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Joined: Oct 1999
Posts: 84,397
Marty Offline OP
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from a friend

Was at our two local Mayan pyramids yesterday, praying to the Tourist God for travelers for a good year for Falconview this year.
I noticed vans and pickups at both places coming with local Belizean tourists. Mostly schoolchildren on holiday. Must have been over a hundred in total while I waited around. Interestingly enough these born in Belize Belizeans were caucasian, with long blond hair on the girls, neatly dressed, blue eyes and very vibrant and excited. I'd guess they were 8 to 12 year olds mostly? While at Cahel Pech I could stare off into the distance to the flatlands of central and northwestern Belize from the high hilltop and visualize the many farms and communities stretching between Spanish Lookout and Blue Creek the major light manufacturing businesses in that area. There must be gosh how many schools, all privately owned and run by numerous church cults, all variations on a theme, with their own rules, or lack of rules about God and what to wear and how to behave as a church group. Not a penny of support from any government. And off there in the fading distance, I figure there are about right now 22,000 white Belizeans with blond hair and blue eyes between 8 and 12 years old living in the many hundreds of remote farms in Belize. It really struck me strange, as all the BTB advertising shows only one ethnic race, that of Creoles when they show children of Belize. Not one local Belizean tourist van, car or pickup with Mestizo children, or Creole children at our own tourist sites though. I wondered about that?

Cahel Pech started 3000 years ago. 1000 BC to 650 AD and catered to the Macal River at the bottom of the hill. There must have been a lot more trade coming from the Chiquibul Plateau back then? Then the people abandoned Cahel Pech and moved to the hill at Xununtanich and built that set of pyramids going from 650 AD to 1000 A.D. to control the changing trade and living patterns that had switched from Belize, to the Peten fuedal cities. The temple overlooks the Mopan River trade artery.
One wonders what it was like 3000 to 2000 years ago in this area?
Ghengis Khan and Attila the Hun were way in the future. Even Romulus and Remus hadn't even thought of building the seven villages that became the future Rome, it was even before the Greek Civilization, or the Minoan. Such a long time ago and we still teach Euro Centric history in Belize and the rest of North America. How sad! Who has heard of the Chibcha Empire? You could drop three total geographic Europes into that and still have land left over. Or the Moiche? As Americans one of the 34 countries of this continent, why are we teaching Euro Centric history?

Joined: Feb 2002
Posts: 5,255
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so cool you posted this, marty. we have been reading up on the maya for some time, tivo-ing everything maya too. we thought the same thing. i saw both cahal pech and xunantunich, tulum, coba, and hoping to see lamanai in the fall. such an interesting group of peoples with such an amazing, long and varied history, yet in school we learn nothing. pity. so, the question lies, what can be done to get it into the schools???

Joined: Jan 2003
Posts: 7,479
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Must depend on your school system or the school system has changed. From what I recall we had a pretty broad coverage of history of all cultures throughout my school years in Canada.

BTW I saw many school groups visit Lamanai during my time there. You can't judge the system based on a one day vist that just happened to be a day when the Mennonite kids were on their trip.


Last edited by SimonB; 12/30/06 09:43 PM.
Joined: Oct 1999
Posts: 84,397
Marty Offline OP
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i had the joy of hanging out with a big group of kids at muni one day, the whole class was there to watch planes take off. great kids. had a blast with them.


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