The Long Trip, Part II

The Long Trip: Part II

Our mother’s mood swings can be fun, when she is on the high part of them. My mother and I dance around the house singing and laughing, she looks beautiful with her long dark hair swinging freely and a rosy flush on her cheeks.

 “Come on TT, dance with us!" I say to my sister through fits of giggles. 

Sarah Jane wants no part of it; she is content in the corner drawing. "I'm busy," she says sternly without turning in our direction. I can't for the life of me figure out why Sarah Jane or TT, as I call her, would want to miss this fun time, but she knows something I am too young to comprehend, that these highs our mother has, are undoubtedly always followed by crushing lows. We are still having fun, we play with dolls, my mother doing different voices for each, we try on some makeup that she brought over from the States, she even picks me up over her head, and lets me pretend I am an airplane.  I am in heaven playing with her. We only stop because we are both exhausted, and she must go outside to start dinner. 

Our kitchen is just outside and to the right of our house. A gigantic tree, which must have fallen some time ago makes up our table, this is also where our father likes to sit and smoke in the evenings. A roof consisting of old pieces of siding and fencing is secured to some small surrounding trees and shelters the area from rain. Our stove is made up of an old oil barrel with the top and part of one side cut off. Broken cinder blocks are used to fill it up, and weigh it down from strong winds. Fire wood is placed on top of the cinder blocks, and a make-shift grill made of chicken wire is placed on top of the wood, for the pots and pans to sit upon. When the fire gets low, it needs someone to blow on it, so the fire can grow from the blast of oxygen. While this gets the fire going stronger and hotter, the blower usually ends up with a face full of ashes and soot, that come bursting from the stove as the air is blown in. 

Despite the primitive set up, and our father constantly telling her she cooks like a foolish white woman, our mother enjoys cooking. After playing with me for hours, she slips out to begin cooking the rice and beans for dinner. The cooking process takes a while, getting the fire started and such, so I occupy myself by drawing wonderful swirls with a crayon on paper. Sarah Jane has stopped drawing, she is sitting up stiffly looking intently at the back door, passing a little rubber ball between her hands. She is waiting for what is coming; the devastating low of our mothers mood swing. Then we hear it, a scream of pain from outside. We run out to see what happened, and find our mother holding her arm, she burnt herself as a piping hot coal fell from the stove. 

"Are you Okay Mommy?" I ask, still blissfully ignorant of what is coming. 

"No, I'm not okay! I can't do all this!" she shouts, sounding angry and panicky. She turns sharply to Sarah Jane and me; there is anger and hate in her usual gentle eyes. 

“This is your fault! Look what you did to me!" now she is screaming. "I have to cook for you and clean for your, I can't do it all!" She turns away and begins to sob. Our father is not here, he is in town, I wish he was here, he would know what to do. 

"Leave me alone! Get in the house!" she cries out between sobs. "I'm going to the river." She turns without looking at us toward the pineapple and banana tree-lined path. Sarah Jane grabs my arm firmly yet gently and guides me inside.

“Mommy is mad at us," I say through hiccups and sobs. I can see the hurt on Sarah Jane's face too, but she is holding it in. 

"She's not mad," she tell me, "She just burnt herself. Let's clean the house and that will make her happy again." 

We get to work quickly cleaning the house. We put all our clothes away in the duffle bags we use for travel and storage, we put our small collection of toys in the corner, and as I work on putting the crayons away, Sarah Jane goes outside to check on the now boiling pot of beans our mother abandoned on the stove. Minutes turn to hours as we wait for her to come back from the river. The beans finish cooking while Sarah Jane starts a smaller pot with rice. Before the rice is done, our mother returns, her eyes and lips puffy from crying. She comes up the three steps and through the door slowly, eyes cast down. We are standing in the middle of the house, I am clinging tightly to Sarah Jane's arm, and we pray she is not mad anymore. 

"The house looks wonderful," she says quietly. "You girls did a good job cleaning." 

Sarah Jane walks over to her, "Grandma told me this goes on burns." 

She hands our mother a tub of petroleum jelly. Our mother drops to her knees and throw open her arms. 

"My girls, what would I do without you?" she says. 

We both dive into her arms as she squeezes us tight. I nestle my head into her neck and take in her scent, the wonderful smell of patchouli oil. While in her arms I am sure everything is going to be alright. Though her mood is better, the cloud around her does not lift until our father returns, with a cookie for Sarah Jane and me to split and a small bottle of whiskey. This pattern became more and more frequent, until there is no money left and little food. Every night, our bellies ache so much with hunger, occasionally I crawl into Sarah Jane's lap whimpering, and she holds me, rocking me back and forth and singing a song she made up just for me. 

 We all try to be resourceful; our father goes hunting and fishing, sometimes returning with a small booty. Our mother stretches everything as far as she can and always eats last. Sarah Jane and I try to help by stalking the pineapple plants, checking them every day for signs of a ripening pineapple, ready to taste the tingly sweet juice on our tongues.

The countdown until we will leave has already started, our parents did not want to admit it, but they will not be living off the land, not this time. Now it is only a matter of time, the fights stop, they are replaced with quite whispered conversations which take place after they think we are asleep. Before long, we pack our duffel bags, put on our clothes that cover as much of our bodies from the dangerous jungle hike as possible, and begin our journey to the States. "It's just for a little while," our mother says trying to reassure herself. "We'll be back with your father in no time; he just needs some time to work out a plan." Reasons are irrelevant to me, all I can think is soon I will have Twinkies and cottage cheese again, we won't be hungry anymore, and best of all, I will be in Michigan for my fourth birthday.

