AmbergrisCaye.com Home Forums The Cayes Ambergris Caye Homeless folks, poverty and beggars?

Belize is virtually middle class compared with most of the rest of Central America. If you want to see poverty, visit Honduras, Nicaragua or parts of Guatemala. In rural areas especially Belizeans do not have a lot of money, but Belizeans by and large live well compared with the majority of the world's population outside the first world.

There are some bums and street hustlers in Belize City (not at the airports), but in most other areas it is rare to see anyone bumming, and you don't have the kind of aggressive higglers you find in much of Mexico or in poor areas of the Caribbean Basin such as the Dominican Republic or Jamaica.

Ambergris Caye has the highest standard of living in Belize. Not a few native Sanpedranos are far wealthier than the average tourist to Ambergris Caye.

I think your fiance has been misinformed.

--Lan Sluder

During my first visit to Belize in 2000 we traveled the mainland by car and spent every nite in a different city/town.This comprized the first week there.
All we saw were very healthy happy children!The only encounter with "begging" was from a well fed looking 6-7 year old looking for small change in front of the main grocery store in BC.
None of that existed in AC for the next 8 days.
I don't know if you've ever been to Mexico, but that is no comparison to Belize! All i ever saw there was plenty of "begging" by children and adults.
The closest to begging by adults on AC was a local bummin Belikin! But so did my travelin companions !!
It's a wonderful place to visit with your eyes wide open..........Richard

You'll probably want to rule out San Francisco for a honeymoon because it's full of unemployed computer programmers (Silicon Valley) and homeless people (Union Square) who are constantly begging for money. :-)

On the other hand, I was never approached for money on AC. The people were friendly and helpful. I did notice lots of stray pets, though, and I plan to bring a box of Friskies with me next trip! If you haven't vacationed outside the U.S. before, there is some adjustment to the standards of other countries. The hotels are clean and comfortable, but it's unlikely that any of them meet the aesthetic standards of U.S. hotels. It's just a different way of life that many of us come to appreciate once we adjust.

Sam & Lan,
Well said!
Richard

I have been to other islands and countries and I think that "poverty" is in the eye of the beholder. I've seen some not so great looking living conditions in Jamaica and I've seen some building in Belize that didn't look that great from the outside but I wouldn't say that what I've seen in Belize is poverty and especially not on AC. Perhaps some of the people don't have alot of materialistic things but they some things that alot of people here don't have and that is respect, kindness and honesty. Yes there are a few bad apples in the barrel but the Belizean people are by far the "wealthiest" people I've ever met. Your fiance will miss alot by allowing herself to fall into the trap of not seeing things for herself. Perhaps her friend had a bad trip and has exaggerated things a bit, perhaps her friend's perspective is entirely different from others.......As for bugs, the worse I've run into are mosquitos and they were near as big as the ones in Alaska. I truly believe in taking into account what some people say about a place, however you have to keep an open mind and you have to remember that two people can be on the exact same trip and things can happen (rain,fallind down in slippery caves, getting bitten by bugs) and one can say they had the most horrible time in their life and the other can say it was one of the best.

That is the main thing to remember an open mind.

What exactly is poverty? Someone not having what we have or what we think they should have by our standards.

As far as AC goes, Kathy is right. They are the wealthiest people I have ever met. They have alot of pride and alot of heart. Sometimes,I find myself jealous of that, sure I might have more then some,material wise,but are we happy with all that.

Also, like Kathy said, two people could have the worst vacation in someones elses mind , anything and everything possibly could go wrong, but in turn, they could say it was the best vacation of there life. Like me!!!

On my very first trip to Belize a local said this to me: Belizeans may have no money, but we are not poor. Poor is a state of mind.

There's a TV antenna on nearly every roof, even if the outside of the wooden house looks like it hasn't been painted since Happy Days was a hit. Rain and sun take their toll on paint. This is a middle class country and the disparities are not that great. I've never heard of things such as malnutrition and we're doing our very best to provide health care to all. It ain't the Caymans, but we certainly don't have the miseries of poverty.

Belize looks like Beverly Hills compared to Guatemala. But let's not confuse money with happiness. Some of the happiest people I ever met were in Belize,,,,,and also in Bali, interestingly, another "poor" country. Warm, laughing, friendly. And some of the most "depressed' folks I met have had nice cars and houses. Go figure

You know I was thinking more about this and it causes me to remember a friend of mine who was very unhappily married. When I asked him why he just didn't get a divorce he told me that he would lose everything (house,computer, stuff like that) in the process. So I pondered this and asked him then if he cared more about 'things' than happiness. I haven't seen him for some time but I'm sure to this day he still chooses the "things". That is very sad to me.