I
am the youngest of a family of 9. All my brothers and sister would
tell me what to do and where to go. They would tease me telling me,
“Whatever you say, it doesn’t matter because you are the baby”.
I remember thinking sadly; I guess I will never be able to make a
choice by myself, since I will always be the baby. When I was nine
years old, we moved from our ranch, secluded from the city) to a
small town of approximately 5000 people. Most of the people in the
town had dark or light brown skin and most of them black hair, except
for my family or my relatives. We have white skin with hair either
light or dark brown, red or blonde.
My
mom put me in a public school in 4th
grade. I recall feeling so excited to be around so many kids (25)
because where I used to go there were only 10 kids at the most in
each classroom. We used to wear uniform on Mondays to honor the flag,
but the rest of the week, we wore regular clothes. Everything was
going great, but after a few weeks, 4 taller girls started making fun
of my light skin color and my clothes (which my mom made me at home
from my aunt’s dresses). I didn’t have any problems when I was
wearing the uniform because I wore pants and long sleeves, so my skin
was pretty much covered except for my face. The problem was even
worse when I wore dresses. What I used to do on my way to school, I
got some mud and smeared it on my skin to make it darker. Then, when
the teacher noticed it, she would send me to the restroom to wash it
off. There weren’t any paper towels to dry myself, if I was lucky
there was maybe some newspaper (which we used as toilet paper). I
don’t know what was worse, me all muddy or the stains of the
newspapers all over my clothes and skin. When I went back to the
classroom the kids would laugh at me and during recess. They would
call me “milk skin” and pull and rip off my clothes sometimes.
The
girls also threatened me not to tell anybody if not they would
embarrass me even more in front of everybody during recess. If they
saw me getting close to the teacher, one of them would try to get
close to me hear what I said. When I got home, my mom would ask me
why I was so dirty and why was my clothes ripped. I would respond
because I play with mud during recess and I fell a lot. My mom knew
how playful I was, so that wasn’t surprising.
This
was my everyday life for half year until my mom noticed that I
returned clean on Monday’s and dirty the rest of the week. I used
to get home and not want to get out of the house. I hated school and
I almost never did my homework. During school time, I begged the
teacher not let me go to recess but everybody had to go outside. I
was the last one to leave the room and the first one to get in. As
soon as the teacher closed the door, I would sit right next to the
red brick wall and not move because if I did, I knew the kind of
embarrassments I was going to get. I remember looking all the kids
playing different games, some were playing ball, jumping rope,
playing tag or other games. And there I was, feeling so full of fear,
with my eyes all watery and wrapping my knees with my hands to
appeared unnoticeable. We didn’t have adult surveillance most of
the time because the teachers used the recess to get their lesson
ready.
My
mom perceived my sudden change of personality at home, and my bad
grades; she would ask me very often if I was okay but I never told
her anything.
The
year was about to finished; my mom had the idea that she would change
me to a private school for the next school year. I would be able to
wear a uniform every day and I would not have to worry about getting
teased, or them messing with my clothes. When she told me, I started
crying with happiness and gave her a big hug. “I am happy you like
my idea my dear”, she said kindly. The days went by so slowly and
honestly I just couldn’t wait for the hopeless days to finish.
In
the meantime, my mom was making me my new uniform. It was supposed to
be in navy blue jumper with white buttons on top, but mine was very
original and unique, it had two shades of navy blue and the buttons
beige, light blue and one white (because my mom recycled some old
buttons). Also we wore white short sleeves under the jumper, but we
needed to wear navy blue sweater most of the times. “I have it
made. I will wear the sweaters all the time to make sure I don’t
show my white freckly arms”. I thought. Just to be safe, I have my
skin covered, I asked my mom to make me to make me the skirt to cover
up to my shins; with my white stockings to the knee, no skin will
show. Deep inside myself I was so fearful of the first day of class.
As
my mom walked me to school the first day, she told me, “I am so
happy you are wearing uniform and not to mention that the streets and
inside the school are paved. So I really hoped you come home clean
and with your clothes without any rips”. “Oh, yes mom, I will
play more carefully” I answered with goosed bumps.
I
really started to like my private school, until the first month
ended. A girl named Zena, who was twice my size, dark brown skin,
black long hair, bigger than rest of the class, the only one in her
family and not to mention she was the richest girl in town. She
started calling me “Jícama with Chili” trying to make fun of my
freckles (jícama with chili is a Mexican snack that is a vegetable
with white flesh and has dried chili spread over it). She also called
me “Walking stick” (because I was skinny), and “Red ant”
(because I had red hair and I turned very red when I get
sentimental). Besides, my grades were so low that she called me
“Stupid”.
I
asked kindly to stop and told her I was going to report her behavior,
but she retorted saying that nobody would listen to me because I was
tiny, she was rich and I wasn’t. I felt so powerless. I went home
that day and when my mom wasn’t at home, I started crying
hopelessly. She returned almost every day to call me names. To make
it worse, I was playing volleyball and the ball went towards me, I
hit it wrong and it hit her when she was eating her lunch on a bench
nearby. No matter how many times I apologized, she never forgave me
and found ways to call me names when the teacher was not looking.
One
day, I got sick and tired of her calling names. So I started plotting
my revenge. “If only I could prove she was calling names, but how?
If other of my classmates had heard her they wouldn’t say a thing
because most of them were afraid of her and so was I.” I used to
think. Then I had another thought, I have to grow the same size as
her and face her. At that point, I was eating a lot more to see if I
could grow faster and larger, but it didn’t work at all. What I did
notice was that my nails were getting longer. Suddenly, I had another
idea, “If I could scratch her that way I can show we have a problem
if she doesn’t stop”. So I did grow my nails to prepare for the
day I could prove that tiny, rich or not she couldn’t make fun of
me like that just because I look different from the rest of the
people.
One
day after school, I snuck behind her, tripped her and pounced on her.
When she was on the floor, I jumped on her and made sure I had eye
contact with her, so she would know how serious I was. Then I
demanded her, “stop calling me names, I really don’t like how you
are doing that. I might look “stupid” but I will prove you
wrong!” She scratched my arms trying to get me away from her and I
scratched her back (just what I wanted). I bet I looked as if a mouse
was trying to attack an elephant. As I scrambled to my feet, I felt
so much fear that she was going to get me back, I ran home as fast as
I could. An hour later, Zena and her mom came to my house. My mom
called me over and asked me to give my side of the story. After her
mom heard my side, she looked at her daughter with shame. She asked
Zena if it was true and she replied between sobs “yes, mom”. My
mom and her mom came to an agreement. They told us if we were to ever
fight again we would be severally punished. After they left, my mom
held my hands, told me I could always count with her and gave me a
big hug. My mom didn’t use many words, but what she said was good
enough for me.
The
next day, my mom walked me to school and talked to the teacher about
this problem. The school made it clear of what to expect of us in the
future. The school rules were very strict but with bullying issues,
the consequences were temporary or permanent expelled. The teacher
never told clearly the other students what we did, but our incident
had helped to open the discussion about bullying (verbal, physical,
emotional, social, and Psychological) inside the school. Since my
bullying problem was taken care of, my so called “Stupidity” was
solved over time, my self-esteem got better as well as my bad grade
problem because I no longer felt bad. Zena never made fun of me and
after a while, we became friends.
Not
good friends. Just friends.
Written
by María Rodríguez
