Cayo Towns observe centennial

If a poll were taken among Belizeans and visitors it would probably be voted the most popular part of Belize. And while the Cayo District has always been special, the area, like much of Belize, has undergone great change. Today a new exhibition opened in San Ignacio that chronicles that change from the days when the Western Highway was a mule track.

Patrick Jones, Reporting

These photographs and artefacts assembled by the Belize Archives Department are part of an exhibition that documents one hundred years of township for the twin municipalities of San Ignacio-Santa Elena and nearby Benque Viejo del Carmen. Assistant Archivist Lizet Hegar-Thompson says two months of research has barely scratched the surface of the illustrious history of this part of the country.

Lizet H. Thompson, Assistant Archivist

?On October nineteenth, 1904 both El Cayo and Benque Viejo were declared a town. So basically what we are doing is retelling a bit of the history of El Cayo from way back, showcasing some of the photographs, if you have noticed, that shows how El Cayo looked and a little how it looks now. But it?s basically celebrating their history, bringing back history, showing the community what El Cayo was all about, how it came to be and what it is now.?

Hundreds of students and residents of San Ignacio came out to look…and touch…and relive a part of the past that for many is now a distant memory. Eighty-five year old Isolina Galvez is one of the early residents who has seen the transformation of the jungles of El Cayo into what is today the bustling town of San Ignacio.

Isolina Galvez, Early Resident of San Ignacio

?She says when she came to Cayo she was sixteen and the first place she met was the church. She said the place was kind of small there were not many roads but it was beautiful you could move from place to place. But she said that it was just a few years later that everything started to open up into roads. The foods mainly that we ate at that time was corn and all the things that came from the milpas because we didn?t have all the flours and the different things like we have today.?

Elias Awe, San Ignacio Resident

?I must say that we inherited a very peaceful and harmonious community that our fore parents left for us. I think that is one of the biggest legacies that we have–our community in peace with one another–that we manage to get along irrespective of race, whatever and I feel definitely that we are living in a community of peace and an environment that is very enabling.?

That enabling environment, according to Mayor Alfonso Cruz Junior has turned this once sleepy community into a bustling tourism gateway.

Alfonso Cruz, Mayor

?Well it has changed a lot because we know that at one time we had chicle industry, the mahogany industry as we had also, people used to travel to Belize City and Belize to San Ignacio using boats and things like that, but that has changed a lot, now we have vehicles and much now we have modern technology.?

?It has a lot of tourist attractions. We have a lot of resorts, we have the beautiful Macal River and also it?s close to the Xunantunich ruins and also a lot of tourists pass through this area whenever they tend to travel to Tikal. So it?s a tourist destination.?

Isolina Galvez

?She said at the time when she came there weren?t any vehicles. Mainly people were travelling to Belize by boats if you were going to Flores Peten, which is a neighbouring town that they use to buy a lot from you would go by mules. But there was one little vehicle that came later on, and that belonged to Denton Coleman in Benque.?

In fact, history records that the first successful boat trip from Belize City to San Ignacio took place between January tenth and nineteenth of 1905. The early settlers built the area on the Chicle and Mahogany industries. While Chicle was virtually wiped out by Hurricane Hattie, today timber extraction is still very much a part of the economy of Cayo. But perhaps the single most important event that has impacted this town over the last century, happened in May of 1972: a disastrous fire that forever changed the landscape of the downtown area.

Elias Awe, San Ignacio Resident

?That fire actually defaced the downtown San Ignacio. It went with one of the major hotels which belonged to Mr. Wahib Habet. It was the Maya hotel. It went with several business places and many homes. It was a total disaster and there were a lot of losses in that year.?

Despite those heavy losses, the resiliency of the people of San Ignacio prevailed, and today, this is what the burned out area looks like. But the changing landscape of the town is not the only thing that early inhabitants remember. Matilda Carcamo Cambranes says the lives of people have also changed.

Matilda Carcamo Cambranes, San Ignacio Resident

?Oh we does use to live in unity. I can tell you that. And if you don?t have anything, you just would go to the neighbour, can you please give me or something. It wasn?t borrow or nothing. Give me, yes and we would get it. If the neighbour has it we would get it. And if the neighbour needs anything from us, the same thing. We does use to live too beautiful. The doors were opened. We never locked doors and nobody would go in there and steal.?

But gone are those days. And so the next generation of San Ignacio residents will have to rely on the memories of those who came before to appreciate their roots. Hegar Thompson says that is why the Archives Department undertook the painstaking task of putting the exhibition together.

Lizet H. Thompson

?One of the main functions of the department is one to disseminate information and when we mount exhibitions such as these this is the time when residents of the community come out and that is the time when we are able to communicate with them, get a little bit of the history and try to establish some kind of relationship, so that we can come back and do oral history with them, so that we could keep history alive.?

To commemorate the past one hundred years, and keep the history of the townships alive, this monument, dedicated by Prime Minister Said Musa will stand guard overlooking the Macal River.

After this morning’s show on Burns Avenue, the exhibition moves to the San Ignacio Cultural Centre for the remainder of the week. Mayor Cruz says the centennial celebration will culminate on Friday evening with a block party, also on Burns Avenue.