Author: ruth
From Brixton ‘Bananas’ to PG Plantain
The first time I ate a plantain was when I lived in Brixton, London, five minutes’ walk away from Electric Avenue market. I had bought a large banana, but it didn’t want to peel properly, and it was a weird shade of yellow inside, and it tasted unripe and made my tongue feel funny even…
Mundian to Bach Ke (Ronald McDonald vs. Punjabi MC)
I have a terrible singing voice. I love to sing, but only in private when (I think) nobody is listening. Ray has a good overall singing voice and a great Garifuna singing voice: Garifuna songs don’t require you to be in perfect tune or for you to sing like a bird, but they do require…
How to shake your arse (Belize style)
Go to any bar with live music at night in Belize, and you will witness the dominant form of Belizean dancing, which like the dominant form of Belizean music (Punta rock), originates from traditional Garifuna culture. That is, it involves shaking your arse. Visitors to Belize often marvel at how Belizean women especially are able…
Yurumein: The story of the Garifuna
Every year on 19th November, Ray, his family, and pretty much every Garifuna person in Belize (plus lots of other interested Belizeans and visitors) will attend their local “Yurumein” on the national holiday known as Garifuna Settlement Day, the anniversary of when the largest group of Garifuna people arrived on the shores of Belize. …
Drums of the ancestors
Listening to many Garifuna songs, they are very up-tempo. My Scottish indie-rock loving music tastes assumed that they must therefore be quite cheerful – maybe about catching lots of tasty fish a particular day. But that’s not how Garifuna music works – there is a particularly up-tempo Garifuna punta song that is all about when…
Belizean Blue Crab Syndrome
I will most probably always be considered an outsider in Belize, but I think that is the case in almost any country you emigrate to where you stick out either due to your accent, skin colour, background or otherwise. And there are definitely many things that I still don’t know about or don’t understand about…
Ronald McDonald learns to ceilidh
According to Ray, I dance to everything the same way. I admit I’m not the world’s greatest dancer, but I know for a fact that I definitely do not dance to Teenage Kicks the same way I dance to Ray’s drumming. Living in Belize for several years has a strange affect on your dancing style…
Such stuff as dreams are made on
The one thing Ray never gets tired of is talking about his music and culture. In private, he is often a very quiet person, but if I want to get him talking, all I have to do is ask him what the words to the song he is listening to means, or something else about…
The Drum Whisperer
Ray is famous in PG for his drumming. He may never have one the annual “Battle of the Drums” competition in PG (clearly the judges aren’t in their correct minds), but anyone that loves drumming will hire Ray and his family to drum for any event above any other local group. As Ludwig Palacio, local…