How many languages can a rabbit speak ?

Interpreters before the Parliament.

             Globetrotters have to be linguists. They have to know languages. How else could they communicate in all those countries they visit ? And back home they could use those linguistic skills to earn a few bob. Better than washing up in a pub. Or cleaning, for that matter. If you have visited a few countries and can get by in their languages – you could get a job as a multilingual court interpreter in a U.K. based company. You think you don't know those languages enough? Don't worry, it's simple, even a rabbit can do it.

The company, named Applied Language Solutions (ALS), has already secured the government contract to supply interpreters for courts. Until the 1^st of January 2012 the courts had to use translators accepted by National Register of Public Services Interpreters (NRPSI), which is not an agency but a register of interpreters who have qualifications sufficient for court assignments. It is not easy to get onto this register. One has to pass a tough exam, such as Diploma in Public Services Interpreting (DPSI). I can tell you, this exam is a wringer. It is not enough to know two languages absolutely fluently, with all the legal jargon as well as all the swears and prison slang, one has to know some other skills as well, like taking quick notes (what was the third figure in that long telephone number?) or interpreting simultaneously while the speaker speaks without stops (a frequent occurrence in the courts). I can tell you, it is a wringer, I myself once tried and failed. But I can understand it, after all it is not only difficult but also responsible job, a slight misunderstanding may result in somebody ending up in the wrong place for a long time. Until recently it was recognised as such by the authorities and was appropriately remunerated. I myself a year and a few hundred quid later tried that wringer exam again and passed it. Since then interpreting for courts has fed my globetrottering addiction. One can say that I have lived off crime, as all the court interpreters do.

Andy Slaughter MP at the demo

However, the British Government has decided to put a stop to this practice. Not because they think it's wrong to live off crime – after all the police, prosecutors and all the criminal lawyers live off crime just as well. No, the government decided that the interpreters earn too much. Who are they, anyway? Most of them are immigrants. They don't need all that dosh, they don't need to feed their globetrottering and other habits. Let's slash their pay, teach them a lesson. If they are not happy, we can employ other people. Cleaners for example. They are immigrants as well, aren't they? They know the lingos. They won't demand all that appropriate remuneration. 

What happened next is this: the Government decided to subcontract all court interpreting to one company called ALS. Its owner, Gavin Wheeldon, is a young man who started his company a few years ago from his bedroom. He likes to brag in the media about the Ferraris he drives but his company is the cheapest on the market, which is why it was chosen by the MoJ. It is the cheapest for a very simple reason: they pay less than a third of what the court interpreters received thus far. Not surprisingly, the NRPSI interpreters don't want to work for them. As a result this agency doesn't have enough qualified interpreters and either they don't send anybody to the assignments or on the contrary – they send just about anybody. If you are an immigrant cleaner – you can sign up with them and be sent to courts to interpret. Results would be funny if they weren't serious. I myself know of cases where the defendant left the courtroom not knowing what the sentence was, even though he had an ALS interpreter at his side.

Can you imagine the Ministry of Health deciding that the medical doctors are too expensive? Why not ask the hospital cleaners to look after the patients. They have worked in the hospital for years, they know the job,  don't they? 

One may think this is a local British problem not interesting to readers from elsewhere. Well, not quite so. It could be actually interesting to foreign governments, especially their sports ministers, as we are told that ALS has also the contract to interpret at the London Olympics!

Jajo Kralicek at the demo

Of course the professional interpreters haven't just given in. There are a few spontaneous actions, apart of boycotting the said agency. One of those actions is observing those ALS interpreters who actually turn up at courts. The NRPSI interpreters don't have much work these days but they do have time. They can go to courts and just sit there and watch. What do they see? Not surprisingly all too often lack of competence on the part of the ALS interpreters. A perfect example was observed by my friend Irena Falcone (a Polish interpreter like myself). She was watching the proceedings where the defendant had an ALS interpreter but after they left the courtroom the defendant asked Irena (he knew she was Polish as he heard her talking on the phone): “What actually was the sentence?” This demonstrates perfectly that ALS would send just about anybody. One Czech interpreter decided to prove that point and registered her pet rabbit with the agency. The rabbit, named Jajo Kralicek, was not only duly registered but actually received some assignments at courts!

