Roatan Cultural Park - Herbal and Bush Medicine and a History Lesson

On Tuesday, Eric and I went to the Roatan Cultural Park to learn about the different herbal and bush medicines that are used on the island. We went on a walking tour and were taken around by Clive (pictured below), who was born and raised on the island. Clive is very proud of his culture and some of the island's history.

I have mentioned before in my blog posts about our trips to Punta Gorda (where I got to dance the Punta!) and how much we enjoyed learning about that area. The people who live in Punta Gorda are the descendents of the slaves brought over from the Carribbean Islands of Saint Vincente by the British. The British brought them to Roatan because the white British people living on Saint Vincente, Saint Lucia, and some other islands said there were too many black eople and some of them needed to leave. There was also war breaking out and the British did not want the Garifuna's to assist the French in the fight over some of the Caribbean Islands. This was in the late 1700s, and this group of people is called the Garifunas. They were essentially stranded on the east coast of Roatan with no resources and were forced to learn how to live off the land and make their own way. They still live today in the same town where they were dropped by the British almost 200 years ago.

The other group of slave descendents are called the Afro-Antilleans, and they do not identify with the Garifunas. They are slaves that were brought over by the British from Africa 180 years ago (actually 181 to be exact, as Clive will tell you). This is the group of people that we learned about on Tuesday. The Garifunas and the Afro-Antilleans do not like each other, even today. They have a very tense relationship because when the British were fighting to keep control of the islands, they pitted the two groups against one another which erupted in war. 

(On a totally unrelated note, but since I'm on the history train, we had an interesting conversation with a boat captain the other day who informed us that the British were forced to give the Bay Islands to the Honduras government in the mid 1800s in order to keep Belize... which they retained until 1981. When this happened, all the people that had been living on Roatan and the other islands went from being British citizens with British passports to Hondurans. Some of the locals here are still very bitter about this, as they envision the life they feel they could have had if their ancestors had been able to maintain their British residency.)

Anywhooooo, back to our walking tour. So Clive told us a lot about what I explained above, and also filled us in some on his religion. He is a Rastafarian and is considered a prophet in this religion. He went into an elaborate story about something vaguely related to the Rastafarian's establishing an independent nation but I had no idea what was going on and rather than tell a totally incorrect story I am just going to leave it at that :)

Clive was incredibly knowledgeable about the different plants and trees that grow on the island and how they can be used for different medicinal purposes as well as other things. The Cultural Park sits on 130 acres and in addition to the walking tour, you can also do a 1.5 hour hike and see all the other plants and trees that they grow (mostly cashews, corn, marijuana... which they use a lot medicinally apparently, etc). On the tour, we learned about, touched, smelled, and even got to taste a variety of the different plants that grow around the park. We learned about the Nut Tree, which grows huge nuts that can also be used to make plates and bowls. We saw and touched the Fence Bush that is mashed and used to treat wounds when you step on a rusty nail. We learned about and tasted plants that are used for lung and kidney infections, laxatives, and to make women more fertile.  We smelled herbs like sage that are used for cooking and teas. We got to eat sugar cane, which was cut fresh by Clive that day! We also got to try what the locals call Island Bubblegum, which is a fruit with a large nut in the middle that you slowly chew on. At the end of the day, we even sampled a little cashew wine, made directly from the cashews grown in the park.  

The Cultural Park itself is interesting.... think Living History Farms... but yet not at all. It's built in an old resort, and you can still see the old pools filled with dirty rain water, pool tables, a painted submarine for children to climb on, etc., that they didn't have the money, time, or desire to move or disguise. The park is kind of built around this stuff, and people actually live in some of the thatch roofed houses in the park... (which made me envious that Living History Farms doesn't let it's volunteers stay there because that would be AMAZING).  Overall it is so perfectly Honduras with the random combination of things.

So, below is a picture of me holding the lemon grass that you boil in tea to make you relax. Clive suggested drinking it before you go to bed. The other picture is Clive and I eating the fresh sugar can he cut. Eric thought it was funny how Clive just bit into it with no problem, but I tried to be dainty about it. You can see all the sugar cane on the table.

Above is a picture of a kind of plant that is found on the beach. I can't remember the medicinal purpose of this, but what I do remember is that the children rip of the leaves and use the thick stems as a jump rope. Below is a picture of a kitchen they built at the cultural park. These kitchens are actually very common - most people here have a kitchen in their house and one outside. There are a couple reasons for this. Stoves here use propane, which is expensive. This helps save a little money, especially with things like beans which can take more than 2 hours to cook. Also, cooking outside is cooler sometimes because you can get a breeze. The oven is made out of mud and then they make a stove by putting a piece of metal (or tin? I don't really know) over the top. As you can see below, Clive was boiling some of the different plants to make a tea. There were 5 plants in the pot - according to tradition, you only put in plants in odd numbers, so all mixtures have to have either 1,3,5,7 plants and so on.

I just thought this was neat. These are nuts that are very similar to coconuts and even have a little coconut "meat" inside them. But they use the oil from the nut to light their lamps with. He said it was very effective and obviously much less expensive than using electricity (which I think I have mentioned before, costs an absolutely FORTUNE on this island).

So, we have learned a lot about the history here and have loved learning about the island's past and the different groups. Depending on who you talk to, the story always changes a little bit (as I'm sure it did above in my own personal rendition as well), but the big parts always seem to stay the same. At least my version had some pictures included :)