This is where I feel safe and content, here on Farragut Court in Northville, Michigan. The weather is cold, there is snow covering everything, and that only makes it more wonderful. Sarah Jane and I love to play in the snow. We strap on our snowsuits, mittens, hats and scarves that have been patiently waiting for us to pull them out of the storage closet and use them. We stay out in the snow playing, building snow forts, making snow angels, and trying to get a grown up to take us to the hill a few blocks away for sledding . We stay out until the bitter arctic air has made our noses and lips numb, then still giggling and coated with clumps of snow, dash inside to run our hands under the warm water, and then return to the frozen back yard.  We must follow our grandparent’s strict rules when we stay with them, and we miss our father and the freedom we had in Belize, but the comforts and playmates that we find in Michigan make it easier to live with these rules. I think of my birthday, just a little ways away, I will get a scrumptious homemade cake, any kind I want. I think about spring, when we can put on shorts and roll down the plush grassy hill. 

For now we can gorge ourselves on Twinkies, cheese puffs and fried bologna sandwiches. It will not last; we know that it is only a matter of time. She will begin to miss him, the crying will start, the longing for her husband would become unbearable, and the panic attacks would start. Sadness and panic will overwhelm our mother, and then, we will return to our father, and the dark, mysterious jungle to which he seems anchored. For now, we will play in the snow, for now, we are secure, protected and blissful.

The Long Trip, Part 1

The Long Trip, Part 1

One of my earliest clear memories is riding on my father's back, as we tracked through the Belizean jungle, the musty smell of his long dreadlocks filling my nose, and their rough texture tickling my cheek. I can see a blur of silver as the blade of his machete flies diagonally across his body while he whips it through the thick dense brush with every step. Behind me are my mother, her alabaster skin flushed pink with heat and exhaustion, and my older sister Sarah Jane, her face in a determined scowl as she makes her way through the newly cut yet still treacherous terrain. 

I have the best seat in the house, perched on my father’s back, but the long day of travel from Detroit to Belize City, then to the jungle has taken a toll on my small body. I am tired, hungry and a little hesitant of what lies ahead. After the arduous mile hike, we reach our destination, a small 15' by 15' house on stilts, sitting among the colossal trees of the rain forest. The house, which my father built by hand, is simply made of planks of wood nailed together with windows on two of the walls and doors on the other two. The planks did not fit perfectly together, so there were gaps, some of them several centimeters wide along all the walls and the floor. The roof is made of sheets of zinc overlapping and nailed together. The posts of the house are made from the trunks of a gumbo- limbo tree,  which are known for taking root and growing even after being cut down and chopped into logs.  Our posts had done just that and were sprouting small branches and leaves. 

This is now our home, not just the tiny house, but also all the land surrounding the diminutive shack. "Here we are, my sweetness’s!" my father exclaims in his Belizean­ Criol accent. 

He gently lowers me to the ground, and I quickly scramble over to my mother, who scoops me up so swiftly it gives the impression of a reflex. 

"I'll have it ready for you swiftly," he says excitedly as he disappears behind the house and reappears with a crowbar. 

The doors of the house have a large wooden board nailed across them, to prevent them from opening. He goes to work on removing the wooden board at a rapid pace, and is done fast. Despite his strong muscular frame, my father is not particularly fond of physical work, in fact he detests it. This type of job, habitually, would be accompanied by a vast amount of cursing, but he is in high spirits today, because he finally has his family back.

We entered the house as one unit, my mother still carrying me and my sister attached to her leg. My father has not told us to come in yet, but the sun has set and the heavy darkness that blankets the jungle at night is taking over. There may have been a few more scorpions, snakes and tarantulas for him to kill inside, but at least we had walls around us. 

"Do you remember this house?" my mother whispers gleefully to Sarah Jane and me. 

We do remember, Sarah Jane more so than me, because of my young age, but both of us can recall the joys and terrors of this place.

The first few days are tough and thorny. Sarah Jane and I have to adjust to a different diet and different activities; the rainforest itself has to adjust to our presence. We were the intruders, not the snakes and monkeys. We have hiked away from society and into the wilds of Belize. The nights are hard to adapt to; the jungle becomes alive with sound. The monkeys howl and birds caw, the cockroaches search for food while the scorpions search for cockroaches. Sarah Jane and I sleep close as we can to our mother, hoping nothing crawls our way in the dark of night. 

I remember my bedtime routine in Michigan, before we had left for the jungle: Sitting on my cozy twin bed in my grandparents' house, having been freshly plucked out of the sudsy warmth of the bathtub and towel dried. The smell of the Johnsons baby shampoo still fragrant in my damp hair. As my mother stuffed me into a pink fleece onesie, I began asking for my most precious item: my bummy. Bummy was my name for my book of Mother Goose rhymes, no one knows why I chose that name, but since I could speak, I had been demanding my bummy, I am told it was one of my first words. Sarah Jane and my mother would begin their nightly search for my bummy - under the bed, behind the toy chest, in the closet. Each of them scurrying around fast and franticly, as my demands for the book  grew louder and louder. Once found, all three of us would pile in my twin bed and begin to read, I knew each poem by heart, and would soon drift to sleep with the gentle rhymes floating in my dreamy mind. 

Now, in Belize, bedtime is different, our entire house is not much bigger than the room Sarah and I shared at my grandparents. We cannot take a bath at night, because all our bathing is either done in Cacao creek, the heavily canopied river just about 100 yards in front of our house or with water hauled from the river in a bucket. Whichever way, bathing is done during the heat of the day and even then, the cool water would cause goose bumps to spring up on our brown little backs. For bedtime, we are dressed in sleeveless nightgowns as we listen to the howler monkeys and the crickets chatter outside. As Sarah Jane and I roll out the large piece of foam we use for a mattress, our mother gets my bummy out. One nice thing about such a small house, we never have to search for my bummy. While our father sits outside listening to the radio and smoking a joint, the three of us pile into bed, and begin to read the comforting words of Mother Goose. Sarah Jane knows the rhymes by heart too, and will sometimes say a few of them, with her sweet, soothing voice coating my ears; I drift into safe happy dreams.

