Belize Turns 25

September is celebration month. Belize gained its independence 25 years ago from England, colonialism and driving on the left hand side of the road. The festivities last about 3 weeks, which means that if you're a foreigner and planned on working, well you can go right ahead and work work work, but Belzieans are going to celebrate, so get over it! And on Monday if everyone is still borracho, be nice.

This weekend's celebration is the Battle of St. George's Caye Day (September 10th) and the Alamina family reunion on Miss Ilna's beach. (Let's hope no one feeds me too much to drink or we'll have a repeat performance of Easter's faux pas).

A quick, bad-memory recap of historical events: On September 10, 1798, the English Baymen who were loggers, farmers and pirates, along with their slaves beat the crap out of the Spanish armada by tricking them to wreck on the submerged reef. The Baymen took their little boats out to attack the spanish in hand to hand combat and slaughtered the whole lot of them. Hurray for the Baymen! This is one of the reasons that Belize is officially English based and not spanish like the rest of Central America. Some Spanish galleons were sunk right off the eastern side of Caye Chapel about 1/2 mile from here. On Caye Caulker there will probably be a parade with every motorized vehicle lined up from here to there and will go around the island twice. Its very sweet, and everyone loves a parade. The school kids will probably march, the beer delivery tractor and wagon will be filed up with people, the village council dump truck will have a 5 foot high speakers on the back blasting out Belizean celebration music, everyone will have their golf carts decorated with red and blue and national flags.

I JUST LOVE A PARADE!

For the "official" website click here