mike;)

I was born in BELIZE ,a place i call paradise,full of culture and diverse ethnicity. My childhood experience is what i cherish the most in my life,i love sharing them at times with friends and even strangers,my mother had me when she was at a very young age because of that she had choices to make and so here i am (god bless her).When i was 2yrs old she came to AMERICA(NEW YORK)leaving me behind, to persue a better life for herself.For the next 10yrs -14yrs my granny(grandmother) my mother's mother raised me ,she was my mother figure, as for my father i have never met him back then .My mother would call from AMERICA sometimes to see how i was doing,sometimes i would miss some of her calls,i was too busy runninig in the streets.She wanted me to come to AMERICA to live with her but granny always said NO,today i know why she said that,see everyone of my relatives but me have been to AMERICA back then tha older i became tha more i wanted to come but no one seem to care.I thaught of AMERICA as heaven,because whenever my relatives or friends returned from AMERICA they looked different(fresh),the clothes they wore smelled fresh,people gave them more respek and attention and that's what i wanted,i wonder to myself today after all these years here in AMERICA if and when i go back will i get that respek and attention, i'm not sure ,see i think times has changed and hopefully people see and smell things differently now.I remember when i used to sell the local news papers in the streets,walking from one end of the city to the other in the heat, there were like 6 different newspapers with different names that we had to shout out,if you could make them all rhyme the easier it was.My granny was probably the most brilliant woman i've ever known.She was a school teacher,spoke three different languages her native ( carib),spanish and english.If it wasn't for her words of wisdom,ambition and love for others and all the things she thaught me in life,like sacrifice,resposibility,values and to be proud of who i am ,i think i wouldn;t be the person i am today .One of many things she would say to me was"to never let anyone take advantage of you",i try to hold on and live by those words but sometimes i tend to let them go in certain times of my life.My childhood friends were from all different life style,from upper class to deep down into the ghetto where crime ,drugs and violence was the way of survival .There are people who have never been to or lived in tha ghetto even if it was in there backyard, i'm not saying you should;) but for me it makes me appreciate life more ,it doesn't let you appreciate what you have ,what you have materially can be gone today and can be replace tomorrow,i think there is a ghetto in every country on the face of the planet.In my country there was a ghetto called "majestic alley"some of my best friends lived there i would go visit them at times but didn't over stayd my visit ,it was ruff there,the reason why i say that is that there was a gang there and before i visit i had to make sure i wasn't wearing tha wrong COLORS.Not all ghettos had gangs,i prefferd tha ones without tha gangs where i felt safe,it was more peacefull and peoples means of survival was honest and non-violent.Then there were my upper class friends ,they had the best of tha best ,they went to the best of schools ,dressed in tha latest fashion ,i couldn't keep up ,i was probably living in a middle class neighborhood it wasn't tha best but it wasn't tha ghetto ,i had everything i needed thanks to granny, but i liked tha ghetto ,it was real to me ,i would steal food from my own home at times and take it to tha ghetto to tha less fortunate ,i call it guilty pleasure ,money too;) o and tha girls in tha ghetto were tha finest not only physically ,it was how much they apprecaited tha smallest things you do for them.Growing up i had a little radio that i kept at my bedside,i was about 9,10yrs old and i would play this one cassette over and over any time i got the chance,it was a BOB MARLEY cassette ,i understood most of the words he was saying and even if i didn't i would sing along like i knew it all.One thing i knew for sure was that no matter which song was playing,a love song,a song about police brutality,a song about political violence,it was real,it was for the ghetto,we played them in the ghetto because it made us happy,it made us strong it kept us positive,it kept me out of trouble well somtimes;) and most of all gave us hope!.Growing up as a kid with asthma was probably one of the most difficult time of my childhood,i never understood what it was until now,it was the worst feeling ever that you can imagine,it was like someone putting a plastic bag over your head and ristricting the air you breathe for one minute every two minutes ...tbc