Early Years in Belize

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In a small town like Stann Creek, it was natural that my mother and father grew up together. My father was from a wealthy family and went about courting all the available young women, but he only had eyes for the feisty next-door neighbor, my mother. Although my mother's family was not of the same economic status as my father's, her natural beauty combined with her spunky nature intrigued him. They frolicked as young adults and were soon married; my mother was nineteen and my father was twenty. Together they had four children: Lolita, Sonny, me, and Carol.

I was born in Belize, the third of four children to our parents, Sandy and Leonie Bowman. As most mothers do, mine often spun the story of my birth. She reminded me year after year that the church bells rang upon the stroke of the midday hour at the very moment of my birth. What an entrance!

Alexander "Sandy" Edward Bowman, my father, came from a wealthy family of citrus growers. Dangriga — or Stann Creek, as it was known back in the day — is a small town about thirty-five miles from the capital city of Belize and had a population of only a few hundred people. It was a small, dusty town that had been settled mostly by people whom the British referred to as Black Caribs; these were the Garinagu people, who had arrived to the coast of Belize in the early nineteenth century. They were the descendants of Nigerian slaves whose ship sank off the coast of St. Vincent in the Caribbean. Belize was also home to a handful of Europeans that owned most of the local businesses. My paternal uncle was one of them. He built a beautiful home on the top of a ridge, overlooking the valley. Miles of orange groves and grapefruit orchards lay below. I have visited that area on occasional travels back to Belize. He chose that spot well, for it is truly quiet and serene.

When I tell people that I was born in Belize, they pepper me with questions, such as "Was your father in the military or an explorer?" Belize sounds so exotic to other people. For many generations, it was a mysterious place and unknown to most of the world. No one is quite sure why my grandfather migrated to Belize, but we think he came from somewhere near Stonehaven, England. He somehow found his niche in the profitable mahogany business and settled in the area with his wife, Marie Therese Genico.

Leonie Florence Kuylen, my mother, came from parents who had migrated from Belgium to Central America in the early 1800s. They came to join a sister living in El Salvador. My great-grandfather then moved to Guatemala, but after many revolutions decided to move to the British colony of British Honduras, which is now Belize. They first settled in the capital city but decided to venture thirty-six miles down the coast to the town of Stann Creek, now Dangriga. They bought some property and opened a business. At that time, this tiny town was busily engaged in producing and exporting bananas, coconuts, and mahogany.

Two years after my parents married, my dad's brother married my mother's older sister. Uncle Henry and Aunt Carrie had four children: Len, Henry Jr., Norma, and William. These were the cousins we knew the best; we spent much time playing together. My four cousins, my three siblings, and I were quite a crew of children.

Over the years, my father began a cycle of drinking and gambling, and as a result did not act responsibly. His father, Granddad Bowman, realized this and suggested that he move to New Orleans, Louisiana, where we had other relatives. He was able to get Dad into an Alcoholics Anonymous program, which transformed his life. About six months later, we moved to New Orleans.

My dad was thirty-five and starting a new life. I have always admired his courage as he went from having a very wealthy status in Belize to becoming just another middle-class person working odd jobs to support his family. In Belize, he'd never had to work because of a certain level of privilege, but after our move to New Orleans, he often took menial jobs to support us.

We moved throughout New Orleans about four times over the years. When I think back, it seems like we were always moving. I often call these our "poor days," probably because of the costs and opportunity. For a while, Dad worked for the Standard Fruit Company and drove a taxi.

After five years of various jobs in New Orleans, he liquidated some assets in Belize, and this allowed him to open a dry-cleaning business in the Kenner area, just fifty miles away from New Orleans. I was the tender age of seven when we moved to New Orleans and was twelve when we later moved to Kenner. There I would remain until finishing college and marrying.

On a few occasions, I've been able to go back to visit Belize. I always visit the old cemetery with my cousin Norma. Often I find myself gravitating between Old Town, as it is known, and parties in the valley. As in most third world and Central American nations, there is a great contrast between the rich and the poor in Belize. During the rainy season, the dirt roads become muddy, and many of the homes are made of poor materials. Many people lack the resources to maintain or repair their homes. But despite this, a piece of my heart will always consider it home. I often wonder if everyone feels this way about their birthplace. Is there an invisible umbilical cord that connects us to a place?

