Back To JA

This part of my life will be very difficult for me to write mainly because of what happened to me. in the year 1998 i went back to Jamaica with my parents. I thought it was a normal family vacation, i did not know that my family planned to leave me behind when the trip came to an end. The trip lasted for three weeks, everything was carried out like a normal vacation, we went to the beach, visited family we haven't seen in years etc, etc. at the end of week three i went to the local , market with my aunt, this was the diversion that my parents came up with, so that by the time i came back home, they would have been gone, however i guess my aunt miscalculated when they were leaving and we came home just in time to see my parents putting the last bags in the car. i ran up to them and asked them where they were going and where was my bags, it was then that they told me i would be staying with my aunt for a while because they just could not handle me any more. they hopped in the car and drove off, and so started two and a half of the most hellish years of my life. Now where my aunt lived was straight country, Clarks Town Jamaica. im talking pigs, cows, people planting their own crops, killing their own food. i REALLY looked out of place. a good friend of mine described what it was like for him when he first say me. he said i was " pretty like new money". from day one i stood out, one because everyone knew that i was from America, and two, because i was high yellow, with" coolie" hair. at first i was sad that my parents left me like that, but you know how a child is, easy to rebound and move on. my aunt enrolled me into the local elementary school, and i eased into country life. gone was the washing machine and vacuum cleaners. i had to was my clothes by hand with a scrubbing board and my aunt was the type that if it wasn't washed right, she would rip it from the line, drag it through the dirt and make me wash it again. living with my aunt at the time was my cousin Sandy not blood related. she hated me right off the bat. she thought i was too privileged and hated when people would tell my aunt how pretty i was. she left all the cleaning up to me so once again i was doing all the cleaning in the house. the one thing i hated was cleaning the floors, for those true Jamaicans you will know what i am talking about, i had to use a coconut husk, get down on my knees and shine the floors manually, that was not very pleasant. every Saturday morning i had to go to market, it was a literal market where they sold food, clothes, anything you could think of. my aunt ran a food store out of her house and i often ran the store with her along with Sandy. my aunts was married but her husband was very sick and he passed away a year after i came back to live with them. at school, i had no problem fitting in the work was easy and i was at times way ahead of the students in my class, yes i became the teachers pet once more. my aunt didn't put any stock into school, she never made past elementary school, so i had to be sort of a parent to my self when it came to getting ready for school, doing my homework and passing my tests. i had no one to help me, even though Sandy was older than me, she was no where near my intellectual level and at times i had to help her with her work. life in the country was hard but at the same time some parts of it was good. to be able to breathe the fresh air, lay down outside under a tree and watch the clouds roll by, listening to the rain pouring outside while eating a big bowl of home made chicken foot soup, yes there was some good times, but i must say the bad things definatly out shadowed them. i gave you the background because i wanted you to see how different my life had suddenly become. i ummm... really don't know how to start talking about the bad part honestly... its been locked away for quite sometime. so please be patient.