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DIRTY
FAMILY
SECRETS
By Steven Donnini
Copyrights 2010
Steven Donnini
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In Miamis Little Havana there are many small
stores that carry exotic oils, which are used in
offerings to Orishas (Gods). Most Santeria
believers are Cuban, Puerto Rican or Haitian.
Victor Dela Campa Hernandez Valdez Castro, is a
Haitian illegal alien from Porto Prince. They name
their children after their lineage. In 1998, he
managed to tie several truck tire inner-tubes
together to create a rubber raft for his journey to
Florida. After 8 days at sea with his 15 year old
brother Hector, they washed ashore on Marathon
Island in the Florida Keys. They walked north to
the rich farmlands of Homestead where they found
work picking lettuce, watermelons and squash.
Victor is a clever man who has many skills like
welding, pluming and laying tile.
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Victors life changed when he met 25 year old Gusty
Twombly. They were eating sandwichs at the El
Gallito bar in Little Havana while watching CNN
Cable TV news when a segment about Fidel Castro
played.
Announcer: Doctor says, Castro healthy enough to
live till 140 years old.
Cuban President Fidel Castro, enjoys vibrant health
and will live to 140, his chief doctor said.
Doctor Eugenio Selman-Housein, who heads Castro's
medical team, denied that the longtime leader has
Parkinson's disease, as the CIA reportedly
believes.
"Every day they invent a new one," Selman-Housein
said.
"He will live 140 years."
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Castro's health, once a taboo subject in the
communist-led island, has become a topic of
discussion since he fainted in public in 2001 and
slipped and fell before television cameras in
October 2004.
Castro, who quit smoking his trademark cigars in
1986, has led Cuba since 1959.
Victor went into a rant over the prospect that so
many Cubans would be trapped in the Castro
political nightmare until he dies at 104. Many
customers in the bar agreed. However, Gusty
Twombly ever the optimist said, Look at it this
way, when has a 104 year old man been able to tell
anyone what to do? Victor replies, Yeah, whats
he gonna do, chock on a chicken wing?
Throughout her life Gusty was just plain lucky. A
few years back when people in Florida decided to
tear out old moldy carpeting and replace it with
tile, Gusty was there with a crews of skilled
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workers. Everything she did worked out exactly as
she planned. Now she owns the largest tile
business in Orlando. Victor has just met his meal
ticket.
Gustys mother Alberta Twombly was a practicing
Santeria priestess and practitioner who had
immigrated from Cuba in the 1960s. Her skills are
well known to the James clan of Central Florida
since she lived in the James home and attended to
the reclusive Vivian James during her many bouts
with depression and Migraine headaches. Alberta
was viewed by others in Haines City, Florida as a
witch doctor with extraordinary healing powers.
Her only child Gusty was blessed with good fortune
from birth. Some think this was the handy work of
Alberta Twombly and her Santeria ceremonies.
Santeria has been in existence since the first
slaves came to the Caribbean Islands from West
Africa. The religion is a blend of Catholicism and
West African Tribal Spiritual beliefs.
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However, Santeria practices are not unique to the
Caribbean Islands. Today the largest groups of
Santeria followers in the USA are in New York City
and South Florida.
Santeria is not a written theology, so theres no
bible or scrolls. It is passed on by word of mouth
by devotees and priests.
Before the James brothers were conceived, Dr.
James and Mrs. James visited Havana, Cuba where
they met Alberta Twombly who was working in their
hotel as a chamber maid. Vivian and Alberta became
fast friends. Vivian was having difficulty
conceiving and all the known remedies of the time
were exhausted. Alberta knew a Santeria fertility
ceremony that would give her children. When the
James couple returned to Haines City, Vivian was
pregnant with twins. Before the birth Vivian made
arrangements to bring Alberta to Florida. She
never returned to Cuba.
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When the boys were small she would work around the
James home watching after them. She would tell
them bedtime stories like this one.
