Holding on to my roots as I learn to grow new ones

Continued from Digging my way out of deeply rootedself-doubt

I was the first one at school again. I proudly showed my teacher the sentences I had written and she was amazed that I was able to actually use that Spanish dictionary and that it was working for me.

She said, “Wow, that is great, Anna. You did all that work in one night?”

“Yes I did, I was worried that if I stopped I might forget what I had learned so far,” I replied.

She gave me a few extra workbooks to take home to read and write in. I started reading one paragraph at a time. I was able to sound out most of the smaller words but I was having a hard time comprehending what I was reading. I had a really hard time concentrating and it would always end in a headache. 

Before I knew it, it was Friday. I had been going to school for four days. I was getting low on food so I fired up Izaak’s car and drove to the food bank.

At the food bank, I asked if they had any thank you cards. I explained to them that I really needed to give someone a thank you card, so they gave me a whole pack of them. I drove home all excited and thought, “I am going to ask George if he can write a nice note in this card for me to give to the nurse at the walk-in clinic.”

I walked over to George’s and knocked on his door. He opened it with a big smile. As usual, he was wearing nothing but a pair of ripped torn jeans and his tattoos. He was completely covered in sawdust.

“Hey, girl, what’s up? What’s happening, how are you?” he asked.

I didn’t know where to look so I just looked down at his feet and said, “Ahhh, I am okay. I think those people at that school haven’t recognized my learning disability. It’s been hard but I am starting to enjoy it.”

“Oh Anna, you don’t have a learning disability, you should drop that word completely,” he said.

“Do you really think so?” I asked.

“Absolutely. I don’t think so, I know so,” he said.

“Okay, I’ll work on that. Could you do me a favor? Could I borrow your perfect handwriting to write a thank-you note in this card for the nurse?” I asked him.

“Ahhh, I don’t know about perfect, but okay sure. I’ll write anything you want. Just let me clean up first,” he explained and went to his bedroom.  He came out dressed in clean clothes. As he pulled his fingers through his hair he sat down beside me on the floor by the coffee table.

“What are you making?” I asked.

“I’m just building a bookshelf for a friend who really needs one. Okay, so what am I writing?”

I told him what to write and he started writing. I just stared at him with amazement as he was writing. I was fascinated by how confidently and effortlessly he wrote. He was getting more attractive by the second. I was so envious of him. I thought to myself, “One day, George; one day that is going to be me.” 

When he turned to hand the card to me I quickly looked to the lizard and pretended I had been looking at it the whole time instead. The lizard tilted its head at me and blinked.

“Are you going to bring it to her now?” he asked.

“Yes, I was thinking of just putting it in her mailbox. I’m not sure if she is working today.”

“Would it be alright if I tagged along, and after we drop the card off would you like to go out to eat somewhere? Pick any place you like -- after all the hard work you did this week I think you deserve it. It will be my treat.”

“Ahhh, okay, maybe, but I don’t know any places around here. I wish there was a place that had really spicy Mexican food.”

“No, there isn’t anything like that in this town. Unless we go to London?” he said.

“Actually I have been craving one of those spicy chicken burgers from Wendy’s I had a long time ago. Do you like Wendy’s?” I asked him.

“I’m not picky at all, I will go anywhere you drive to,” he replied.

“Okay, Wendy’s it is, then,” I said.

After dropping off the card at the clinic, I drove to Wendy’s. We each ordered the spicy chicken burger and went outside to sit at a picnic table. I was just going to take my first bite and there were the Brauns again. Mr. Braun sat down at the picnic table right next to us and lit a smoke as Mrs. Braun walked in with all the kids.

Mrs. Braun looked like she was about nine months pregnant, carrying a toddler, as she brought all the food out to Mr. Braun. She looked exhausted and sad as she served food to her husband, all the kids, then feeding the toddler.

Mr. Braun stared at us the whole time. I couldn’t even enjoy the food. I thought, “Oh great! I know what I’m doing tonight. My mom is going to call me and be all heartbroken again.”

George turned to me smiled and winked at me as he continued eating. I blushed and felt a warm sensation that went all the way down to my toes. From being nervous that the Brauns were staring at us and the warm feelings I felt from George’s wink, I just couldn’t eat anymore.

