Los Hijos Del West Return from Taiwan International Folkloric Festival

Marimba musical group, Los Hijos del West, returned to the Jewel today after a spending a month in Taiwan. The group, including Ian Yacab, Christian Archila, Emil Hernandez, Luis Quiroz and Leandro Pacheco, represented the country in the Yilan International Children’s Folklore and Folkgame Festival for the past twenty days. The five members of this dynamic group of young performers from Benque Viejo Del Carmen performed Mayan cultural, contemporary and popular music in the artistic festival and were given the distinction as a special group presenting on the Circle Stage. The international event took place at the Dongshan River Water Park in Yilan County Los Hijos Del West represented Belize, which is the only country representing Central America and the Caribbean. Ian Yacab says that the group has returned fully motivated with lots of opportunities to showcase their folkloric talent on the international stage.

Ian Yacab, Head, Hijos Del West Musical Group

Ian Yacab

“It was a wonderful experience. We came back very motivated because we experienced many things that we don’t see in our country. We see many things there that we do not see here, but that doesn’t mean that we cannot go out there and achieve them. By going to this festival, I learnt that we could go to many more festivals every year and the group needs to work together in fundraising for plane tickets and stuff like that for us to go. We learn that this organization promote a lot of folklore festivals and they usually take care of you when you reach to the country that is hosting the festival and the groups usually they pay their own plane tickets and be there. And in Belize we don’t have that mentality.

Another thing that we learnt is that in Belize we are waiting for someone to see us and we shouldn’t be doing that; we need to go out there and promote our own selves; nobody is going to do it for us. So it has been a wonderful experience and we learned so much and we come back motivated and Benque Viejo itself has a lot of folklore to offer. And when I was there and I saw other groups performing, I said mein we could do a much better job. So maybe next year we will plan to go to another festival and bring more of the folkloric things that Benque Viejo has to offer to the world.”