He was a natural born entertainer, so our father will always find ways to make Sarah Jane and I laugh. Singing songs he simply makes up as he goes or telling us action packed fairytales of Anansi the spider. Our favorite form of entertainment is what we call the "noodle dance," Stark naked; he dances wildly and shakes about the house, laughing at himself with every ridiculous movement. We cannot contain ourselves, within just a few seconds of the dance, we are belly laughing, rolling around on the rigid wooden floor, barely able to breathe. Our mother tries to maintain composure as long as she can but before long, she is on the floor laughing just as hard as us. We solicit him for a story or song or the noodle dance almost every night, but if the mood was not right, he remains outside, smoking and grumbling about "no peace and quiet with girls" and "too much rass," pretending not to hear us. Rass is the Belizean word for BS, and one of my father’s all-time favorites.

Except for the few pineapple plants and banana trees, there are not much grows on our  land, so our father goes to Punta Gorda town to get food and supplies once every two weeks. They want to live off the land, he and my mother, but as of yet the only action towards this goal has been planting a few fruit trees and hibiscus bushes around the property. He is usually in a bad mood when it is time to go to town, firstly due to arguments about money. The money we have is what our mother was able to save during our last stay in Michigan. Secondly, because the trip to town is long and straining. After he hikes the mile out of the jungle, which takes anywhere from 30 minutes to and an hour, depending on what the jungle has in store for him, he waits on the side on the dirt road, sun beating down on him, for a truck to come by so he can "hail a ride." If he is lucky, this kind stranger will take him all the way to PG town, but sometimes the driver is headed to another town like Dangrigia, or Orangewalk, and can only take him part of the way. Once dropped off, he must again wait on the side of the dusty road, grime sticking to his now sweat-coated clothes, for another willing driver to help him finish the journey. 

Once in town, things drastically improve. Everyone in town knows "Congo Charlie" and is thrilled to have him back among them. He uses his natural charisma to enchant the  locals with harrowing, sometimes tall tales of jungle life. Everywhere he turns he hears "Charlie! Charlie, I have smoke for you" or "Charlie! Have a drink with me!" Although the journey to town and back can be done in one day, he almost always stays longer. The free pot to smoke, beer and rum to drink, and an open invitation to stay at the local brothel tend to draw him in for a few days, but he will always come back to us. 

Finally, he returns, getting dropped off by his ride, whomever he was able to find this time, on the dirt road, then making the mile hike back to his family. We can hear him calling to us from far away, and all of us come running, standing at the edge of the thick brush, waiting for him to appear in his straw hat. Our mother is as excited as she can be. 

"It’s him, I can hear him! Your father is back!" she exclaims, like a teenage girl about to meet her idol. 

As soon as he sees us, he drops all his bags and runs over. 

"Sweetness’s! Daddy's heartstrings!" he declares, and he lifts both Sarah Jane and me up and twirls us around. 

He smells of marijuana and stale booze, a musk he wears so often, it brings me comfort, it is the smell of my daddy. From his journey he always comes back with gossip about what was going on in town, large bags of rice and beans, a chicken which is just starting to thaw after the long journey, plus a new supply of marijuana and a bottle of rum, which will keep him content until his next trip.

The money does not last long. This means supply trips to town get less frequent, which means more time together and less food, which means more fighting. More fighting means more crying and more mood swings for our mother. During the really ghastly fights, Sarah Jane and I stay outside. In front of the house we distract ourselves by playing with our rag dolls and the happy apple, a plastic apple with a smiley face that rocked back and forth and played out-of-tune music. Our father storms out of the house, and heads towards the path out of the jungle, without so much as a glance at us girls. Grumbling words like "that honkey white bitch" and "fuckin' rass" under his breath, he plunges into the jungle, machete twirling in front of him. As soon as he leaves, our mother's mental stability begins to deteriorate. 

Summer Meetings

May 1984-zooming along I 696 in my mother’s dirt brown Buick. Bob Marley and the Whalers were wailin’ on the cassette player. The windows were all open, letting in the much anticipated spring air. I was enjoying how the wind was playing in my hair, causing it to whip wildly in the air above my head and brushing the ceiling of the car. The frantic energy of the wind matched the mix of excited emotions inside me.

I was going to see my best friends....my sisters. 

Sarah and Rosie....

I came up in the bourgeois public school system of Birmingham Michigan, and coming there from a once rural, and extremely counter culture farm life... needless to say kids thought I was quirky at best. To say that I had crowds of friends would just be a lie....but that was ok, because I always knew that I had Sarah and Rosie. I looked forward to their letters filled with stories about their dogs, and chickens....fantastic tales of imaginary characters (based mostly on the misadventures of their chicken population). I loved hearing about the exotic fruits and plants that they had where they lived. 

There is a fruit there called Craboo. I always wanted to know what it tasted like, because my sisters insisted that the taste defied description. It all seemed very exciting to me to live in the jungle. I had lived in the northern woods in a cabin and tents during my earliest years, and missed the life of nature and endless play that I had become accustomed to. The banal suburban existence that was placed in my path was mild at best in my mind compared to the extraordinary life in which my dearest friends still lived.

My partners in crime lived in Belize Central America for the majority of the time. While they enjoyed themselves because, of course, they were children, and children find any way to entertain themselves in any situation, it was a very difficult life for them sometimes. There were many times that Charles, their father would disappear for days with the understanding that he was going to get much needed provisions. Sometimes he came back with food, but it was hardly ever enough to feed their growing family. 

