Sometimes we carry our roots around with us before we can settle down.

Happy Garifuna Settlement Day!  What is that, you ask?  Well, if you’re in Belize around this time of year you’ll be hearing all about it.  Especially if you’re in an area with lots of Garifuna people, one of the major ethnic groups in Belize.  Garifunas are also known as Black Caribs, and they are a people that live in Honduras, Guatamala, Nicaragua, and Belize.  They have a distinctive style of music and especially drumming that will just knock your socks off.  On my last trip to Belize, I was treated to a wonderful drum lesson by a charming Garifuna man, Jabbar, in Hopkins Village.  Together with “Survivor”, his dog, we drummed away Hurricane Felix.

The Garifuna are descended from both African slaves who shipwrecked in the 1600’s and the indigenous people they intermarried.  They apparently were displaced by British settlers who colonized the area in the 1700’s.  When they were finally able to settle in peace in their own villages througout Central America, they brought their roots with them: cassava roots.  Garifuna Settlement Day celebrates when they were finally able to literally “set down their roots” in Belize.  There is dancing, drumming, and a symbolic re-enactment of this entrance to Belize.

I never got to see the celebrations, but I love this story, and it sums up the epitome of what I want.  I’m fairly rootless.  My home is probably Arkansas, but I’ve cut a lot of ties there.  Everywhere I travel now is temporary.  We often live out of a suitcase.  I’m longing for that day when I can set down the roots I’ve been carrying around with me everywhere: beets from Washington, cassava from Belize, organic purple potatoes from Canada,  some grape vine from France, and plenty of wild sassafras and sweet potatoes from Arkansas.  I’m ready to take my mixed spiritual heritage, all the things I’ve seen, experienced and learned, and set them down in front of the home that will be mine forever.  And when I’ve done that, when I’ve settled, you’ll be able to hear the drumming for miles around.

Where are your roots? Are you settled, or still wandering?  Or are you even in exile?  What is it that makes  a certain place home for you?  Are you rootless, or deeply settled?  Let me know about it in the comments below.

photo courtesy of bosela on morguefile.com