On the 15^th of March the interpreters took to the streets of London. Only two: Petty France (where the MoJ has its offices) and Abingdon Street (in fron of the Parliament). A few hundred showed up, a surprisingly high number considering the nature of the profession (interpreters normally work alone and seldom meet their colleagues). It was the demo against the contract with ALS but the biggest star was actually one of the ALS interpreters. You know who? Of course Jajo the Rabbit!

Where will the next Bob Marley come from ?

A house in Dangriga

In Belize I visited black Indians.

Black Indians? Who are they? It sounds like some sort of a legend. But it is true – there is a tribe of people with black skin and Negroid features who speak an American Indian language. This language belongs to the Caribbean family of languages. Where do these people live? On the shores of the Caribbean, where else? In fact the sea derives its name from the tribe that lives on its shore.

These people used to live on the archipelago of Lesser Antilles which they colonised by paddling ina dugouts from South America. Before Columbus there was communication between North and South America, clearly the Indians considered the dugouts seaworthy. The Indians of the archipelago were the first to encounter the white people and the first to be exposed to diseases for which they had no resistance and as a result the majority of them died out. Not all, though. On the island of St. Vincent there was a tribe that stayed healthy and until the end of 18^th century successfully resisted the British. The British claimed this was their island but the Indians had a different opinion in that matter. They stayed healthy because of a coincidence – ships from Africa passed by this island and sometimes it happened that a ship full of black slaves ran aground. Some black slaves escaped and eventually they joined the tribe. Their descendants had better resistance to the new diseases and better chances to survive the epidemics. These descendants looked like Africans but spoke the language of their mothers, which was an Indian dialect belonging to the Caribbean family. The dialect called Garifuna.

A Grifuna temple in Dangriga

At the end of 18^th century the British finally pacified the island. The chief Joseph Chatoyer resisted the British until 1795, but in the end the Garifunas were beaten. The British didn't want Indians that looked like Africans on an island where black slaves were to work on sugar plantations, therefore the Garifuna were loaded onto ships and taken to Honduras, Spanish at the time. The authorities there let the Garifuna settle on the shores of the Caribbean. Later some Garifuna moved to settle in Belize, British at the time.

Before going to Belize I didn't know much about the Garifuna. I knew that they existed, that they lived in several villages in Belize and that one of those villages was called Dangriga. I hoped I would find some literature on them in Belize City. I knew there were some books published in Belize, I saw the titles on the internet but could not buy them in any internet bookshop. Where else could I find them if not in Belize city? Where indeed! When I start looking for a bookshop, nobody can tell me where to find one. Is there no bookshop in the biggest city in the country? The Anglican lady priest tells me that I should look for books in the supermarket, there is a bookshelf there. I go there and indeed I find a bookshelf with some fifteen titles on it. And some of those titles are about Belize,and some even about the Garifuna. Good.

In the afternoon I get on the bus and go to Dangriga and stop in a little hostel just next to the beach. In the morning heavy clouds come from the sea, it rains, so dangling in a hammock on the verandah I read the newly purchased books. In one of them I read that every Garifuna village has a temple in which rituals to honour the dead ancestors are held. I ask my landlady if there is such a temple in Dangriga.

Inside the Garifuna temple

“Yes, of course, on the other side of the river, by the sea. It looks like a big shed, you'll find it easily. I have never been there. I am a Garifuna myself but I am a Methodist and don't believe in the spirits of ancestors who have to be fed. But the Catholics go there. Most people in Dangriga are Catholics.”

The rain stops, so I go to that place and find the shed. One window is open. I look in. Suddenly somebody runs out of the house next door and asks in an unfriendly tone:

“What are you up to? Who opened that window?”

