Sorry

When I was 5 years old my brother and I moved to Chile. We were born in Haiti, me in 2008 and him a year and seven months later. Our parents had to leave the country to take economic care of us while we stayed with our grandparents. I don’t remember most of my childhood in Haiti other than some important little ones like the birth of my kitties. The best memory I have of back in Haiti is when my grandma used to wake up early in the morning to get everything ready and prepare “pate,” which is an empanada or “pasti” in English. They were the most tasty, warm, and amazingly delicious thing ever. Even better like breakfast. I loved her so much and the fact that the kids in our family couldn’t meet her breaks my heart.

In 2014, my dad’s brother, Mackenson, or how I call him, “tio Maken”, my little brother, Nudenchy, and I took a plane from Haiti to Chile. I don’t know how I was able to recognize them after so many years but when I saw them, it only took me a couple of seconds to realize that I was finally seeing my parents. Until that moment, the people I saw as my parents were my grandparents, whom Denchy and I call “manmi” and “papi Claude”. They weren’t the only ones who took care of us, but in most of our lives in Haiti, they were the ones we were staying with.

One thing I love about my family is the fact that we’re always together. If there’s a problem we always try to help each other however we can. We also are always geographically together. My godfather, my mom’s brother, was the first one to leave Haiti to go to Chile, and after a couple of years, we all started to gather together in the same city or at least close enough to each other.

Starting from 0 in a new country is not easy. I cried on my first day of school and gave the excuse that I was just thirsty. Now that I think about it I was overwhelmed and scared of those people, and by “those people” I mean the kids. Yes. But you can’t blame me! I didn’t understand a word of what they were saying. Fortunately, my parents taught me some Spanish as they could, and 7 hours of school five days a week helped me to learn Spanish quickly. And since I was young it was pretty easy to make friends. Even if we weren’t close, I wasn’t alone most of the time. Either way, one negative outcome of not knowing a language is how easy it is for a native speaker to manipulate you. I know it sounds harsh to say that about 7-year-old kids but hear me out-or read, I don’t know. If you know more than one language you’ll get it, when some people find out there’s always someone who will ask you how to curse in that other language. In my case, I didn’t ask, my friend taught me. But when I finally knew what I was saying, I was now the most polite girl you would ever meet. It was so serious that at some point people started to apologize if they cursed in front of me…just to clarify, I never asked for it, but I guess that it was the way people saw me. Like someone who found cursing degradable or disrespectful. And well…I can’t confirm or deny anything.

During my years in Chile, I went through different phases that I just don’t want to give much detail about. But one of these was this artistic part of me. Since I was little, I’ve always had a talent for singing, and since I had the chance, I also learned to dance and write a little bit. I remember that one of the men who had a huge impact on my life was Professor Oliver, or as we used to call him, Profe Oliver -yes, I know, there’s not much difference- The thing is that he gave me a little notebook to write in. Me and my best friend at that moment planned to write our books one day, but in the end, I moved out and we lost contact. I’m still looking for you Yuki.

What I’ve talked about so far happened in the city of Quilicura, you can look it up. I remember the name of the school perfectly; Escuela Mercedes Fontecilla de Carrera 1414. I found it funny how extroverted and introverted I can be at the same time. In Quilicura I just walked around eating, smiling, even jumping. And a couple of months ago I was afraid of looking people in the eyes…But anyway. Even if I didn’t feel like I could have a deep, beautiful, and sincere friendship with someone after three failed best-friend relationships, I felt appreciated by my friends. They even threw a surprise party for my last day before I moved out and it was not surprising at all. I love them so much…I stayed in contact with some of them thanks to Instagram. If it wasn’t for that app, trust me, I wouldn’t be talking to any of them.