The Wind & the Rainbow
Elegbara, aye-o, Elegbara, aye-o, Elegbara, madupe,
Elegbara Wonfa nyem, listen and hear, and remember.
Listen my children to the tale of Oya, and her
children the colors of the rainbow, a tale of
questions and answers, sacrifice and healing,
friendship, and trust renewed.
Hear the tale of Oya, come weary to the bone from a
long hunt to her home by the black waters of the
Niger. There her children are being raised by
Osayin, the herbalist, and taught the ways of the
woods. She clothes them in purple, and calls each
by a secret name, but they see her seldom, she
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stays but a few days, and leaves the mothering to
the old healer.
One day she does not return, the children go
hungry, and Osayin is worried. He turns to Elegwa,
who watches everything, and asks where she may have
gone.
To the East Elegwa goes searching, far beyond the
borders of the land, but though he searches far, he
finds only tall grasses waving in the breeze, and
tracks of the water buffalo.
To the West Osayin, himself, continues searching,
far into the mountains of the Cameroon, and from a
high place he seems to see her dancing, but when he
gets to the plain, it is a flock of wild birds
covering the seashore and the remains of a great
catch of fish.
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To the South, he sends Ochosi, the tracker, who
often finds traces when no one can see the way.
Ochosi goes hunting, seeking through the jungle,
and though Ochosi is able to find traces of her
journey and people who have seen her, they tell him
she has gone north to the country of her people.
And so the three friends return to the village,
each having journeyed and returned disheartened.
The villagers are hungry and they do not know what
to do as the harvest has been poor. The three
counselors do not know what to do but are fearful
of leaving the children without their mother, so
packing their belongings, they take the children
with them.
To the North, then, Elegwa, Ochosi, and Osayin go
journeying with the nine children until they come
to the hut of Orunmilla, the seer. He greets them,
"I have been expecting you, the Fool, the Bow, the
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Reed. I have seen you for many days in my shells,
for you come to bring home the harvest."
"What" speaks Elegwa, "I know no such harvest, I
seek only my friend Oya, whose children miss her."
"It is a strange harvest--I see nine children and a
mother who does not return and only now you miss
her? She shall be your harvest indeed."
Ochosi spoke also. "I see her trace everywhere.
The villagers speak of a brave woman warrior,
dressed in black with a purple sash, who comes,
stops oppression, but leavesbefore anyone canthank her."
"You see her harvesting justice--and you do nothing
but track her traces--what must you learn?"
Osayin shook his head sadly. "I was trusted with
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her children, but she has left no word."
"You speak of trust," Orunmilla spoke gently, "and
for that I will speak. She has come by this way,
and left you these horns. Go home, and she will
return when you blow them in blessing the feast."
"But what shall I tell these her children?" asked
Osayin.
"Tell them she will return when the hunters return
from the South with no food, when the sailors
return from the West with no fish, when the lands
to the East are dry, then they should blow their
horns and she will return."
And the three returned to the village by the river
Niger disheartened. They waited for another moon
and thought of Orunmilla's words. Elegwa looked to
the East and saw only the shifting stars. Osayin
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looked to the west and saw only the birds on the
seashore, Ochosi pondered the South and the strange
tales of a warrior who took no food as reward. And
they knew that it was time to call her home.
And they blew on the horns.
The wail of the horns died out, and there was a
palpable silence. And from a distance they could
here the snort of some beast come to the village.
They watched and from the forest came an immense
black buffalo, bleeding from many wounds, who ran
at each of them, chasing them into huts as if mad
with fear.
The buffalo ran about the village, once, and they
thought it best to stay indoors. Twice, and they
began to peer outside. Three times, and it was if
they knew to wait. Four times, and the rhythm of
its running made a strange dance on the drums of
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the elders. Five times, and all the villagers
began to dance, ignoring the buffalo as it
continued to run. Six times and no one could be
still. Seven times and the beast began to tire.