Not me. I ask if I could see the temple.

“If the buye lets you, but he is not here.”

It seems that I am not welcome here. Later that day I have lunch in a cafe by the river. There is a map of the village by the wall, I can see the temple I have just visited but also another temple at the other side of the village. I have to visit that place as well, then.

In Belize there are many houses on tall posts, they look as if they had the ground floor missing. Sometimes that missing ground floor serves as a yard. Somewhere near the other temple I see a group of people under the house. A woman calls me:

“What are you up to. Man?”

I say there should be a temple here somewhere.

“Come with me, I'll show you. My name is Monica.”

She leads me to a very different house next door. A house of very thin walls and covered with a huge thatched roof. The floor is just hard earth covered with fresh sand. I am told this used to be the traditional Garifuna way of building but in Dangriga there are no mire houses like that. Monica introduces me to a relatively young man named Kelvin.

“Kelvin is the buye here. A buye is the highest priest. If you want to know anything, ask him, he'll know.”

The merry Garifuna drummers

Kelvin shows me around. The interior of the temple is divided into three rooms. One is big, with a fireplace in the middle and a pot hanging over that. The second room is much smaller, the sacred drums are kept there. The third room is the smallest, it is the sanctuary with an altar and a hammock in which the buye lies when the ancestors speak to him. There are three sticks leaning against the alter, one represents the present buye, one his grandfather and the third stands for his distant ancestor, the first buye in history. There are figurines on the alter, all perfectly Catholic saints. The biggest of them sint Michael with some kind of a reptile under his foot.

“Could I make a picture?”

“I don't know. I have to ask my ancestors. You must leave for a minute, though.”

A minute later the buye emerges from the sanctuary saying that the ancestors agree. He splashes some water on the threshold.

Monica says I should listen to some of their music. She leads me to a club where there is going to be some drumming this evening. If I buy a drink for the boys they may even play now. The club opens just because I am there, they roll the drums out. They don't use drumsticks, just the palms of their hands, like in Africa. They sing in the Indian language, though. It sounds good but after a while another bottle appears and the boys get very merry, start talking nonsense. I am beginning to think that they may not be able to play in the evening.

Some people in the village suggest that I should visit the gallery of Pen Cayetano. I came across this name when I was looking for information about the Garifuna. I read that he was a musician born in Dangriga but now lives in Germany. It turned out not to be true, he lived in Germany for some time but now is back in Dangriga together with his German wife. He has a gallery here because he is also a painter. His paintings are somewhat expressionist in style but his subject is life of the Garifuna. He has some CDs, too. He plays some of them. First a group of traditional punta drummers, later his own music based on traditional rhythms but arranged for modern audience.

“Punta rock. Don't you know it? This is Garifuna music.”

I don't know it. His equipment is not the best but the music is. Rhythms of mixed African-Indian origin, Caribbean language. Pen has lots of CDs. It seems that there has been an explosion of music in this part of the world.

Maybe the next Bob Marley will come from somewhere here?

Pen Cayetano with the author

Where are all the Maya gone?

Balam Na

Aren't the ancient Maya ruins awesome? The pyramids of Tikal rising higher than the tallest trees of the jungle, the underground corridors of Palenque leading to royal tombs, the millennia-old paintings in the temples of Bonampak hidden deep in the rain forest. Tourists with cameras dangling on their bellies walk among those ruins, now and again they look into their little books they hold in their hands or stop and listen to the flow of words of a guide talking about the aMayzing ancient Maya. But you won't find any Maya people among those ruins. Where are they all gone? Have they died out?

Felipe Carillo Puerto, a small town in the middle of Mexican state of Quintana Roo, is not awesome. It appears to be sleepy and provincial. A church of very thick stone walls stands next to the central square. The inhabitants of the town are small, have darkish skin and talk in some incomprehensible language. They do speak Spanish to a visitor, though.

