Culture Village educates students
It’s called the Culture Village and while rain soaked grounds at the old Belize Technical College forced a change in venue to Memorial Park, the message remained unchanged.
Jose Sanchez, Reporting
The event, which was attended by mostly primary school children, received strong participation from the Garifuna and Mayan communities.
Sarita Martinez
“This is the second processing for the cassava bread making. Right now they are grating the cassava. We have already peeled it, washed it, now they are grating it. In about another half an hour we’ll put it in the wowla and we’ll be doing the straining, take out all the juice before we start to bake.”
Renalto Baltazar
“You just start to beat it and beat it until its time to come like a big, big, big, mass. This is what we call the Hudutu. That’s all I got to say man. You know its something cultural and very delicious. You would like to have some of it when it gets ready.”
While the food was being prepared, we looked at some natural products that the Mayas use as utensils in their kitchen.
Donatila Chun, Toledo Craft and Pottery Women’s Group
“Today we have the Lett to store the tortillas in. This is the Lett. In English they call it gourd. Then here we have a jug. This is a calabash, this is a water jug. Then this now is to wash corn before we do our grinding for our corn tortillas.”
Nicholasa Cruz
“Right now we do like this at home. We grind our corn, but right now we have to buy it because we are not at home. So we wet it with water and we start to make it just like how you see it there.”
By this time it was getting very hot and one of Burrell Boom’s brightest entrepreneurs showed us his Dawn Wine, a product he hopes Belizeans will drink heartily during the celebrations.
Stephen Craig, Dawn Wine
“The name comes from…It’s a new product, something new to Belize so we figure dawn, dawn of a new day, dawn of a new product.
“We make this wine out of the local fruits that we grow in the farm in Burrell Boom. We make cashew wine, we make sorrosi wine, we make berry wine, we make tambran wine, we make grapefruit wine.”
Well, I always heard about Dawn Wine so it was my duty to give it a try. Though Craig has been learning his trade for 4 years, the Mayas have been practicing the art of making clay pottery for thousands of years and the Xunantunich organization hopes to keep this trade alive for at least a few more.
David Magana, Magana Art Gallery
“Our objective as the Xunantunich organization is to be able to preserve the Mayan culture and to develop projects for women. And one of the projects is the pottery, which is the biggest and I think it’s a small industry already. It is important for us too because it is preserving the culture. It is part of what was done in the past by our ancestors, our grandfathers in our community.”
The art pieces will be dried in the sun, baked in an oven and then painted for sale. Several finished pieces were on display. Reporting For News Five, I am Jose Sanchez.
