I live a 10-minute walk away from San Ignacio’s Galdez Stadium, a huge, grassy compound of park and recreational facilities that includes a quarter-mile oval jogging track (and, of course, a big soccer field).
Part of the stadium’s cinder-block wall on one side was marred by some really nasty graffiti until recently, when some enterprising muralists painted uplifting signs and messages to cover the ugly stuff
Messages like these:

Contrary to popular belief, this is NOT scripture from the Bible. Which ain’t to say there is no Christian wisdom in it.

This is actually a challenge in Belize, where so many grow up watching their parents throw their litter out the taxi and bus windows and anywhere there’s ground to throw trash on.

HIV is most rampant here in Central America. Out of all these Central American countries, guess which country it’s most rampant in?

What I love most about Belize–they live outdoors, even in their bars and restaurants and hotels, not to mention their homes.

Belize has its share of drug abuse, but most of the abuse, as in America, stems from alcohol, the worst drug of all. Belizean-made rum is smooth and sweet and dirt cheap and many Belizeans go on two-and three-day binges on it–that and the famous Belizean-brewed Belikin Beer. That leads to the country’s massive domestic and sexual abuses of women and girls too. Inbreeding is all too sickeningly common here in “paradise.” So it goes in a country with a 49 percent poverty rate and a democracy rigged to keep the paternalistic government leaders in sprawling, gated houses above the masses of uneducated and jobless commoners, many who find odd jobs just enough to buy another half-gallon of the sweet demon rum. Maybe the mural should read “Live Free: Drug/Alcohol Free!
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