believe you I have to hate myself to get there I refuse I excommunicate YOU

WALKING TALL this poem is dedicated to the haters to the misogynistic mistas and the sistas who think that my mind is malleable and my sex is more relevant than my intellect I write these words for the ignorant, for those who can’t think to think that I can think for myself for those who believe that I am a bi-product of anything other than my own free will this is for you I’ve risen on the merits of my mind I’ve inherited the bind, the quagmire taken residence between rocks and hard places shouted “fuck you” to the faces of those who tried to keep me behind the signs I have read them and followed, the instructions, they lead me to tomorrow and today I am here to stay not because I am being kept and not because I wept

and some man couldn’t stand the tears and not because I slept with the “influential one” but because I’ve worked hard through the years knocking down the fears that make women look through the glass ceiling and never break it and sure those same women hate me for it and the men they say she has balls because where there are no doors I bust through walls all who stand in the way they are the ones who have to fall. I am here not because I want to prove a point but because I deserve to be deserve to be right where I stand, feet planted firmly in ground from the mound, I pitch and if you hit you hit if you miss you miss not my fault if you can’t keep up with this this my declaration this my freedom from reservation this my greatest consolation this my power every hour that I open my mouth to speak is sixty minutes that I prove I’m not weak not too meek to call cow’s dung bullshit not too malleable to feel I have to fit into a mould so you don’t like my hair? I don’t care so you don’t like my voice?

Tune me out you have a choice so you don’t like my presence? your problem. I will stay true to the essence of me my conscience will guide me not your insecurities I rise because I am the woman you fear your tirades can’t tear me down your shades of noir won’t blacken me I already love the black in me I fight the negative that I’ve inherited and press on with the attack in me what hasn’t killed me made me stronger no longer am I anybody’s bitch which, come to think of it was an experience rich with wisdom I have learned and now I can speak based on fact mind you so when you try to pull wool over my eyes I am not blinded by you not at all and to you who still can’t see how I’ve risen and still want to see me fall I won’t give you the pleasure of a bad decision I’ll continue walking tall.

AT DI DANCE He talk in American sing in Jamaican wine Trinidad styleeee put a gun finga inna di air like he da shotta. But di only ting gwine shatta is he ego when I say â&#x20AC;&#x153;Sorry, but I wudda prefer to wine pon a Belizean man tonight.â&#x20AC;?

EX BOYFRIEND He neva always fat so When I was wit him, he was fine Musi dat new â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;oman stress ah mm-hmm or feed ah so ih kyaan bak ih own fut weh

KRIOL DILEMMA So yu meen seh yu blak an notn els! Yu tink seh yu brait kaaz afta yaas eena krysis yu fain yu bertrait. Afta aal dat tinkin yu fainali figa owt seh yu blak. Wel, eni lee pikni kuda mi tel yu dat! As dehn wach yu, dehn cud seh, â&#x20AC;&#x153;Sah, yu blak laik a tar, blak laik di nait weh sorong di likl stars.â&#x20AC;? Bot how yu wahn tel mi yu blak an notn els? Afta yaas an yaas ah tinkin, luk laik yu stil no noa yuself. Me blak jus laik yoo but me da Kriol an Bileezyan tu! Tel mi, sah, Wen yu oapn yu mowt, weh kum owt? Kriol, di langwij ah yu kulcha! Wen yu oapn yu doar an step owt pan di shoar, da weh paat yu deh? Di lan weh yu baan, Bileez!

Now, notn rang if yu wahn be paat ah sohnting biga, aidentifai wid ada blak pipl rong di werl. But if yu wahn go bak da Afrika, fus yu haffi preeshiyayt weh deh rait ya. Yu noh haffi daiv tu far fi fain di perls. Yu wahn go laan Ashanti ahn Ibo, Swaheelee an Mandingo. Kum bak an tel mi how ih gaan. Kwik ting yu wahn noatis how fi dehn langwij de rait eena fi we wan. Fi we kulcha da sohnting weh kriyayt ya wid lee bit ah dis ahn lee ah dat, kaas wen di maasta tel fi we grayt-graama fi figet, she nod, bot wispa, â&#x20AC;&#x153;Neva!â&#x20AC;? Mai sweet langwij Kriol tel mi aal Ah need fi noa bowt weh Ah kum fram. Jus laik how di way how Ah luk an di tings weh Ah do mek op mi Bileezyan kulcha. Ya da fu we and we da fu ya. So if enibadi chrai chek yu paashaliti, Tel dehn Blak da yu kala Kriol da yu kulcha Bileezyan da yu nashunaliti!

QUESTION FROM A COLLEGE CLASSMATE IN NEW YORK Belize? Do you guys, like, have tv there?

RETREAT TO CAYE CAULKER I go east east to confront the morning sun the little boat thrusts me towards the horizon taking me away from the city of grime if only for a day the city where mothers cry for lost sons whose souls have been consumed by the streets and where politicians plan their next ploy retirement scheme for the boys take me away, away, little boat push me further along the sea out of brown, muddy waters into turquoise and aquamarine let the breeze and sun dry my damp curls as we cut along towards the cayes

VIEW FROM THE SKY We flew over Belize For the first time When I was five Wide-eyed, I exclaimed, “Mommy, lotta bush!”

SHORT STORIES

AN UNUSUAL CANVAS She traces the grooves on his back, her face a spasm of pain; but not the pain he must have felt when his body became brutish art. Her fingers lightly graze the colors: Swelling Purple, Bloody Red, Scabby Black. When he winces, she draws away. He tells her to continue, feel the pattern, memorize it. But how could she! When the pain seeps through more than the strength, when those jagged lines mock her daringly, when the knobs on their ends stare and wink like wicked puss-filled eyes that look like they could belong to a cat with nine tails. The salt from her tears stings his cuts, but she continues. Later they lie lethargically on straw mats on a cool floor in a clay hut. She lies on her back, he on his belly, facing the brilliant red hibiscus and yellow bells he picked that day. But as he sleeps, surrounded by color, he dreams of black; no sounds, no smells, just stagnant black. She awakens to his dreamy mumblings of love and rubs the curve of her belly. Her sobs reverberate through the silence. “No cry,” he says. “But dis di only way fi mek di pain come out!” she moans. “No worry,” he says, rubbing the half-moon shaped dome below her ribs. He traces the dark line the stretched down from her navel with his fingernails and she wiggles. The baby inside, too, feels the tickle and sends forth a kick. He moves his hand away quickly, as if off a hot stovetop.

“The baby strong,” he says, and then, as if to himself, “I no want he be like we.” His mind churns with anxiety…buf, buf, buf…like fufu1 from the beats of a mata2 stick…buf, buf, buf, buf…producing the delicacy of freedom…buf-buf, buf-buf, buf-buf, bufbuf…tastier with each stroke…buf buf buf buf buf buf buf BUF! He springs to his feet. “We going!” he declares, his eyes wide as shillings, intense and wild. She stares at him deeply, as if she was jumping into his eyes, swimming in his mind. She gives him her hand. “Let’s go then,” she whispers, half in excitement, half in craze. He takes her hand and never lets it go while they run. Through swamp and mud and sand and clay, they run. Past mangrove, mahogany, logwood, cotton, chicle, sugar, they run. Past empty stumps that he had sized and cut. Never looking back, as if the sight of back deh would turn them to pillars of salt, they run. They run on the thick soles of their bare feet, never caring if they hurt or even bleed. His feet would never hurt as much as his heart had bled when he returned from the forest to find his woman’s belly heavy. He runs as if he was chasing the bastard who raped her, as if every step he takes will crush his master’s skull. He runs, as if the rage within him is burning like a furnace, fueling him into motion. She runs as if Hatred shoves her forward, whom she had met when she was made to watch 1

Ripe plantains beaten to a pulp A large wooden bowl placed on the floor, in which plantains are beaten. It traditionally comes with a large stick. 2

as he was whipped, whom he had met when he felt his woman trace the grooves in his back but felt her pain more than his own. They run, moved by their agony. They run, afflicted by pain. They run in the barefooted glory of their strain. They run ceaselessly. They run tirelessly. They run aimlessly. They run, they run, they run!

GARIFUNA DRUMMER His hands move slyly across the tight animal skin with no pretense of shyness. Tap, pound, stroke, caress. His fingers make love to the drum, and his beautiful partner—spirit— moans under his touch like a woman losing her prized virginity. His hands expertly traverse her smooth, naked skin with superior knowledge of all her most—ah!— vulnerable areas. He snaps his fingers, surreptitiously, shrewdly, in a motion so intense that she gasps and breaks, erupting in an orgasm of excitement. Pleased with his results, he beats on. On, on, he beats on into the night. Years of experience have molded his fingers into—oh!—this dexterous perfection. They move adroitly under his rule. He and his fingers are excited at the thought of her between his

legs, an easy position for sweet submission. In the middle of his song, he tips his head back and closes his eyes as sweat falls from his temple. Smugly, he smiles, for he too has been satisfied. *** She imagined that she was the cause of his smile as she thought of the handsome young drummer at the opening of Convention the night before. She had observed him silently, not even hearing the music, but enjoying the beauty and the rhythm of his hands as they created it. She had not heard the change, but saw it in his hands when the beat morphed from a quixotic punta to a graceful paranda. She had watched as the women adjusted their movements, and listened as the songs became more somber, less excited. She had clapped in unison with the songs and made up translations to the stories in them: this one about a girl who runs away from home; this one about her parents asking the ancestors to guide their daughter back. Now, as she stood alone, disassociating herself from the crowd at the festivities of another long day, she thought of her own story, and wondered how her life would sound truncated into song: Born into a city with abundant races Yet forced to choose one of two faces Half Creole, half Garifuna, so she decided To shun the one that society chided.

“Ka biri?” She jumped, startled. She had been consumed by her song, and was surprised to see that it was her drummer who had walked over and stood beside her. She turned slightly to look at him. “Nirisi,” she answered softly. “Nirisi niribei.” It was one of the only phrases she understood or could answer in Garifuna. Suddenly, she was surprised that she remembered, and pleased that she did. “My riches,” he said thoughtfully. “Dat’s a beautiful name. Yuh parents mus’ thought you wudda mek dem rich,” he laughed. Then, becoming more serious, he added quietly, “Or dey tink you werth more dan gold.” Nirisi was stricken by his comments. She had never given much thought to her name, never wondered what it meant, never thought it had a meaning. In fact, she had grown to hate it over the years, and had taken to introducing herself by her middle name, Samantha—more commonplace, easily pronounced and remembered. She wondered why she had given her first name this time, although she was glad that she did. “I’m Adrian,” he said, slipping his arm around her waist. “Come and dance wit me.” Adrian danced in front of his new friend, his waist shaking, swaying by the power in his legs and the strength in the tips of his toes. Nirisi planted her feet into a spot in the ground and bent over. She was at first confused by the antics of her partner, his unorthodox manner of dancing, but she soon realized that she was the anomaly. She stood up, embarrassed, and then attempted to dance like the other girls nearby. Adrian laughed

richly, a rolling laughter that stayed in the air two moments after it was over. “You Iso cousin, right? From de Capital?” She nodded. “You Capital gyal t’ink you so hot,” he mocked. “I can tell by de way you dance.” “We’re jus’ confident. And we know how to enjoy ourselves, but you ‘Griga bwoy wouldn’t know. You can’t handle us,” she retorted. She was amused by the direction of the conversation, and at his confidence. At the same time she wondered why she felt attracted to him. His was the countenance of the race she abandoned and loathed: cheekbones too high, hair too tightly wound, too dark, too unrefined, too Garifuna. “Nirisi, come ya,” Iso was beckoning her cousin to join her in the center of a circle, where she had just finished doing the possession dance. It was the most difficult sequence in the paranda, in which the dancers imitated everyday experiences. Most girls stuck to simple things, like a pantomime of washing and hanging clothes out to dry, or rowing a boat and casting the line. Not Iso—she fell to her knees and arched her back rhythmically, and while her eyes rolled around as if confused, she made the sign of the cross on her forehead. Then she jumped up suddenly, as if miraculously healed, and continued dancing like normal. Nirisi was too intimidated to follow that performance. “Cho!” she yelled to her cousin, “what am I going to do dere? Go ahead. I will stay here.” “Well come den, Adrian,” Iso said, directing her gaze towards the young drummer. “I need a partner. Le’s show dem how to punta.” Adrian grinned and danced his way over to Iso, making an elaborate show on the way as the other youths cleared a path for him to enter the circle.

The two moved together gracefully—he the majestic male with skin like polished mahogany, she the brown skin gyal with gud hair. Iso was now dancing a circle around Adrian and fanning her long wide skirt in a flirtatious courting gesture. Adrian beamed his white smile, which looked even whiter against his black skin, and acknowledged the challenge—to catch the girl. He followed her around jestingly, and added all sorts of antics to his dance. Whenever he got too close to her she would move away and wave her finger teasingly at him. “Dey wudda mek a cute couple, no?” Someone standing beside Nirisi had asked the question. “I guess so,” she answered softly, as she watched the two play out a courtship on the dance floor. Iso was the one who had persuaded her to come to Convention this year. “For what?” she had asked her cousin. “A gud cultural experience,” is what Iso had answered. She admired her cousin, who was now the center of attraction dancing in the middle of the circle with Adrian. Iso was also of mixed ethnicity, but she was a beautiful girl. No one ever guessed that she was Garifuna, yet she proclaimed it at every opportunity. She contorted her tongue gracefully into the agglutinating language that she had taught herself to speak. She donned traditional dress at every holiday, beat the plantain for hudut better than any man, and danced as if her Mesitizo mother had shaken the rhythm into her womb. Yet she also embraced her mother’s culture, eating bundiga with corn tortillas and tamales with fish, and no one ever laughed. Iso had a confidence that glowed in the oil on her face. Nirisi loved and admired her cousin greatly,

but also envied her jubilance, her confidence, her beauty. As she stood there watching Iso and Adrian, she could not help feeling bettered, yet again. Slowly and inconspicuously, she moved away. That night, Nirisi walked along the beach and tried to forget the scene that lingered in her mind. She tried to divert her thoughts to other things that had been occupying her recently, like who she was, and what made her who she was, and where she fit in the puzzle of things. She questioned the ambivalence that this Convention made her feel-why she felt uncomfortable around the people there, people who looked just like her, yet how she felt almost comforted to see them. She wondered how it was that they could be so close to her, and at the same time so far away. She could not even understand the language, and would be completely lost but for Iso’s occasional translations. She wondered why her mother never taught her that language, and always insisted that she speak only English. “Garifuna won’t get you anywhere,” is what her mother always said. She sat down on an old rickety pier and let her feet dangle off the edge and bounce on top of the water. Her mind was drifting with the evening tide that rose beneath her. It was as if she was a raft, floating on that dark sea that sparkled under the moonlight like diamonds scattered on a black sheet, floating into nothingness, to the spot where the sea and the sky merged, where she would find what? Peace? Fortune? There had been a girl named Fortune who went to high school with her. She wondered what ever happened to her. All she could remember now was that year on Garifuna Settlement Day when Fortune went around saying,

“Happy Kerob Day!” The Garifuna students were obviously irritated by the remark, but no one said anything. Nirisi also kept quiet, silently wishing that she wasn’t Garifuna too, so that that word could not be applied to her, even though none of her friends knew that it did—she always said she was Creole. But whatever it was that she felt when she heard that word—whether it was shame or anger, guilt or disgust—she knew that she did not want to feel that way again; it was a feeling dark enough to consume her, dark as that black night and silent sea, darker than her loamy skin. Now, she wondered what it was that brought her to this Convention, to be among the very people with whom she didn’t want to be identified. Then she remembered Iso’s description of the peaceful little village of Hopkins, where a blue sea sparkled under a bluer sky, where the smell of salt stayed in the air, and where there existed mythical people-like coconut trees whose limbs blew and whose trunks bent at the whim of the wind. But it may not have been the enchanting little village that drew her after all. It may have been a hidden curiosity, maybe even affinity, for the people she didn’t want to know. “Why you so quiet?” Adrian was standing behind her. He had startled her again. “You been ya since Convention staat an’ you no talk to nobody.” Nirisi sucked her teeth in response. “See what ah mean.” “I’m not personal. I jus’ don’t know anybody. An’ I don’t undastand what dem saying.” “You know me now. An’ I undastand you.” She didn’t answer. “Why you left?” “Because I felt like. Why you so interfering?” she retorted.

