Our Arrival 1991

 

Our Arrival 

   It is the summer of 1991.  We arrive in South America, after finding out that my mother had officially kidnapped her own children from the hands of the American government and my uncle and aunt. We were off to our new lives. and once we arrived I had no idea what would become of my life there. This was a place full of dirt roads and people speaking a language I did not understand. We look strange to them and they to us. I suddenly had a large family a grandmother and uncles and cousins and aunts I had not seen or known of before then.

 Settling in was difficult. We were all in the same room and had to share everything even food, this was a poor country and we came to form a very comfortable life before coming here so excepting all of these changes from one day to the next was no easy feat. We were living with my uncle my father's brother and his wife and their 3 kids and my grandmother as well as myself and my older brother. We were in this wooden shack, I don't remember much of that time except that it was uncomfortable and cramped. 

 I remember eating some kind of hairy meat skin thing, that first day we arrived. I actually fed it to the chickens. and said I eat it. Pig parts were hanging and a head was in the fridge. I heard my uncle kill one, that next week and grill it on the grill outside as a celebration of our arrival. I thought to myself what a barbaric place to bring a traumatized child. The thought was fleeting.

 We ended up moving twice before we settled down. after my grandmother's house, we moved uptown and had a house of our own, I again don't remember much of that place aside from the fact that we knew we were close to home by the smell, it was a gritty smell from rotten mud, or so my father told me when I asked him. It was a very small house and my brother and I tried playing with the neighbors they were super nice kids and offered us their toys and food. I wasn't used to this kind of behavior. This is how we spent our days, of course, our mom made my brother and I come inside most of the day and listen to tapes to teach us Spanish. Which did not work. I hated it. day in and day out those tapes! So my father convinced her to let us go outside and play with the kids and that is how we learned Spanish, in Paraguay. 

 Nothing involving my father ever happened in that country, but fast forward a few years, five to be exact, and I did almost get into trouble there. I suppose I should mention the only thing I did do when I was there all those years ago. for that whole stay there which adds up to about 7 years total. there was this boy you see, and I was young maybe 10 at this point. He liked me we were growing up fast together. he lived behind our final house. Which was down the street from my grandma's house. At this point my brother and I could speak Spanish well and made friends with everyone in town, it was a small town, and there were five families with children our age. We hug out with them every day. so of course we all became close. So this boy, his name was Jose Luis. He was calm and cool, he was blond and had brown eyes. He was my brother's best friend.

 One night we were fetching water and my brother forgot the stick that goes in between the bucket handle. So he went back and I stayed with Jose. He lead me into the abandoned house behind the water fountain, and there he proceeded to touch me in ways I had never been touched as I tried to push him away, telling him that my brother was due to return and would not be happy with him if he found us like this, but he said it wouldn't take long...if you understand what I mean...I was so scared I told him I would scream...I would tell my brother! and right when he let me go my brother showed up. as I ran out of the building back to the fountain. I saw the look on my brother's face, but I said nothing.

 

 For the next few months, Jose thought we had some kind of connection, He kept trying to remind me that we had unfinished business, which we absolutely did not. He tried to rape me, and I did not understand it until I grew up. I told my mother again about this incident. She said the way to get him to stop trying to get me to remember something I had no interest in was to tell him I didn't know what he was talking about I did not remember a thing and she said that would stop him. And it did! He had the most disappointing look on his face, and I just cracked up laughing at him in his face!

 I did come close to kissing a boy before I left that country, with another friend we had that was with us every day, he was super cool in my eyes and we did not get along he was so mean and never wanted me with them. I made my mother have them include me every time it is comical to me as I look back at those times. We would joke about how we would bring him back to the states with us and he would live with us forever. And we would talk about how it would be in school, about the fights we would help each other with how we would beat every up, yeah it's comical now, who knew it would be impossible to ever have him or any of our families come here. or how much goes into it.

 One day it was raining hard all day so we let him come inside to our shack to hang out and play, we had this tape recorder, and we were recording funny things we would say to each other and play them back. My brother left us alone for a while to go help my mother with something and we almost kissed each other, we had this attraction neither of us knew was there. It almost happened, but I never let it happen. I was happy it didn't happen and we were able to stay friends. After that 2 years later we left for America and that was something I did not expect believe it or not. 

That's when it starts again...