Eight times and the drums fell silent. The ninth
time, the buffalo ran into the center of the
village and collapsed, dead of exhaustion and
blood.
The villagers shook themselves, and looked upon the
beast, now dead in the village. It skin now hung
in tatters, like cloth, and even as they watched,
the tatters became loose, and the hooves shrank,
until finally they saw Oya, seemingly dead upon the
ground.
"No, it cannot be," cried Osayin, "we saw her
tracks everywhere and we neversuspected."
"She is the harvest we knew was to come, but not at
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the sacrifice of our friend," replied Elegwa.
"Only the hunter knows what it is to be hunted,"
observed Ochosi. We tracked her to the East, to
the West, to the South, and never knew that we
chased a friend. And now, she is dead."
"I am not dead," spoke a voice from the clearing,
and they turned but saw no one. "I am not dead,"
and it was if the sky itself sang. "You see my old
form, your old friend, that was but a shell. I am
the spirit of the wind, and nothing will keep me
from my children." And the wind blew as if a great
howling of drums and Oya arose alive again, calling
her children one by one.
"Not many know me as you know me, my youngest
child, you shall be the Dark Mother (pulling out a
cloth of Black). You will lead them by secret ways
through the forest when they have lost their way."
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"I have shed much blood from the spears of the
hunters, you my child shall remember, you are the
Blood Mother (pulling out a cloth of Red). You
will always remember the blood of the warriors who
fight in your behalf."
"The sun shines golden in the fields ripe for
harvest, and you will always know its abundance if
you call on me. You are now the Golden Mother
(pulling out a cloth of Orange)."
"I blind the enemy so that they are diverted and do
no harm, you I call my Shield, the sun (pulling out
a cloth of Yellow). Do no harm when deflection
will do."
"Osayin taught you well the patience of waiting.
Sometimes you cannot see the patternuntil thecloth is finished. You are now the Weaver Woman.
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Take this cloth of Green, as you must pull the reed
when it is ripe and let it dry."
"Ochosi traced you to the ends of the earth and
looked upon the sea. There my winds are forever
bringing change. You are now the Hurricane
(pulling out the cloth of Blue), forever changing
the sea and the land."
"When justice is not done, I grow angry, and become
the seeker after truth. I call you Lightning,
blasting from a clear sky (pulling out a cloth of
Indigo)."
"And when you are old, you will teach the young my
words, for you shall be the Crone (pulling out a
cloth of Purple). You will be old before your
years, and call even the elderly to learn at your
feet."
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"And you, the eldest child, they will see but
seldom as you will follow in my footsteps,
invisible as the wind, you are the Dancer in the
Flame (pulling out a cloth of Silver)."
Know my friends, Elegwa, Ochosi, Oyasin, that you
did not fail me. You, o wondering villagers, you
cared for my children even in your hunger. Now
when you have need, call me by my horns and there
will be fish in the sea, a harvest on the land, and
meat for the hunter.
Take up the colors of my children as my token, and
when you see them in the sky, know that I am there,
and here, and in your heart. Youre now the
Rainbow, and I am the Wind.
This is just one of many West African Tribal
stories Alberta told to the James Brothers over the
years. Dr. James wasnt interested in the tails
of Alberta Twombly. But Jimmy and James never
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forget the lessons they were told about life in the
West African Niger villages.
It wasnt until Alberta died in 2002 that the James
Brothers realized Gusty Twombly was their half
sister. The three children grew up together
without knowing this.
Jimmy James discovered the birth certificate tucked
away in an attic trunk with Twombly family photos
from Cuba. The brothers and sister mourned their
loss together.
When Gusty Twombly and Victor Dela Campa Hernandez
Valdez Castro were married it was in the Catholic
Church in Winter Park, Florida. James Jimmy James
was the best man and Jimmy James gave her away.
Gusty kept her family name in honor of her mother.
It all proves that life is a messy business.