I was never sheltered from the knowledge of how difficult their life was. Nor was I ever allowed to take for granted all of the privileges that I had been given. While most children were being told "Eat that broccoli, there are starving children in Africa who would LOVE to have that!" I was being told "Eat that broccoli, your best friends are starving in Belize and would LOVE to have that." Even as a small child, I knew that it was true.

Even so...I fantasized about climbing trees, swimming in the clear blue pools of the river, visiting Mayan ruins, and talking to fairies in the jungle with them...This is where they lived. It was another world from me....seemingly a fantasy land, filled with magical creatures and fascinating mysteries.

But...when reality reared its ugly head, and somebody needed a dentist or, Na, their mother and my mother’s best friend, would need to see a Doctor. They would come to the States and stay in Northville with their grandparents, Grandma and Grandpa Burr. I was closer with them than I ever had been to my own biological grandparents. They were wonderful yet strict and structured people. When I went there, I would have to make sure to "be a good guest". 

No problem!
This is where we were driving now! I was 8 years old, Sarah almost 10, and Rosie 7. The three of us together spun stories that defy understanding to anyone but ourselves. We had our own language (still do, we call it gypsy). When they were here, my life was my world with them.

A magical place where everything was possible. We would lose ourselves in the intricate characters that we would invent. Sometimes we were wandering orphans, fending for ourselves in abandoned buildings....many times in actual abandoned buildings that we would claim as a temporary club house. Then we could be mermaids escaping from a hungry giant, who wanted nothing better than to tuck in to some good ole mermaid stew. Other times we were wolves, searching for the perfect spot to build our den for our new litters of pups. Then there were....the Barbie games! They were by far better than any soap opera that anybody had ever seen.

This is who my mother was taking me to see today! 

It had been easily a year since we had seen each other last...maybe longer. 

It hadn't occurred to me that my mother may be just as excited as I was to see her best friend as well. 

I was wearing an orange and white striped pinafore with my favorite white patent leather shoes and white tights. My hair was down and long. The wind had formed it into a "devil may care" sort of style, and I was ready! I was ready to see my friends! 

As the car pulled into the large immaculate driveway, suddenly an emotion came over me that I wasn't prepared for. 

The emotion was fear. 

What if they didn't like me anymore? What if they were better friends with each other and I wouldn't fit into their games anymore? How would we greet each other? Would we hug? Would we squeal and jump around each other and grab and clutch and hug and kiss and be excited (like we do now)? Or would we stay calm and feel each other out?

It had been easily a year since we had seen each other. So much can change.

I realized that I had actually been biting the back of the head rest of the driver side seat in front of me, leaving dozens of little dimples in the upholstery behind my mother’s head. My dad would not be happy....oh well.

We walked up the flower lined walkway towards the wooden door of the condo where Grandma and Grandpa lived. My heart started beating faster and faster. 

This was it. I was going to play with my friends!

The door opened and Grandma Burr smiled down at me warmly. She grabbed me and hug me tight, as though she had seen and granddaughter that she hadn't seen for years. I felt so welcomed by her.  I still didn't see my friends though. Suddenly, I heard thundering footsteps! My sister Sarah came bounding down the stairs followed very quickly by little Rosie, but stopped before they reached the bottom of the stairs.

I looked at Sarah and recognized the outfit she had on. Pink shorts that were once mine before my well-fed body grew out of them, and a white T shirt that we had painted together with glitter and puff paints...it WAS the 80's after all. I loved those shorts but, as usual my clothes looked better on her than they did on me. I noticed that they DID look like they had been going hungry. Skinny legs and arms. Clothing fell loose on Rosie’s tiny frame.

Sarah stood looking at me with what I'm sure were the same fears that I had about our reunion. They both seemed nervous, but ecstatic at the same time. Who knows how long they were going to be here this time, or how long they would be gone once they inevitably were taken away again.

They were here! Now! I was looking at them! My life had begun again! I got to be a mermaid again! Sarah would of course control the games, being the oldest, but I never minded. She always came up with the greatest games. My sisters were home!

I would spend every weekend with them until school let out, and then once summer vacation began, we would be together for at least the next 2 months straight. Standing in the middle of the stairs with giant beaming smiles on their faces, Rosie and Sarah peered at me between the rungs of the bannister.  Sarah looked at me. With an excited, smiling ring to her voice, that still makes my heart smile to this day, she said with ultimate joy, "HI RACHEL!"

Every summer that my sisters were with me was the greatest summer of my life.

Creation Myth, Part 2

My father was a native Belizean. Born and raised in the colony of British Honduras, he left just before it was granted self-government in 1964. He used to say Belize will always call you back.

In 1973, Charles Douglas Forman was 26 and just off the plane. He was the prodigal son, returning to his homeland after years in North America. His afro was neat and low and he could speak English with a nearly perfect American accent. Well dressed and handsome, with a magnetic smile and perfectly cleft chin, he had come to dazzle his former squad of street urchins with James Brown inspired dance moves.

My dad’s parents, Leone Mason and Charles Forman were not married.  In fact, my dad was what Belizeans call a shalleye baby. A shalleye baby is, essentially, a child born out of wedlock.  When the mother presents the baby to the purported father he asks “shall I claim him, or shall I deny him?” Thus the name shalleye.

My grandmother says that on the day she delivered my father there was another woman in the hospital who was also pregnant with the child of Charles Forman, my grandfather.  Grandpa had a way with the ladies.  At the time (and still somewhat today) it was not uncommon in Belize for a married man to have multiple shalleye babies with other women.  There is even a Belizean folk song about it.

