“Under the Ya’axche Tree,” a culturally inspired book by David Ruiz

The launch of a book named “Under the Ya’axche Tree” by David Nicholas Ruiz is currently underway at Saint John’s College. The book is a combination of entertainment in folklores and legends and education in the historical background contained in the introductions. Under the Ya’axche Tree takes mature audiences on a trip down memory lane with the culture and the stories of their childhood. On the other side of the coin, the genre of the stories and that glimpse of the past are also expected to captivate the younger audiences. The President of the National Kriol Council, Myrna Manzanares, is giving a review of the book at this time. She gave us a preview of the book.

Myrna Manzanares, President, National Kriol Council

“The book “Under The Ya’axche Tree” is on legends, tales and apparitions in western Belize and that includes some of the folk tales and some of the fold beliefs that people have in that part of the country.”

Delahnie Bain

“I know you’re one of the persons that will be giving a review at tonight’s launch. Could you give us kind of a peak into what you thought about it?”

Myrna Manzanares

myrna manzanares

“Well, basically I thought it was well written. David has that knack. But more specifically, the different stories brought me back to the kinds of stories that I grew up with. The folk beliefs and different activities that occur across the board and I looked at what is that connection. Is it just because we’re in Belize or is it the African connection that has some of the same kind of folk belief? The characters are different but some of the beliefs; things like obeah and that sort of thing.  Once you sit down and yoh start to read—and if you’re a young person and yoh start to read yoh might get a bit scared and young people like excitement. So that I think is one of the areas that many young people will find intriguing that they don’t hear today because children today are much younger so they don’t grow up in that era where we hear all of those things and that is one of the main things David is trying to do; to do the oral history and then write it out and that’s something that’s close to my heart as well because that is one of the things I have been trying to do and the national Kriol Council has been trying to do.”