Spotlight Dancer/Troupe
Babooka

It was an honor for Yasmina to ask me to be in the “Spotlight for Dancer” for the month of September. It was a challenge to figure out what to write after reading all the other autobiographies of other dancers!! How does a person write up her story of her lifetime to others and what that person went through and accomplished in a lifetime?! You always hear the story of what goes around, comes full circle back around? It seems to so true in my lifetime of my
careers to working in accounting, an Engineering secretary, belly dancer, florist and my many marriages, and my long journey of being a Stage IV Uterine cancer survivor of several times.  I am just so grateful and thankful to be alive to be able to tell you of my memoirs of my belly dancing career in a Southern Baptist Town through the late 70's and up to the 90's. Now I am coming full circle into teaching at the Texarkana College this spring, after leaving it in 1980.

I feel like I’m a hundred years old and am so lucky not to be six foot under! I can’t believe that I decided I wanted to teach the Middle Eastern Dance again after all these years!

Here is an old flyer that I had printed of myself in the late 1970's and it will give you a short background of myself.

Going through all my old photo albums and pictures of so many years ago, I am amazed at how much energy and sewing talents that I had in the past! It boggles my mind that I did all the detailed and intricate work of sewing up costumes and beading bras and belts!  I can’t believe that I was able to set up in the olden days, dance recitals, benefits shows, taught numerous classes and worked full time as a secretary and raised my family.  My 3rd husband, James Padley of 19 ½ years commented that a person had to burn out sometimes and couldn’t go full speed constantly, they have to burn their selves out! That is so typical of him to make a factious remark like that about me!

Sifting through pictures after pictures, there were a lot of newspaper articles on myself, teaching, or performing the Middle Eastern Art. I even remembered when the TV news did a program on my teaching belly dancing. I spoke and performed at the Rotary Club and other different functions around our town trying to educate the people that our dance was an art form! I am surprised that I wasn’t run out of town, because Texarkana, Texas and Texarkana, Arkansas is made of the Bible Belt. I upheld the high standard of dance, that to this day I was not known as a stripper, or a dirty dancer and people still have old pictures and movies of me performing my belly grams for their husband or loved one. I taught at the YWCA, the Texarkana College and different places and schools around town and other towns too.

To make a long story short, I left home at 18 ½ years old marrying a Southern man, who was a minister’s son! I was a newborn Christian at 16 years old and thought God had called me to ministered to his hometown-was I so very wrong! I fell by the wayside very quickly, our marriage was very violent and I was so homesick for San Francisco. I ended up leaving God very quickly! I won’t go into that marriage of 13 ½ years for my ex husband and I are on friendly terms, and sure wouldn’t want him to sue me for defaming his name! I know I’ll be showing this story to my daughter and son, and I don’t want need anymore hard feelings from my 1st husband!  His wife and my ex, my daughter and her new husband and her 2 kids all sat all the Pizza Hut this past Monday eating pizzas, like one big happy family!

Being from an all Chinese traditional family, I never dreamt that I would missed being at home in San Francisco, and missed my Chinese culture so badly. I never thought I would miss having rice at a meal, or being scolded constantly! My mother was a typical Chinese mother, always criticizing me and the way I looked and dressed, she said I was not the typical Chinese daughter that she wanted! I was too not a meek and mild daughter, but was too wayward in my manners and American ways!  I realized now that I left home early to get away from my mother and father, but I can’t undo what I’ve done years ago! Life has to go on! When I was dying with cancer, my older brother yelled at my father and said that I had such a hard life and that I had cancer because of him! I told my brother that’s not true, that I made my life and made my own bed, not to be blaming him!

