New museum opens in Cayo
To many people, the Cayo District is the heart of Belize’s eco-tourism efforts, but it is also rapidly becoming a centre for Belizean culture. The latest addition to the cultural and historical mix is a new museum showcasing a private collection which has now gone public. Patrick Jones reports from the Lucio Chief Memorial Museum.
Patrick Jones, Reporting
Over a hundred items, including antique household appliances and military articles, make up this small family collection. Located on the Western Highway near Floral Park, the Lucio Chief Memorial Museum seeks to give visitors, especially children, a glimpse of what life was in the not so distant past. Sandra Wragg is the curator.
Sandra Wragg, Curator, Lucio Chief Memorial Museum
?The purpose of this is because over the years we have just collected things when we lived abroad. Some elderly people gave us some stuff and we?re always buying and collecting and looking around. When I came back to Belize, I visited all the elderly people because the youths of today, you ask them what a mortar was, or what a bowl was, a scrubbing board and they don?t have a clue.?
Students of the St. Vincent Pallotti R.C. and St. Hilda?s Anglican Schools were on hand for the inauguration of the single room museum in mid-April. Wragg says she has been pleasantly surprised by the willingness of people in the area to part with their cherished possessions so that young people will be able to look at the past.
Sandra Wragg
?I would really like for more schools to try and come to see. I know it?s a small little place but in time it will be big. But I would really like the children to come because it?s an education for them. Its things that their great, great grandparents use to use and things that they have never seen or they look at it and don?t even know what it is. Some of them know, but a lot of them have no clue what some of these things in here are.?
?My husband is ex-military. He has been in the military for twenty-three years and when he left he never got rid of his uniforms or whatever he had. We just kept them in a box and that?s why we have this here today.?
?I have dedicated this museum to my father Mr. Lucio Chief who died three years ago this May. And I have dedicated this to him because before he passed away he gave me this piece of land and I put these three businesses on it and I wish he was here to be able to see this.?
Patrick Jones, for News Five.
The museum is open to the public during normal working hours. Anyone interested in contributing to the collection can contact Sandra Wragg at telephone number 804-4009. The Lucio Chief Memorial Museum in Unitedville was officially declared open by News Five’s Patrick Jones.