“What is the language you speak?” I ask a driver at a minibus stand.

“It's Maya” he answers. “”Everybody speaks it here.”

The Maya didn't die out like some other Indian tribes. Their sustenance was not game found in the forests but maize which they cultivated since times immemorial. Cultivated several varieties in four colours: yellow, red, black and white. Maize was and still is a sacred plant for them, a gift of gods, itself a god. Maize gives life, thanks to it the Maya survived. The conquistadores conquered the country but they had no intention of killing all the inhabitants. They wanted to be lords and one needs peasants to be a lord. Maya could be perfect peasants. The old intellectual elite died out, at least all those who knew the ancient script and could read the ancient books. The pagan books were burned anyway, but the Maya peasant survived. They were there and worked the land.

The Maya ladies

Then independence came. For the Maya it meant nothing, independence was declared by the descendants of Spaniards. After several generations in America the descendants did not identify themselves with Spain any more. Yucatan was not Mexico either. The Spanish speaking inhabitants of the peninsula declared independence as the Republic of Yucatan. When Mexico (also only recently independent) did not accept this decision and sent an army to pacify the rebels – the government of Yucatan decided to fight. The Mexican army was much bigger, therefore the Yucatan government decided to enlist their peasants. The Indian peasants were trained and sent to the front, the Mexican army was defeated and then the Indians were sent home. The white inhabitants of Yucatan probably thought that everything was going to be as before.

The Indians hoped something might actually change. Before was serfdom and the Indians did not like that too much. Manuel Antonio Ay, a Maya leader, stated the concerns of the Indians and as a result was executed on the market square in Valladolid. The execution took place on 26 Jul 1847. Other Maya leaders – the most prominent of whom were Cecilio Chi and Jacinto Pat – weren't going to wait for the execution. The Indians were freshly trained in the modern ways of warfare, quickly organised themselves into an army and were seizing towns of Yucatan one after another. The Maya wanted to get rid of the white invaders. The did not need peasants, they weren't taking prisoners, all whites who didn't manage to escape were executed. The whites panicked. There was even a plan to evacuate the peninsula altogether, but in the end the Mexican army was called for help and the Maya were pushed back more or less to the present border of Quintana Roo. Beyond that line the Maya had an independent state that existed until the early 20^th century. The British in Belize were neutral and traded with anybody who held power north of the Rio Hondo border. The capital of the Maya state was a town named Chan Santa Cruz, today called Felipe Carillo Puerto. This is where the Speaking Cross was kept. In 1850 an Indian named Juan de la Cruz had a vision – he heard a cross talking to him, passing the message from God: the Indians were not to give up for God was going to help them. Nobody else heard this voice but it didn't matter, a church was build to house the cross and to make sure everybody knew this was a sanctuary of the Speaking Cross – a special room was added behind the altar for someone who could play the voice of the cross. The Indians had as much reverence for the Speaking Cross as for any miracle-performing figure. They dressed it in embroidered shirts and looked after it in every possible way. Of course the ceremonies were very much like those of the ancient Maya religion. The church of the Speaking Cross was called Balam Na - this is the thick-walled church in Carillo Puerto. Erected around 1850, it is the last great temple built by the Maya.

The Maya storyteller

The gunpowder bought in Belize was of course crucial for the defence of Chan Santa Cruz, but there was another factor – the swampy forests that surrounded the town. Every few years an army was sent from Merida to sort out these “savages”, after the march through the jungle that lasted some weeks the army would reach Chan Santa Cruz, find the town deserted and enter claiming victory – only to discover that the Indians were in the forest and the army was besieged in a town in which there was no food. Some time later starving remnants would return ho me. Only in 1901, when the Mexican army built a railway through the jungle and used machine guns – was the resistance of the Maya broken. Mexico finally took control of this part of the country. The Maya, however, have not disappeared. They are there and cultivate maize as they had always done. The cult of the Speaking Cross has not disappeared either, its sanctuary still stands in Felipe Carillo Puerto. I have been there.