Shalleye baby/ dat a shalleye pikni/ I no pikni daddy\dat a shalleye baby

But it is not easy growing up as a shalleye baby. GrandpaForman was a relatively wealthy Creole man but he did very little to help my father. Grandma Leone was left to raise him and her other children, by several different men, on her own. She lived on Raccoon street in a wooden colonial-style house they was slowly succumbing to the heat and humidity of the tropics. To make ends meet, Leone put her children to work roasting and then shelling raw cashew nuts which she and uncle Bluebeard sold at market. The acid from the cashew shells burned my fathers little hands after long hours shelling the nuts.

By sixth grade, Charles had dropped out of school and was hustling full time for a living.  My grandmother tired to discipline him by sending him to work for uncle Bluebeard, who had a cart from which he vended nuts, shaved ice, and fruit. Bluebeard was an ill-tempered alcoholic who went heavy on the belt. He violently beat my father on a regular basis. Although beating children was part of the culture, Bluebeard didn’t know when to stop. He would leave my father with bleeding, broken skin that formed gnarled scars on his backside. Eventually the scars on his skin faded, but the ones that had cut deeper never did.

When he was old enough, Charles escaped Bluebeards clutches and went back to live with his Mother. He landed a coveted job as a waiter at the tony Fort George Hotel. The Fort George was a bastion of colonial values. Business men and colonial types kicked back in the white wicker chairs on its ocean-side porch and speak of their affairs in the Queens English while sipping lemon and cane juice from an impeccably sparkling class, hand-shined tableside by a grinning black boy.

At the Fort George, my father learned how to cater to the needs of the rich, white men who were quickly impressed with his wit, charm and attention to detail. There was one man in particular, a Canadian business man, who took a liking to the young Charles Forman. The Canadian had considerable wealth, but no children of his own, so he enjoyed lavishing attention onto Charlie, as he called my dad. These were halcyon days in the life of the colony, and they were about to come to an end.

On October 31, 1961 Hurricane Hattie made landfall just south of Belize City. Powerful Hattie was a category five storm. She devastated the city. Gale force winds tore apart buildings. Even the hurricane shelters where people had been evacuated to were destroyed. A storm tide surged up to the third floor of any buildings that did remain standing. Hundreds of people died and the city was in ruins. When the waters receded, the stench of death rose from the rubble. Thousands of survivors swarmed the streets for days digging in the crumbled ruins in search of any kind of food. My grandmother and her children survived, but my father had lost faith in the colonial authorities who, in spite of ample warnings, seemed unprepared for the wrath of Hattie and aloof in their relief efforts after the storm.

The Canadian returned shortly after Hattie struck to survey the damage and check on Charlie’s wellbeing. Perhaps he saw the desperation in the young man’s eyes, or was overcome by the crushing blow Hattie had dealt to the city he so loved and its residents. Whatever the reason, he offered my father what he had been praying for: a future without bluebeard, hurricanes, poverty, and colonial oppression. Charlie was to come live with him in faraway Canada. My father jumped at the chance. So, like me, my father was 14 years old when he got his one-way ticket out of Belize.

He didn’t look back until 1973.

My mother was wearing a white caftan that was nearly see-through as she stood in at the fruit stall in Market Square.  She had never bought a mango before and the woman at the stall was giving her a hard time. The locals did not quite know what to make of this strange nearly naked white woman with a backpack. 

But my father knew.

Creation Myth, Part 1

My father was a good shot, when his gun was working. You have to be if your dinner depends on shooting a four foot iguana that is ambling high in the rain forest canopy. The problem was that sometimes they fell out of the tree and into the river, sinking to the bottom, becoming very difficult to find. It could be several days later that the carcass was spotted by me or my sister, stuck in flotsam along the river’s edge.

“I knew I got him!” My father exclaimed as the bloated, very dead iguana drifted lazily by.

The iguana escaped the soup pot but, unfortunately, had not cheated death.

Ever since he came back from iguana hunting empty handed we teased him about missing the shot. He swore that he had not missed, and now he was vindicated. He removed the swollen creature from the water and lamented about the waste of a good meal. Rosie and I we not particularly fond of iguana stew anyway because the meat is very dark and a bit slimy. In fact, we though iguana was pretty gross. We figured the iguana had done us a favor by escaping.

However, we kept this to ourselves because if our father was hunting iguana, it meant that times were tough. Truth be told, neither he nor my mother enjoyed iguana but it was better than nothing and most of the time, nothing was what we had.

My parents met in February 1973 in Market Square in the heart of Belize City. Market square is still a bustling locale, where vendors hawk everything from cashew fruit to brightly colored Sunday dresses.

Mary Kay Burr was 23 years old in 1973. The daughter of an accountant and a country-club secretary, she had a bachelor’s degree in theater from Wayne State University in Detroit. She was the captain of the cheerleading squad at Farmington High School in Farmington Hills, Michigan. She was Miss Teen Michigan, and went on to compete in the Miss Teen USA pageant in Texas. She sang soprano and starred in several opera productions while at Wayne State. After college, she made a very good living singing jingles for radio commercials and performing in night clubs, including the Playboy Club in Detroit. By all outward appearances, she was successful. She had her own downtown penthouse apartment, a nice car, and plenty of suitors. 

But she was restless; something inside of her would not sit still. Maybe it’s the same thing that compelled me to make the agonizing choice fifteen years later to walk away, by myself, from my family. But, then again, maybe not.

After her beauty pageant days, Mary Kay became a back-to-nature flower child. When McGovern lost the 1972 election, she decided to backpack through Central America. Her stated destination was Columbia, South America, but like any free-wheeling non-conformist, the real destination was the journey itself.

