Yu no taim hyaa weh Ai di chrai tel yu: On Not Understanding in Belize

My friend Doug writes a column for Anthropology News called Notes From the Field. This is one of his recent posts about learning and speaking Creole in Belize. Enjoy!

Yu no taim hyaa weh Ai di chrai tel yu: On Not Understanding in Belize

Columnist

douglas carl reeser

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A sign written in Kriol protesting a proposed port for cruise ships in the town of Placencia. Photo courtesy of doug reeser.

When a good friend of mine who is conducting ethnobotanical research here in Belize heard that I would be writing this column about fieldwork for Anthropology News, she asked if I had read Paul Rabinow’s classic, Reflections on Fieldwork in Morocco. Somehow, through all of my years studying anthropology – ten years from my bachelor’s through my doctoral studies – I hadn’t been asked to read the book, and it never found its way across my path. A little embarrassed, I had to reply that no, I hadn’t read it before. She insightfully thought that Rabinow’s reflections might provide me with some inspiration, and at least offer some food for thought. On her last trip to the field, she brought me a copy.

After reading the book, I think it holds up to its reputation as a classic on fieldwork, and besides his occasionally surprising revelations, Rabinow also offers a number of topics that would be good for everyone working in the field to reflect upon. From the importance of the experience of otherness to the politics of communities, the book is full of issues of which to be aware. For Rabinow, being able to communicate effectively in Arabic featured centrally in his fieldwork experience, and this challenge got me thinking about how language may be affecting my fieldwork and data collection here in Belize.

I’ve been working in Belize (on and off) since 2007, when I came here for the first time to conduct research for my MA and MPH degrees. There was then (and continues to be) a small part of me that wished I was working elsewhere in the region, mostly so that I could continue to learn Spanish. I guess I would say it was sort of an intellectual disappointment to be conducting my research in English. Over time, I have come to discover that that disappointment is somewhat misplaced.

English is the official national language of Belize. It is the language used in the schools, it is the language heard on the television, and it is true that most Belizeans today speak English. However, English is not always a Belizean’s first language, it is not always the language spoken in the homes of Belize, and it is not the language that is necessarily heard on the street. Just like the diversity of people here, there is an equally diverse set of languages.

On any given day here in the south of Belize, I can hear up to seven different languages. I walk through the market and I may hear Q’eqchi’ or Mopan spoken by the Maya women selling vegetables, local fisherman chatting in Garifuna while hawking their fish, vendors selling plastics and household goods speaking Spanish, and I even occasionally hear Plautdietch among the few Mennonite farmers that come to town on market days. The small grocery store nearest my house is run by a family from China, and Chinese can be heard there as well as in the many Chinese food restaurants around town. And I can’t forget English, most audible from American tourists or volunteers walking around town.

Most of these different languages are only spoken among friends and family, so typically they are only overheard, and people easily switch to English when talking with me. However, there is one language that is heard above all others, and one that makes this language experience very strange at times: Kriol. Kriol is a Belizean creole based on English and a number of African languages. According to some, it is the most widely spoken language here in Belize, and after spending eight months here, I would tend to concur.

Kriol is everywhere, especially here in the main market town in the south of the country. It is a language that is complex and foreign, yet familiar at the same time. The familiarity stems from its English base, such that every sentence might have a word or two in English. However, unless you know Kriol, you can’t understand most of what is being said. Take the title as an example: “Yu no taim hyaa weh Ai di chrai tel yu.” If you say this out loud, you may get parts of it, and it could be translated literally as “you never hear what I’m trying to tell you.” However, it means something more like “you don’t understand me” – a slight difference perhaps, but an important one. As a native English speaker, hearing Kriol was one of the stranger sensations I have had abroad: hearing someone speak to me and getting some of it, but quickly realizing that despite the sprinkling of English, I have no idea what is being said to me.

It has taken a while for me to “get” Kriol. Since most people speak English, they almost always speak in English with me. However, as an anthropologist, I get to spend time hanging out with people. I spend time with them in their everyday moments, and during these times, people easily slip into their “normal” language, in this case, Kriol. I still don’t speak in Kriol – that would feel somehow phony when everyone speaks English just as easily – but I am finally picking up most of the conversations (and jokes!) being held around me.

