Garifuna Settlement Day Activities in Dangriga and Online This Year

The Garifuna Settlement Day activities will go on as they do every year, but this year, in keeping with the guidelines to try to keep COVID at bay, there will only be one centralized location for the actual festivities. This year, Dangriga will be the site for the reenactment of the arrival of the first Garinagu to Belize, as well as the Mass and all-day celebration. And even though gatherings have been confined to Dangriga, the National Garifuna Council’s Project Coordinator, Melissa Zuniga assures that there will be no abbreviation of the actual events.

Melissa Zuniga, Project Coordinator, National Garifuna Council

Melissa Zuniga

“We will be doing virtual activities and so, rather than doing a virtual Yurumein in all the communities, we’re doing one Yurumein and then we are going to be sharing the live stream on the Facebook pages of the other branches. And this will include the Yurumein, the nineteenth day Mass and the official ceremony, so there’s one that is going to be done this year instead of each community doing their own. The Yurumein is the re-enactment of the arrival to the shores of Belize. As you may know, Garinagu were exiled from St Vincent first to Balisau and because some of the Garinagu people returned to St Vincent, the Europeans or the British decided that they would send us even further. So the put us on a ship and we ended up in Roatan, an island off the coast of Honduras. From there we spread out to Nicaragua, the Coast of Honduras, Guatemala and Belize. So the largest group of Garinagu arrived in Belize in 1802, and so the Yurumein is the re-enactment to the shores of Belize, British Honduras at that time.”