Bobby and Alexandria

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They say it takes a village to raise a child. Since my mother had four children within six short years, she had many toddlers and young children to look after all at once. My grandmother, aunts, and uncles all lived close to one another in this small town in Belize. Although my mother had a maid to help her cook, clean, and look after all of us, it was not unusual for an aunt or grandmother to help with the nurturing of each other's children. Don't we wish it were still like this?

For some reason my aunt Olive, my mother's oldest sister by four years, decided to help my mother by looking after me. She lived with my grandmother, since she was not married and had no children, so she more or less adopted me as her own. I would go to her house to be her companion each day. Of course, I cannot remember much from that period because of my young age, and unfortunately my mother is no longer alive to help me recall it. My memories are a little fuzzy, but the brain is amazing; it allows us to recall events from when we were very small. My aunt adopted a name for our bond; we called each other Bobby. How this came to be, I have no idea.

Experts have imparted the philosophy of birth order and its impact on a child's personality. I can see the evidence of this in my own family. You couldn't be more middle than me: Lolita was the oldest by three years, then Sonny, me, and Carol. Lolita was more or less my mother's special child, and as she got older, she was always there for my mother. Sonny, my brother, is a year older than me. As the boy in a Latin American culture, he was considered the "prize child." Since I am the middle child, I'm not the oldest, not a boy, and not the youngest. That title belongs to Carol. She's a year younger than I and the baby of the family. Perhaps my aunt noticed that my nurturing needs were neglected since I was the middle child, so she took me under her wing.

One of the many things I remember from my childhood is playing with bottle dolls. Although my family was affluent, my grandmother and aunt were not. We would take eye-drop bottles, about six to eight inches long, and dress them as dolls. My Bobby would hand-stitch little clothes for them. Carol, who my grandmother nurtured, was there as we played with our eye-drop dolls. I remember one doll in particular. It was named Alexandria for my dad, Alexander. Well, I suppose that's where I got the name.

Many years later, I realized how much my Bobby did for me in providing the care I needed. I never considered my mother to be a nurturing person. In her defense, four young children so close in age, plus an alcoholic husband and all the struggles we had after moving, left her with barely enough time to care for our physical needs — let alone herself.

At age seven, we moved to New Orleans, so I no longer had my Bobby, and I had to learn to care for myself emotionally. I missed Bobby so much that I decided I would nurture Carol, my youngest sister. Of course, at the time, I had no understanding of the reasons for my actions, but I now see that I was compensating by taking Carol under my wings just as my Bobby had done for me. Carol is only thirteen months younger than me, and as in most families, siblings do nurture one another. So I adopted Carol to look after.

But who was meeting my needs? No one. I had to do that for myself, which led to becoming an overachiever, especially in sports. In some ways, this was an attempt to gain attention from my parents and to some degree that was accomplished, as I recall that they did attend some of my games and sporting events later in high school.

Bobby and I communicated by letters the first few years after we left Belize, but I didn't go back to visit Stann Creek until I was in high school. Ten years had passed by then, but Stann Creek hadn't changed much. All the old family relatives were still alive, and I was greeted with much love and enthusiasm. I spent a lot of time with my cousin Norma.

Time stands still for no one, they say, and my Bobby's face wore the signs of aging and frailty. Yet we still greeted one another as Bobby. Her eyes lit up, and she welcomed me with great warmth. In fact, I vividly remember an overwhelming feeling from those visits. I brought her some gifts, which she received with much appreciation. Even though her smile was feeble, her love was genuine. We talked and chatted.

She lived with my grandmother in that old house on State Street. I often wish I had gotten to know my grandmother, but the distance had been too great after we moved. There was no Internet back in those days, telephone calls were too expensive, and letters took too long. I guess it just wasn't in the cards for us to have a connection. This is why I try so hard to connect with my own grandchildren now.

My memories of Bobby hold a special place in my heart. Visits back to Belize always include a stop at the old cemetery in Dangriga to look upon Bobby's grave and give her special thanks for the love she gave me. Perhaps in the afterlife our spirits will meet again and be reunited, my Bobby and me.

Life in Stann Creek

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My first formal education experience was from a home tutor. In British Honduras (Belize today), the educational system was similar to that of Britain's. Children began formal school at age five, which was probably equivalent to our first grade. As I later learned when I became involved with the Montessori method of teaching, young children are capable of learning to read at age four and sometimes as young as three.

We didn't learn much from our tutor — perhaps only the basics, such as the ABCs and some numbers. When I was five, my mother enrolled us in the local Catholic school, which was run by the Sisters of the Holy Family. At that time, this was the only school in Stann Creek therefore we mixed with the local Carib culture. It's wonderful how young children do not distinguish between races or financial statuses; racism is a learned behavior, I believe. At school I happily played with my Carib friends. We also walked home together.