Along with that understanding of Kriol has come another realization, one that I probably should have had before I even started my research. As with any language, the way Kriol is used reflects on how its users view the world around them. And while English is the official language in the country, Kriol is probably used more frequently in peoples’ everyday lives. Coming here for long-term fieldwork, I assumed that knowing English would suffice in understanding the things I had come here to study. Having been here for a while now, I know that working in English will provide me with adequate and even insightful data, but I do believe something will be missing. While I don’t quite have my finger on it yet, I’m pretty sure that something will be revealed as I continue to explore this place through its other first language – Kriol.

douglas carl reeser is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Anthropology at the University of South Florida, and is a contributing editor at Recycled Minds. He is currently working on his dissertation research in southern Belize, examining the intersection of State-provided health care with a number of ethnic-based traditional medicines. He also loves food.

All of this at once, every moment....

Last week I finished Bill Bryson's book about hiking the Appalachian trail. There was one paragraph in particular that really resonated with me; he's talking about hiking in the woods, but he captures how contradictory my feelings can be about fieldwork sometimes:

"I was weary of the trail, but still strangely in its thrall; found the endless slog tedious but irresistible; grew tired of the boundless woods but admired their boundlessness; enjoyed the escape from civilization and ached for its comforts. I wanted to quit and to do this forever, sleep in a bed and in a tent, see what was over the next hill and never see a hill again. All of this at once, every moment, on the trail or off."

I love what I'm doing, and fieldwork is often exhilarating and definitely one of the best parts of archaeology. But it can also be frustrating and tedious. All of this at once, every moment.

Fieldnotes

Incredible view of Site 1 and Site 7 (foreground)

It feels so wonderful to be doing fieldwork again! I haven’t been part of a field project in a few years, which seems weird since fieldwork is what drew me to archaeology in the first place. This project has made me think a lot about all those projects and just how the directors managed to keep their sanity. There are so many details that have to be taken care of before you even get to the research. Anyways, I have been in the field for almost four weeks now. We have been chipping away at surveying sections of Aguacate land, learning the Total Station and mapping sites. The men that I’ve hired from Aguacate clear sites of vegetation and carry gear for us (the Total Station is not super portable). They also teach us a lot about the area and have generally been great company (with a few exceptions – more on that later!).

My research questions are about household identity and economic integration. Houses tend to be on hilltops, but there are some mounds on the flat – hence the survey. The villagers know the landscape very well, so they’ve introduced me to many of the sites. But they haven’t seen them all! A couple weeks ago we went to what I am calling Site 1 (I’m really creative), because it was the first site that they showed me last summer. I recorded it as two small structures that were part of a longer platform that I couldn’t quite see because of the vegetation. When we came back and asked the guys to start clearing, the platform just kept going and going. It turns out that it is 40 meters long and about 4 meters high. There is a long flat terrace (I can’t wait to find out what they were using that for!) between three structures – one 3 meter high mound, one that is 2 meters high, and an imposing 6 meter structure lining the back of the platform. It’s probably 15 meters long and overlooks the rest of the complex. It looks like there were two rooms on top of that.

Views of Site 1

So – much bigger than I thought it would be! We’ve spent a lot of time clearing it off in order to map it. Besides the architecture there are other components that are interesting. The whole group is built against a cliff, though the buildings end 10m or so before the cliff. There seems to be a midden that has accumulated at the bottom of the cliff – lots of sherds, shell, and even some human bone.

Rebbecca and Matt mapping in a lower platform at Site 1

In the process of clearing and cleaning walls we have been finding a lot of artifacts. Mostly ceramic sherds and pieces of chert. A lot of the sherds look like thick water, cooking, or storage jars (but they are pretty eroded from being on or close to the surface). There are some finer wares though, and at least several serving dishes. The chert has been even more fascinating – we’ve been finding the nodules, some are partial cores (so they were making tools by knapping pieces from the nodules), flakes, and of course lots of unworked pieces. It’s a very noticeable pattern though, just from surface artifacts! And they are working it at the site – the question is to what degree. Simple household provisioning or for trade? If they are trading it, what are they getting in return? We have also seen two figurine fragments that look like they came from nearby Lubaantun, as well as several pieces of obsidian, which comes from Guatemala. So far, it looks like this household is fairly integrated into regional trade routes. I really can’t wait to figure out what they’re doing with the chert.

Also, we have found several limestone blocks with stalagmites/tites on them. They were part of the wall fall, so they were incorporated as architectural elements in the original building. They look like common limestone blocks, but then on one side there will be these cave formations. It’s not unusual for the Maya to cache cave elements – caves were portals to the underworld and hence, spiritually powerful places – but these stones aren’t buried, they’re part of the walls as far as I can tell. We found them on the surface, after all.

