Helpage celebrates the Year for Older Persons
Helpage Belize is asking everyone to help them celebrate the United Nations International Year for Older Persons. Today a march for the elderly was held in Belize City from the Helpage complex on Wilson Street to the B.T.L. Park. The UN has adopted several principles for older persons that they would like all countries to work towards. These include giving older folks the independence to live in the place of their choice, the right to participate in their communities, the care of their family, church and government in times of need, and to receive the respect they have earned during their lifetime of service to family and country. Tonight News Five thought it would be fitting to pay tribute to our elders by listening to one of Belize’s oldest boat builders, Thomas Green. The story was produced several years ago for Helpage’s “Coming of Age” series, but we think you’ll agree that in these troubled times, Green’s life on the river seems like a real slice of heaven.
In his eighty-seven years in Belize Thomas Green has barely lived beyond the high water mark of the Macal River. He probably knows this eight-mile stretch between San Ignacio and his home upstream as well as any man on earth and he ought to. He has paddled this spectacular and scenic route as regularly as most city people drive to work. And while those urban commuters pilot vehicles assembled in Detroit or Tokyo, Mr. Thomas, as he is known, prefers to build his own.
He has crafted over forty of these rugged yet graceful dories. They start from towering Mahogany, Cedar or Guanacaste trees and with a little help from a saw, axe and adz are transformed into transport. At four scoring seven how does he do it?
Thomas Green
“If you live a good life you have to have a certain amount of faith or confidence in yourself and try to learn the good and the bad side of you. Let’s say, like now I could work with an axe or an adz whole day, and it doesn’t do anything but with the machete I can’t do it. To chop the whole day with the machete, I am not used to that. But the adz or axe I could work the whole day. Do you see what I mean? See the difference?”
Doing work that suits him has taken Thomas Green on a course that flows not only through the center of Belize’s majestic forest but through the nation’s history as well. From the rough and tumble Mahogany camps to trails lined with chicle. And as today’s economy expands to embrace environmental tourism, Mr. Thomas, now much in demand as a guide, is going with the flow.
Thomas Green
“I go on the river and I keep on working on it and I make a living that day. Sometimes you meet birds or different animals that you see and you explain to them. And sometimes you tell them about when they used to pole and paddle the channels change, anything more that you experience and have an idea on it, you explain to them. Some of the time they ask question.”
And one question Thomas Green has no problem answering is whether he regrets the life that he has chosen.
Thomas Green
“Here you have no noise, no trouble, nothing… where I could live a peaceful life and thing. Nobody worries you with nothing. Too much noise and fight or nothing so you could live your life this way. But if you’re in the town you’re in trouble. Sometimes you’re out at night not because you want to be out but because you meet with your friends and you move from one thing to another and you’re always getting home late, you don’t get your rest.”
That segment of the “Coming of Age” series was narrated by Rudy Castillo. Thomas Green still lives along the banks of the Macal River, alternating between his daughter’s house near Cristo Rey and his own farm several miles upstream.