I left my first husband several times when I lived in Camden, Arkansas and even paid for a divorce. I moved back in with my parents in 1970 and ended up asking my first husband to come and get me away from my parents! I didn’t know which was the worst, being with my parent or with my husband, and I chose the latter. Of course, I was an embarrassment to my parent, but back to the South I went again! A year later, I gave birth to a daughter and this time, my husband and I moved to San Francisco. My husband didn’t last long out there and later on, I followed again! My mother was at her worst, telling me how bad I was and that she wished she never had me! So, I left once again and moved back to the South, leaving my hometown of San Francisco!  I was so empty inside for I just couldn’t adjust to living with my parents, my first husband and I did not get along, so what was I supposed to do!! Belly dancing classes were offered in Texarkana, Texas and taught by a local dance teacher who took classes from Meara, a belly dancing teacher in Dallas, Texas who had her own dance studio. Meara taught the Greek way of belly dancing and she came and taught a seminar or two in Texarkana. I took all the lessons from the local dance teacher in town.

When I went home to visit my mother, I found a belly dancing teacher name Khadija Rabanne, who taught me a whole new side to the Middle Eastern Dance. She was a fantastic teacher and taught in her husband’s tattoo shop and gave me the name of Babooka, which means little Rosebud, in the Greek language. Her husband did a tattoo rose on my right hip, and it hurt so bad! I had some stretch marks on the right hip and I guess that’s why the tattoo hurt badly!  I don’t know how the other dancers get tattooed all over their bodies, but between child birth and having a tattoo, I think getting a tattoo is far worse! The pain was pretty bad and I didn’t tell my mother of my tattoo, for she would have had a heart attack! She was the typical conservative Chinese mother, who disapproved of wearing face makeup, wearing mini skirts etc. I had to doctor up the tattoo several times a day and of course, I hid it from my parent! A good Chinese daughter didn’t get tattoo! Nowadays, tattoo belly dancers are everywhere!

Khadija taught me how to make the beaded costumes and was a wonderful wonderful teacher.  She was also very good friends with Mary Ellen McDonald and Bert Balladine. She taught me so much, and gave so much of herself to me, as a teacher! Here is an article about her, and a picture of me in an old belly dancer magazine!

I worked for Rockwell International for a total of 14 years. I was a Product Engineering Secretary to a Persian (Iranian) boss named F. A. Khavari, who was a male chauvinist pig! I don’t want this article to get in the wrong hands and then have a lawsuit, so I won’t disclose his whole name. Mr. Khavari made my life miserable at work, he thought he owned me and would intimidate me when I finally divorced my first husband. He even hired me to perform at his brother’s Iranian wedding and came to one or two of my recitals! Mr. Khavari knew I needed the job and would have his other employees to spy on me. They would time me on my break, how long I was gone from my desk to take bathroom breaks etc. My boss really wanted to demean me so badly, that he even brought a bell with a dinger on it, and if he wanted me, he would ding the bell for me to come immediately to his wishes! If I wasn’t around to hear his dings, I was asked where I was and why I wasn’t at my desk, to answer his call! To this day, I still dream about working at Rockwell, maybe not dreams-but nightmares!

One day another secretary told me they had put a phone tap on my phone to see who I called and who called me at my desk. She said to be very careful! This wasn’t the first time that this had happened, but one of the Engineering guys had made an ugly sexual remark that could have turned into a sexual harassment lawsuit, so they were trying to find reasons to fire me. Finding a good job in Texarkana, Texas and Arkansas was very hard, and I didn’t need to lose this job either! I am going forward with my story and leaving my workplace and back to my journey through belly dancing.

In 1981, Rita and Tambra asked me to perform in their Middle Eastern workshop in Dallas, Texas, with Aisha Ali being the star performer. I was very honored to be asked to perform for this seminar drew dancers from all over the South. I had only 5 minutes to do a total routine, and I put all my given talents into this performance! This ended up being my grand finale and also the ending of my first marriage. My performance consisted of a fast dance, completely veiled and then I did the veil dance, and last, I did the Kashlimar ending with my famous sword dance! I had four wine goblets which were set up on stage, and I daintily got up on the glasses and stood up on the glasses with my high heel shoes! I was handed one sword, which I laid it on top of my head, and then another swords was added to the top of my head! I had my finger zills and danced to the 7/8 beat of the music, and then I jumped off the goblets and proceeded with my performance. I ended twirling and twirling with my full circle skirts flowing around and around and throwing roses out to the audience with the swords still on my head! I hoped that this performance knocked everyone’s socks off! I have pictures of this last grand finale of my dance, and when I performed this dance, it seemed like the thrill of performing was gone from my life! I had like a let down of my emotions and realized then, I needed to leave my husband and find a better life for myself and my children!