We have also cleared and mapped several other smaller groups on hilltops, nearby to Site 1. We have seen human bone and some eroded sherds at those sites, as well as obsidian and chert. I’m curious to see how household inventories vary in relation to structure size. Is society extremely stratified or is everyone getting the same obsidian and figurines?

Right now I have permission to survey, map, surface collect (artifacts that we can see on the surface) and perform salvage excavations on looted and damaged buildings. One building that is part of Site 1 was bulldozed (flattened, not displaced entirely) to build the farmers’ path that we walk every day, so we will probably start test pitting and surface collecting there next week. It’s right in front of the huge platform, and is a smaller structure. We’re in the process of clearing it right now – there are lots of artifacts because the bulldozer stripped the upper layers of the building for the road. My excavation permit is forthcoming, and I’m really excited to keep looking at this site – I’m going to get so much great information from it!

Teaching at Tumul K'in

As most of you know from previous posts and/or conversations with me, I’m living and working at a residential Maya high school in the rural Toledo district called Tumul K’in Center of Learning. My dissertation questions are archaeological (what was the nature of ancient Maya household identity in southern Belize and if it changed over time; how integrated were rural households with broader regional social and political systems) but the project is being carried out as part of the 3^rd year Maya history class at Tumul K’in. Their semester started at the end of January.

The school has been very accommodating and supportive of this class – they emphasize experiential learning so they are excited about a hands-on history class. I had come up with a syllabus and met with the regular history teacher (Filberto Rash) to plan our classes. Filberto is a good teacher who is interested in Maya history and archaeology, but has lacked the educational resources to really explore it. We designed the class schedule keeping in mind that we would be doing fieldwork later on in the semester, so it starts first thing in the morning – around here that means 6:45am -12:30pm. Being in the classroom for that long is daunting, but generally we didn’t start until just after 7, and stopped whenever we were done.

We have five boys in the class who are bright and engaging. They are slightly rambunctious and they play a mean marimba (I’ll post videos eventually!). To start out we did an activity to gauge their knowledge and interest in archaeology – first they had to write down what they already knew about the ancient Maya, and then what they wanted to know. We did the same thing with archaeology.

They knew a little bit about the ancient Maya, that they built temples, and that they lived in Belize. They wanted to know more about where the Maya came from; that was the biggest question, which I thought was interesting. They also wanted to know about their religion.

Their answers about archaeology were interesting. I should first say that archaeology is everywhere in Belize. Not only is it a draw for tourists, but archaeological sites and artifacts are ubiquitous. In southern Belize there are small mounds (the remains of ancient buildings) on nearly every hilltop. Farmers dig artifacts out of fields as they plow, anyone who explores a cave will likely see pots sherds, if not entire pots. Looting of ancient sites is very common. The students have grown up in Toledo and have visited archaeological sites before. And yet, when I asked them what archaeology was, they couldn’t tell me. This could be because they didn’t know the exact definition. I was surprised for all the reasons I just mentioned – it’s everywhere in this country. Even though the education system doesn’t emphasize archaeology specifically, I assumed a general definition would have come up at some point.

Like I said, these are bright kids that are like sponges for interesting information. We are working by time period, starting with the people of the Americas and the Popol Vuh, to answer the question of where the Maya came from. I’m teaching from powerpoints and using a lot of videos and readings. They love the pictures and movies of course, though the readings are more difficult for them. While education is valued in Belize, schools are under-funded and resources are slim, especially in rural areas. Books and school supplies are expensive and rural families don’t have them lying around the house like most Americans do. Consequently, my students haven’t been encouraged to read or study in an intensive way. So, we do short readings and talk about them extensively in class – I have them underline words they don’t know, and that sparks good discussions. I’m trying to keep it as straightforward as possible so they don’t get overwhelmed by too much information. The glossary of terms I gave them is helping with that, I think.

One of the best parts of teaching the class has been working with Filberto. He is good at explaining things to the students when they don’t understand me, and he asks really good questions. His questions are fantastic because the students learn from the discussions the two of us have; it also models for the students how to be a successful learner. Filberto and I were making copies the other day of an academic article on household archaeology in northern Belize – I was having them read just part of it, but he wanted to read the rest because he thought it was so interesting. The class is serving as teacher training for his future classes, which I’m really happy with.

