Belize Hosted the 2011 Central American Beach Volleyball Championships

It was that time of year again when Central American countries sent their male and female beach volleyball teams to represent their pride and glory. The Belize Volleyball Association was host this past weekend to this years XI Central American Beach Volleyball Championships.

The venue for this years beach volleyball event was the Marion Jones Sporting Complex with 2 brand new beach volleyball courts. The sun was out the sand was ready as the beach volleyball fans were in attendance to support their teams.

The teams that were known as a dominant force going into this years volleyball competition in the female division was El Salvador and Guatemala and in the male division was Costa Rica and Nicaragua.

The beach volleyball teams were fully prepared to take on the task of representing their home countries which included Belize, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Honduras, Costa Rica and El Salvador.

Beach Volleyball excitement began on Friday the 22nd of July and continued through Sunday the 24th with teams battling for this years Gold, Silver and Bronze medals. The fans roared as the players concentrated on every service, reception, set, spike, block and dig. There were some real nailbiting games where teams rallied back and forth set after set.

In the end there could only be one one team victorious for the gold, silver and bronze in both the mens and womens beach volleyball divisions.

For more photos of the 2011 Central American Beach Volleyball Championships you may visit the facebook page of the photographer, Will Moreno.

Final Results of the Central American Beach Volleyball Championships!

Mens Division:
Costa Rica - Gold Medal, Gatemala - Silver Medal, Nicaragua 1 - Bronze Medal.

Female Division:
Costa Rica - Gold Medal, Guatemala 1 - Silver Medal, Guatemala 2 - Bronze Medal.

The Teams and Players for the 2011 Central American Beach Volleyball Championships

Male Division:
Belize 1 - Arvid Arnold and Ernest Broaster
Belize 2 - Tico Requena and Juan Marin

Guatemala - Andy Leonardo Blanco and Erick Garrido Ruiz

El Salvador 1 - Jeovanny Medrano Valle and David Vargas Correa
El Slavador 2 - Carlos Leiva Mata and Carlos Escobar Talavera

Nicaragua 1 - Gerald Lopez Umana and Danny Alvarado Lopez
Nicaragua 2 - Winston Calderon Urbina and Francisco Castro

Honduras - Walter Montoya Sanchez and Ruben Miller
Costa Rica - Esteban Escobar and Bryan Monge
Female Division:
Belize 1 - Barbara Cadle and Jasmine Anderson
Belize 2  - Emma Hoare and Rebecca Rath

Guatemala 1 - Susana Gomez Alvarado and Anna Lourdes Ramirez Sarti
Guatemala 2 - Maria Jose Arrelana Aragon and Ruth Guzman Gomez

El Salvador 1 - Diana Romero De Leiva and Marcela Avalos Pineda
El Salvador 2 - Kathya Vasquez Menjivar and Ma Fenanda Vargas Claros

Costa Rica - Ingrid Morales Munoz and Natalia Alfaro Paniagua

Historic US Embassy Building Being Demolished

Historic U.S. Embassy Building being demolished
The Reporter
Saturday, 14.05.2011, 10:37am

Jobs are hard to come by in Belize these days, but over a dozen Belize City youths are employed dismantling a historic structure that once housed the United States Embassy in Belize City.

The contractor who preferred to remain unidentified, said the owner had decided to dismantle the building because it has been damaged by a fallen tree, and has also been further vandalised.

The old chancery building, with various additions, had served as the U.S. Embassy in Belize from Independence in 1981 until November 17, 2006. It was the last such wooden U.S. embassy building in the world when it was officially decomissioned after the U.S. opened its new Embassy building in Belmopan on December 11, 2006. The old building was sold to a private party in 2006.

The U.S. Consulate to Belize was first established on Gabourel Lane in Belize City on February 12, 1848.

The building, originally erected in 1866 in New England, was later dismantled and sent as ballast in freighters to Belize City where it was reassembled as a private home.

The U.S. purchased the building from P.W. Shufeldt, the most prominent U.S. citizen in Belize City, to serve as a consulate in what was then British Honduras in the mid 1930s. The first vice consul to work on the ground floor, Culver Gidden, later married Shufeldt’s daughter, whose family lived upstairs, and six of their children were born in the building before the family’s transfer at the end of World War II. The financial austerity of those times obliged P.W. Shufeldt to sponsor the annual 4th of July party on the grounds, because the Vice Consul had no funds for such an event.

The original building had porches only on the back and front, and Hutson Street was a pathway from Gabourel Lane to the sea front. Termites and the tropical elements have always been a problem and much of the building had been replaced, piecemeal, over the years. In the 1950s, the impressive Corinthian columns had to be replaced with plain flat wooden boards due to termite damage and because no cabinetmaker in Belize at that time could duplicate the decorative design.

This handsome building has survived numerous hurricanes, fires and other vicissitudes of local life. In the 1931 hurricane, the building was badly damaged by a tidal wave which flooded the building up to the second story. In the same hurricane then Consul G. Russell Taggart was injured when the building collapsed, and he later died.

In 1961, Hurricane Hattie’s high water and winds caused extensive damage to the building, which has taken all in stride, including the foot of mud left behind by Hurricane Greta in 1978.

You can read the original article at The Reporter, click here.