“I jus’ di try talk to you. I can’t talk to you then?” “You can talk to me if you want.” “You will talk back?” “Maybe.” There was a pause before she added, “You like my cousin?” He smirked coyly before answering, “Maybe. Why you want to know anyway?” “No reason.” “You sure? I know people jus’ no ask tings like dat right so. She tell you dat she like me?” “No,” she said quickly. “Well den why you ask?” “I said, no reason. Jees, people can’t ask a simple question nowadays.” “All right den.” There was a cool silence until Adrian’s breath warmed the air again. “You’re byootiful,” he said. “What?” Nirisi answered. She had been caught off guard, and couldn’t be sure that she had heard correctly. “You’re byootiful,” he said again. She turned to look at him. He was looking directly at her. “No,” she said finally. “You’re byootiful,” he repeated. Nirisi eyed him suspiciously. “Why do you say dat? What’s so beautiful about me? I’m not pretty like Iso.” “I like yuh nose,” Adrian answered as he placed his finger on her nose, “And yuh hair, and yuh skin, and yuh lips.” Nirisi was sincerely surprised. He had listed all the things she always wished she could change about herself. But she didn’t have much time to contemplate between his words and the moment he leaned over and kissed her. And she didn’t have much time to think about that kiss

either, because the drumming in the distance was becoming increasingly loud. From the beach, they could both hear the deep bass of the segundo booming, and the high pitched intoxicating beats of the primero. “Dem preparin’ for de Mali tomorrow. Hear how the drumbeat changing?” “What’s Mali?” “Come out tomarrow an’ you will see,” he urged. Nirisi woke earlier than usual the next day, but still not soon enough to accompany Iso to the morning prayers. Iso had not been spending much time with her, but she didn’t mind so much. She knew that her cousin looked forward to Convention every year, and didn’t want to hold her back from participating in all the events, since she wasn’t too interested herself. Remembering Adrian and the Mali, Nirisi got dressed and went down to larubeya, the beach. She arrived just as the Buyei was walking out of the door to the convention center. She was barefoot, and wore a floral dress pleated at the waist. The drummers followed the priestess, with their drums tied with rope laced twice around their waists for security and once around their necks for balance. The Buyei chanted as the drums reverberated in the salty air. Nirisi watched intently, studying the movements, the words, the sounds. It was the first time she was witnessing the spiritual ceremony. The Buyei sang in her high crackly voice, and shook her shakas at the ground. The drummers responded by putting their drums close to the ground, while everyone in the crowd bent over so they too could be close to the ground. The Buyei walked over to an open thatched roof

shed, which hosted the day’s food. Everyone followed. “She jus’ bless de ground where de food come from,” Adrian explained. He hadn’t frightened her this time. She had spotted him a little ways across from her, and almost expected him to be behind her after she blinked. “Now she blessing de food. Nex’, she going by de beachfront an’ bless de sea for de fish.” Nirisi was transfixed. She observed the ceremony with discomfort and trepidation. She was afraid of the pagan rituals that she had come to accept and expect. Yet she was relieved by Adrian’s translations. She could understand the reasons for the blessings: the earth and sea as providers, the ancestors as forces of guidance through their centuries of accumulated experience. It made more sense to her than a God who was three people in one. And she was angered by the stigmas of paganism and devil worship concocted by those who didn’t understand. More angered that she had believed them. She saw how people validated their fears by calling it evil. And as she listened to the Buyei, she heard her own voice; she heard her mother’s voice, her grandmother’s voice, her ancestors’. She heard them singing and chanting in English, Kriol, Garifuna. She heard them, she understood them, she sang with them, and was not afraid. The drums had possessed her and she swayed with the grace of the coconut trees on the beach. She looked upon the earth and traced her shadow in the dirt, the dirt that looked as black as her face and felt as soft, the dirt that she was no longer ashamed of because it bore life, as she would. She became consumed by an uneasy self-

awareness, by the drums, the rhythm, the spirit inside them and her. Iso, who had just spotted Adrian and her cousin in the fringes of the crowd, walked over to the pair. “I been looking for you two. Where you get to yesterday? Like you jus’ disappear,” she whispered, so as not to disturb the ceremony. “I was just on the pier sitting down for a little while and getting some breeze.” Nirisi whispered back. “Oh, I was wonderin’ if you two up to somet’ing.” “Something like what?” “I no know. Jus somet’ing.” “You like him?” Nirisi asked slyly. “Why you want to know? He tell you he like me?” “No,” she answered quickly. “Jus’ wondering.” “What you two been up to?” “Nothing. Gosh!” “So you say.” Nirisi rolled her eyes. “Whatever,” she said finally, trying to abandon the subject. “Itarala,” Adrian said in unison with the Buyei. It reminded the cousins that they were attending a spiritual ceremony. “Itarala,” Iso repeated. “What does that mean?” asked Nirisi. Adrian and Iso answered simultaneously, “Amen.” “It means Amen,” said Adrian again. “Say it,” he urged. “Eat what?” “Ee-tah-rah-lah,” he repeated slowly, stressing each syllable so she could understand.

“Itarala.” she said, correctly. *** The sun was just coming out when Nirisi heard a rooster crowing. She reached her arm over to the bed-head to press the snooze button on the alarm clock, but couldn’t find it. She opened her eyes lazily to look for the clock to turn the rooster off, but her eyes reminded her that she was not at home so there was no clock. She realized, to her displeasure, that there was a real rooster crowing outside, at five thirty in the morning. She pulled herself out of bed and went to the bathroom. For the first time, she was up with the rest of the group. It was the last full day of Convention, and some of the groups were already preparing to leave. Tomorrow they would all be gone. She thought of Adrian, and reflected that it may have been his passion that had caught her attention. The passion that guided his fingers also moved her. As she pictured him in her mind, she was proud of all that he represented. It had been an overwhelming week, and had indeed become the “gud cultural experience” that Iso had promised, and much more. Nirisi went with her cousin that early morning, to the kitchen to help the women prepare the day’s food. Over the course of the week she had learned to make ereba, fufu and darasa. But that was not the only thing that she had learned. She learned the old spiritual songs and dances, and the meanings behind them. She learned the processes of the rituals, and most importantly, she learned her history. She learned that the Garifuna people were the only group in the Americas who had never

been enslaved. She learned of brave chief Chatoyer and Duvalle, who fought fiercely to protect their people and their land on St. Vincent, who defeated the French only to be attacked by the British, who then collaborated with the French against the British, and who were later betrayed by the French and expelled from their home by the British. She learned of the deplorable conditions on that tiny island near Honduras where the British deported them, and where thousands died of illness and malnutrition. She learned of the Garifuna struggle in Honduras, and how Alejo Beni led the people on an exodus to Belize, where they landed historically on November 19, 1832, now celebrated as Garifuna Settlement Day, which her high school friend Fortune once called “Kerob Day.” She learned how Garifuna people were being paid to work in Belize while the African and Creole groups were enslaved. She learned that there was nobility and pride in her heritage, that she should never be ashamed of the beautiful rhythm of her language. She remembered with affection, the events of the week, the culture she was coming to embrace as strongly as her new relationship with Adrian. It was evening before she had the opportunity to spend time with him because she had been so occupied by the day’s events. The young couple walked along the beach that night. There was a rhythm that seemed to envelop their steps, their movements. They strolled, both speechlessly, with bare feet where the sea met the sand and kissed their toes. There in the sand, he touched her with his beautiful hands, which moved slyly across her skin with no pretense of shyness. Nirisi moaned as he touched her, smiled when he stroked,

caressed. His hands expertly traversed her smooth naked skin with superior knowledge of all her most vulnerable areas. Years of experience had molded him into dexterous perfection. Adroitly, he moved. He looked at her and was excited at the thought of her between his legs. And together they beat on into the night. On, on they beat on into the night. â&#x20AC;&#x153;My riches,â&#x20AC;? she said.

BEGGAR BOY bad.”

“Miss, please for shilling.

I hungry bad

The request was coming from a barefooted and shirtless little boy, no bigger than my 5-yearold daughter who was clutching my hand tightly. I pretended not to hear him and continued down Albert Street, where air-conditioned department stores shared space with vendors who set up over drains, where bicycle-cart vendors pedaled through the potholes, and where street hustlers tried to sell you curtains and plastic basins as good as those in the stores. “Ma, the lee bwai ask you for shilling,” said Angie, pulling on my arm. “Yes baby, I hear him,” I said. “So why you no give him?” she asked, her tiny brow furrowed in confusion. “Because….” My voice trailed off as I tried to explain, to find a reason good enough for her developing mind. Because his ma and pa can go work, I thought of saying. But looking at his rusty frame and threadbare clothes, I couldn’t tell whether he even had a mother or father looking after him. Because he should be in school, I thought of saying next. But it was Saturday. Because it’s not good for children to beg, was my final explanation. I looked down at Angie, her eyes like flying saucers probing the universe of my face, her mother’s omniscient face, which knew the answers to every question that could ever be asked.

“Let’s go give him the shilling,” I told her. Angie grinned and squeezed my hand, pulling me toward where the little boy sat. He was squatting on a short ledge next to the narrow drain, which was rancid with black water. Garbage and rotting food floated in it like boiled eggs and stuffing in the spicy black soup, chimole. I unzipped my handbag and took out my purse, opened it, and selected a five-dollar bill. With an air of beneficence, and turning to my daughter to make sure she saw my kindness, I handed him the note. The little boy plucked the money from my fingers and dashed across the street without a word. “He never say thanks, no chu, mommy?” Angie said. “No babes,” I answered, “You’re supposed to say ‘thank you’ when someone gives you something, but even if they don’t say thanks, you should still be kind to people,” I remarked, making sure the lesson was not lost. I pulled Angie into one of the department stores, and a few minutes later, we emerged with a small shopping bag. “Ma, see the lee bwai there,” said Angie, pointing across the street. I followed her little finger to a wiry lady standing in front of Go-macs. Her skin appeared gray from ash, and her hair was locked in clumps across her head. She wore a pink flowery bra, and beneath it, her ribs decorated her chest. A woman passing by saw me staring, and interfering, remarked, “Look how Sharon stay now, noh. She used to do so good for she and that lee bwai. Watch how rock got ah. Mm-hmm. Rock is a bad ting.”

The little boy handed Sharon the five-dollar bill, and I watched as she held it up to the sun to examine the watermark. Her grin, with a wide gap between the single remaining left tooth and the single remaining right one, looked like the sticks that children planted as football goalposts. She tucked the money into the front of her matching pink panties, which were pulled way up over the waist of her battered jeans. And then, extending a bony finger, she pointed to a nice-looking woman not far from us, and I imagined I heard her say, â&#x20AC;&#x153;Go ask that nice laydi now.â&#x20AC;?

THE HAPPENING (CONTINUED) “Goodbye,” he whispered into my ear. I pretended not to hear, but I shivered, and the tremor may have betrayed me. He held me close, my back to his chest. I felt like vomiting, emptying the darkness from my body and having it drip from the corners of my mouth onto his shoes. Moments earlier I had looked into his eyes. They were small and dead. Mine were large and wet, probing his for clues about what lay beyond them, in his mind, which he had closed to me. He was precise: “I think it’s best we go our separate ways.” I took a deep breath, as if I wanted to inhale the words to find out whether they would sustain me or kill me. With my best effort at composure, I managed, “If that’s really what you want.” It was a decision that I had been long awaiting. He had been procrastinating with the answer, but I knew weeks ago what it would be. After he left I stood there, wanting to preserve the spot that he and I were last “we”. He who once filled me in the most intimate way now left me drained and empty. I felt isolated, like a standing carcass in a desert, all rotten flesh and stagnant water, ready to submit to vultures. Only a few months ago, his body warmed mine, and when either of us stirred in the night, it was to whisper, “I love you”, and to reposition the arm that had slipped off the waist in the depth of sleep. In the morning, he had kissed me as if he wanted to swallow me and take me with him in his stomach. In the afternoon, he had exclaimed, “Look at those eyes!” as the hazel caught the

midday sun. In the evening, he had lain on top of me and we didn’t have to make love because we already were love. “How could he deny that now?” I wondered. The question felt like a ghost, haunting, nagging; like the spirit of ancestor who wanted to rest in peace but could not until an earthly wrong was righted. That night I made an X on my bed with my body. The room was stiflingly hot. I wanted to catch as much of the breeze coming through the single window as I could by spreading my limbs apart. My body had dampened the sheets, and the sweat felt cool against my skin. The tiny room felt like a cardboard box and someone was closing and sealing the top. My sheets still held his stains. My pillow still smelled like him. The smell caused my belly to contract and my throat to tighten. I felt a warming between my legs, then dampness on my backside. Later in the night, I would feel my back open up. The sweat and the pee diluted the thick dark redness that had escaped from inside me. I got up and went to the bathroom. Sitting on the toilet, I could feel something squeeze itself through the fleshy cheeks on my behind and plop into the water. When I looked inside the basin, it was pulsing, creating ripples in what seemed like a sea. Its stark red stood out against the clean white. As the beat became softer, I looked down between my breasts, but my chest had sunken, and in the place where once beat a heart, was a dark hollow space. All that remained was for me to flush it, for it to travel the filthy sewers and be contaminated by raw excrement and acidy urine, and then eaten

by catfish. It wouldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t matter anyway. He had killed my heart when he whispered goodbye. In the morning, I awakened to find my sheets bloody. The redness surrounded my hips. He had left nothing behind. I touched my chest and I could feel my heart beating, perfunctorily, as if not by choice. In the bathroom, the toilet was as clean as it had been before. The Belizean sun beamed facily through the small high window onto my face. The sunlight seemed to mix with the oil on my skin, making it glow in the mirror. I had not died last night. It was a new day, and I decided that I was going to live it.