Part of the challenge with the class is teaching a balance of culture history and methods, since they will be in the field with me eventually. I decided to start by talking about how you find archaeological sites in the first place, and how archaeologists do research. After explaining about archaeological survey, their homework was to look up three terms: research, evidence, and hypothesis. The next class we discussed those terms and I told them to formulate a hypothesis about where to find archaeological sites around Tumul K’in if the settlement pattern to the north was that sites were built on hilltops. Sort of an obvious question, but they got it, and off we went to explore the hilltops surrounding Tumul K’in’s campus. That was a fun day – they are handy with machetes so we went on an hour-long hike up and down a couple hills. We didn’t find anything, but they told me about other hills where they had seen metate fragments (grinding stones for corn and cacao).

Survey!

We also talked about maps. I have topo maps of Toledo, so we did a map exercise and then systematically surveyed part of the campus. They flagged all the cultural material they saw and then made sketch maps of some of the buildings. Also a fun day!

Surveying and mapping the campus

We’ve had them on site with us twice now, and they are really excited to get to work. Now that I’m doing more fieldwork, I can see it will be hard to balance the classroom side of things. We’re nowhere near done reading about the ancient Maya (we’re barely through the Classic period!) but it’s clear that they prefer to be outside being active – I can’t blame them but they still need to do coursework. I’m considering having discussions of the readings at the site early in the morning before we start fieldwork.

If any teachers are reading, please share your thoughts on out-of-the-box teaching strategies. Especially how to get them to read more. I have this young adult novel about cultural heritage and archaeology and I really want them to read the whole thing, but I’m not sure they will because it will be too much reading.

Pictures are coming soon!

Back in Belize

So, I’ve been in Belize for two months now, and this is my first blog post. As you will see, I’ve been pretty busy! But I have written a few retrospective posts to update you. I'll add pictures when I go into town and have a faster connection.

I got here in January, in the company of my good friend Meg, a fellow archaeology grad student at UNC. She wanted to visit me in Belize at some point, and when I told her how overwhelming it was going to be to just get set up down there, and we found cheap plane tickets, she decided to come help me out. Honestly, I don’t know what I would have done without her! First of all, I had a lot of stuff. The first phase of my research includes mapping archaeological sites that I saw last summer, as well as new ones that I find in the study area. To do that, archaeologists use land surveying equipment, called a Total Station. With our personal luggage and all my equipment (including two computers and heavy reference books) we had two oversize suitcases, one huge backpack, and two carry-ons each, including the Total Station – a fragile piece of equipment on loan from my adviser. There’s no way I could have done it alone. Even with two of us it was a chore – our seatmate on the first flight wished us luck skeptically after we nearly clocked him while gathering our stuff.

It was a long day, but once in PG Doug picked us up from the airport. For the next few days we decompressed in PG – well, I decompressed and slept a lot to catch up from the wild days of packing and leaving the country. Meg read a lot and explored PG with Doug and his neighbor’s dog, Chloe. Once I did wake up, it was really fun to show her around PG and Toledo! We explored waterfalls and visited all the archaeological sites we could.

We borrowed a truck from a friend and picked up the equipment I would need from my adviser’s lab, squeezing in a beach trip along the way. We met with the village leader, Abraham Kan, to make sure things were in order for me to start work in a few weeks (more on that later). She even helped me clean my house, and decorated my room for me with pictures she’d printed out while I wrote grants. We got so much done, and having Meg there kept me sane and made boring or gross tasks more enjoyable.

The biggest task I had was to find a field truck. After a week of pestering everyone I saw and met where they bought their truck, it was clear that the best quality trucks can be found in the Cayo district, where the roads are (mostly) paved. We were off to Cayo!

While I looked for a truck, we did touristy things and generally enjoyed being in San Ignacio. We went to all the archaeological sites we could (Cahal Pech, Xunantunich) including Actun Tunichil Muknal (ATM) cave (here’s a post from my previous visit), which was amazing as always. We delicious Indian food, went shopping, and explored the market – good times. Sadly, Meg had to go back to North Carolina eventually, so we went to Belize City for a night so I could see her off. I wish she could have stayed the entire time.

To make a long story short, I found a truck – a green Ford Ranger with an Iron Maiden sticker on the back, and a second sticker that says, “Don’t Hassle Me, I’m a Local.” Ha! The tires really sucked, but I did a good job bargaining with the guy. I loaded it up with things that are more expensive to get in Toledo (a crock pot, a good pan) and headed south.

*Beautiful pictures courtesy of Meg Kassabaum!