My father had many Carib friends. There weren't many European businesspeople in our town; most of them lived up in the valley and had their own private clubs. I'm sure my dad, being so wealthy and charismatic, provided the liquor for their entertainment. He owned the local merchant store and sold everything; he also owned the only ice factory in town — before refrigeration. I'm sure he owned plantations, too. He had inherited all his wealth from his father, and he never forgot this.

Aunt Gladys also played a special role in my life. She wasn't really my aunt; that was the title of endearment we gave her, for she was special to us. She was the younger woman my grandfather married after the death of his first wife, my grandmother. Although not from a very wealthy family of Belize City, she was very refined, played the piano, and listened to opera.

Since they lived close to us after they moved to the New Orleans area, and my grandfather was then quite elderly, she would invite me to attend the New Orleans Opera with her. So I credit her with introducing me to classical music and opera, though it took a while to grow on me. At the time, as a high school student, I usually fell asleep, since back then they did not have any English translations, and Italian was not my first language. But I do vividly recall the emotions that stirred within me as I experienced the opera. It transported me. Perhaps it was better not to know the dialogue, because I had a strong sense of the pure, raw emotions of the voices. Opera!

A few years ago, when I was in Vienna, my friend and I decided to go to the famous Opera House of Vienna. However, it was sold out, since the performer was one of the most famous tenor voices, Placido Domingo. He was playing Rodrigo in Verdi's Don Carlos. But we somehow managed to buy tickets through the black market — and at an exorbitant price, I might add.

After ascending the elaborate marble staircase with its statues of the seven arts, we perched in our red velvet seats, which were quite good, and watched the little translation box in front of us. All of a sudden, Domingo lost his voice. A woman sitting next to me was stunned and asked a foreign accent, "Madame, is the opera over?"

I replied, "No. Nobody has dramatically died yet!" In the end, Domingo was able to come back to finish the opera, having miraculously found his voice again.

New Orleans: The Big Easy

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As I've grown older, this is how I have learned to see things: life is an adventure. But when we left Belize and moved far away to New Orleans, I was not thinking of it as an adventure. Being only seven at the time, I'm certain I felt frightened as most young children would on their very first plane ride across the ocean. In my mind's eye, I can see myself clinging to my sister Carol in the roar of the engine and the landing gear sounds. My dad was not with us, having gone ahead, and my mother had the responsibility of managing four young children on an across-the-ocean journey with all our luggage and lookalike dresses that Dad had bought on one of his many trips.

That is possibly the moment when I began to internalize that a new beginning was ahead. If I was going to survive, I would need to be resilient and face the new environment. I would sail into the wind. That was when I began to take Carol under my wing, which I did until high school, when she grew in independence. Even today we are very close.

My family moved around many times after we arrived in the New Orleans area. We first lived by the racetrack. As my dad was trying to figure out what to do with his life, he opened a small restaurant at that location. It must not have done very well, because after about a year we moved to the French Quarter, where we attended a Catholic school. Since Carol was shy, they decided to keep her back a year, so she went to first grade. I went to third grade. Carol would remain two years behind me.

We went to St. Louis Cathedral School for the next four years. There I met my friend Connie, who I will write about later. We moved again after about a year to St. Ferdinand Street. The house we rented had a small building, which my dad converted into a grocery store that my mother ran. It was the house that Joe came to, as you will read later in the book; it's where I got my first kiss.

Although this new neighborhood was in a different part of New Orleans, my parents decided that we should stay at the same school. Every morning, my mother walked us to the public bus, on which the four of us traveled across New Orleans to St. Louis Cathedral School. For seven cents a ride, it was a bargain. This was in the 1940s, so the city was calm and crime-free, or so it seemed to us. Four children traveling on a bus across town by themselves was not unusual back in those days.

I recall ours to be an interesting neighborhood. Nearby was a sawmill, and a train typically went by slowly. In fact, it went slow enough that we would jump onto it, ride about a mile, and jump back off. I suppose that was dangerous, but somehow it didn't seem that way to us. We were pretty gutsy kids and loved our thrills. We also used to play a lot of rough-and-tumble games. One time the foot of one of my siblings got caught on a radio cord, and the radio landed on my head. My mother wasn't pleased with the big lump on my forehead. I guess I have a tough skull, since I ended up not having a concussion.