MY PERSPECTIVE

TAX THE TOURIST August 15, 2006 The government needs to call an emergency meeting of the House of Representatives and pass urgent legislation to raise the cruise tourism head tax—pronto! Everyone is pointing fingers at who gets what percentage of the US$7 tax—PACT gets a piece, BTB gets a piece, the tourist villages get the biggest piece, and the Belize City Council gets to clean up the mess the tourists leave when they’re done spending their few measly dollars on bead necklaces and phonecards. Undoubtedly, the council deserves a piece of the pie—but whose piece? The US$1.60 that PACT gets goes to the environment. The US$1.40 that BTB gets goes to promoting Belize as a brand-name destination. The US$4 that the tourist villages get is wayyyy too much; I would suggest taking CitCo’s portion from there, but I’m not about to get caught up in a legal dispute. Since everyone is being so mean with their piece of the pie, why not just make the pie bigger? The city council wants…needs US$2 per passenger, so raise the head tax from US$7 to US$9. In fact, since we’re talking about raising prices, let’s go for an even US$10. The Belizean people are tired of being taxed…Let’s tax the tourists! Why not? Their governments do it to us! Did you know that out of the fare for every ticket sold for air travel outside of the United States—for example your return ticket from a States trip— $42 is a tax that goes directly to the US government? And in Europe, up to 30-percent of the value of the ticket is tax! That’s according to Caribbean Tourism Organization Secretary General Jean Holder, who in 2003 defended a proposed US$20 tax for all Caribbean countries, a tax that would fund development in these countries. And speaking of tourist taxes, next week, Alaska residents will go to the polls to decide whether to charge their cruise tourists a $50 per person tax! We’re here quarreling over 7, 8, 9, 10 dollars; they’re all the way at 50! And I bet the tourists won’t stop going to Alaska. They want to see the glaciers, the snow caps and the penguins.

Here’s another example of how the big countries don’t think twice to tax the tourists big bucks: In Bermuda—which is still an overseas British territory—the cruise tourist tax is a whopping US$60! That’s according to last year’s statistics from the Caribbean Tourism Organization. And people still go to Bermuda. The big cruise tourism people—who by the way make $6 billion profit a year just off the Caribbean—would like us to believe that raising the tax would make us a less competitive destination, and tourists won’t want to come here anymore. But consider this: at US$7 perperson, Belize actually has one of the lowest head taxes in the Caribbean. We’re less than the half the price of the Bahamas and Jamaica, which charge their tourists $15. In fact, we’re still lower than the Caribbean average, which is $9.32. We’re not chancing the tourists; if anything, they’ve been chancing us. Like the Mayor said this morning, Belize City is subsidizing the cruise tourism industry. Let those 800-thousand cruise tourists who disembarked here last year pay their fair share, and let the City Council get its piece, which would amount to some $2.4 million a year, enough to pay sanitation workers, light bill, phone bill, and Bill the little boy who doesn’t have money for food. And that’s MY perspective.

ON JUSTICE August 18, 2006 In a world of despair and everyday suffering, there are few things that give regular people hope, reason for living. None of them are material; all, conceptual. The biggest one is undoubtedly God, or in a broader context, religion, described by philosopher Karl Marx as “the opiate of the masses”. Another is love. And another is the concept of Justice, defined in The Free Online Dictionary as “The upholding of what is just, especially fair treatment and due reward in accordance with honor, standards, or law.” And that’s the subject of my commentary today. The online source, Wikipedia, has a more comprehensive definition. I’ll just read the beginning: “Justice is the ideal, morally correct state of things and persons. This ideal has never been realised – the world is filled with injustice; and it is overwhelmingly important – most people think that injustice must be resisted and punished, and many social and political movements worldwide fight for justice. It is not clear, however, what justice and the reality of injustice demand of us. We are in the difficult position of thinking that justice is vital, but of not being certain how to distinguish justice from injustice in our characters, institutions or actions, or in the world as a whole.” It is with this definition that I come to my point. This week, we’ve witnessed, via the news, a series of incidents that only weaken our belief in justice. As much as good Christians may want to say “Justice is the Lord’s”, and romantics want to believe in poetic justice, most of us find greater comfort in the belief that should we be wronged, deserving retribution will be served upon the ones responsible during this lifetime. But unfortunately, for many of those who have real experience with the so-called Justice system in Belize, the truth is that, like I think it’s Muta-Baruka who said, “There is no justice; there’s just us.” This week elucidated that for the rest of us. It gave us an uncomfortable feeling in our stomachs, as if the things we’d been eating all our lives—like faith in the system—didn’t want to stay there, but wanted instead to be vomited out for the poison it turned out to be. Unfortunately, an overall unbelief in justice can lead to anarchy, to things like old Bible code, an eye for an eye, leaving everyone blind. Belief in justice is a stabilizing force, and so

justice must not only be served, but like the saying goes, “must be seen to be served”. So Mister D-P-P and Mister Police Chief, get your acts together. We all know that in this country, rich people don’t go to jail, only poor ones; big thieves don’t go to jail, only small ones; cocaine users don’t go to jail, only crack-heads; drug dons don’t go to jail, only street hustlers; the ones who robbed SSB and DFC won’t go to jail, only the ones who rob the Chiney man; and BouNahra’s don’t go to jail, only Bobbo Youths. Truth is, most times we don’t even hear about the big crimes. But Mister D-P-P and Mister Police Chief, we’ve heard of this one, and our stability is now rebelling, ready to become the vomit that I told you about. So although we all know that Justice may be just a myth, at least give us a semblance of justice. Charge the man with murder. Let him be tried. If he gets off, not many will be surprised, but we can go about our everyday lives having known that we were shown something. And that’s MY perspective.

CHILD SEX TOURISM August 24, 2006 Do you know what a tourist can buy in Belize for 5-US? A blow job from a Belizean child. Think I’m lying? You can ask the people at the National Committee for Families and Children, N-CF-C. You can also check with Adele Catzim and Diane Haylock, who did a study last year called C-Sec, short for Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children. The study is not yet public, but will hopefully be launched in September. If you’re still not sure, you can also call the Youth Enhancement Services. They’re the ones who brought out that commercial with the girl in school who feigned illness so she could go “service” the tourists. You may not want to believe it happens but it does. It even has a name. It’s called Child Sex Tourism, or C-S-T for short, and it’s here in Belize. During a commercial break on the W-U-B this morning, Miss Joan Burke from B-F-L-A told me some of the things she’s heard, and my mouth literally fell. What’s she’s given me is anecdotal information. She doesn’t have the physical evidence to back it up, but Kriol pipple say, “If da no so, da nearly so.” There are men who recruit young girls, particularly school girls, into the trade. They even have business cards. When a cruise ship comes in and there’s someone interested, the man, or I should call him “pimp”, calls or text messages the girl. The girl somehow manages to get out of class, gets in the pimp’s car, and the tourist gets his blow job—or whatever service is requested—right there in the back seat! You may not see it in the full-color magazine ads that the BTB has out, or the pretty commercials on the Travel Channel. But it’s advertised in the most effective way: word-of-mouth. I shudder to think that this even happens, and tremble to imagine what else must be going on. This morning, I called Diane Haylock, who co-authored the C-Sec study, to find out more. She says her study doesn’t focus that much on child sex tourism, but rather on the overall picture of the Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children, or pimping out children for money. It’s not only done for tourists, she says; local men are just as perverted. She and Adele Catzim were able to find and interview thirty victims, all under the age of eighteen, mostly girls, but also some boys. Considering that naturally most victims don’t want to come forward, the fact that they were able to speak to thirty tells me the situation is exponentially greater. 96

This situation is urgent. Our children are at risk; they are exposed to the underbelly of the tourism industry and all the terrible things that fester there—HIV and Aids and other sexually transmitted infections; Sadists, men who get turned on by seeing young girls in pain; Rapists, men who want to take our girls by force; killers; drugs; alcohol abuse. An exposure that comes for as little as 5-US; more depending on what is desired. Whatever the cost, it’s too expensive for us. Our children are priceless. I understand that NCFC submitted a paper to the Ministry of Tourism specifically to address the issue. I don’t know what the response has been, but just the fact that I, as a journalist, have not heard of it, means it’s too little. The studies need to be done. The actions need to be taken. The questions need to be asked. How prevalent is this problem? How many children are we talking about? When and where does this happen? How much money is involved? Who are the sellers? Who are the buyers? What’s the link with drug use? With violence? With sexually transmitted infections? The time to intervene is now, before Belize turns into the next Malaysia, where authorities have turned a blind eye so long that their country HAS become an outright child sex destination, and the problem has grown so big that it seems impossible to correct. Tourism is relatively new in our country. OUR authorities need to nip it now. And that’s MY perspective.

IN DEFENSE OF KRIOL September 1, 2006 This Kriol thing seems to get under a lot of people’s skins, black people of course; our lighter toned brothers and sisters could care less. They don’t get why we’re here fighting over what to call ourselves. Hispanic Belizeans accept Mestizo, even though that’s also a cultural mix. In primary school, they tell us that the non-Garifuna blacks in Belize are Kriol: in this country, a mixture of white European, mostly British, and African slaves. Some of us came out looking more like African, while some of us came out looking closer to white. It’s obvious then, just from viewing the countenances, that there was mixing going on, although it was mostly involuntary on the part of the women. For me, I am Kriol and I am Garifuna; I answer to both names and have never felt compelled to choose. I also answer to Black, and I also answer to Belizean. I refuse to be defined by one identity when there are so many things that compose me. I’ve never faced the great dilemma of trying to define who I am: I am Kriol, I am Garifuna, I am Black, I am Belizean, I am all these things…so what’s the big deal? I’m irritated when other people try to tell me what I am and what I am not. When someone tells me I am not Kriol, I get perturbed, because Kriol is a part of my history. I am not only Kriol, but I embrace what Kriol means. By accepting Kriol, I accept my history. I accept that a white man raped a black woman and she bore his children, from whom I am descended. I may not like that it happened, but when I reflect that that woman bore her burden and gave birth to me generations later, I take pride in her strength. When I accept Kriol as a language, I likewise accept my history. I accept the fusion of different languages and cultures that a people created to hold onto themselves even under repressive circumstances. I accept the fact that when I speak, there are Igbo words like unu, that the popular exclamation cho! comes from the Ewe tribe, that the Kimbundus gave me the concept of guzu, and that the word juk—and everyone knows what that means—is actually West African in origin. I love the fact that when I speak, it is an act of defiance against the slave master who wanted me to forget Africa, and against those who now tell me that Kriol won’t get me anywhere. That’s why when a 98

friend told me last night that he was trying to “culture” himself to stop speaking Kriol, I was taken aback. He said that Kriol is keeping him from developing, holding him back, returning him to slavery. I say it’s exactly the opposite: denying Kriol will keep you enslaved. The fact that Kriol is not a universal language in which I can speak to anyone in the world doesn’t bother me one bit. Rather, knowing that the Kriol I speak is exclusive to my Belizean brothers and sisters makes it even more special. I am comforted—and I’m sure most of you listening can relate to this— when I’m abroad and I meet another Belizean, and can immediately drop the English and converse in Kriol; that language serves a bond between the two of us and makes us intimate. Likewise, Kriol has bonded the whole of Belize together. No matter what ethnicity a Belizean is, we all speak Kriol. Garinagu speak Garifuna and Kriol, Mestizos speak Spanish and Kriol, Mayas speak Yucatec or Ketchi and Kriol. Even immigrants when they get here, they don’t learn English first; they learn Kriol. And we all eat rice and beans, we all eat tamales, and we all eat hudut. There is Creolization occurring in the whole of Belizean society, meaning not that other cultures are becoming more like Creoles/Kriols, but that all our cultures are mixing together in a new way. I use my daughter as the perfect example: I am Kriol and Garifuna and her father is East Indian and Mestizo. So what do we call her when she’s equal parts of each? I simply say she’s Belizean. Whatever she chooses to call herself in the future is up to her, as long as she acknowledges her whole self. If she chooses to create her own ridiculous word (ala Tiger Woods) that’s her prerogative. I just don’t like people telling me I’m not Kriol, because that mixture is what has created me; that’s why Belizeans come in all colors and hair textures. Kriol was a process that happened to us, like it or not. Call yourself what you will, but don’t deny yourself your history by denying Kriol. And that’s MY perspective.

THE MEN ON THE FLAG September 8, 2006 This morning, someone sent me an instant message on the WUB saying that one of the men on the flag shouldn’t be colored yellow. The comment got Mose and I to talking about the men on the flag. I remember being taught in school that one is black and one is white; Mose says he always thought the non-black man was Mayan. It’s an interesting discrepancy that led me to search for the identity of the non-black man. Just who is he and what does he symbolize? For answers, I turned to several sources. I tried calling a number of people who I thought should know, and looking in some books that might have answers. I was able to get someone from the government press office to email me a picture of the Coat of Arms, the official one that’s on all the government letterheads, business cards and documents. Aside from color, the two men on the flag are identical, so I can’t go by physical features to determine ethnicity. I don’t know how to go about describing the color of the man on the left, the non-black man. He could very well be a white man, a bit tan from the hot Belizean sun. He could also be Mestizo or Mayan. There’s a brief article on page 25 of today’s Amandala. It’s called “The Chronological Origin of the Belizean Flag”, and written by Imam Ismail Omar Shabbazz. He says the original Coat of Arms was adopted in 1819 during a public meeting in the settlement of Belize. In 1821, it became the official seal. The timing, just about twenty years after the Battle of Saint George’s Caye, propels me to believe that indeed, there is a black man and a white man, the two races said to have fight “shoulder to shoulder” in the Battle. But a very esteemed lady cleared the whole thing up for me. She has a copy of the Heraldic Decree describing the Coat of Arms. The decree is very specific; however, there are two of them. The first one that she has is dated 1907, after a royal warrant was issued for an artist’s conception of the Coat. I will quote it directly. The men are called “supporters”, and they are described as follows: “A Negro, proper, breeches argent, holding over his shoulder in the dexter [or right] hand, a beating axe, as in the arms; and sinister [or on the left], a like Negro holding over his shoulder in the sinister hand, a paddle.”

