Children’s rally celebrate Garifuna culture
If you haven’t started stretching for those punta moves you’ll be pulling this weekend, we suggest you start. This afternoon, Belize City school children got a head start with a children’s rally at the House of Culture. News 5’s Jacqueline Woods took a walk up the street to get some pointers on her dance steps.
Jacqueline Woods, Reporting
The children’s rally was organised by the Belize City branch of the National Garifuna Council, to make children be more aware of the traditional dance, music and food of the Garifuna Culture and the history of its people.
Dativa Martinez, 2nd V.P, Garifuna Council Bz. City Branch
“I think it is important for all of our young people in Belize to understand all the various cultures that are prevalent in Belize: the Maya, Creole, Garifuna, Ketchi, Mestizo and for all you know, maybe eventually even the Mennonite communities. All the communities that are integrated in making Belize and Belizeans what it is.”
Jacqueline Woods
“What will we be celebrating on Monday?”
Students
“Garifuna Settlement Day!”
The children were entertained by presentations of their classmates and, through their own performances, received key information they may very well be tested in school.
Student
“Alejo Beni led them from St. Vincent because they didn’t like the kind of way they were having there, because of the British colony. Joseph Chatoyer was the chief leader, and T.V. Ramos discovered the nineteenth of November.”
Student
“I know they have gone through a lot to be independent and to be in independent people, and I’m happy now that they’re really have found somewhere where they can settle. I know that they had a hard time fighting with the Spaniards and the British. So it’s really nice that they’re independent and now they are their own people.”
Seventeen-year-old Danya Sandoval is determined to preserve the popular traditional Garifuna Dance: The Johncunu Dance.
Danya Sandoval, 17 years old
“I like it, I really like it and I would like other youths to learn it. It’s an interesting dance to us as a Garifuna people. We have performed in time of celebrations and when there is something special, that’s how we perform it.”
The children’s Rally is just one of the many activities the Belize City Branch has planned for this November celebration. However throughout the year the group holds a number of events to help preserve the Garifuna culture. Reporting for News 5, Jacqueline Woods.
This Monday in Belize City the Garifuna ceremony gets underway from four in the morning with the re-enactment of the arrival of the Garinagu to our shores almost two hundred years ago. The public is asked to gather by the courthouse wharf and along the Southern Foreshore to witness the event between seven and seven-thirty that morning. The arrival will be followed by a Thanksgiving Service at the Holy Redeemer Cathedral.
