My brothers and sisters, I want to tell you a little touches story. This story is about N first, and all that followed. This story is almost half a century old. This is a story that needed aging. Yes, some stories if told fresh…might reopen wounds. Thus, such stories can only be told “in season.” This is this story’s season. It can be told.
I have written this story down mostly as it was told to me by Brother Simon August, presently of Brooklyn, New York, U.S.A. I have “cross-referenced” much of Simon’s story with Mrs. Ann “Elisha” Eloisa Banner of Camalote, who remembers those “days” as if they were yesterday.
Simon was born at a settlement called Little Orange Walk, at a spot that we now know as Guanacaste Park. Simon grew up in Camalote, at a time (the nineteen fifties) when the government called it Roaring Creek. Simon went to primary school in Roaring Creek Village, and to high school at SJC in Belize City. After he graduated from SJC he migrated to America, where he still resides. Eighteen years would pass before Simon set foot on Belizean soil again. When he returned he fell in love with Belize all over, and built his retirement home in the land of his childhood.
Simon comes home frequently now. In the evenings, when he isn’t about the country renewing and reliving old acquaintances, he sits down on his verandah with his family and friends in Camalote, sharing drinks, talking about the present and the future…and the old time stories.
This is the story of N first, and all that followed. It was told to me without malice or favor. So it was told to me, so I will tell it to you.
More than fifty years ago the Arnolds, the Augusts, the Banners, the Bowens, the Caseys, the Jones’, the Lewis’, the Matutes, the Middletons, the Peyrefittes, the Thimbriels, the Orellanos and a few other families settled on the rich banks of middle Belize River. They called their settlements interesting names like New Home, Happy Home, La Lima, Jones Bank, Thimbriel Bank, Aklahoma, Young Gal and Camalote.
Life was good for the settlers on the banks of the river. The land was rich and deep and easy to work; mahogany and cedar, and game meat were plentiful in the forests; and the river was clean and fresh and bountiful.
Unfortunately, the pin ben. See, a foreign company owned the lands on which these families lived and worked, and there came a time when the company wanted its land back. So, it ordered all the families evicted. Law-abiding, humble roots Belizeans, they packed their belongings and relocated to plots allotted by the government on the south side of a new road that was being built from Belize City to the Western Border.
Only one person, a legendary lady named “Toya Clay”, refused to move. In time her stand would inspire the immortal line… “lef Toya lone”… and ignite a modern land revolution. The story today is not about Miss Toya. Today’s story is about N first…and all that followed.
East of the parcel of land on which the old folk from middle Belize River settled, was the established village called Roaring Creek, and west of it was the established village called Teakettle. The new settlers called their noble spot, Camalote, which was the name of the nearest settlement they had abandoned. But the government called them, Roaring Creek. Most of the settlers in the new land sent their children to school in nearby Roaring Creek Village. As they had no recognized body of leaders, they fell under the jurisdiction of the Roaring Creek Village Council.
And all was well between the new settlers and Roaring Creek Village, for they shared much of a common story, and were even related here and there consanguineously. Yes, all was well…until one day a hurricane came along. To be precise, it was the terrible storm we know as Hattie. Hurricane Hattie was very powerful. The settlers, many of whom lived in thatched houses, were advised to go to the government buildings in Roaring Creek Village to weather the storm. Trusting the wisdom of their government leaders, many of them shored up their small houses and headed down the road to old Roaring Creek.
Hurricane Hattie destroyed much of the Belize and Stann Creek Districts the night of October 31, 1961. Hundreds of people died. Fortunately, lives and limbs were safe in the government buildings in Roaring Creek Village where many had gone to stay.
Apart from killing many people, Hattie caused much other devastation. Thousands of Belizeans lost all their worldly possessions in the storm. The proud folks of Roaring Creek Village – the Garbutts, the Neals, the Salazars, the Youngs, and other stalwart families suffered heavy losses. Many of the houses of the new settlers nearby (who called themselves Camalote, but were called Roaring Creek by the government) were damaged or destroyed. They also lost their crops, much of their livestock, and much of their other personal belongings.
The people were in desperate need of food and supplies. Like many other Belizeans they prayed as they waited for help from the government to arrive. After the folks in Belize and Stann Creek were fed and clothed, necessary supplies and rations arrived in Roaring Creek Village. The Roaring Creek Village Council, naturally, was tasked to distribute the goods.
Now, according to Simon, the word had gone out that to ensure efficiency and fairness, the distribution of rations and supplies was to be done by alphabetical order. This meant that the Augusts and the Banners and the Caseys from the new settlement …were first in line. This meant that powerful families in Roaring Creek Village would be served…after. This meant, trouble!
Chairman Patrick Gordon of the Roaring Creek Village Council, a member of the Neal family, had a simple solution: N first! On an unrecorded day in November, year of our Lord 1961, for the first time in the history of the Greek alphabet, N became the first letter.
Ann Elisha remembers those days immediately after the hurricane as if they were yesterday. A couple days after Hattie a helicopter set down in Roaring Creek Village with supplies…blankets and clothing, she says. We went there to get our share. But everything was for the people in Roaring Creek Village. I remember watching longingly as the packages with warm blankets and pretty clothing were passed over our heads as the Chairman called out their names. We went home with our hands empty.
A day or so later, food rations arrived by truck. It was more of the same. We formed a line but when our turn came we were pushed away. Again, the Chairman of Roaring Creek Village called out the names of his people. When all the Roaring Creek families were served, and they had all gone home, then they allowed us a few of the crumbs that were left.
Many of the settlers did not return to Roaring Creek Village again when more supplies arrived. Instead, they made the arduous journey all the way to Belize City to get their rations.
The settlers, formerly of middle Belize River, were embittered by the new alphabet that did not include them. They went home to rebuild their settlement alongside the new road. But they would not allow the government to call them Roaring Creek anymore. Under the leadership of Mrs. Walterine Banner Casey, they drew a line in the sand, separating two neighbors. They formed their own Village Council and elected Alonso Casey, husband of Walterine, as their Chairman. They declared their village Camalote, under the law.
My brothers and sisters, before the paint dries, allow me to apply these final strokes. Simon and Ann Elisha don’t think that Mr. Patrick Gordon and the Roaring Creek Village Council were “very” wrong to take care of their own first…to demand that their “visitors” learn a new alphabet. But they, and everyone in Camalote, hail Miss Walterine forever for leading her people to a proud new destiny.
Over time there has been more intermarriage between Camalote and Roaring Creek, so the villages are bonded even more strongly by blood. Today the villages are heated rivals in sports, and “best of friends” in most everything else. But there was a time when there was a great rift between two good neighbors. It was when the letter N became the first letter in the Greek alphabet.
Peace.