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Imagine that! On the 1907 Coat of Arms, there were two Black men! I would have never known. By the time Independence came around, the Coat had changed. According to Shabazz, in 1950, the People’s United Party proposed the flag for an independent Belize. It was the Coat of Arms inside a royal blue rectangle, but I don’t have a picture of the color of the men on that 1950 flag. According to the government of Belize’s website, before independence, that flag was too closely associated with the PUP, so public opinion was divided as to its suitability to act as a unifying symbol. The UDP did not propose a flag, but called for a flag that could rally all citizens, regardless of their political affiliation. As a consequence, the bipartisan National Symbols Committee invited citizens to submit designs for a National Flag. The Committee chose a flag almost identical to the PUP flag, but with one horizontal red stripe at the top and one at the bottom. I return now to the esteemed lady, one of Belize’s elders, and a woman with a keen interest in history. The second Heraldic Decree that the she has is dated 1982; I assume it was written shortly after Independence. Here now are the ethnicities of the men on the current flag: “A Mestizo Belizean, habited with white cotton trousers and leather belt, holding over the shoulder in the dexter hand, a beating axe, all proper; and on the sinister side, an Afro-Belizean habited with like trousers and belt, holding over the shoulder in the sinister hand, a paddle.” So there it is. The men on our flag are Mestizo and AfroBelizean. I have now re-educated myself. I don’t know which teacher told me the non-black man was white, but I always believed he was and never really thought about it. There was never a white man on our flag. At one time the second man was black, now he is Mestizo. Why it was changed, I suppose the PUP and Premier George Price would be the ones to say. It doesn’t bother me that it was changed; I presume it was so it would be more representative of Belize’s multiple cultures. This morning, I spoke to the now-Ombudsman Paul Rodriguez while I was calling around trying to get answers. He couldn’t tell me why the Coat was changed either, but said that sometimes symbols change because they begin to take on different meanings. I can understand and even support that opinion in this case. September is a time when we all rally around the flag, so I hope that my little research today has helped you to

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understand the meaning behind the colors that we hoist on our buildings, put on our car antennas, and wave in the parade. And thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s MY perspective.

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STAMP OUT CORRUPTION October 2, 2006 Any group of people that wants to be the next government of Belize has an enormous task before them. We The People Reform Party loves to quote Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Kwan Yew’s book From Third World To First, a lengthy memoir about how, over forty years, he was able to transform that country. I haven’t read the book yet, but from reviews I gather that a major part of his success had to do with gaining investor confidence by stamping out corruption. Journalist Thomas Friedman, in The Lexus and the Olive Tree, makes a similar suggestion. Why should an investor put his money in a country where he has to pay off everybody from the Prime Minister down to the public servant, and where public officials can simply change the law at their will and invalidate everything for which they invested (kinda like weh ketch Prosser), he asks. Backward systems like this keep good investors out, and create a climate of fear for all involved. For this reason, any party that wants to run this country needs to demonstrate a commitment to eliminating corruption and dealing with corporate crime. They need to prove it to us by showing us their plans to revamp the laws of Belize in these areas. I was appalled when I found out last week that the fine for Contempt of Court is a mere $250, a fine which to a wealthy corporate citizen like BTL is nothing. No wonder its Board of Directors decided to go through with the Annual General Meeting a week ago. It’s quite possible that its lawyers advised them, “Hey, go through, yuh jus haffi pay them wa lee two-fitty afterwards and ting done.” If you, like me, have been wondering how it is that our leaders and the wealthy people in this country seem to act with impunity, it is because, indeed, they possess impunity—or close enough to it! When the BELIPO scandal broke some months ago, the former Solicitor General Elston Kaseke was called out by none less than the Integrity Commission for violating the Prevention of Corruption Act, but what was the punishment? I don’t remember hearing of any. I looked up the Act and found out what the punishments could be. It’s a pretty short Act, only nine pages, considering 103

some of these acts are hundreds of pages long. These are the penalties: You can be imprisoned for up to two years. You can be fined $2500. If you take a bribe, the court can make you pay the value of the bribe to the court. You can be banned from running for public office for seven years. These measures, I find, are quite inadequate. At the least, this law needs to be expanded. I repeat, any group of people who want to form the next government needs to do something about corruption. They need to begin by revising the law to make the punishments match the crimes. Tiny fines won’t do a thing. If I can make millions off corruption, and the fine if caught is a couple hundred, what’s to stop me from being corrupt? In the United States, the laws are reflective of how seriously so-called white collar crime is considered. I’m not saying that the US has the perfect system, but hey, if they can put Martha Stewart in jail they’re saying no one can escape the long arm of the law. Under their system, they’ve impeached a couple presidents, and everyone has to pay their taxes—even notorious gangster Al Capone, who finally went to jail not for his alleged mass murders and drug ring, but for tax evasion. Under their system, the court is to be respected, at least in principle—Judge Ursula Ungaro Benages in Miami could have fined our government US$50,000 a day for contempt. What’s our contempt penalty? BZ$250. What’s our penalty for tax evasion, all those wealthy landowners who aren’t paying up? Nada. What’s our recall system for our leaders? Vote of noconfidence—a joke! Does anyone with money ever go to jail? I can’t think of any. I’m serious here. Financial crimes, corruption, respect for the judiciary, these are areas at which our next government needs to look seriously. As the legislature, they are the ones in the position to look at our laws and fix them, before we go further down the drain. And so far, I haven’t heard any party or group of people seriously talking about doing that. And that’s MY perspective.

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A RIGHTEOUS ANGER October 12, 2006 This morning, the Bishop of the Anglican Church and one of his senior reverends were on the WUB. They were there to talk about an upcoming synod, but Mose pressured them about everything from AIDS to gay rights to activism. It turned out to be quite an interesting conversation. What stuck with me was when Bishop Wright began talking about expressing “a righteous anger”, the courage to say that wrong is wrong, and that the response to public wrongs has been weak. I really appreciate him saying that, because we rarely hear from the churches on social issues. Reverend Neal, who was with him, tried to defend that by saying the churches do a lot of work in the background, and so their efforts go largely unnoticed. That’s what they all say, but to me, the real courage is in saying what needs to be said publicly, not dodging the issues but confronting them, even and especially in church. About four years ago, I stopped attending church. I am a baptized and confirmed Catholic, but I officially relinquished my religion four years ago, although I had been questioning it long before. At the time, I didn’t feel like my church was relevant to my life. I would hear the same sermons week after week, and see the same people, people who rarely ever turned their heads to say hello. My priest seemed distant, all the way down the aisle behind that altar. My church was not inspiring me to do good. Since then, I’ve found other reasons to justify my decision, which perhaps I will share another time, but for now I continue to search for a spiritual path. That path will have to include a continuous fight for social justice, something with which I have been preoccupied lately. It always perplexes me how a Belizean man who commits a crime against another Belizean man—for example, by stealing that man’s wallet and the money inside—can easily get jail time, but a Belizean man who commits a crime against all Belizean men and women—for example by stealing the nation’s purse and our money inside—gets little or nothing. If I am going to be a part of an organization that is ministering to the people, that claims to be preaching truth, that organization needs to be concerned about justice here on earth. It cannot be enough to say that justice is the Lord’s; I cannot console myself by convincing myself that in some vague afterlife, God will deliver 105

retribution, not when this is the life that I have to live and to experience today. Why must my brothers and sisters receive justice and equality only in death? This is why I respect the Reverend Martin Luther King Junior so much. Not only for the words he spoke, which are eternally poignant, but because of the words he spoke considering who he was. He was a pastor in a church. He was a man of God, a figure of respect and authority in his community, and he used his position to tell people that they deserve better. And he wasn’t afraid to go to jail for it. And he wasn’t afraid to say wrong is wrong. And he wasn’t afraid to display his righteous anger, and incite that righteous anger in the people to whom he spoke, and who he touched. And he didn’t do it in the background, no, he was at the forefront, he was on t.v., he was on the radio. He was a leader. When I go to church, I need my priest or pastor or reverend to say more than “We must pray for our leaders that righteousness may guide them,” for many of those leaders have already evaded righteousness. It is now time for corrective action. My church does not need to be militant, but it needs to speak out against injustice, and it is absolutely necessary for its members and leaders to speak the truth. Sometimes we lie by omission, by failing to tell the truth. It is my opinion that by failing to speak the truth, the church tells a lie, a lie that all is well, when everyone can see all is not well. And when people can see that so plainly, they become disillusioned with the church, and feel as though they have been deceived. I am not trying to discredit the church or speak ill of people who commit themselves to a religion. What I speak of today has been a personal choice that is yet unresolved. Someday, I will come to terms with my faith, or should I say, what I believe in. I have begun to formulate those beliefs, and they include the importance of social justice and the equality and respect for all people. I know that at this age, I may sound like I am preaching ideology, but I am certainly not one to believe in Utopia (what a boring place that must be!) For now, I content myself with the pursuit of principles. That is my religion. And that’s MY perspective.

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PORT LOYOLA October 17, 2006 It is becoming increasingly urgent that I take a plunge into the depths of Port Loyola. I have a good friend with whom I chat on the Internet frequently who is a product of Port. She comes from a poor family, but excelled in school and is fortunate enough to be on a scholarship now pursuing her Master’s Degree at an institution where she continues to excel. Many times we chat about social issues and she gives me her opinion. She says that she’s discussed her concerns with some of our other colleagues, young women who went to Sixth Form with us, most of whom come from privileged backgrounds. They ask her why she’s so mad. She has articles that she writes, but no one will publish. They tell her she’s too “anti-the-government”. She needs balance, they say. She says she has a story to tell, and eventually, someone will listen. She says she crossed the bridge from Southside to Northside every day to go to school, and witnessed the growing disparity, how that river seemed to widen every time she crossed it. When she tries to talk to her northside schoolmates about what I call “the chasm”, they don’t understand, and she quickly retorts that it’s because they’re a product of northside. I find that retort interesting, because when we chat, she tells me that I seem to be able to relate to her. Then I remind her that I’m from worse than Northside; I’m from Belmopan. By worse I mean that Belmopan is an even more sheltered place to grow up than Northside Belize City, and if she’s going to complain that northside kids can’t relate to her, then I should be even further from her sphere of relatability. Belmopan is a little suburban community built on public service. Most children grow up in decent homes with two working parents. Crime is low. The schools are decent. It has its problems, but comparatively, it’s a very sheltered community. How I was produced by that community, a child from a middle-class two-parent home, I still wonder. How I ended up with all my perceptions and perspectives and on this quest for social justice and the continued pursuit of excellence, I still question. I know it started before I came to Krem, but Krem has been a catalyst for my ideas, for my continued introspection, and has also widened my vision considerably.

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This morning, the Port Loyola area rep, Anthony “Boots” Martinez, was on Krem’s morning show. He seems very optimistic that this Halcrow project in his constituency will begin in December. They’re supposed to fix up Jane Usher Boulevard and I suppose some other areas. I admit, I’m not very familiar with the project, or even the area in general. I’ve heard about the London bridges, the sewer pond, the contaminated water. But I’ve actually been to Jane Usher Boulevard, maybe twice to drop off Miss Nzinga. I need to go back there for real, to see, to experience. And so do the powers that be. I think it should be mandatory that all Cabinet ministers take a “retreat” to the most destitute areas of the country. Forget Caye Chapel. Take a retreat in Port, and then tell me if you are able to get any work done, if you were able to concentrate on anything other than the stench that surrounds you. I’ll bet the Vision 2025 that comes out of that retreat would feature big plans for Port. A few months ago, there was a concentration of violence backa Port, which happens to be a predominantly black community. I have my theories about why young black men kill each other. I’ve expressed before that I think it comes from selfhatred. When a man points a gun at another man, he has to absolutely be consumed by hatred for that man before the gun to pull the trigger and prefer him to die. That is hatred of self, for that man facing the gun looks just like the man behind it. That man is killing himself. I call it mass suicide. In Port, the situation is compounded by the contaminated environment in which they live. In the United States, they did a study linking asbestos in the “projects” to poor performance in school and the prevalence of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) in the children who live in those projects. I wonder what they would find out if they did a study in Port. I am not surprised that young men in Port commit mass suicide by killing each other, not when I know they wake up in the morning, look around them, and see and smell a four letter word that starts with “s”; I’ll call it “-it”, for sake of decency on public radio. They are living in --it. And how can their lives feel like anything other than –it when –it is what surrounds them. No wonder there is desperation to escape. A man who lives the lifestyle of the gun knows that eventually he will die by the gun; so choosing to live that way can be nothing but an invitation to death; a choice to commit suicide.

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My people, wake up and smell the –it. I’ll take my trip to Port soon. And that’s MY perspective.

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BLACK YOUTH AND CRIME October 19, 2006 Professor Barry Chevannes, the man who will tonight be speaking on “Youth, masculinity and crime”, comes to us with thirty-odd years of experience. He’s written books and chapters in books, given lectures and speeches, taught classes and done research, to lead him to his conclusions, so I have great respect for the things that he says. I listened with keen attention to his views on male socialization, and the links between culture, poverty and crime. I will listen again intently tonight. There are questions in my mind that need answering. I need to know why. Why the violence? Why the anger? Professor Chevannes believes that the way young black males are socialized, which is distinctly different from the way young men in other cultures are socialized, is part of the problem. Our black male youths are raised to fend for themselves. Unlike females, who are protected and nurtured, they are left to develop on their own and are expected to become tough. When that socialization process is combined with the disorder resulting from poverty, crime is the result. Professor Chevannes says that the distinction is cultural, and not racial. Here is where I disagree with him. I accept his full thesis about the cultural influence, but I believe that the very culture of which he speaks has been created by racial factors. Why is it that social roles are not clearly defined in AfroCaribbean society, which the Professor believes confuses the male? My belief is that it is because we have experienced a disconnect from tradition. When the Indians came to the Caribbean, they came as indentured labourers, and although their condition was similar to that of slaves, they did not experience the same cultural repression that Africans experienced a couple centuries before. Whereas Indians were able to retain their identities as Indians—to the extent that they still call themselves Indians today—Africans and their descendants have not. Many of us are reluctant to call ourselves Africans; we call ourselves Kriol; and that is because in truth, we are not Africans, although we are descended from them. We can not go back to Africa and fit in; the culture that has emerged in the Caribbean is entirely different from that which existed and now exists in Africa.

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The culture that has emerged here is a result of the slavery experience, although not ONLY of that. It is a result of merging what we remember with what we are forced to live; combining our nostalgia for Africa with the necessity of speaking English; combining traditional drums with bass, guitar and keyboard to create Punta Rock. But I believe that because African culture was severely repressed in the West Indies, and because the family structure was very much undermined and broken wherever possible, the result is that social roles are NOT clearly-defined, and a system of broken families is perpetuated. There is more to it, because Belize wasnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t always this way; the Caribbean was not always this way, but I will get into my postulations on that at another time. For now, my point is that Caribbean culture has bases in race. I do not believe it is possible to isolate culture from race, and so I simply would like to insert that into everything else that Professor Chevannes has said. There is much more on this subject to be learned, and as I learn, I will continue sharing. And thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s MY perspective.

