Many villages in Belize can boast of certain community members who devote themselves to the betterment of the village, be it through tourist promotion, cultural heritage or acquiring services and support for needy residents.  Few villages, however, are as lucky as San Antonio (Cayo), which has the embodiment of all these missions within one resident and her family - Ms. Maria Garcia. 

                Maria Garcia has spent over twenty-five years preserving and promoting her Mayan heritage alongside protecting the natural environment of her area, and acting as a spokesperson for less vocal members of her community. 

Born the first child of six daughters and one son, Maria was bestowed the disproportionate responsibility of caring for the family and farm from an early age.  She has happy memories of her school days, when she would lead her younger siblings down the wild ‘picados’ through the bush to the San Antonio Roman Catholic primary school.  She was always inspired by the natural environment around her, and frequently found fruit or flowers en route that were unknown to her, which she would collect to ask her grandparents of their name and uses.  With this instinctive intuition to learn from her environment and elders, it is little wonder that (despite excelling at school), her father discontinued her education beyond Standard III and sent her to the family small-holding to learn agricultural processes and to assist with farming to improve the family’s income.  Although Maria is somewhat disappointed that she couldn’t continue her education in the formal setting, she appreciates more than most that every day should be greeted as a potential educational learning curve.  The Mayan mentality of her parents’ generation valued practical education far above the classroom setting, with a focus on farming, hunting, gathering medicinal herbs and plants, and cooking; she remembers her father insisting that she learn how to plant and harvest staple foods including maize and beans so that, even if unemployed and apparently ‘destitute’, Maria would always be able to holistically provide for herself and her family, despite not completing primary school.

                And provide for herself she certainly does, especially since the establishment of her personal enterprise in the 1980s.  One of the most life-changing events of Maria’s life occurred entirely unexpectedly during a regular day working the fields of the family’s farm.  One morning while tilling the land, Maria and her sisters stumbled upon a piece of stone quite unlike any they had ever seen, and they had an intrinsic feeling that it was something precious to be protected, so they took it home for safe-keeping.  Sporadically, the girls would return to look at the stone and wonder of its history, until one day the rains were so persistent that farm-work was impossible, and they spent the entire morning examining the stone.  To their amazement, Maria and her sisters began to see the stone in the form of a whale, and realised that the stone was ‘talking’ to them, asking to be carved.  With little idea of how to carve (especially a whale, which was not a creature they were at all familiar with) they set about sanding and chipping the stone with utensils found around the house and yard until they had created a beautiful stone carving.  They were inspired to continue this hobby, but they never again found a similar stone in the fields.

                However, in 1983 the Department of Archaeology began excavating the sacred archaeological site in the village, Pacbitun, and discovered various collections of slate stone, despite it being a foreign mineral to the area.  When the girls realised that their stone finding was identical, and therefore slate, they sought guidance from the archaeologists who permitted them to use certain samples to continue their creations, and also lent them a book on Caracol carvings.  Maria was astounded to learn that she had re-created a Mayan art-form which was an ancient tradition of her people which was lost in the days of Caracol around 613AD.  This in itself was proof enough that the slate had given Maria the inspiration to carve it, and it created a weighty bond between Maria’s Mayan culture and her artwork.

                Today, Maria has an art gallery of her carvings at her property in San Antonio village, and has orchestrated numerous worldwide viewings of her exhibits throughout Belize and in various countries, including the UK, Japan, Jamaica, Mexico, the US, Germany and Costa Rica.  In 1995, Maria was awarded recognition for ‘Excellence in Belizean Arts’ from the National Handicraft Centre as a symbol of her achievements.  It is extraordinary to think that an ancient art-form, buried for millennia, has been re-energised through the humble hands of one person and her family: Maria Garcia.

                Despite the conclusive nature of this achievement in itself, Maria was inspired to seek further revival of her Mayan culture as a result of her carving success.  She welcomes student groups, from nearby primary schools to national high schools, to university students from across the world, to give presentations and workshops on the Mayan culture.  Maria assisted with the revivalism of Mayan cultural dance in her village, too, through inviting a village elder from nearby San Jose-Succotz to teach herself and her neighbours the ancient art-form in order to preserve the dying tradition.

                But perhaps the most significant enlightenment that Maria has to offer is that protecting the natural environment is a paramount priority when it comes to preserving her ancestral heritage, because Mayan custom and survival is a direct product of harmonious and sustainable livelihoods and practices.  Maria has truly served her nation through her determination and perseverance in this field: in 2001, Maria was instrumental in the demarcation, reservation and protection of the newly forming Elijio Panti National Park (named after her uncle, a famous herbal-medicine ‘bush doctor’).  And until today, she remains critical in the protection of this area as the Chairperson of the Itzamna Society, which is an NGO dedicated to promoting biodiversity, environmental conservation, cultural patrimony and community development.  Barely a day passes when Maria isn’t occupied with some form of activism of one sort or another, for the betterment of her people and her culture as a whole. 

                And in 2004, Maria also became the first female village councillor in San Antonio, despite the highly patriarchal power structures of her culture, which she believes opened doors for Mayan women all over the country to assert their political authority and democratic rights.

                Maria Garcia has shown strength in times of oppression, positivism in times of adversity, and charity and compassion to her fellow people in all times.  She is an example of perseverance and of morals, of striving for what is just and right, as opposed to what is easy or self-satisfying.  Nation-builders like Maria Garcia should be held as role-models to our youth to show that it is not how we are born or how we die that determines who we are, but how we live our lives that matters.

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