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MY PEOPLE
"How da go on?" That means, "How are you doing?" or "How are you?" in Creole. Even though Belize is a small country, many different peoples live here. Our national language is English, but Belizeans speak many other languages, too. Creole is my first language. A Creole proverb is "Blood falla vein," which means, "Blood follows vein." That means relatives look out for each other and that traits get passed on from one generation to the next.
Some Creoles come from the Ashanti people of West Africa, and they arrived in Belize as slaves in the 1700s to do logging. The slave-masters didn't allow slaves to use their African languages, so they came up with other meanings for English words. That's how the Creole language started. Native Mayans, or Mestizoes (a mixture of Spanish and Mayan), also live in Belize, along with Garifuna (Caribs), Mennonites from Canada, Chinese, East Indians, Creoles (like me), and others.
WELCOME TO MY WORLD
I live in Lucky Strike Village along the Old Northern Highway in Belize, Central America. The Old Northern Highway is the original highway that goes north and south through Belize. I have two adult sisters and six brothers. My mother works hard on our farm-hauling water, washing clothes,...