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MANDATORY MILITARY TRAINING October 24, 2006 Lance Corporal Jawan Williams, at the tender age of twentytwo, has already served three tours of duty in Iraq for the U-S Marines. He says he wouldn’t mind going back. He came on the WUB this morning in full decoration: white gloves, white hat, shiny shoes, stiff coat, gold buttons, and a row of glistening medals. I have to be proud of him, even though he is part of a war that I do not support. What he shows me is bravery, courage, heart. The politics of it aside, there is something about being part of an organized group like the military that is appealing. If I wasn’t so soft, I’d do it; but then again, maybe that’s the point, to learn to be tough. I admire people like Carrie Wong K, the former Queen of the Bay, for showing endurance and discipline and wanting to be part of something bigger than themselves. And people like Sergeant Ramon Leandro Aguilar, who recently demonstrated endurance and will by surviving nine dangerous days and nights in the Chiquibul Forest of Belize. I’ve only just begun thinking about this one, so don’t heckle me just yet, but perhaps all citizens should be made to undergo some military training. Male and female, in school and out of school, all cultures, all races, at the age of eighteen. A mandatory year of training and service. Here in Belize, we’re not big on the war against terrorism, but we have our own homegrown problems, wars that we need to fight: crime, drugs, pedophilia, AIDS. And then of course, there’s also the Guatemalan claim. Maybe military training will give some of our misguided young people some perspective, will make them become aware of the things happening around them. For the upper and middle class children, it will remove that protective fence, the shelter they have received all their lives. For the less privileged, it will teach them how to fight the good fight the right way, how to organize themselves against injustice, how to maintain discipline and honor in the face of forced indignity. The teaching should not only be physical but also mental; each Belizean should be taught to be distinctly aware of world affairs, the environment, politics, and history.

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I know many people are cautious about having mandatory anything, but I can see the benefits of this. As soon as I think it through a bit more, Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll fill you in on the program I propose. And thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s MY perspective.

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PASSA PASSA October 27, 2006 Admit it. We are living in a sex society. Mine is not the first generation of youth to be obsessed with sex, but technology is allowing us to take it to a whole ‘nother level. Exhibitionism is encouraged, regarded as entertainment, many of you actually like it. Everyone knows that winning a swimsuit contest has absolutely nothing with how good you look in a swimsuit. Yet, all you have to do is announce a swimsuit contest for your event, and women will be there in their teeniest bikinis; men will be there to watch greedily, and other women will be there to compare. Is there a line? Well, there should be in public places where children are likely to be watching. But in dancehalls and at adult events, all’s fair. When the crowd becomes disgusted and walks away or starts booing, then it will stop, but I’ve never seen that happen before. In these dancehall queen contests in the nightclubs, for example, women are applauded, egged on with great enthusiasm by both men and other women. The last time I went to such an event, one of the dancers climbed up on the A.C. unit and started dancing way up there, just to outdo the competition and take home the prize. Such things, however, are not the norm. You can’t just walk into a club and see women gone wild, not yet anyway. I don’t think that’s all that far away because the cameras are beginning to come out. Already, many promoters have people going around with digital cameras taking pictures of the dance to post on their websites. Still photos are one thing, but as you saw with the Passa Passa thing on the news, when the video cameras start coming out to capture the wining in motion, things will start to happen. I don’t think it will be too long before someone comes up with the bright idea to start videotaping parties. Now, I’ve observed that video cameras generally have one of two effects on people: either they clam up and become super still and uncomfortable, or they begin exaggerating everything they do. There are some women who will avoid the camera and there are others who will give an extra special shake. Why do you think all these reality shows are so successful? Producers have discovered that once you put a camera in front of regular people, they’ll act strangely, do weird things, fight with each other, take off their clothes, you name it. Of course, they choose the ones on whom 114

the camera has the second effect for the show. And people will watch, simply because people love to watch other people being weird, engaging in what is considered extreme behavior. It’s something that the producers of shows like “The Real World”, “Flavour of Love”, and “Girls Gone Wild” have taken all the way to the bank. The dancing on Albert Street that was videotaped was extreme behavior. People don’t normally act like that, and so whoever filmed it will immediately have a captive audience of people who want to see something outside of the norm, especially something lascivious and sexual. We have a natural curiosity for such things, and if a woman happens to have an extra special talent for wining, many of us want to see it. The only thing that concerns me is the possibility for exploitation, and the possible involvement of children. There was a “swimsuit contest” about two years ago—and I’ve already alluded to what swimsuit contests are really about. The girl who won was the best exotic dancer of the bunch, but turns out the girl was only fourteen. Problem is, the people here who promote these types of shows don’t usually card, and so if the girl looks old enough-ish, she can shake all she wants and win some money. In that particular case, it was the girl’s mother who actually pushed her into going up on stage. This issue is obviously connected to the commercial sexual exploitation of children. There is a lot of possibility for young girls to get involved in what is considered adult entertainment. The other issue is the involvement of drugs and alcohol. The woman who was shown on the news on Wednesday admitted to being drunk at the time. So she was very high that day, started dancing, and oh, here happens to come a guy with a camera to catch the whole thing on tape, and I am certain the awareness of that camera influenced her. Now, fortunately for this woman, she woke up the next day, saw the tape, and was like, “Wow, I neva know I could dance so good.” She obviously didn’t feel exploited and was quite comfortable with her intoxicated behavior. But, as other adventurous camera-toters begin to pursue the girls-gonewild and so-called Passa-Passa images, there will be more drugs and alcohol to influence more young women to do things that are increasingly lewd for the camera. And they will do it. Not everyone will be like the girl on the news. Some of them will wake up and see the tape, and say, “Oh my God! Is that really me?” And on top of that, these camera-toters—I can’t call them 115

filmmakers because they’re not—will make money off the DVDs that they produce, and the woman will gain nothing but her ruined dignity. So the long and short of it is, while I have no problems with adult entertainment, so long as it remains FOR ADULTS ONLY, I am concerned about the exploitation that is very likely to accompany it. And that’s MY perspective.

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GARINAGU AT 25? November 8, 2006 "We continue moving forward after twenty-five years." That's the theme for this year's Garifuna Settlement Day celebrations. It struck me as strange to hear the theme for the first time last week. I had to do a double-take. Twenty-five years? Haven't we, the Garinagu, been here for over two-hundred-years? The November 19th settlement that is celebrated was in 1832, that's 172 years. But the Garinagu have been in Belize since at least 1802; that bicentennial was celebrated in 2002, just four years ago. After a quick mental scan, I figured the organizers were probably trying to sync with the national celebrations in September, twenty-five years of independence….But why? The only conclusion that I could reach was that they are trying to politicize the 19th. The day is called Garifuna Settlement Day, fought for and won by Thomas Vincent Ramos and others to highlight the achievements of a particular ethnic group that has made countless contributions to this society, but which has been, and continues to be marginalized. Why mix that struggle with independence? It's a completely different thing. Garifuna Settlement Day, as the name indicates, is a day that celebrates the long history of the Garinagu people, the struggle it took for us to get here, to settle in Belize after losing hard-fought wars and being betrayed in Saint Vincent, after surviving deportation to Balliceaux and Roatan, after being betrayed, exiled and displaced again in Honduras, after being led by the brave Alejo Beni. Garifuna Settlement Day is a celebration of much much more than 25 years. Whoever chose that theme, and all those who gave that chooser a pat on the back and said, “Good theme, buddy”, should never have anything to do with the planning of 19th ever again. I get the uneasy feeling that through that theme, a message is being sent to big government that, “Yeah, everything ready, the Garifuna people are with you, we are in solidarity with all that you celebrate. We got yu back, bredrin.” But as far as I'm concerned, that should be the last message coming from my people down south.

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Just last week, I helped a little girl with her homework. One of the questions was, "What are the professions of the Garinagu?" I was amazed by the question, because I figured Garifuna people do all the things that other people do: we are teachers, journalists, public officers, lawyers, accountants, doctors, whatever you can think about, we do. So I told her to put all those things down. She came back the next day and told me her teacher said Garifuna people are fishermen and farmers. I thought, "How ridiculous!" Maybe traditionally, but that wasn't the question. The question wasn't phrased in the past, but in the present tense. And how dare they tell this little girl what Garifuna people are supposed to be! This is the miseducation that contributes to the misperception of my people. Imagine the Garifuna children in that class, who may have, because of that question, been made to think that that because of their ethnicity, they could be nothing more than farmers or fisherfolk. Not to knock those professions: fishing and farming are honorable employments and they build our nation. But I'm very upset with the teacher, the school and the system that perpetuate these misperceptions of my people. Going back to theme, I suggest it be changed immediately. We have been here for much longer than twenty-five years. It is an affront to us to celebrate OUR day under THAT theme. Moving forward, yes we will continue, from when Africans and Caribs first fell in love, way into the future. And that's MY perspective.

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TOURIST â&#x20AC;&#x153;VILLAGEâ&#x20AC;? November 23, 2006 I'm not a fan of cruise tourism from the get-go, so regardless of who's in the right and who's in the wrong with this fence thing, I would like to see the fence gone. I don't like barriers. The statistics from the Belize Tourism Board show that cruise tourism accounts for almost 80% of tourists who visit this country, but contribute less than 30% of the money spent by tourists here. Basically, they crowd all the popular sites and ruin the experience for those who are here spending their money on the whole package, who really want to see the country, and who are not just here on detour to some other place. Even worse than cruise passengers are the big cruise companies, who I think aren't concerned about developing destinations. They come here, take what they can get, and then leave when they've gotten it and there's nothing left to take. They're in it for themselves; they don't care about poor little Belize. The tourism village is the perfect example of the attitude of the very profitable cruise lines. They use it in so many ways to their advantage and our detriment. First of all, every cruise tourist who comes here has to pay US$7 tax. More than half that goes right back to the cruise line for the village. And then when the tourists get here, they tell them all kinds of stories to scare them into staying in the village. I have an Internet friend who says he stopped in Belize on a cruise one time, but never left the village because he was afraid. He was led to believe by the cruise line people that Belizean food would poison him and Belizean people would try to rob him. It took serious damage control from me to convince him that my country is just like any other normal place, is generally safe to be. Poor him, though! He must have been petrified to think what lay beyond those tourist village walls. As if the tourist village is even really a village! Or could ever compare to beautiful Camalote or Gales Point, Manatee. To me, the Tourist Village epitomizes the greed of the cruise tourism industry, which by the way made US$6 billion profit last year just off the Caribbean! They bring their people here, take half the tax for bringing them, and then try to get the people they've brought to buy only from them.

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The cruise tourism industry is hogging up all the wealth, taking everything for itself and leaving us with the crumbs, not even good enough for consumption, only good to give BML and SEL workers a jobâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;an even that's not working out so well. So if it takes the bringing down of a wall for us to get in on a little of the action, I'm with it. Personally, I'd love for the whole so-called village to come down, but I know they'd never do that. And that's MY perspective.

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ONE LESS December 4, 2006 Every time another one of my brothers is gunned down, I feel compelled to write about it, to comment on the latest senseless murderâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;even if I don't want to. Today, I don't really want to write about the death of Oscar Westby. I would much rather write a piece about annoying text messages, something I've been brewing in my mind for a while now and saving for a slow news day. But there is absolutely no way I can write about texting on a day like today, not on a day when the news is sad and the hearts of another family are heavy. Not on a Monday on which I come to work high on the happiness of weekend success, only to hear, like Brother Erwin says, "another drive-by, another ride-by, another by-and-by, another youth dieâ&#x20AC;?. I always have to comment when we lose a brother. That's one less potential husband for me, one less potential father for my future children; if he already has a wife or a woman and kids, that's one more family without a man; for Belize, one less pair of hands to build her; one less mind to mould her; one less brother, uncle, cousin, father, lover. One less teacher, engineer, doctor, even savior. When my country loses a man in the prime of his life, I take it to heart because I feel as if though I've personally lost him. Sometimes there are some men who are made to die, and there are some people who say they've been expecting it because his name was always in the news, but I'm a sucker for believing in salvation, and for always believing in those who will come to their senses, turn their lives around, and be there for me, a Belizean woman, and my Belizean children. So I write this today for you, Oscar Westby, and all the others before and after you. I will always mourn you. And that's MY perspective.

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BELIZEAN AMERICANS December 7, 2006 Everybody in Belize has somebody living in the States. According to statistics from the Central Bank, in 2005, Belizeans living abroad sent home some BZ$81.8 million in remittances. (The Central Bank doesn't have that figure broken down by country, so I can't tell you how much of that comes from the Unites States, but I'd bet it's the large majority.) Belize's GDP is somewhere in the vicinity of BZ$2.2 billion, so if you do the math you'll see that Belizeans living abroad contribute to almost 4% of the economy. Sounds like a lot, doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t it? At one point, I used to think that the bulk of Belizeans who go to live in the States are selfish sell-outs, people who can abdicate their accents in a week, will live in the most grotesque holes-inthe-wall and take jobs they would never be caught doing in Belize. Going to America and seeing some of the same people who come home every other year and big-spend, living on top of one another, can be overwhelming. Why give up your homeland to build someone else's? Why force yourself on a country where you have to worry about getting ICED, and if you didn't know, ICE stands for Immigrations and Customs Enforcement, aka the Deportation Man. However, I've come to see how many of the people who go abroad do leave with good intentions, with hopes of sending money back home for their families, and coming home to retire once they've saved up enough. Growing up, my best friend, a girl named Adranie Miranda, lived across the street with her five sisters and grandmother in a two-bedroom house. Their parents left for the Big Apple when they were kids, and in 1994, finally were able to send for the entire familyâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;six girls who by then were already grown, and accustomed to nothing other than Miss June and the two-bedroom bungalow with the pretty flowers on Moho Street. Adranie came home for the first this summer, and of course, was amazed to see all the changes, even more amazed to see the tiny house in which they were raised. She wondered how they all fit. Through Adranie, I've learned that they are all doing pretty well. She is studying Criminal Justice; two of her sisters are in the navy, two are gainfully employed, and the youngest one, Emily, who left when she was a baby, is still in high school.