I don’t know what made her throw her belongings into a backpack and take off. In the 60’s revolution and lots of pot smoke was in the air and everyone was high off of it. Bras were burnt and armpits were hairy. My mom and her hippie friends dreamt of a new world order where peace and love prevailed. But by 1972 America was waking up from the dream. Mary Kay was not ready for that. She held on to her dreams, packed them in that backpack with her caftans and patchouli oil, and headed to Mexico.

She ended up in Belize by accident. Mexico turned out to be a terrible misadventure that she barely survived. She met a man there who, like all men, was probably attracted to her stunning looks. She had long dark hair, fair skin that could hold a glowing tan, and big doe eyes. And she was, perhaps, a bit naive. The man was wealthy. He took her out, they had fun, and then they went back to his place. He wanted things to go further than she did. When she declined his advances, he took what he wanted.

Afterwards her, he locked her in a room and left her dazed and shaken on the floor. It was something she wouldn’t talk about for 30 years.

She had no idea where she was. The room had a narrow window that looked out onto a stretch of ocean populated with mangrove trees. She managed to open the window and squeeze her body through it, making her way by swimming through the mangroves along the shoreline until she saw signs of civilization. She was helped by a couple of long haired beach bums who were also young American travelers. They were headed to the Yucatan in their VW Bus. In need of the kindness of strangers, my mom went along for the ride. 

The Yucatan, with its unspoiled stretches of white sand, was the perfect place to recover from her ordeal. The two travelers were gentlemen who treated her kindly and did not try to take advantage of her. But, like many a tourist in Mexico, Montezuma’s revenge eventually caught up with her. Her companions nursed her back to health but the bout with dysentery took its toll. She did not feel strong enough to continue as planned onto the Pan-American Highway to South America. There was a country she had never heard of just a few miles south. British Honduras (now Belize) was just a days drive away.

And so the Michigan beauty queen found herself on the hot and crowded streets of the British colony, trying to discern the thick Pidgin English dialect as she haggled over the price of a mango.

In steps my father. 

Sparkles of Hope

Some things are just meant to be.  That was the unshakable feeling I had about my sparkly Smurfette sandals.  They came to me in an unexpected way, against all odds. 

The day they dropped themselves into my life was a reasonably ordinary day in the life of a pair of jungle girls.  Our mother was pillaging through the old, army green duffel bags we kept under the house, looking for a few new items to add to our wardrobe.  During our visits to Michigan, she would stock up on clothing for my older sister Sarah and me to wear during our time in the jungle.  Our baby sister Minni didn't have a stockpile of clothes in these duffel bags yet, all she wore at the time was a diaper, sometimes a little sleeping gown, sometimes nothing at all.  Everything in the duffel bags was usually kept dry and safe for future use beneath a tarp, under our stilted house.  

Sarah and I had 4 or 5 outfits each, that we wore over and over, week in, week out.  Being active little girls living in the jungle, our clothes took quite a beating.  Between climbing every tree we could find, the constant presence of mildew, soot from the fire we used for cooking and scrubbing them on river rocks to keep them clean, our clothes were destined to fall apart, meeting their journey's end as kitchen or bath rags.  In the past few weeks leading up to this particular day, two major clothing casualties had occurred.  First, my sister snagged her pink shorts on a tree, causing a huge hole on one side.  Then, my favorite gray dress with the tiny flowers ripped and, after being mended so many times that the fabric became thin in spots, was beyond repair.  Sarah and I watched with great anticipation as my mother searched through the duffel bags. 

The days of clothing replacement were always bittersweet.  With so few outfits to choose from, we grew quite attached to what we had.  Each one had its own feeling, its own spirit.  I was sad to give up my grey dress, it was perfect for twirling.  I knew Sarah felt the same about her pink shorts, they fit her perfectly, hugging her long legs with a very complimentary pink color.  But replacing the clothes was exciting as well because since we didn't get to shop for new clothes in the jungle of Belize, this was as close as we got retail therapy.  The idea of something new, or at least new to us (most of the items in the duffel bags were hand-me-downs from family and friends) was very intriguing.  After several minutes of digging through the bags, our mother finally pulled out a light pink top and a pair of blue shorts for me.  The shorts were a bit long, and the top had a tendency to slip off one shoulder. This new outfit certainly lacked the fun whimsical quality of my grey dress, but I knew the shorts would be ideal for climbing trees. My mother continued digging, pulling out a wrinkled pair of white shorts with rainbow piping for Sarah.  She also found out a yellow tank top.  They both fit perfectly, and Sarah was satisfied.  She definitely got the better end of the deal, as my slightly over-sized clothes seemed flat and dull in comparison to her fanciful new outfit.  I let out a sigh of disappointment, and yanked the neck of my shirt back in place.  However, a surprise awaited me; my mother pulled out a pair of sparking pink sandals from the duffel and set them on the floor. 

"I forgot I packed these.”

"My Smurfette sandals!" Sarah said with excitement and confusion. 

That is exactly what they were, the wonderful Smurfette sandals Sarah had worn during our last summer in Michigan, over two years ago.  I could still picture her, prancing around on the perfectly manicured lawns of Farragut Court in those sparkly shoes. She was a true vision.

"These are too small for you, honey," my mother said.  "You were out growing them last time we were in Michigan."

Sarah was already busily trying to cram her foot into one of the sandals.  There was no denying that they were way too small.  Her foot barely fit between the delicate side straps, and her toes and heel were hanging over the edges of the shoe.

"Try them on, Rosie," my mother said as she tossed one of the sandals towards me.