I was spending a fortune making my costumes. Back then I didn’t know I had an addictive personality, and I realized that now! I made beaded bras and belts of different colors and skirts and veils to match! I collected Middle Eastern records, recorded my own music, lived and breathe the dance! When I started doing the belly grams for money, I no longer treasured the art!  It became a method to make money! I was able to leave my first husband, and this time I didn’t tell my mother that I left him and was living on my own with my two children. My first husband put me on a pedestal because of my talent and back then, I had a great figure! He also helped rigged up portable spotlights and helped me with his electrical talents. When I left him, he of course, got hateful and ugly trying to get custody of my two children!

My first husband took me to court several times to get custody of my children who were 10 and 3 years old. He tried to say that my being a belly dancer was not good for my children and that I was an unfit mother! We were in court 9 hours the first time, but all went well!  Thank God, the judge had seen me perform at many functions and I was always granted full custody of my children. 

I was only 18 years old when I left my parents and married early. I had actually never been alone in my lifetime, and was a very needy person who had to have a man to love and to feel like I was loved. In high school, I always had a boyfriend, of course, without my parent’s knowledge. I had ran away 3 times when I was 13 years old and nearly froze to death, as I tried to sleep in the woods at Seacliff area, but finally wound up in a Laundromat on an Army base. My parents were so strict and rigid on me, that I sought love by falling in love with several guys! I followed the same bad habit after I divorced the first husband, seeking love and solace!

I married fairly quickly after my divorce and ending up divorcing the second husband within 1 ½ year. He was an alcoholic and physically abusive, ramming a gun down my throat-threatening to kill me. My first and second husband both connived to try and get me to lose my children again, and thank God , that it never came about! It was hard to hide my private life at work, but I had to keep my personal life private since my boss would be harassing me trying to get me fired.  I worked hard as a secretary, since I had to type for 15 other men. I would have to get dressed after work in the bathroom, if I had an engagement after work. I tried to keep my personal life fairly quiet, and lived on eggshells and stress constantly! I needed to keep working for I had a house payment to make and kids to take care of! I made great money off the belly grams, but life was insane, people were so demanding! They wanted me to perform at parties at all hours of the night! I would ask for a $100.00 or more if it was past midnight, and some nights, I had performances to do out of town which took me 1 ½ - 2 hours to get there, and back! 

Some weekends Friday after work, I would have 5 belly grams to do. My hair would be sopping wet, hoping that it would be dried enough for the next show. I finally cut my performances down from 20 minutes to a 10 minutes show. I didn’t want people to get bored, so I cut and edited my performances down to where I thought the person who paid for the performance, didn’t feel that I had short changed them. I always had a boyfriend on the side, life wasn’t easy - raising two children! My ex husband had a nasty habit of sending a sheriff to my job and personnel would call me to the office and I would be served papers again for another custody case. This was pretty embarrassing and it looked pretty bad on my character at work! 

I remain single for four more years and always had a boyfriend somewhere! I finally remarried for the 3rd time in 1986 and met this husband on a blind date on a Friday night. It was so unusual for me to have a free Friday night and nothing to do! We got along and within six months, we were married. My 3rd husband understood my needs and helped out with my performances. He would come in as a Keystone Cop and set the room up, get the birthday man ready and start my boom box up!

My daughter of 16 ½ years old left me to live with her father and hated my guts! My ex took me back to court to try and get custody of my 9 year old son. I had a nervous breakdown and took a medical leave of absence from work. I finally decided I had enough of my Iranian boss and a few months later, he also quit his job too. I heard that he was given an option to leave or be fired, for there was a lot of comments made of the way he harassed me! I have never seen or heard from him ever again! He never made sexual overtures to me, but he got so possessive of my talking to the Engineering men, that he would ask me why I was talking to them, whether it was a personnel talk or whether it had to do with business. He acted like I was his wife or child, instead of treating me as an individual, I worked with him 7 years! It was too stressful to keep working, so I finally decided to leave my job of 14 years! Now, at 56 years old I collect a small retirement from working there. It’s not much, but it will pay our utilities!