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Then there are my grandparents, my father's mother and father. They retired from lifetime careers in education and moved to New York City, where one is employed as a store manager and one as a home help aid. They are both senior citizens, but they work really long hours, and have to put up with working on weekends, something most of us here in Belize aren't accustomed to. I wonder why they do it. They say they'll come home after ten years, but I've been counting; this year marks ten and they're still not here, except for their annual summer sojourn to Mahogany Street. But then again, what do they have to lose? Their kids are all adults, some of whom have adult kids of their own, and even grandkids. Perhaps the excitement of the big city keeps them alive. So those are two stories on one side of the fence. There is, of course, the other side. I have quite a few friends in this category, young men and women who I've lectured to come back home. I won't call their names, although I'm seriously thinking about outing them. They know exactly who they are. Those who get scholarships, and after two short years, are addicted to the U-Sof-A. It's a lifestyle, they say. They can't come back to the dim lights in Belize. There's no MacDonald's here, no 24-hour Walmart. How could they ever survive here? Plus, they have their degrees and they're making good money. What can Belize possibly do for them? To them I ask, in the famous words of JFK, "Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country." There is a serious brain-drain in Belize, and in the entire Caribbean. I can't help but wonder how much better, how much more developed my country would be, if all those bright minds who gave up on Belize would come home; how many engineers, doctors and scientists we'd have. For me personally, the decision was an easy one. I have earned some skills that my country needs. I had to come back. But the truth is, everybody in Belize has somebody "da States", a place that to many seems to be the Promised Land. I wasnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t able to get a concrete figure on exactly how many Belizeans are living in the United States, but informal figures suggest that anywhere from 25% to 33% of the entire population has migrated north. At the beginning of the commentary, I noted that Belizeans living a lot contributed about 4% of the economy. It sounded like a lot, but if you compare that with their actual population, itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s 123

disproportionate. 25% Percent of the population is only contributing to 4% of the economy. I’m forced to the conclusion that they could have been doing a lot more for Belize if they had stayed. Instead, they are contributing the bulk of their economic power to someone else’s country. Whether they left with the intention to return or not, I just hope they all one day remember, "there's no place like home", and realize that, as I believe, the greatest contribution cannot be made from a distance, but only from intimacy with—or a state of being within—our country, so that we can, on that day, have a big Country Reunion, and make this nation great again. And that's MY perspective.

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CHRISTMAS COME HOME December 14, 2006 My mother is a big Christmas person. She goes all-out decorating the house, putting up the tree, preparing the turkey, ham and trimmings, and shopping for great gifts. My father, on the other hand, makes it a point to pretend to not be bothered. Every Christmas we buy him presents, and every Christmas he annoys us by leaving them under the tree until New Years. He says he's not big on Christmas, but I'm sure he enjoys it (I can testify that he definitely loves Christmas ham!). Although there have been opposing influences regarding Christmas in my life, I must admit that my mother's overwhelming cheer and good spirit at Christmas time has won me over. There are people who don't celebrate Christmas for various reasons, and I myself am not particularly religious, but I love Christmas. There's a happiness I get from being around family, going house to house nyaaming people black cake and soft drink, and enjoying good conversation and banter. I love the smell of new paint and varnish in the air at Christmastime, and watching a row of boys helping their mother carry a fresh roll of marley down Albert Street. Belize's Christmas celebrations are actually not only about the birth of Jesus Christ. The way we celebrate Christmas here has rich history in the experience of our logwood and mahoganycutting slaves during this time of year. According to historian Nigel Bolland, Christmas was the time when slaves came in from the forest for a brief break before the next logging season. Christmas was the time when the men came home, and so was a time of great celebration for women, children and families. The festivities went all-out, with the white slave-masters often complaining about the ruckus that came from what was then called Eboe-Town, a section of Belize City on the now-southside. Of course, what the slave owners called "ruckus" was great enjoyment for our ancestorsâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;it was music, live drumming, dancing, singing, story-telling, jokes, and lots and lots of food. In fact, during Christmastime, many woodcutting slaves would overrun their credit at the local white-owned shops, and thus be committed to slaving for another year to pay it offâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;a tradition that lives on today. I'm sure you've heard all the banks with special Christmas promotions, and the lure of credit cards make it easy to buy now and pay later. There are very many people 125

who over-extend themselves during Christmas, buying more than they can afford and reveling in the moment. And while I'm all for Christmas enjoymentâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;to the means that we can affordâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;I only hope that like in slavery days, our men would come home this Christmas. I can only hope they can call the peace, stop the war, and give their women and children something to feast about. And that's MY perspective.

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CAPITAL PUNISHMENT December 19, 2006 In high school I debated fervently for the death penalty. The arguments were the ones we hear from people every day who are sick and tired of counting bodies on the news: an eye for eye, they deserve to die, and so forth. When I turned nineteen and discovered I was pregnant with my daughter, a family member suggested that I get an abortion. The idea was repugnant to me, and I was upset with that family member for a while for even suggesting it. I am a faithful believer in the potential of all human beings. An unborn child has unlimited potential to be, to do, and I didn't—and still don't—believe that I have the right to deny anyone their right to live. Our constitution, Part Two Section Four, protects the right to life, but makes exceptions for state executions; i.e, the death penalty. It is at that point in my life, a point when I was a statistic—a teenage mother—that I realized I needed to resolve the obvious hypocrisy in my philosophies on life. How could I, on the one hand, defend the right to life, claim to believe in the infinite potential of human beings; and on the other hand, support the death penalty? After serious contemplation, I came to realize that the two points of view don't go together, and rather than go proabortion, I decided to change my opinion on the death penalty. I'm about to connect this argument to physics, in which we learn about potential and kinetic energy. The website The Physics Classroom, explains the concept of potential energy thus: An object can store energy as the result of its position. For example, the heavy ball of a demolition machine is storing energy when it is held at an elevated position. This stored energy of position is referred to as potential energy. Kinetic energy is the energy an object has when it is in motion. Unborn children have infinite potential energy. Once they are born and begin to grow, that energy becomes kinetic; it starts to move. With the right influences, children will move and grow in such a way that they become benefits to our society. I will never give up on a child, especially one that is not yet born, and say that he or she has no potential, because he and she both do. Adults on death row, on the other hand, are a mass of kinetic energy. At the point where another human being is deciding whether that person should live or die, the person on death row is 127

already a grown human being, a body already in motion. What we, as society need to do then, is stop that person from continuing on that path. To counteract the motion that the death row criminal is already in, we need to put the same energy into him that went into his formation as a criminal, a killer. NEWTON’S SECOND LAW OF MOTION SAYS The website Wikipedia, in talking about kinetic energy, says that "Negative work of the same magnitude would be required to return the body to a state of rest." When we're talking about lives, we're talking about tremendous energy, years and years of rehabilitation, not a simple two or three month program. I believe it's absolutely doable. I believe even the most hardened criminal can be reformed. I know for a fact, without any poll to tell me so, that the majority of Belizeans are pro-death penalty and anti-abortion. I think we need to rethink our positions, and formulate a collective philosophy on life. I've found that with my framework on life— believing in the potential energy of all human beings—I am able to make decisions and take positions that I consider moral. I am able to say easily that I support scientific research, but not the type that intentionally destroys life, such as the creation of embryos to be used as stem cells. I am able to say easily that I will support any program that promotes human development, and would thus make that ministry the most important in any government that I would get the opportunity to run—only second to health, because education is a part of human development. How many of our political leaders are we able to look at and know exactly what they stand for? We need to find out what they're about, but first, we need to find out what we're about. And that's MY perspective.

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PEDOPHILES IN THE SCHOOL SYSTEM January 31, 2007 It is a rare situation when a headline story fails to generate any discussion at all. As a morning talk show host, I am obliged to bring up topics that I think are important and deserve discussion; at the same time, the format of the WUB is one in which callers come first. Callers run that show, so what they want to talk about often takes precedence over what I would like to talk about. So when someone instant-messaged me this morning and demanded that we put the story of “The Homosexual High School Administrator”—Amandala’s headline for Sunday, January 21st, 2006—into our pot, I was pleased. Not pleased because of the subject matter, which certainly is not fun, but pleased because Belize would finally be talking about it. The real issue to me isn’t only that the administrator is homosexual, but rather that he is a pedophile, and more than that, a person who uses a position of power to corrupt, bribe and even blackmail teenaged boys. Homosexual men are known to function in various societies as regular people who just happen to have sex with other men—depending on your religion and moral beliefs, that may or may not be right. But in my opinion, sexual orientation in itself is no reason to be feared at a school or in a workplace. Pedophilia, however is a disgusting crime. Had it been a male high school principal doing the same thing to female students, it would have been just as disgusting and wrong. However, in Belize the situation at the unnamed school is compounded by the fact that we are an intensely homophobic society, and this is a man doing this to adolescent boys. The sex scandal in the Catholic Church has rocked the great U-S-of-A to its moral core. Like the high school administrator in the Belize case, the priests in the United States—and there turned out to be many of them—abused their positions of authority and their access to children to lure little boys to their beds. Part of the problem lies within the dynamic of the church itself. The Catholic Church has tried very long and very hard to de-sex human beings. Think of their policies regarding celibacy for priests and nuns; think of the many segregated schools that they run around the world; think of one of the pillars of their religion: that Mary was a virgin when she gave birth. Not only 129

that, but the Church has been the biggest perpetrator of patriarchy and misogyny, not to mention bigotry, racism and others. What are we to expect of a church system that pushes women away—and consistently spurns and vilifies women— other than homosexuality? What are we to expect of a religion that says the Holy Trinity is the Father, the Son, and no, not the Mother, but the mysterious Holy Ghost? It’s certainly ironic, and on a greater level hypocritical, that the Catholic Church, which has consistently been anti-gay in its public policies, has fostered and festered homosexuality behind its altars. Furthermore, as brought out in the US pedophile priest cases, the church has a history of covering up and ignoring these misdeeds. It does so because, in my opinion, it supports what is happening. Otherwise, the problem would have been nipped in the bud, stopped at the first sign of abomination. If you are a moral authority, you need to begin with yourself and lead by example. Your concern should not be whether this will result in a scandal, but for the welfare of the people affected—little boys in this case. There are many similarities between the US cases and the situation at the unnamed Belizean school. The school’s administration has turned a blind eye to the problem for way too long, and by that choice, said it’s okay for that man to have done what he did. By their choice to once again give him free reign over young boys, they say that it is okay for him to continue to do what he has been doing. As an institution that is responsible for the education of pubertal boys, a school that is entrusted with their care for twothirds of the day, that school has a moral and a legal obligation to fire that man, gather the evidence against him; i.e., the reports from the abused boys themselves, and turn them over to the police. And when that is done, turn to the public and say, “That man is not a part of us. He has done wrong and we do not tolerate his behavior.” Even now, it’s not too late for them to do the right thing, to say that by their complacence, they too have done wrong, and vow before us all to never let it happen again. And that’s MY perspective.

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GENOCIDE AND THE DRUG TRADE February 5, 2007 The people who are responsible for the genocide of a people— especially when it’s their own people—are the vilest creatures on Earth. I have no sympathy for them. On the international scene, names like Hitler, Hussein, Pinochet and Milosevik figure big. But both internationally and locally, there are forces at work that are bigger than a single man at whom the finger can be pointed. There are entire networks in which hundreds of thousands of people are systematically killed. On Friday, I watched the movie “Blood Diamond”, which is about the civil war that raged unchecked for years in Sierra Leonne over the lucrative diamond trade. Watching it, I was of course forced to reflect on the mass murders in Rwanda and now Darfur, Sudan—all of which are compounded by AIDS. In Belize, our young black men are at risk from another type of genocide, one that is inflicted by the drug trade, one that is lucrative in Belize not because of the local market, nor because the product is manufactured here, but because of our “strategic location”. Like diamonds, oil, gold and so on, drugs have enriched many, but killed multiple times more. And like the industries in Africa, local people participate willfully in its propagation to their own detriment. When I see black people killing black people—be it with ratatata guns or 38s—I hurt. And over what is our blood shed? A product that enriches someone else and leaves local players at the top rich, but exiled in their own countries or homes, and those at the bottom with guns worth more than anything they will ever own in their lives. I am convinced that part of the solution to our murder problem is teaching our young black men to start seeing the forest for the trees: black history, black education. This is black history month. Pick up a book. Show the youth them the truth. And that’s MY perspective.

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REDEFINING GENDER RELATIONS February 27, 2007 Belize has some serious gender issues. The family structure, especially in the black community, has been rotting away over the years. The result has been low self esteem in both boys and girls who eventually become men and women without a clue as to what their social roles really are. Since the women’s liberation movement took off in the 1960s and 70s, women have been talking about how to empower themselves. The concept of the “independent woman” took flight, and so did its extreme, the concept of the “superwoman”—the woman who can raise a family and excel at her job with one eye closed and one tied behind her back. The generation of 20-somethings in Belize have been raised and socialized in a way quite different from previous generations, and I think it’s very important that we study this cultural generational difference. Women my age have been raised with the “no-need-no-man attitude”, and as a result have been given more opportunities than our male counterparts to obtain higher education. Go to any sixth form or junior college and you will see the dominance of the female. It’s not only Belize; however, the entire Caribbean is facing what young women are calling “man shortage”. At the University of the West Indies Mona Campus in Jamaica, 80-percent of students are women: that’s a whopping four women to one man. So although statistically woman-to-man is just about one-to-one, that is not the social reality. You see, after women’s lib, mothers began wanting more options for their daughters than housewivery. There’s nothing wrong with being a stay-at-home mom, they figured, but if their girls want to be something else, why shouldn’t they get that opportunity? Moreover, mothers began seriously thinking about the quality of life they wanted their daughters to experience, and wished for their little girls to be free from the control that often accompanies male dependence. The problem was that while this was good, gender relations failed to be successfully redefined. Things were shifting in a major way, but quite haphazardly. I believe that the new man became intimidated by the new woman, and figured subconsciously that if she can do everything on her own, then she should. He felt that he didn’t have a place anymore. Thus, 132

he began withdrawing from the family, and in some cases, abandoning the family altogether. This was never the intention of the new woman. She wanted to be independent not because she had to, but for her own self esteem. Also just in case she encountered that wayward man who would abandon her, she would know that the world would not end; she could survive on her own. She did not want to have to go it alone, but she wanted her man to know that she could if she had to, and she wouldn’t put up with B-S because she didn’t need him. The new woman didn’t need a man, but she did want a man. She still wanted companionship, love, someone with whom she could share responsibilities and share life. But the problem with that is that men like to feel needed. Feeling cheated out of their traditional roles, men retreated. What has happened is that while women came together to redefine themselves, men didn’t. Men haven’t been talking amongst themselves like women have, and a result, haven’t figured out their role in the new scheme of things. (Keep in mind that these are the opinions of a 24-year-old woman with limited experience in the world and “man and woman business”, and speaking from the bias of single motherhood.) And that’s MY perspective.

