The well-known author of the already famous book ‘Aruba en een keuze uit haar toponiemen’, the guide explaining the origins of the names of nearly 300 locations here in Aruba, Mr. Vivienno Frank Sr., has another interesting new publication on the market titled “Bida un tempo na Boegoeroei” (Life Once Upon a Time in Boegoeroei), with the subtitle ‘Memories of a Lost Era’.
These are the memoirs of Mr. Vivienno Frank Sr., former director of the department Dienst Landmeetkunde en Vastgoedregistratie (DLV), spanning from his childhood in the early 1930s in Boegoeroei until the year his family moved to Playa in 1945, after World War II came to an end.
It features an impressive collection of many daily aspects of life in Boegoeroei back when the neighborhood consisted of numerous farmland plots and plantations, with a few family homes scattered here and there. As the book’s subtitle indicates, it was an era that truly will not return. As the African proverb says: “the death of an elder is like the burning of a library”; the main goal of this work is therefore to ensure that at least an echo remains of what life in Boegoeroei, and Aruba in general, was like nearly 100 years ago.
How was the neighborhood of Boegoeroei structured in the past? If you fell ill in an era without doctors or antibiotics, who saved you and how? What was religious life like in general back then? How was Christmas celebrated? In a Catholic community, what was your relationship with the church and the priest if you were a member of the Protestant church? When someone passed away, how was the burial conducted? What did going to school mean in those days? What were the years of World War II like? How were food supplies obtained? How did people get married? Do you know what Kalmeki is? Do you know how people hunted to find food? What lies behind the sinister events at the Mata Cuater farmland? What was the life of a scout like at that time? What did the hard labor with aloe consist of? How was fishing organized? What did the celebration of the Queen’s Birthday mean in Boegoeroei?
These subjects and many more are described in the personal memories of Mr. Vivienno Frank Sr. “Bida un tempo na Boegoeroei” is a true eye-opener for many young people about what life was like in an age without Wi-Fi, the internet, or WhatsApp, and where “social media” meant the news that neighbors whispered to each other before going to bed. An era of sleeping early with the chickens and waking up in the morning with the rooster. An era that will never return.