We finally opened up a gift shop and decided to add costume characters to our repertoire! We had Mickey and Minnie costumes, had beautiful clown costumes, Teddy Bear costumes and added even a Gorilla strip o gram to our menu! The women loved our funny strip o grams! They never knew if I was doing the act or my husband! We must have sweated 100 lbs of sweat in these costumes and I will have a picture or two of our costume characters ! I remembered one day we had a grand opening at a big hotel and we had on our Mickey and Minnie costumes, and our keycard -that opened the door to our room was so wet, we couldn’t use it!

I remembered some days and nights we were so busy, that we had to change in and out of our costumes out of our car. We didn’t have time to go home and change and make it to our next party! We had balloons for the costume characters and they were hard to transport in and out of the car! Sometimes we would watch our bouquet of balloons fly away and there was nothing we could do to catch them!

I hope that I haven’t bored you with my story, but we finally quit the whole costume character business and the belly grams! I was worn out trying to run a flower shop and wearing too many hats!! I was 42 years old then, and I finally refused to dance for teenage boys 13-18, it was just too demeaning to me, since I had gained 25 lbs from being married again! I needed to devote my time and energy into expanding our flower shop!

In 1996 we were forced to move out of our location that we had for 7 years. I was told that same day we had to find a new place to move to, for they were tearing down the building! Then I was told that my mother had pancreatic cancer, and the same afternoon, a customer needed $500.00 worth of flowers for his dad’s funeral! My head was spinning and spinning, I thought my life was smoother and this time again, another kick in the butt again!!

I had already moved for the 3rd time and spent just spent $5,000.00 adding on an additional room to give us more space in the building they were tearing down! I had taken that chance of the property never selling, since they were asking ½ million dollars for it! I couldn’t believe that my mom was dying and I was going to have to move again! I didn’t have time to brood about this, for I had to put a funeral together in 4 hours and get it down to the funeral home! No time to worry or to fret, but to get the dang flowers together and make a excellent impression for the customer and his family, since his dad was having a memorial for he was being cremated!  My mother ended up dying in 3 months, and she wanted me to build a building so that I wouldn’t ever have to move again. My parents loved things that were permanent and didn’t like changes in life. They also help me with my household expenses when I was single. I brought home $1100.00 a month, received $70.00 a week child support. My house payment were $700.00 and car payments were $240.00. Even though I was a bad child, my mother loved me enough to send me money monthly to help me keep my home! My second husband and I bought the home so that my children would have a good school to go to, but he got to drinking again and stomped the hell out of me! The judge awarded me the home since we were in it but two months. I still live in the house after 25 years and guess I will die here!

My mother wanted me to build a building and offered to loan me the money. I never had a Chinese wedding life which my brothers had - expenses were over $25,000 for each wedding!  It was hard to get a loan to build a flower shop, since we always reported a loss of income on our business. To be able to get a loan for an existing business, a person needs to have a profit-I learned the hard way, that a profit should always be made, if you need to get a loan!

My parents loaned me $15,000.00 and my husband put down another $10,000.00 of his money to be able to get enough down payment to build a new flower shop. Buildings in the south are way cheaper, than properties in San Francisco! My mother had the greatest Chinese funeral, a marching band through Chinatown, and she would have been happy with her funeral. My dad did a great job, but that funeral was like paying for another wedding! That’s what my mother would have loved-a showy funeral!

We put up a 2,000 sq foot brick building and life seemed to be good again! I worked hard establishing myself, as an excellent floral designer! The name of my shop was Babooka’s Pleasant Grove Florist and it drew a lot of people in! I was well known all over the Four States area-Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, and Arkansas, since people knew me! Every day for years and years, people would call the shop to ask for Babooka, and to this day and time, they still call the flower shop and ask for a dancer!