I slipped the sandal on my foot, and buckled it as tight as it would go.  The shoes were a bit big, and already had quite a few miles on them, but I felt like Cinderella.  I knew then and there these shoes were exceptional.  My mother examined how the sandals fit, and told me I could wear them with socks until I grew into them.  I scrambled to find a pair of socks, strapped on both sandals and trotted outside.  I couldn't believe my luck.  My mother could have left these shoes behind in Michigan, it would have made sense, they were too small for Sarah and too big for me.  If my mother had found these shoes in the duffel earlier, Sarah may have been able to squeeze her foot into them, and she would have been able to claim them as her own once again. But as luck would have it, those events did not happen, the shoes made their way to Belize, and remained hidden for two years -- it was simply meant to be.

In the depths of the rain forest, during a time when money and food were in short supply for our family, these sandals made me feel like a posh American girl.  They reminded me of a different time in my life, when food and friends were plentiful.  There I was, a little jungle girl wearing socks and sparkly sandals everywhere I could.  When I saw those sandals on my feet, I felt hopeful for my future, they were a symbol of strength to get through the hard and trying times.  When hunger came, or my father's yelling, or my mother's crying, the sandals and their sparkles were my armor. When they were on my feet, I knew the dark clouds would pass.

Eventually after many months, the jungle began to lay claim on my precious sandals.  The straps on the side began to break, and even though my mother tried to glue them, I knew they were beyond repair.  I had worn them all over, to explore the rough jungle terrain, to climb trees, and to play in mud. One morning, I put them by my bed.  I couldn't wear them anymore, but I could still look at them, and seeing them sparkle in the sun kept me hopeful.  Just seeing them next to my pillow gave me a sense that somewhere, somehow in my future, I would have another pair of Smurfette sandals.  With a spark of promise in my heart, I tucked them under my pillow for safe keeping, and ran outside, with my bare feet, to romp and play with my big sister.

What It Feels Like For A Girl (The River Is Like My Heart)

The rains came early that year. The girl did not know then that it would be the last year she would be here to see the rains roll in. Rushing, brown water swelled rivers and the wild bananas burst into bloom as if to say thank you to the gods of alluvion. The ground became soft and slippery, thick mud squishing between her toes as she ran across the yard at sunrise to let the chickens out of coop.  Most mornings in the rainy season brought respite from the overnight deluge, so the birds could leave the coop and venture out to forage before the rain showers returned in the late afternoon.

On her way back from the coop, she paused under the mango tree, looking up into its leafy heights laden with clusters of pale green fruit that grew plumper day by day. It would be a good mango season this year.

The sun was cresting over the seven hill range in the east.  Pink and purple dissolving into azure blue as the heat of the day became palpable; a presence that induced languidness at even the highest levels of government in the small, post-colonial backwater where she found herself.  It would be hard to find dry wood this morning. 

Her father had been away for several days, and no one knew where he was.  He took Tony’s bus to town on Saturday to go to market, but now it was Tuesday and he had not returned. It wasn’t a huge surprise when he did not come back on the Saturday afternoon bus.  He had friends in town. They drank beer and played music into the night. The girl knew this even though her mother pretended not to.

There were no buses on Sunday, so girl spent the day listening anxiously for the sound of vehicles climbing up the hill from the river, peeking through the trees to see if was a truck that he might have hitched a ride on. By Monday, the anxiety turned into an intolerable combination of frustration and worry.  This morning, as the heat rose, so did a feeling of anger mixed with fear that the girl brushed away as she contemplated the tasks of the day ahead.

There was a fire to start, food to prepare, laundry to wash . . .

First, she had to start a fire in the hearth to prepare the day’s food.  Having rained relentlessly for nearly a week, today the woodpile had only a few dry logs in it. It was maybe enough to cook the rice, which was also running low. She prodded the damp logs; they were thick and would be hard to ignite. They needed to be split with an axe. Because she was a girl, her father had not taught her how to use the axe. Usually, her father would be the one to gather and chop firewood, but today it had to be her, because her mother needed to care for the baby, and look after the other children and the girl was the oldest, after all. Over the past few days, the girl sensed her mother’s rising anxiety, and wanted desperately to stem the tide of raw emotion that could be unleash at a moment’s notice.  Starting the fire would help.

Mustering cheerfulness, the girl climbed the rickety wooden stairs of the one room knock-and-stand-up house where they lived.  Her mother was up and opening the windows, pushing the wooden slats that covered the windows up and out with sturdy sticks. The girl could not help but think these sticks would make good firewood on a morning like this. Her baby brother, only six months old, began to wail and her mother quickly plopped onto the foam on the floor, picked up the infant and clutched him to her breast.  The baby seemed happy. The girl wondered if he was the only one. In the corner was a pile of dirty diapers from the night before.  Childbirth had been hard on her mother; she was still recovering.  The girl and her younger sister had to do the family’s laundry, which were mostly diapers because the girl and her two sisters only had six dresses between them.

While her mother nursed, the girl roused her sisters.  Her mother shouted something about them doing their lessons as the girls ran off into the yard.  The girl led them to a spot where, before the rains, her father had cleared the underbrush with his machete.  He planted some plantain and cassava here, which were doing very well now that they were properly watered.  In the clearing, she saw a parrot tree what had a lot of dead branches reaching up to the sky.  In the rainy season everything became green and lush, so it was easy to spot dead branches, because they had no leaves.  This was exactly what she was looking for.  Dead branches were good, because if they were upright and had bark on them, they usually stayed dry despite on rain. They would catch fire easily. While her sisters poked at a large snail that was crawling across a rock, the girl climbed the parrot tree.

