Mr. Ignacio Pop is an elder from Maya Center Village, he was originally born in San Antonio Village in Punta Gorda, Belize. “I got tired of the south”, Mr.Pop said, “I don’t know what it was, maybe because I was hearing that the village(Maya Center) was a good place to live and that there was a lot of many to be made there”, he told me.
Before he moved from the south, “I was a drunkard”, he said, and he had a very bad drinking problem, “if I don’t drink, I hear the animals in the forest and around me talking to me”, he said, “in order to stop hearing them, I drink”, he said. “When I came, all of this village was forest, there not many people that lived here, and also when I came I never had a house, so i started to find a spot so I could start to build my house”, he said.
After he had settled in he started to make his plantation and plant some orange trees so that he could support his family. When he made his farm, “I stopped drinking”, he said, “I was happy, I wasn’t rich but I was happy”, he added, “Plus I had children, I never wanted them to see me in that state where I was drunk because, when one is drunk a lot of bad things comes out of his mouth”, he said, “and since then my life has been better”.
“In the year 1970 – 1975, I was working with a group of men to make the road that now leads all the way to Cockscomb”, he said, “and in 1981 – 1982, I started to work at Cockscomb until i was 65 years old, and now I am retired and I collect my pension every now and again, but I haven’t stopped working i still have my farm and my orange that I do now, and still i am a very happy man”, he added, and by that smile on his face i guess you can say the same.
Juan Saqui – Lens of Culture Student