Felipe Carillo Puerto gives an impression of a sleepy provincial town but this is Chan Santa Cruz – the capital of the last independent Maya state. The temple of Balam Na has been taken over by the Catholic Church but the temple of the Speaking Cross stands only four streets away. There is a notice by the door informing that entry in a hat or in shoes is forbidden. The interior looks very much like a church, a presbytery is behind a low wall in the middle of which there is a passage for priests. There is an arch above the alter made with the same stone as the Balam Na church. The altar is full of figures of perfectly Catholic saints. I was shown all this by Jorge, a young Indian active in Xiaat community.

Sanctuary of the Speaking Cross

There are no famous tourist attractions in Carillo Puerto. There are hardly any tourists there, I guess only those who are interested in the living Indian culture. The Xiaat community exists especially for this purpose – to facilitate a meeting with the living culture. It is not a rich organisation, it doesn't even have any office in the town, one contact them in the internet cafe called Balam Na computation. It really is just a few young men from a nearby Maya village. In that village, called Senor, everybody speaks Maya and some people don't even know Spanish. Women wear traditional huipils – white brightly embroidered shifts. Most of the houses in the village is in the traditional Maya style, with thatched roof and the interior undivided into rooms.

The coordinator of Xiaat is Marcus. I talk to him over the phone from Balam Na Computation and visit him in Senor the next day. He shows me around the village. We meet an old man who talks about the war with Mexico. He is very very old but still not old enough to remember the war, he tells us what his father told him. He can't speak Spanish, Marcus has to translate the story. The story is very different from the one I read before coming there, which was based on written Spanish sources. The story of the old Indian is full of miracles where God fights on the side of the Maya. I ask Marcus later if they have recorded this story as the man is very very old, he says they haven't. He leads me later to a lady who knows all the medicinal plants in the forest. One of these plants is really interesting, it heals you if a snake bites your shadow. There are snakes in these parts that bite you shadow and then you fall ill. The don't bite your body, just a shadow when you walk by moonlight is enough. But don't worry, you have to visit the wise woman who knows all herbs in the forest and she will find you a cure. The lady does not speak Spanish either and Marcus has to translate. All that knowledge will be of little use for me, the herbs of the jungle don't grow in England We don't have those shadow-biting snakes either. Till later Marcus sends Jorge with me to the Sanctuary of the Speaking Cross in Carillo Puerto. I am told there are ceremonies there every morning, at 4:00 AM. I ask if I could be present at a ceremony.

“I don't think there should be a problem,” says Jorge, “but I think you should rather go to the sanctuary of Tixcacal Guardia. It is only 5 km from Senor.

Sanctuary w X-Cacal Guardia

Considering that I am staying in senor – it makes sense. I go to Tixcacal Guardia with Marcus the next day. The temple is much simpler than the Cruz Parlante in Carillo Puerto. It actually looks like an ordinary Maya house with thatched roof, only the walls are more solid and whitewashed. It is closed, they open it only for the ceremonies at 4:00 am. The priests live in the next house, also thatched. They nap in their hammocks. They are ordinary peasants who come to serve in the temple for a week at a time. One of them we met earlier in the village, normally he rides a rickshaw. The priests have no objections – I can come tomorrow morning.

We arrive the next morning. The chief priests and some other men sit in front of the temple, now open. They bring out more chairs for us, we chat. I mean Marcus talks to them in Maya as they hardly speak any Spanish. We can hear some chants inside the temple. Marcus says they are in some ancient Maya dialect and he doesn't understand everything. At one point they usher us in. One of the priests brings a steaming basket from the presbytery – it is freshly boiled corn on the cob. Another brings a container with steaming soup. Everybody gets a bowl of that soup and one corn on a cob. The grins of the maize are as white as snow.

You will find this story, and many others, in my book "ASK A GLOBETROTTER".