From here, she had a good view of the road. She could see its gravel ascent up the hill from the river.  At this time of day, there were no vehicles.  The morning buses from the village left for town when it was still dark. She could see across the river to the hill on the other side, where old Chiac kept his cows.  His cows always looked hungry and sometimes he would herd them down the road to graze in other places on the reservation. No one seemed to mind, because Chiac was one of the few Mayan men who owned his own land. This morning, the cows were probably happily grazing on all of the new vegetation that came with the rains. She looked out past Chaic’s pasture, toward the seven hill range, and over the treetops of the valley that stretched all the way to the sea.  It was a wide open expanse that seemed just big enough to contain the daydreams that were welling up inside of her with more force every day.

Sitting in the crook of two solid branches, she reached out and put her hands firmly around a dead branch. She pulled on it withal her might. She persisted until she heard that satisfactory snap, and then pulled harder until the branch was broken free.

“Look out!” she yelled, as she let the branch fall to the ground.

Her sisters jumped back gleefully. She scaled down the tree and the girls began to break apart the branch; the small pieces for kindling, the bigger ones for firewood.  Now they could make breakfast.  The hens were very good at laying eggs, so her sister brought some from inside the house and the girl fried them in a cast iron pan over the fire she made from the parrot tree wood.

Now her mother was up, and insisting that the girls do their lessons. They did not go to school, so home lessons were all they got by way of an education.  Lessons seemed like a better deal than grating coconut or washing diapers, so the sisters obliged. The girl was learning algebra from an American textbook and reading David Copperfield. Since she did not have real friends, the fictional boy became like a friend to her; she felt like she knew him. He was kind, resilient and adept at making is own way in the world. She imagined him handsome.  It seemed he understood something about life that she was still trying to make sense of. There he was, in the greenhouse with Dora, falling in love. Or, as he described it, falling into captivity.

“It contained quite a show of beautiful geraniums. We loitered along in front of them, and Dora often stopped to admire this one or that one, and I stopped to admire the same one, and Dora, laughing, held the dog up childishly, to smell the flowers; and if we were not all three in Fairyland, certainly I was. The scent of a geranium leaf, at this day, strikes me with a half comical, half serious wonder as to what change has come over me in a moment; and then I see a straw hat and blue ribbons, and a quantity of curls, and a little black dog being held up, in two slender arms, against a bank of blossoms and bright leaves.”

She looked up from pages, a pondered, wistfully about the possibility of ever strolling through a greenhouse with a boy like David Copperfield.  Suddenly, a loud, raucous cacophony of Piam Piam birds disrupted her thoughts as they descended on a nearby guava tree and began feasting on ripe fruit.  It was mid-morning and time for laundry.  She put the book down. Laundry had to be done early so there was time for it to dry on the clothesline before the clouds rumbled in.

The baby and the youngest sister stayed behind as the two older girls carried a bucket overflowing with diapers down to the river. As they approached the bank, it was clear that, today, they would not be doing laundry in the river.  The river had jumped the bank. Muddy water swirled menacingly with a current that seemed swift enough to carry a child away. She remembered her father’s story about the Mayan boy who had drowned this way. She imagined his small, bloated, copper body floating by. Protectively, the girl grabbed her sister’s hand.  They stood in silence, mesmerized for a moment by the power and beauty of river’s transformation.  The river, thought the girl, is like my heart.

There was plenty of water in the rain barrels, so they did laundry in the yard that day. Jumping up and down in soapy buckets like a human washing machines. They pulled the petals off of trumpet shaped yellow Amandala flowers, dipping them into the sudsy water then blowing on the bottom to make bubbles.  Their father would call this “rass” but he was not here to scold them today.

As the noonday sun beat down, the girls draped diapers, threadbare dresses and floral patterned sheets over the clothes line that hung between trees in the sour sop orchard.  Hopefully, the sun’s heat and the wind that blew from the east would be enough to dry them quickly. Already, in the northeast, the girl could see a darkness gathering in the sky.

It was time to cook the rice and beans.  Her mother was working on getting the fire going again, blowing on the embers until she was out of breath.  The girls cracked open a coconut and used a knife to separate the coconut meat from the shell. Her little sister helped grate the coconut on a piece of metal pierced by nails that was fashioned into a grater. The girls took turns squeezing the grated coconut in warm water until the water became white and milky.  They strained out the coconut and fed it to the chickens.  The coconut milk was added to a pot with the last of the rice. If their father did not come home today with rice, tomorrow they would have to dig up cassava to eat.

He did return that day on the last bus from town. Her mother spent the afternoon listening for buses on the hill.  First, Chindo’s bus went by.  Then Pop’s bus.  When the Jalacte bus barreled by, her mother began to pace the yard nervously and mumble to herself. The girl began to think about where she would get firewood tomorrow. When Tony’s bus stopped at the bottom of the hill, a sense of relief swept over her. Her mother’s face lit up as she dabbed on lipstick.

Although he left with a grocery list and enough money for everything on it, her father returned with no money and only a few items from the list; just a couple pounds of rice and beans, some pigtail, a small bag of tomatoes and carrots, a gallon of kerosene and a can of sweetened, condensed milk. The girl could tell her mother was upset that he spent all the money with so little to show for it. But the girl was not surprised. Surely, the rest of the money must have been spent on Belikin beer, although she dare not say it.  Instead, she looked up at gathering clouds and knew it was time to bring in the laundry.

That night, her mother hummed a lullaby to the baby, looking like a Caravaggio Madonna and child in the dim light of the hurricane lamp. Hail Mary, full of grace.  The girls said their prayers and went to bed. As thunder rolled in from the edges of the world, her father stayed up listening to the BBC world news on their battery powered radio. In the United States, a presidential race was raging, in England, the IRA was blowing things up again, and Russia was sending men to the space station.

As the rain pounded on the tin roof, the girl lay awake, imagining the smell of geraniums.


Photo Credit: Wil Maheia