I thought life was good! My youngest son had stayed with me and gotten his life together, away from his dad. My daughter and I were not on the best term, but life seemed to have mellowed out! Business was great, I still worked my butt off, but life was too good.

I thought life was going to be better, but November 24, of 1999, I ended up in the hospital with an emergency stint in my left urethra to my left kidney , for it had shut down! My left leg had ballooned out huge and the doctors didn’t know why, though I had taken a doppler leg scan, but the hospital and the clinic lost my report. After 2 months, my daughter who was a registered nurse found my report at the hospital and reported it to her doctor, who I had started seeing. To make the long story short, I had to have a catscan done, they found a huge tumor in my uterus causing my left kidney to shut down. A stint was put in my urethra to try and save my kidney, then the next day, I had an emergency hysterectomy! When I woke up from surgery, the doctors were standing above me and I asked them if everything was okay. They shook their head no, and I asked if it was bad, and they shook their head yes. I asked how long I had, they looked at me and said 6 to 12 months. I remember asking “ do I have to sell my business?” I was worried about my flower shop and was more concerned about my shop than worried about dying! The physicians gave me no hope! I heard that my husband was weeping and crying and all my friends were in totaled shock! It was like the roof had caved in and things were going in slow motion! I was going to die! I just couldn’t believe that I was going to die!

I guess I was in denial all that time, and I refused to believe I was going to die! I went stubbornly back to work at our shop 5 days after the hysterectomy. I know that is unheard of , but the stint to my kidney made me get up out of bed every 10 minutes or so. I couldn’t rest for getting up and out of bed, so I decided to go on to work! I remembered all the arrangements had to be redone for nothing looked good! I was so weak and on pain pills but I was the only floral designer and couldn’t afford to go bankrupt! My husband learned how to answer the phone and waited on customers. I was too weak to talk to people and saved my strength for making floral arrangements. We had another older lady who helped us with deliveries, cleanup and whatever it took to keep our shop going! What do you do when you have your own business and there isn’t another designer working for you?! You go ahead and work, sweat profusely and keep going till you drop! I don’t know if that is the reason why I am still alive to this day!

I went to M.D. Anderson 2 weeks later in Houston, Texas for a second opinion. The other lady that worked for me had a daughter that used to work for me. They pulled together and got out a ton of orders while I was gone for several days! When I got back home from Houston, I was hospitalized another 5 days for I had a 105 degree temperature! They took care of the shop and I was incoherent by that time, so I didn’t even care or asked what was happening! I was so sick!  I had my kidney stint taken out 3 ½ months later! It was very painful to go to the bathroom and constant trips to my favorite place-the bathroom! The doctors went ahead and put me on chemotherapy, thinking that the chemos would not work! I got allergic to one of the chemos and went into respiratory arrest! My cancer doctor couldn’t understand how I got allergic to one of the chemos after the second go around! I never never lost my long black hair, and took 9 chemo treatments. I went into remission after 6 months and then had a stroke 3 months later!

I thought “God, Why Me?” I felt so sorry for myself this time, it had to happen in the middle of a big event at our flower shop! I went into magnetic therapy and it helped give me back the use of my right hand and my sloppy speech! I talked like I was drunk! Between the cancer and the stroke, I felt like the stroke got the worse of me! So, in the year 2001 I slowly came back from the dead! I started to feel human again, life was good. We had tried to sell the shop and of course, it didn’t sell.

Life was good again, and the year 2003, I had cancer again! So, once more I had surgery and supposedly I was good to go again! I did chemotherapy again, but I became allergic to the chemo and my cancer markers were rising up again! I did another catscan and my tumor had grown back even larger than ever! So, here we go again! I had an MRI done for my back and right hip were killing me and the doctor found 3 bone tumors growing in my lower vertebrae and right hip bone.  When the doctor announced to me I had bone cancer, I burst out crying and thought to myself, this is it! I’m going to die this time! With the grace of God, I had radiation and it wiped out my tumors in my body! The radiation doctor was so surprised that the radiation worked on my rare type of cancer for he thought my cancer was resistant to radiation!

