How yu di do, bwai?

A lot has happened since my last blog. Today is my third day here in the city of San Ignacio of the Cayo District, and what a city it is! There is so much culture here… I’ve already been invited to a Queen of Diamonds fashion show, eaten at a local fast-food restaurant, and I’ve even seen a man walking around with a baby pig!

Yeah, this country is pretty amazing. It was a two-hour trip from the airport to the hotel, so I had the chance to look over the countryside; the landscape is really diverse. One moment you could be looking at a forest filled with palm trees riddled with strangling vines, and all of a sudden you reach savannah-like grassland with giant rock formations (some of which we saw were beginning to be paved over for future development). There are supposed to be quite a few Mayan ruins nearby as well, with caves used to “reach the underworld,” or so they believed. If memory serves me correctly, the ancient Mayans used to perform their sacrifices in these caves. I am really excited to explore as much as possible before I leave, and definitely plan on visiting the Mayan caves sometime soon.

A picture of the Midas Resort at night (where I am staying). This was taken during the Queen of Diamonds competition.

Now, you’re probably wondering about the title of this blog. Here in Belize, although the national language is English, a lot of people speak a variation of it called Creol. Many of the words resemble basic American English, but instead of being written in an eloquent fashion each word is written exactly as it sounds. As such, many of the miscellaneous ‘g’s and ‘r’s found at the end of words are dropped completely since a lot of people do not pronounce them. This language came about from the many African slaves who settled here being forced to learn English (since they were strictly forbidden to speak in their native tongue). Without pencil or paper, they did the best they could and came up with this language system, which has since been formalized with its own set of grammar rules. I also believe that Scottish played a role in the development of this language, but I am not exactly sure how. In case you couldn’t figure it out, the title in fact translates to “How do you do, brother?” or more commonly, “How are you?”. Here in Belize, it is ok to call everyone a “bwai,” even someone you respect or that is older than you; it is in fact a term of endearment.

That’s it for now, but be sure to check back real soon as I have a lot more to post in the near future. Laata den.

~Bill

This is a picture of the entertainment waiting for us at the airport. I thought it was cool because, really, how many other airports have bongo players on top of their luggage carousels?