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GARIFUNA IDENTITY March 1, 2007 I distinctly remember my first National Garifuna Council Youth Arm convention about eight years ago. I was sixteen years old and in third form. As a teenager of mixed parentage who grew up in an urban/suburban community, my first convention was a lifechanging experience. I had always had a level of consciousness when it came to my identity, but I didn’t seriously begin contemplating who and what I was, and how that related to the grander scheme of things until after that convention. It took place in Hopkins Village and was organized entirely by young black Garinagu. I remember feeling a sense of comraderie with my brothers and sisters, a feeling of oneness and pride that I had never experienced before then. This, despite my obvious oddness at the convention. I couldn’t speak the language, didn’t know the songs, had no idea what a Mali was when we were called to participate, and it was the first time I would taste the banana delicacy darasa. Indeed, it was the first time I really tasted my culture. At first, I was envious of those who could twist their tongues so smoothly into the language and shift their feet so gracefully to the chumba and the hugu-hugu. I felt that they had ownership of something that I didn’t, were a part of something of which I was only an observer. It didn’t take long, however, for my lust for culture to develop into a longing for more, a desire for knowledge, which I knew I would only attain through participation. I had felt like an outsider because I was focusing on what I couldn’t do, forgetting that there are so many things that I could do as a productive young Garifuna woman, a valuable part of the community. I was longing for inclusion in something that I was already a part of, the ubiquitous garifunaduou. Since then, I attended conventions and later, executive meetings, all over the country. I got to know my country and my people. I am still just beginning to know what it is to be Garifuna. But now that I reflect on that experience, I realize that there are other elements that make up my identity, but with which I am not intimate. I cannot say that I know what it means to be Kriol, a heritage I received from my mother, or what it means to be Belizean other than parentage or birthplace. Is there a Belizean 134

dream? Unfortunately, these are questions for which there are only attempts at answers. Some people try to tell me that I am Kriol because Kriol means “mixture”, arguing that because Kriol is mixture, then defining myself as such encapsulates the Garifuna heritage that I received by birth from my father. But after experiencing Garifunaduou, I cannot agree. What I can say with certainty is that the NGC Convention has done a lot for Garifuna people, bringing their issues to the forefront and giving them an entire experience of cultural identity much grander than anything presented on the 19th. Kriol people cannot say they have something like that. The Unity Fest last weekend was attempt to bring something similar to Belizean people, especially Black People, but we still have a long way to go in defining ourselves. As Erwin X says, “Black people, know yuhself”. And that’s MY perspective.

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THE BELIZEAN DREAM March 14, 2007 The Belizean dream is a humble one. It’s a dream rooted in family, because really, everyone wants someone to love and to love them. They want a home to shelter their family, and they want to own that home. They want to a job to feed their family. And they want their children to have more than and be better than they; so they want their children to be educated. A house, a job, an education and a family: that is the Belizean dream. In 1998, the People’s United Party was the party of dreams. The PUP sold that dream: 10-thousand homes and 10-thousand jobs. If they could have promised a family too, they just might have. The Belizean people bought it: 26 to 3 in the House of Representatives. The DFC, in the words of Mose Hyde, was “the ship of dreams”. In its hull, it carried the education that would garner the job, and thereby the job that would pay for the house. Belizeans had stars in their eyes when the voted for the PUP in 1998. What they voted for was the Belizean dream. What they voted against was the anti-dream, which the UDP had become: higher taxes via 15% VAT, meaning less money for education and mortgage, and mass retrenchment—the loss of stability in their lives via unemployment. The PUP promise was ambitious, and the DFC was the vehicle that was to deliver the promise of the dream. But something went terribly awry. Actually, after listening to most of the public hearings, I conclude that many things went terribly awry. Fingers are being pointed in all directions, but really they should point at the people on whose hand they are. It was government’s ambition that destroyed the DFC: ambition that created policies under which protocol and even law were ignored or relaxed to facilitate the fulfillment of government’s manifesto promise, a policy which got DFC into a whole lot of trouble when people defaulted on their loans and could not repay the millions they owed. It was government’s reneging on promises that destroyed the DFC. Promises of NHI to make UHS profitable, and a transportation monopoly for Novelo’s—12 and 30 million dollar promises respectively. It was corruption that destroyed the DFC. Board members involved in blatant conflicts of interest: Glenn Godfrey approving loans for his own companies; his law firm benefiting financially 136

from transactions. David Courtenay giving himself contracts. Troy Gabb selling himself DFC land undervalue. And so on and so forth, and so on and so forth, and so on and so on and so on. What didn’t destroy the DFC, and in fact, possibly could have sustained it, was the people for whom it was originally intended. The entrepreneur, the new home owner, the student. The dreamers who wanted and rightfully felt they deserved the job, the home, and the education. It’s pornographic to hear testimony at the commission that after the Novelo’s defaulted, loan officers had to find hundreds of small loans to cover the 30-mil. The really disgusting part is what Mrs. Merlene BaileyMartinez pointed out to Troy Gabb, that because of what has happened, DFC hasn’t given any student loans since 2004. Small businesses and those longing to own their homes, neither, have that vehicle anymore. For thousands now and to come, the dream has been deferred. During the Harlem Renaissance, African American poet Langston Hughes asked the questions that Belizeans must now ponder, and that the politicians in power must contemplate with fear: What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun? Or fester like a sore-And then run? Does it stink like rotten meat? Or crust and sugar over-like a syrupy sweet? Maybe it just sags like a heavy load.

Or does it explode? Beware the explosion….And that’s MY perspective.

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WE MUST NEVER FORGET March 26, 2007 Two centuries ago, a man named Lord William Grenville made a passionate speech against slavery before Great Britainâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s House of Lords. He argued that the slave trade was contrary to the principles of justice, humanity and sound policy. Grenville and his colleagues William Wilberforce and Charles Fox were very much against slavery, and had the daunting task of convincing the other British parliamentarians that abolition was the way to go. They had been defeated two years before, but this time they succeeded. The Abolition of the Slave Trade Bill was passed in the House of Lords by 41 votes to 20, and in the House of Commons by 114 to 15. It became law on March 25 th, 1807, two hundred years ago yesterday. The event reverberated through the world. Even though slaves would not be given their complete freedom until nearly thirty years later, it became illegal to buy or sell slaves, or to transport them for that purpose. The deadly journey across the Atlantic from Africa to the Americas, the middle passage in which one in every three African slaves died, became a pirate outlaw venture. What is extremely important to note is that although it was sympathetic whites who got the law passed, it was the sheer force of our ancestors, through their acts of rebelling, who eventually forced the slave masters to end the institution. In 1804, Toussaint Louverture, a mulatto, and his army of black men, won the Haitian Revolution. Haiti today has been punished for that victory and is the poorest nation in the hemisphere, but were it not for Haiti, the sequence of events that eventually led to emancipation may not have happened. The British were frightened enough to abolish the trade only three years later, after seeing the tremendous loss of capital and the military and political losses engendered by the French. The very institution of slavery, on which the European empires were built, became a threat to the empires themselves, a threat to stability and profitability. In other colonies, too, slaves were rebelling. In Belize, there were major slave revolts in 1765, 1768, 1773 and 1820. And it was the famous Baptist War of 1831 to 32 in Jamaica, led by Samuel Sharp, that essentially sent the last nail in slaveryâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s coffin to ensure Emancipation the following year, in 1833. 138

So the essence of it is this, freedom for African people, who were not indigenous to the Caribbean, was hard won. It was fought for in courageous battles and all-out wars. After abolition in 1807, the British had to ensure that other nations also banned the slave trade. The reason wasn’t so much a humanitarian one as an economic one. Britain would be left behind if they could no longer have access to renewable slave labour while other nations could. So eventually, under pressure from the greatest empire on earth, Spain, Portugal and France also abolished the trade. Browsing through the five major newspapers in Belize yesterday, all dated Sunday, March 25, 2007, exactly two hundred years after the Abolition Act was passed, I was disturbed to notice that not one of them had printed a single word about this extremely significant bicentennial. For a few months now, I have been hearing of events being planned in the Caribbean to mark the occasion. Yesterday I received two emails from the CARICOM Secretariat in which the region’s leaders addressed abolition. In Belize, not one of our leaders—black or otherwise— has said a word. I am pleased to say, however, that just as I was writing the last few lines of this piece, I received an email from the National Institute of Culture and History listing out a series of events to occur over the next few months in Belize in connection with the Bicentennial. A tertiary level debate is scheduled for April 24 th, an exhibition called FREE AGAIN will be on display in August, the post office will issue a commemorative stamp, and a monument will be erected on August 1st, Emancipation Day, at the Government House. By the way, I’ve always wondered why Belize doesn’t celebrate Emancipation Day like the rest of the Caribbean. Perhaps that is one of the reasons why Belizean people are known to be so complacent, because we don’t remind ourselves that our freedom didn’t come free. As remarked by CARICOM Chairman and President of Saint Vincent, Ralph Gonsalves yesterday, “We must never forget. We cannot afford to forget. We will not forget.” And that’s MY perspective.

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CONNECTING THE SUGAR CUBES March 27, 2007 A little over two months ago, on January 23, United States President George W. Bush delivered his State of the Union address before Congress and the world. In it, he revealed one of his most ambitious plans yet: to cut America’s dependence on foreign oil by 20-percent. “For too long our nation has been dependent on foreign oil. And this dependence leaves us more vulnerable to hostile regimes, and to terrorists,” he declared. “It's in our vital interest to diversify America's energy supply.…We must continue investing in new methods of producing ethanol -- (applause) -using everything from wood chips to grasses, to agricultural wastes.” The United States is gradually realizing that fossil fuels won’t last forever, and even though President Bush has sent his soldiers to secure the oil fields in Iraq, the increasing violence in that country is making those fields anything but secure. The threat to that great resource is real, and the U.S. is worrying about it. Other Arab oil-rich countries, too, aren’t happy with Bush. Add to that the fact that the world’s eighth-largest oil exporter, Venezuela, is heatedly anti-Bush, and you will begin to see why America’s President needs new energy resources. During a tour of Latin America just two weeks ago, President Bush signed a big deal with Brazil. Brazil is the #1 producer of ethanol. In 1973, Brazil faced a serious oil crisis, and two years later, its government began a pro-alcohol program to phase out all fossil fuels in place of ethanol. Today, most Brazilian cars use a mixture of ethanol and gasoline, and the country now has 10million less cars running on gasoline. The government decided to get the ethanol from sugarcane because sugar was cheap at the time. New York Times journalist Thomas Friedman says that it was after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, the event that symbolized the end of the Cold War, that the globalization era began. The United States and Russia were no longer rewarding their aligned countries with money and trade deals. The markets were thrown open. It wasn’t long before the US started demanding that it and any other country be able to buy produce from any country with the lowest price. That would mean that European countries would have to relinquish the preferential quotas and tariffs, 140

particularly in bananas and sugar, that sustained the economies of many of their former colonies. In September of 2004, the World Trade Organization ruled that the preferential tariffs and quotas were actually illegal. Brazil was one of the main countries to benefit from that ruling. That nation produces tones and tones of bananas and sugar much more cheaply than smaller nations can. Enter Belize and the Caribbean. Last year, several Caribbean nations announced that they were scaling-down their sugar production. Most of these economies had been built on sugar and slavery, but with the primary markets in Europe virtually forbidden to buy from them, they had to find a way to minimize their dependence on sugar. For Saint Lucia, it meant shutting down the industry entirely. People who believe in God say the creator doesn’t give you any burdens that you can’t bear. And so just at the time that the Caribbean was downsizing its sugar industry, President Bush came with his State of the Union, declaring his support for alternative fuels such as ethanol. The Caribbean just happened to have a ton of sugar that it didn’t know what to do with, and turns out, the United States needed sugar for ethanol. It also so happens that the Caribbean Basin Initiative, one of the good programs from the Cold War Era, is still in place. The Initiative provides tariff and trade benefits to the US from the Caribbean Basin, including Belize. Under the CBI, Brazilian ethanol that is dehydrated in a Caribbean country can enter the US market duty-free, a savings of US$0.54 a gallon. Just two weeks ago, the website Caribbean 360 published a report on how US Entrepreneurs have already jumped into the loophole and are setting up shop all over the Caribbean. And this is where we get to Lynam and Libertad. Their buyers, Blue Diamond and Merconsult respectively, stand to make a pretty penny producing ethanol here. That’s why it is disturbing that our government, the Government of Belize, would sell out so cheaply. $1.2 Million for Libertad is a pittance, considering that the value of this industry is about to skyrocket, and also considering that another company has offered almost three times more, according to Senator Godwin Hulse. In these hard times when we all could stand to use the cash, our government is about to sell out a valuable future incomeearner. Last year we found oil, and this year we’re up for ethanol. 141

Belize is now on the world energy map. benefit from it. And thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s MY perspective.

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WHY I SUPPORT GAY RIGHTS April 17, 2007 I am a supporter of gay rights. I will be the first to admit, however, that my support is not entirely altruistic. In fact it is, to an extent, quite selfish. I am a single black Belizean woman, and I have a number of close friends who I would describe similarly. I have yet to go to a wedding for any of my friends, and it’s not because they’re not attractive or educated or all-around great women. It’s just extremely difficult to find a man who’s not already married, not a so-called thug, not gay, and not expecting that she is going to “mind” him. Now here’s the predicament. Women have enough trouble trying to weed out the liars and the cheaters, the married men, the lazy men, and the men with rap-sheets. We don’t need the added stress of trying to decipher who’s gay and who’s not. One of the largest causes of distress for a woman is being with a man for some years and finding out, sometimes in the most graphic way, that he’s gay. Women who find themselves in this situation get more sympathy from other women, I believe, than if their husbands had turned out to be bums, philanderers, or even murderers. Marrying a gay man and sincerely believing that he is straight is considered to be the ultimate embarrassment. “How could she not have been able to tell?” is the question that many would whisper behind her back. Truth is, it’s not always that obvious. Not all gay men are flamboyant, eccentric, or “softy-softy” as we would say. Some of them appear and act like normal testosterone-driven men; they even like sports and admire beautiful women, which are considered to be the basic “man tests”, I suppose. The only difference is that they are attracted to men rather than women. We all think we would be able to notice the signs, but truly, if a man wants to convince you that he’s straight, he can. In fact, sometimes he can even try to convince himself. There are many “straight-acting gay men”, a term I only recently learned, walking around even in Belize. Why do they pretend to be straight? Because homosexuality is not accepted in our society, and they like everyone else, want to be accepted. Not only that, but Belize is such a homophobic place that out-of-the-closet gay men face taunting, beatings, and in extreme cases, murder. It’s got to be a terrible existence 143

walking down the street every day and fearing that someone is going to target you because of your sexual preference. However, unlike black people only a few decades ago, who could not hide their blackness, homosexuals can pretend to be hetero, and forgo the punishments they would have faced simply for being who they are. I was not aware until very recently how bad homosexuals in Belize have it. That’s because when crimes are committed against them, it usually isn’t reported that the crime was committed because they were gay; only the fact that the crime was committed makes the news. In Belize, it is even criminal to be gay. If a man is found having sex with another man, that is deemed “an unnatural act”, an offense punishable under the Criminal Code. No wonder many gay men hide their sexuality. About three weeks ago, Caleb Orosco, a gay rights activist in Belize, showed me clippings from newspapers about men whom he knew to be gay who had been beaten and/or killed. I was familiar with most of the stories, having reported on them myself, but I was not aware until then that these men were gay. It was a shocking revelation. What happens is that families of murdered men sometimes don’t want their relative to be remembered as gay, especially if he wasn’t open with his sexuality; other times they don’t even know. But there is an underground society that does know and is very alarmed. And so as a woman, I must support gay rights. A large part of my support has to do with empathy for the struggles of an oppressed people. And then there’s the more selfish part, which has to do with the troubles my girlfriends and I face trying to find decent men. If gay men had rights in Belize, I submit they wouldn’t be so afraid to come out of the closet, and if all gay men came out of the closet, that would be one less worry to occupy our minds, one less guessing game at the club, one less source of potential distress. I don’t fear what I know; it’s what I don’t know that scares me to death. And that’s MY perspective.

