Rayton Martinez teaches drumming at Palmento Grove. He is Uwahnie’s nephew and Pa Euge’s grandson, and he has been playing since he was five years old.
He did not start on a drum. There wasn’t one to start on. He started on a milk pan — turned over, held between his knees, played with both hands until the rhythm came out right. When the milk pan gave up, he moved to a bucket.
That is how a lot of Garifuna drummers begin in Hopkins. The drums here are made by hand, and a child does not get given one. You play what is in the yard, and you keep playing until somebody notices you are serious.
He did not start on a drum. He started on a milk pan.
Rayton kept playing. He saved until he could buy his own drum — the first instrument that was his, rather than whatever was to hand. Years later, the person who learned on a milk pan is the person standing in front of guests in the music pavilion, putting their hands in the right place on the skin.
That is the part worth saying plainly: the drumming you hear when you visit is not a performance hired in for the evening. It is a skill somebody in this family built from nothing, over years, because the rhythm mattered to him.
When you sit down with Rayton, he starts you where he started. Hands, not sticks. One rhythm at a time, until your palms learn the difference between the sounds. Most guests are surprised how quickly the first pattern arrives — and how long the second one takes.