Removed as a minor part 1

Moving to Canada

-rough article-

A story like this usually starts with an African kid living in absolute poverty, dreaming of a bright future in a Northern American country. But I was not that one. In fact, in a story like this, I should probably start by bashing my home country than in the end say how much I still love it (even though it is expected that I would never go there again). While this might make a good movie, it was not my story.

I was a moderately bright 8-year-old. I was doing well in school. I guess because I was the only one studying non-Asian at the time. But my parents were really fascinated by the Asian parents so I guess that it influenced my upbringing. I grew up playing piano till I refused to play. I rebelled against this passive instrument by playing guitar. That was my way of pissing off my parents I guess. I went to swimming lessons, had good grades (If you haven’t figured by now) and I watched anime (when I was allowed because my Christian parents would see demons everywhere). The day when I learned that we would be moving to Canada, I remember coming back from school with 3 buttons missing from my shirt and some blood on my front pocket. With small leaves and dust stuffed into my dirty tangled afro I looked at my mom with the proudest look.

I think that I was waiting for her to hug me and be like “are you hurt? Where’s that blood coming from?” but that’s what white parents do in family movies, not what my Indian mom did. Instead, she slapped me and told me to shower then do my homework. Later that night I heard her talking to my dad about how the teacher called earlier saying that I fought with Vincent. I wanted my mom to ask me what happened. I wanted her to ask where the blood was coming from so I could reply: “It’s not mine! It’s the blood of my enemy!” while in reality I was bleeding too, just that Vincent bled from the elbow which got onto my shirt while I bled from the knee which got onto his shorts. I guess it was fair game.

When my mom announced me that we were moving to Canada she was still mad at me. So at dinner she told me that I would not go to Canada if you did not finish your homework. Yes! That’s how she said it, that’s how she introduced it. Probably one of the most important topics of my life. So I replied : “What is Canada?” and she said : “It’s like France but bigger” I still laugh to that till now, but I did not laugh back then. I just wanted to go to France so I could get a Nintendo DS. I thought that they did not have it in Canada. So I said, drop me in France while you go to Canada, I’ll just wait there with my Nintendo DS.

A few months later I said goodbye to all my friends which was not too painful until the plane took off. I remember staring at my class picture on those small tables that you get on planes (sorry I genuinely did not have the patience to look it up, it’s super late and I got class tomorrow) while seeing “Le Morne Brabant” (Mauritian Mountain with tremendous history) disappear in the blue scenery.

It was a long flight. A very long flight, especially for a very energetic 8-year-old like me (let’s keep it to energetic or they might want to prescribe me some Adderall). That night in my first 8hr flight, I realized that babies on planes were the worst thing in the world. They could make an 8hr flight seem like purgatory. We laid over in London, where my dad studies. That’s why he was confident enough to show us around the city. We almost missed the connection flight because guess what : “things are not like they were when i was young” he said.

I landed in Canada with my pockets full of free earphones. Oh, by the way, my backpack was also filled with them. I think that might be the reason why they collect them after the flight nowadays.

For some reason I forgot about, my dad and I wore a full 3 piece suit to board the flight to Canada. I genuinely have no idea why we did that, we went through so much to get the suit from the hand luggage to finding a public bathroom in the airport to having to survive an 8hr flight for absolutely no reason. And that was it, we made it to Canada, the promise land.

People were talking weird French and I hated it!

Day 1 of Journaling my past.