On my recent trip to the western Caribbean, I had a chance to make a few
stops in the region. While the usual suspects like Mexico are unabashedly
metric, places with strong US influence are a mixed bag. The Honduran
island of Roatan is a playground for the rich from the US, and it has a
booming real estate market populated by US companies like 21st Century and
Remax. With this cast of buyers and realtors, you can guess how the lot
sizes/areas are specified on for sale signs. And while the roads are
metric, Americans insist on putting up their own directional signs in miles
("Joe's Shack 1/2 mile," etc.).
This brings us to Belize, which is a country that I'd argue is more USC than
the US itself. Why? In addition to everything that I saw being nonmetric,
there is no FPLA. So locally packaged food is in pounds and ounces _only_.
Everything that I saw there was in USC: fuel, roads, temperatures (yes,
Fahrenheit only), vertical distances, groceries, property dimensions. Which
begs the question, why is Belize omitted from the very short list countries
that do not use the metric system? Belize is a very poor country, with a
dysfunctional government (per the locals I spoke to), and it's probably
highly unlikely that they have any kind of metrication plan on their hands.
So why not US, Liberia, Burma, and Belize?
Remek
