Quarantine Survival – Rumajay’s Virtual Fetes

Demmy Williams

For thirty days, starting midnight on April first, the nationwide shutdown restricts non-essential businesses from opening and non-essential workers from moving around in an effort to prevent the possible spread of COVID-19. School aged youths are already at home and will be joined by working adults. But there are innovative ways to occupy time including camping inside your yard, board games, home work-outs, and house movie nights. One organization, Rumajay Mas has teamed up with Belizean and international disc jockeys to put off virtual fetes in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. Following a successful event last week, on Thursday, they are back again and you can join the party online via Facebook or Instagram. News Five today spoke with co-founder Demmy Williams about the upcoming event.

Demmy Williams, Co-Founder, Rumajay Mas

“We do events on a regular basis so at least twice a month, you can expect for us to have a physical party. So since we have this quarantine in effect and we want to promote social distancing, we decided as a group that the party doesn’t necessarily have to stop. So we joined in with several of our other partners from outside to do virtual fetes. So we teamed up our DJs—cause we do have a DJ team—and we decided that we wah bring the party to your house. So no excuses and by any means necessary, and also because Belize needed it. Everyone was home just di mope around and a lot of people had lost their jobs and we wanted to give them some form of entertainment and to be interacting with them still so our fans know that hey, we are still here. You could go on our Facebook page or our Instagram page and the live feed is available on both ends. So we teamed up with Vibe Day and Night Club since Vibe had to close down as well, the No fear DJs hopped onboard with us and we did a collaboration to bring this live feed to both our fan bases. And what’s interesting is that this week, we want to see our fans so we are creating a live hub, like a meeting space. So the tools that you would use for work, we are going to repurpose those, we are going to recycle that. We want to see our viewers, we want to see them have fun and it is good for the DJs to actually see their audience so that they know how to juggle a crowd because when you are in a club, you go by what your people are doing. So if yon oh di dance, yo know dehn noh di feel dah song. So, if we could see them and they could see us, we could still have that personal connection.”