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WHERE’S THE STATE IN CHURCH-STATE? April 18, 2007 It’s only now, since I’ve been looking for a primary school for my daughter, that I’ve realized there are no government primary schools in Belize City. All the schools that are considered “public” are actually run by churches. There are Catholic schools, Methodist schools, Anglican schools, and a Muslim school. If I want to send my child to a non-religious school, which I do happen to want, I would have to send her to one of three rather expensive private schools, Elementary, Hummingbird, or the less expensive but still dear Bernice Yorke. I’ve been taking this decision very seriously. Both my brother and I were educated in government schools at Belmopan Pre, Infant, Junior, Upper and Comprehensive. Our education was pretty good. We were still given a religious education, but it wasn’t mandated that we go to church or learn the catechism as it is in the church schools. I’m not comfortable with the fact that a religion will be imposed on my child, simply because of my desire to have her educated. But I suppose I will have to make myself comfortable with it. I know the church schools are uncomfortable with parents like me, who like to make noise, and who would rather not have their children subjected to such a rigorous religious education—which in truth is what I consider their version of things. I didn’t even want to baptize my child when she was a baby, but all the elders around me were adamant about it. “The baby haffi get ih lee blessing,” they said. In the end I decided to appease their fears about the terrible things that could happen if she didn’t get that holy water on her head—the same way I suppose I would have banded my belly and tied my head had they insisted. I understand why church schools would think they have all right to impose their religion on their students, and also to give preference to students whose parents belong to the church. But in light of the fact that there are no government schools in Belize City, I don’t think that’s fair. Parents who are not religious cannot choose to simply send their children to non-church schools because they do not exist, except as I mentioned, for the expensive private schools.

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What I will very likely be forced to do is accept the system as is, and simply make sure to inject my own alternative education at home so that my child has the appropriate context for what she learns. But I still think that either the state should build a school in the city, or they should make sure that parents have a choice as to what type of religious education their children receive, if any, regardless of who runs the school. And thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s MY perspective.

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I DON’T TRUST THE ICJ April 27, 2007 I don’t trust the ICJ, the UN, the IMF, the OAS, or any other member of the alphabet club. The OAS, Organization of American States, has taken away our borders and left us with an “adjacency zone”, in which the Guatemalan village of Santa Rosa exists freely on Belizean soil. This despite the fact that our borders were defined in treaties in 1859 and 1931, despite the fact that Belize has existed as a sovereign nation since 1981. The IMF meantime, has long been ensuring that money flows from poor countries to rich ones. For more information, see an article reproduced in the April 15th edition of the Amandala. Or look to Argentina, which before their disastrous sovereign default of 2002, was lauded as the IMF’s model country. Argentina had faithfully followed the IMF path, deregulating industries, liberalizing trade, and privatizing everything they could get their hands on. But by 2002, Argentina defaulted on its debt, GDP shrunk, one of out of every four people didn’t have a job, and their currency had devalued by 75%. So much for trusting the IMF’s advice. Meanwhile, the United States Incorporated, USI, controls the United Nations. USI has a veto vote, and so despite the best intentions of the 158-member General Assembly, USI and a few others with vetos can do as they please around the world. And even if USI doesn’t use its veto, it can still terrorize the world with impunity. How many times has the General Assembly voted against the war in Iraq? Yet the war continues, with thousands upon thousands dead and dying. USI owns and operates the entire alphabet club, and USI has got Guatemala’s back. When Cuba embarrassed USI in the failed Bay of Pigs invasion, it was in Guatemala that USI trained its soldiers, familiarizing them with the dense jungles of the tropics. To this day, when voting at these all-important international fora, USI supports Guatemala and Guatemala supports USI. So I am very very skeptical about taking Guatemala’s claim against Belize to a member of the alphabet club, the ICJ, International Court of Justice, which is actually an arm of the UN. As strong as our case may be, and as much as we may deserve to win, we may not. First of all, if Belize decides to go the ICJ route, whatever that court decides will be binding on us. If it 147

rules that we should cede some territory, if it rules that we should give Guatemala whola Toledo, we would be bound by that decision. And that is a legitimate concern because Guatemala, with its benefactor the USI, have tons more money to throw around than little Belize. I’m not convinced we would get a fair hearing. And secondly, even if somehow we do win, how do we know that Guatemala will respect the decision. They’ve been after us so long, I’m not sure they will leave us alone after that. The ICJ has no enforcement mechanism. And we shouldn’t bother looking to the UN or USI to compel them to comply because I’ve already told you about them. So what’s the solution? Hmph, that’s a tough one because this problem has existed for years upon years. Negotiations have failed, and the ICJ isn’t the answer. And that’s MY perspective.

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SIX REFORMS June 5, 2007 It’s obvious that the people of Belize will not be satisfied with a change in the people who govern us next year. What we really want is a change in how we are governed. There are six areas of governance at the top of the list that any party or person who seriously wants to govern us will have to address immediately: 1. Implement stiff anti-corruption laws, and by stiff, I mean significant jail time for those found guilty of abuse of public funds, gross mismanagement, personally benefiting from public office, and so on. The punishment has to be strong enough to act as a deterrent, to scare these educated and intelligent men and women into keeping their hands clean. 2. Campaign finance reform. We want to know who’s funding you and how much they’re giving. Nothing less than full transparency will do. It’s very important so that if we see a particular business that appears to be receiving special interest, we’ll able to connect the dots. This should not frighten business persons from funding a party; it will only make the process more transparent. 3. Constitutional reform. Belize basically inherited its constitution. There’s very little that’s original about it, except for little tweaks here and there to adapt it to our situation. We have a constitution that says our government may make good laws. Although Opposition Leader Dean Barrow interprets article 68 to mean that they may or may not make laws, but if they do they should be good, I think our constitution should expressly say that so there is no room for confusion. 4. Senate reform. I am still not entirely convinced about the concept of an elected senate but I am becoming more and more so, and I’m especially fond of the mid-term election idea. My initial opposition was based on the assumption that if the two elections are held simultaneously, the elected Senate will likely resemble closely the House of Representatives; meaning that if the PUP sweeps the House, it would most likely also sweep the Senate, and I don’t see how that would serve any great purpose. A midterm election might alleviate that problem. The only reservation I continue to have is what will happen to the representation of independent entities in the 149

Senate. That process has given Godwin Hulse to us as a Senator, who has been invaluable, as well as Senator Rene Gomez, who has now emerged as the president of the NTUCB, and also Senator Moises Chan, who worked hard on the Select Committee’s investigation into Social Security. 5. Recall mechanism. We don’t want to have to wait five years to change elected representatives who are not doing their jobs properly. We put them there, and we want to have a way to take them out. 6. Which brings me to 6, referendum. Derek Aikman has proven how effective referendum can be. Wouldn’t it be great if we all got the chance to vote directly on major issues that affect us directly? Certainly it would. And that’s MY perspective.

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THE GENTRIFICATION OF PORT? June 18, 2007 In the 1920s, Harlem was considered the capital of Black America. There was poetry; there was art; there was jazz; there was philosophy; music; politics; activism; and pride. Black people were loving themselves. They had moved there primarily for wartime employment, working in factories that were thinly staffed because most of the whites were abroad fighting in World War I. But employment opportunities for blacks in New York fell after the war; some industries left the area altogether; and many manual labour and domestic jobs began going to other ethnic groups. The neighborhood began to decline rapidly. By the 1960s, the drug addiction rate in Harlem was ten times higher than the rest of New York City, and twelve times higher than the rest of the United States. The crime rate was 50% higher in Harlem than the rest of the City. But then something happened. Between 1993 and 2004, the murder rate dropped 68%, the rape rate dropped 70%, the robbery rate dropped 60%, burglary dropped 81%, and the total number of crime complaints dropped 62%, according to NYC police statistics. Interestingly, around the same time, property values went through the roof, increasing nearly 300%. Remember, although Harlem is considered a community in itself, it is a part of the most expensive place to live in the US, Manhattan island, where the average apartment sells for almost US$800,000. So guess what? Whites began coming back to Harlem. Major renovations began taking place, and even Bill Clinton opened an office there—a process called “gentrification”. Some began calling it the New Harlem Renaissance, praising gentrification for lowering crime, raising real estate value, and bringing business to the community. But for whom was this done? Certainly not for the Black residents of Harlem, for with increasing real estate value, rent also began going up, and many families found themselves unable to afford the higher rent and forced to move. Some argue that crime didn’t really fall at all, but was only transferred to other areas of the city where blacks migrated. Meanwhile, Harlem began to be infiltrated by upper middle class whites looking for affordable housing and a nice neighborhood. 151

Why have I been giving you this history of Harlem? Because something dawned on me this morning about a community right in Belize City, the community of Port Loyola. The situation has its differences from Harlem, but it also has its similarities. Last year, there were 36 murders in Belize City. 12 of them occurred in Port Loyola. That’s a shocking 1/3! And Belize City has ten constituencies. Certainly, that’s a disproportionate figure. There is a concentration of violent crime in Port Loyola, and there is also a concentration of poverty. So much so that a major concern of the area representative, Boots Martinez, is securing septic tanks for his constituents so that they don’t have to live in –it! I couldn’t get a realtor to give me an estimate of property values in Port. While they could easily rattle off that three/four bedroom houses and land in Buttonwood Bay and Belama are going for $300,000, and more in Caribbean Shores, the best they could do for Port was tell me that “low-income” government houses sell for about $60,000. But I think those are for concrete structures erected on at least partially-filled lots. The houses in the area about which I was enquiring are made of plywood, cardboard and zinc, and are accessible only by London Bridge. The lives of their residents are great balancing acts, as their houses balance on stilts stuck in massive swamps, and they themselves must balance along the bridges everyday to work and school. How much is their property worth, I wonder. In 2002, the Port of Belize offered shares for sale. They raised $40 million in shares, and have another $34 million in liabilities. Their press release listed the privatization as a $74 million transaction. Imagine—$74 million right next to cardboard homes. That juxtaposition has two effects: it decreases the attractiveness of the Port of Belize to visitors, and therefore, decreases its real estate value; but at the same time it increases the value of the London-bridged network of properties, giving those residents access to employment opportunities, and raising the volume of traffic through the community. Having given the Harlem example, what do you think is going to happen? Do you think the residents of Port are going to get the opportunity to exploit their newfound access to capital, even if only by proximity? Or do you think it more likely that the developer will try to gentrify the area, make it more attractive, by means of something like say, a Southside Poverty Alleviation

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Project bringing nice drains and nice houses? Doesn’t that mean that the real estate value of Port Loyola will go up? And with the area so congested with crime, don’t you think it will be easy to get people to move? To relocate them to, say, 8 Miles, Mahogany Heights, and as I saw Godfrey Smith saying in his Flashpoint column a few weeks ago, to Belmopan? Relocating the problem, essentially. How convenient that Port Loyola is all of sudden in store for major renovation and improvement. Poverty Alleviation is a beautiful-sounding term, but how much poverty can be alleviated through infrastructure, and how much through education, empowerment and building family structures? It’s all too convenient. The powers are at work. I’m learning more and more every day that nothing is coincidence. And that’s MY perspective.

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THOSE DAMNED DAMS July 10, 2007 Opposition to the network of dams on the Macal River has primarily been environmental. The organizations that have taken the dam-builders all the way to the Privy Council have been environment-based, and their lead spokespersons have been nonBelizean. Since I began seriously studying the Chalillo case about six years ago, I too became opposed to the dams. My concern, however, has been more economic than environmental. A dam generates electricity using the energy of the river, the force created by all the water in motion. At the time, Mollejon had already been built and Chalillo was being hotly debated. I didn’t know there were plans for a third dam at Vaca Falls until I saw a map of the river and Becol’s plans for it. Chalillo would store the water; Becol would open Chalillo at its convenience, and the energy from that rush of water would generate electricity at Mollejon. What Mollejon misses, Vaca would catch. It occurred to me very early on that this plan seemed excessive. If it would take all of three $100 million+ dams to generate any meaningful electricity, then obviously the Macal River isn’t suitable for dams. It’s simply not powerful enough. Even with Vaca, the network of dams will not sustain Belize’s entire energy needs. If we are spending so much on this plan, and blocking off a river in three places, it should at least be able to make Belize self-sufficient. It’s a high cost to pay, both financially and environmentally, for a comparatively small payoff. I support development, but the dam idea has never seemed particularly sensible to me; I don’t see where we’re getting value for money. That said, development has a cost, and that cost is usually environmental. I’m tired of seeing all developers and capitalists take advantage of the system for immediate profit, and us Belizeans allowing it. Oil wells being dug without EIAs, dams being built without proper compliance plans, the sea being dredged with no authority at all. After the environment has been irreparably damaged, they will have their money, and what will we have? No ‘tall, that can’t work. We have to be intimately involved in all these processes, before, after, and in between. And that’s MY perspective. 154

EMANCIPATION DAY August 1, 2007 “Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery. None but ourselves can be our guides.” Words of the late pioneering reggae singer, Bob Marley. Some forty years later, his words are still true, still relevant. 173 Years after African people were emancipated from slavery in the British territories, and 200 years after the trading of our ancestors was outlawed, African people remain mentally and physically enslaved. We continue to suffer from the psychological effects of slavery, as well as the economic effects that are the consequence of 400 years in which African people were denied, in essence, themselves. Denied human-ness. Denied freedom. And so, in 2007, the Guyanese government is asking for reparations for slavery. Activists in the United States have been asking for the same thing for decades. Those who have stood up to ask for such a thing have been derided, called black racists, unrealistic, people who languish over the past when the past is dead and gone, and made to feel as though their request is far from reasonable. Do we really understand the economic significance of slavery? Any nation’s greatest resource is its human resource. Human capital should be priority: proper health care, good working conditions, fair wages, education. Looking at Africa today, there is no doubt that slavery had a tremendous economic impact on that continent. Men and women in the prime of their lives, working age citizens, were captured and forcefully removed from the continent, brought to the so-called new world. The effect was not unlike the effect of HIV/AIDS today, which has decimated the working class population, leaving only the very old and the very young—survivors. And while the labour was brought to territories like Belize, our ancestors were certainly not the beneficiaries. Here in Belize, we should be asking the British to pay us for all those mahogany and logwood trees they cut down and never replanted, and asking for backpay, fair wages for the thousands of men and women who were forced to work for free. And asking to be compensated for all those they killed. It is only fair. It is only right. And that’s MY perspective.

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