Mr. Graciliano Pop was also born in the village of San Antonio, he first came to Maya Center when he saw that life in the south was getting harder because his uncle was telling him to come, but before he came to Maya Center they first moved to Maya Mopan and there he had his farm and his animals that he had raised.
“I lived there for a year, but I had to move because one of my uncles murdered a person, so we needed to move”, he said, “when we first came here nobody wanted us here, because of the reputation my uncle had given us”, he added, they first went to stay at Kendal, but a man who was staying there said they could stay because the land was private, so they had to move back to Maya Center, and back the village was just 30 acres big.
“We needed more land, so we contacted the government, and the prime minister at that time was the late father of the nation, Right Hon. George Cadle Price, and he promised to give us 1000 acres of land to start off the village, and he did”, he added, “back then it was better because the prices of things were cheaper but now the prices are rising and life every day is getting harder”, he said, “back when I was in Maya Mopan, I used to work in a rice field and we had to carry large sacks of rice in deep mud that reached my knees just to make a living, that is why I tell them that I had life hard, and up to today I hear life is getting harder each and every day”, he said.
Then he went on to say, “life is only going to get harder, and the bad thing is that we the elders are not going to feel it as much as the little ones that are growing up, because, all of us are soon leaving this earth, so we do not have to worry because we have already lived our life, but they are just starting theirs, that is also why crime in Belize City is raising, because nobody wants to work because they know work is hard, and soon it is going to reach here because life is not getting any easier”.
Juan Saqui l- Lens of Culture Student
