Sometimes when listening to a collection of songs that are being sung in a language you don't understand, you are able to appreciate them only for the music and not for the intent of the song. Certainly there are occasions where a singer's voice will convey an emotion because of his or her expressiveness, but it's not often that you really feel like you understand what's being said. Somehow, the way Ivan Duran has been able to combine the music and the voices on this CD has overcome that language barrier. You really feel like you are able to understand what the women are attempting to communicate to you.

Umalali by The Garifuna Women's Project is more than just a collection of music. It is also an introduction to a people and a unique culture. If you insert the CD into your CD ROM on your computer you gain access to some special features that include a collection of videos from each of the areas where the Garifuna people settled and you get to meet some of the people involved in the making of the disc. These are a poor people, where life is obviously a struggle against poverty and hardship. Yet, they take pride in who they are and where they come from.

Like all people in this world with a small population they are struggling to hold onto their culture and with each passing generation fewer and fewer seem interested in carrying on the ways of their fore-bearers. Yet, there are still young women in the various villages who seem willing to learn from their mothers and grandmothers so at least among the women the effort is being made to preserve that heritage. After listening to Umalali and all the beauty contained within it, I think it would be a pity if this culture were to simply vanish.

Umalali by The Garifuna Women's Project is a beautiful collection of music, and a wonderful introduction to one of the world's truly unique cultures. Let's just hope there will be future generations of Garifuna women to make more of these CDs for years and years to come. It would be horrible if the world was only to learn of them as they faded out of existence.