These days, life in general is very fast and if you live or visit a big city you know what I am talking about. Traffic moves fast, people move fast and part of it has to do with the constant pressure to perform in a very competitive society and the expectation that our society and our surrounding has put on deciding how to define our success, and as a result everyone moves fast.
In Belize it’s a very different story, the theme here “Go slow” and really slow, and I got to experience some of that while I was here. Generally speaking as known in North America when speaking of Latin America, it’s called that the pace of life in Latin America is “mañana” which translates to “tomorrow”. Because usually things don’t get done very quickly and people in these countries tend to go with that pace. Although Belize is one of the few countries in Latin America that was a British colony and English is the official language, but they seem to embrace the “Go Slow” as a theme and way of living. Here are few examples, I noticed a lot of streets are not paved one of the main highways has part of it that’s not paved, so it’s paved on one direction and not the other. You see a lot of people playing cards, when I saw that I knew I am in the right place. Speaking of how things operate, I was responding to an email and then the email stuck, I tried to refresh but nothing was happening, so I decided to leave the hostel to explore Belize city. When I got back in the evening I was talking to one of the girls who was sharing the room with and she asked me if I know how the show works. I went to the shower to check because I remember there was water when I was there that morning. So obviously there was no water now, I went to see the owner and she told me that the power is off, because of the rain, I was told it’s the hurricane season. So the power was off, which means the lights are off, and so the air-conditioning is off, and the water pump that pumps the water to the shower is off. The owner of the hostel said that she’s been calling them since this morning when she noticed the Internet went off. And that’s when I realized why that email got stuck earlier that day. So that will give you an idea what slow-down means, most of the time it’s cool because people are relaxed listening to music, or playing card, but if you really want something get done on time, good luck with that 🙂
Belize city is the largest city in Belize and it has the international airport. It used to be the capital before it was move in 1961 because of a big huricane that hit Belize. Belize city doesn’t have anything interesting from the standpoint of a tourist. Most of the city is a run down buildings, and I went to the city center but I didn’t feel it was safe, but I had to go once out of curiosity and the second time in order to pick a boat to go to the surrounding islands.
I went on a stroll close to the water and I met a father and his son, they were speaking in Spanish, and I learned from them that the son who’s probably 12 years old, learned to fish and he comes to fish very often. Speaking of language, in Belize the official language is English, but you hear some people speaking spanish and I was told people who are close to the north with Mexico or the east with Guatemala speak Spanish. You also hear creole, a language associated with many caribean countries, or as the locals call it, broken English.
The hostel where I stayed at is owned by a lady originally from Taiwan. It’s clean but it’s more like a guest house, I was trying to figure out why the sink is inside the bathing area. In order to wash your hands you need to jump in the bath tub. And if you try to take a shower most of the water will drop in the sink instead of the shower tub. Anyway, it was only one night and I left the next day to the islands.
