And since we are on the topic of illiteracy, Edgell today told us that the widespread use of ‘Kriol' in the classroom by teachers is contributing to the illiteracy problem. And while some mainstream educators see it as just that, a nagging dialect, that hasn't deterred the tireless work of the Belize Kriol Council which this week launched the first book in its writer's workshop series.
The book is thirteen stories from Crooked Tree Village and Kriol Council President Myrna Manzanares gave us a first read of "rice pounding."
Excerpt from Rice Pounding (Rais Beetn)
[Ah memaba wi yoostu beet rais bowt chree taim fi di week. Disya taim di memba rait now da-mi wahn blesid Satideh maanin. Ih luk laik di Man da tap mi mek ahn speshali fi rais beetn. Yu noa, jos di karek amonk a breez fi mek wi ku fan ahn eezi, an wid wahn lee klowd oavahead evri now an agen fi kip tingz kool.]
Myrna Manzanares, President - Belize Kriol Project
"Definitely you find a lot of the culture in here, a lot of the interaction with families and things that were done in the particular community and you know Crooked Tree is a very Creole community so you will find a lot of interesting things in these stories."
Keith Swift,
"I have had the book since last night and I tried to read it but it is still very difficult to read Creole."
Myrna Manzanares,
"Well of course it is going to be difficult to read because you learnt to read and write English with a specific type of symbols but you know how to talk Creole and because you are looking at it as a kind of English, sometimes when we are saying words we automatically think it is English."
The book, called "some stories from Crooked Tree Village" is available at the Angelus Press and other book outlets.