You know, the fact that I remember some of these dates it’s actually crazy because I always forget about them. But yeah… in November of 2018, my family and I moved to Colina. Nudenchy was completely against it but I was ok with it, I just felt sad and a little preoccupied until I saw the school. It looked fancy, hehe. Fortunately for me, the kids were very chill. The first day of classes started a little harsh because I felt that I annoyed my teacher in a record time of 5 minutes. Good news…I was wrong. She was so nice she paid half of the price of a field trip we were going to have as a class just because I had an A in a test after being in the school for a week, in comparison with a student that had been in the school for years. Side note-I just realized that the only time I didn’t arrive at a new school in the middle of the school year was back in Haiti.- But as I was saying I FELT that I annoyed the teacher for a moment, but it was just my imagination. Since that day I have sat with Danilo, my first boy best friend:). And the best girls I’ve met talked to me, the first one was Antonia, she basically bombarded me with questions haha, Isidora said: “Let her breathe Antonia.” I miss them so much.

Unfortunately, as soon as I arrived, COVID-19 started. Classes went from waking up early to go to school to waking up and staying in bed in front of the Chromebook. To be honest, I don’t remember a thing from those classes. But around 2020 we came back with masks included. After a year and confusing days, things finally went back to normal. One of the things I loved more than anything about the school was how peaceful it was. It wasn’t a huge school, but it had plenty of space and plants. If you’d like to see it, it’s called Escuela Santa Teresa de Carmelo. I know, long name. We didn’t have to go from class to class and we had breaks between classes. I EVEN HAD A CRUSH ON SOMEONE WHO LIKED ME BACK. And like that…BUM, we’re leaving Chile. 

I went through a lot in that school. I finally felt that I had a great year after all the COVID-19 stress. I finally felt like I had a real home and real friends, and felt real feelings, good and bad ones. 2022 was the best year of all my adolescence so far. The extreme peace and feeling that I could process my feelings and express them freely. I couldn’t tell anybody about it. So the last day before summer I just hugged anybody I found and left knowing that I would probably never see them again. 

I was right, we didn’t see each other during that last month in Chile. And in the morning before New Year, I was in the airport waiting for our plane. My dad and brother were beside me, my mom and younger brother at home, and I was watching a movie on my brother’s Chromebook. Somehow, after all the sadness of leaving my friends behind I was excited. I mean…we were going to the U.S. !! Of course I was excited.

After a couple of weeks in Mexico, we made it to the U.S. As I already said, I was excited about this new chapter in my life, but before arriving I was sick for around two weeks. It was so bad I couldn’t stand up and I didn’t feel like eating anything. Thank God we went to our family’s house because that day guys, Haitian food saved my life. I’m not even joking. After that meal, I took the best nap of my life. It was so good my dad and brother left and my uncle drove me to our new house the next morning.

It took around two weeks to get all the necessary information to get to school. I don’t consider myself a shy person but I did stop myself from having some friendships when I just got to the school. I already knew English by then but I acted as if I was mute and deaf. Because what can I say, I don’t talk, I whisper. Fortunately, I could communicate with others so I wasn’t sitting alone at lunch except for the first day. For some reason it felt embarrassing, it never happened to me before.

The second and fourth periods were my favorite classes, English and PE. Two things I love are feeling challenged, both physically and intellectually. Also…I had people that I considered as friends in both periods so I was happy. When it came to my other classes I could not complain, I can just say that I also wanted to be part of the big outgoing-people group because, until that moment, I was used to going from one group to another. But since I arrived in the U.S. Trusting people when there were so many people around was just too much for me.

All that was from January of 2023 to the end of 9th grade, I made great friends, and I’m still in contact with some of them, we’re just not that close. This year though. This year I feel that I’ve learned a lot about taking care of my peace. It’s at such a level that I only talk-talk to 2 people at school. The rest are friends I love or people I barely talk to but still say hi to…ha, did you see that…? Yeah…

I know that so far this story seems like a lot but trust me, all you’ve read so far, if you did, is a summary of the summary. Even if you and I, my dear reader, get to know each other, I’ll probably never tell you the details of the story unless I trust you. Because the last time I opened my heart to a friendship, a “little joke” marked me to this day.

I hope you found this story entertaining in some kind of way. If you did, hooray, if you didn’t, it’s ok, it’s not your story, you don’t have to like it.