I finally took 3 more doses of another chemo. That chemo burnt up my feet, my soles of my feet came off and I had to have home health nurses come to the house and dress out my cut off blistered feet, which looked like I got burnt in a fire. I had finished a big wedding and was on my feet too long and it caused my foot to look like the I was wearing a marshmallow slipper ! I went through 200 Vicodin pills in one month! I would have rather had surgery that gone through the burnt foot and body syndrome of the chemo!

Now, I have a chance to write you my autobiography, it’s not a pretty picture! It’s a true story about a former belly dancer, and a belly dancer coming back around! This story is about my life and my coming back FULL CIRCLE !

Back in the olden days, we did not have the internet and eBay! I sold my old costumes on eBay and saw all the belly dancing costumes there! I bought a set of Belly Dancer Tarot cards this year and it made me long to belly dance again! I bought a record player from Amazon.com and have begun to practice my dancing again! My husband was so shocked that I could still dance and I decided that this spring I wanted to teach belly dancing again. No one has ever taught again at the college, since I left in 1980. I hope I am strong enough to be able to teach for a hour or more a week. My arms are so important to me in this dance, and arm strengths I don’t have! Brushing my long hair is a chore for me, and I hope to build up my arms to be able to do the beautiful hand movements! I loved performing to the slow taxims! That takes a lot of arm and hand movements!

I have also been studying the tribal American dance. I love the Fat Chance Belly Dance group and I love Rachel Brice. She really is fantastic on her slow slow movements and I love her style. We didn’t have American Tribal dance back in the pioneer days :) - and there is such a wealth of information and movies on the internet! I have spent a fortune of DVDs’ but finally found a whole site, where people have sent in their belly dancing videos! Wow, it’s amazing what the internet offers, for in the late 70's and 80's, it was almost prehistoric. No, I’m just kidding now!  I have always heard that the fat belly dancers in the Middle East were rich! The fatter you are, the wealthier you are! I must be fairly well off then! I’ve lost about 35 lbs this past year, and went on a diet called the L.A. Weight Loss Program and decided, since I’m going to live, I minus-well lose
some weight!

The bottom of my belly looks like a road map, the dips and curves of the past surgeries and radiation, but with Middle Eastern Dance, it can be covered up! I don’t have to display my tummy to the public! I love the coin scarves, I love the slow and earthy movements of the ATS dance and will love the challenge of teaching again! We didn’t have coin scarves 30 years ago, and they are so inexpensive!

After giving up teaching for the past 25 years, I have a burning desire to give of myself to my students again! I don’t know why I haven’t gone on to the heavens above, but I am just so glad that I am still here. In May of 2004 , I was able to sell the flower shop business, and then I sold our building and paid off our home and credit cards.. Having Stage IV cancer and surviving it so far-maybe I can give others hope?! I had it throughout my lymph system and in my bones, but maybe God intended me to give belly dance classes again, who knows?

I also got into hula hooping this past 3 months and am now making my own hula hoops. After watching Evolution, I was inspired with the hula hoop performance! I even bought a large Australian didgeridoo, a blow horn, a Turkish oud, a Turkish spike fiddle and violin and I intend on learning and making my own music, for I have so much to give inside of me! If I get good enough with my hula hoop, I want to get a fire hoop and dance with fire!

I cannot get down and do backbends anymore or do the floor work. Going through the chemotherapy and radiation have taken away my muscles and strength in my lower legs, for I have to pull up on a chair or something to even get up! I can still do the hand movements, the slow taxims and the hip shimmies etc.!!

Life, now is great! I am now 56 years old and volunteer at a hospital’s gift shop making fresh flowers for patients and employees of that hospital. I am giving back what I have almost lost-my life- and now I’m coming full circle into the things I once loved! Belly dancing was my love, my life and now it’s coming full circle again!

Thank you so much for reading my story and God be with you! Thank you Yasmina for asking me to write my story, and I’m have enclosed a picture of me now, with the coins and chains I’ve bought from you. Thank you again and God bless!
Cynthia Li Smith Kelly Padley!
 
To contact Babooka:
Email:  Karatbird@aol.com

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