We have come to that time of year again when Punta Gorda (Peini in the Garifuna language)
becomes the centre for activities surrounding the November Garifuna celebrations.

While the weekend of Friday 19 celebrates the reenactment of the arrival of the Garinagu on the coast of Belize, the previous weekend is the focus of musical celebrations with the fifth annual Battle of the Drums.

There is a new element added this year for the Battle of the Drums’ fifth anniversary. Friday night at the PG Sports Bar will offer Garifuna food and music. The food will be prepared by chefs from Machac Hill Lodge and the Radisson Fort George in Belize City using traditional Garifuna cuisine and adapting it to a contemporary style. Live music performance will feature Paul Nabor, Mario and the Umalali Group, Lloyd, Nuru, Adrian the Doc and Lascelle Martinez.

The drumming contest on Saturday will take place on the Punta Gorda Football field, weather permitting. This year the contestants are back up to nine bands.

Georgetown is a new entrant from Belize and the international bands are from Livingston across the pond in Guatemala and Baja Mar in Honduras.

This year in addition to the drumming prizes there will be awards for the best chumba performance, wanaragua dancer and the best costume for a band.

On Sunday the Parandero Top Ten will be part of a live music broadcast from the sunset terrace at Beya Suites.

During the daytime on Saturday BTIA will be hosting the fourth Toledo Tourism Expo (TOLTEX) in Central Park. TOLTEX coincides with World Responsible Tourism Day which takes place in London at the same time as the World Travel Mart trade show. Responsible tourism is about inclusion of the local population in tourism and its benefits. This means valuing traditions and cultures and reinforcing them through inclusion in tourism offerings. It extends to craftspeople, local ethnic cuisines, music and art.

So come to PG town on Saturday 13th November. Enjoy different foods, music and cultures and win a prize in the grand raffle.

PhD Student mapping postsIn other news, the ancient Maya wooden buildings preserved below the seafloor in Paynes Creek National Park -- some 4000 wooden posts defining buildings, and tons of briquetage—salt making artifacts, beginning in spring of 2011, will be the subject of a three-year program led by Louisiana State University archeologists, which includes public outreach to  share information about these important discoveries, locally and worldwide. and to engage the local communities in preservation of the Paynes Creek sites through archaeological tourism. The project is funded by a Site Preservation Grant from the Archaeological Institute of America and has received approval from the Belize government Institute of Archaeology.

Rob Hirons, The Lodge at Big Falls , Toledo, Belize