George looked over at the Brauns then turned to me with one eyebrow raised and said, “Let’s get out of here?” 

“Sure, let’s go,” I replied.

When I got home I had a message from the nurse at the walk-in clinic.

“Thank you so much for that beautiful card. I love it. You should have waited a bit so I could talk to you. I am thrilled to hear that you are going to school. I would love to talk to you about that and see how you are doing with your ‘nerve problems.’ Can you give us a call next week to book an appointment? Thanks, Anna, I look forward to seeing you.”

Hearing her voice made me feel so good until I thought of my mom calling and asking me what I was still doing hanging out with a ‘sween-nagel’ again.

I turned on the TV for background noise and started working on my homework.

Saturday morning I went downstairs to pick up some local newspapers. I cut out a bunch of articles and practiced finding the five w’s so that by Monday I would be faster at it.

I spent that whole weekend inside and reading like the teacher showed me. I stopped worrying about the words I couldn’t pronounce. I just skipped them and continued. I didn’t comprehend much but I kept at it all weekend. I never went outside because I didn’t want to risk running into Mark again. I just didn’t have the right words for him.

Monday morning I woke up early with my usual knot in my stomach relieved, but sad that my mom hadn’t called. I sat up and said my morning prayer. I missed my family so much I thought of ways I could feel closer to them and make Mondays better.

The only thing I could come up with was to have a shower and put on one of my favorite brown pleated dresses with yellow tulips that I had brought from Mexico. That was the last dress my mom had made for me.

Most people in my class knew I was Mexican Mennonite. And it didn’t really matter how I dressed anymore. Some days I felt more comfortable dressing the way I had been dressing for the last nineteen years.

I rolled my hair into a side bun like my teacher had the first day I met her. I put on my best white socks with lace around the fold and my strappy sandals.

On my way walking to school, a man riding his bicycle smashed into a post because he stared at me so much and wasn’t watching where he was going. I laughed hysterically -- only on the inside -- and thought, “Serves you right for staring so much.”

I felt guilty for thinking that because I had caught myself doing the exact same thing. I stared at George all the time only I hadn’t gotten hurt in the process. I thought, “I need to be more aware of this. I have more in common with those people who stare at me than the ones who don’t. In a way, we are the same. We can’t help but stare at what is foreign to us.”

I continued thinking about my mom and how she always reminded us kids, “Nijch soo schantlijch sea glottsen” (Don’t stare so much). I imagined saying to my mom, “But mom, there are so many things I have never seen before. How can I not stare?”

I thought, “I should stop staring at George so much. What if he gets annoyed with me?” The more I thought about it, I imagined if I said, “Hey George, sorry for staring at you all the time.” And answered myself as George, “Anna, you go ahead and stare your heart out, I don’t mind at all.”  

I was the first one at school again. A bunch of the students were late, they had all been at a party the day before. They all looked really tired and had red eyes. One of the men walked past me and I smelled whiskey on him.

Smelling that next-day whiskey smell on that man triggered many memories. I fought to keep my thoughts at school all day. My thoughts just wanted to go to Mexico no matter what I did to try and stop it. Click here to continue reading my story.

Digging my way out of deeply rooted self-doubt

Continued from Discovering Useful Learning Skills under Painful Colony School Memories

I suddenly really had to go to the bathroom. I put my hand up and asked if I could go and the teacher said, “Anna, you can go whenever you like. There’s no need to ask me for permission.”

I got up and made my way to the bathroom. I stared at myself in the mirror and thought, “Did I just figure this out?” Then my Low German thoughts suggested that I was wrong and it was way more complicated than that and not to get so excited about it.

I fought with everything in me to stop the tears from bursting. I locked myself in a stall and focused on breathing for a while until it passed. Then I went back to the classroom and continued working on the newspaper article. 

The teacher came to check on me and I was so sure she would say, “This is so wrong, Anna. You have to start all over again” but, instead, she said, “Good job, Anna, you are on the right track. Keep up the good work, Anna!”

I was in disbelief. She said, “Good job, Anna.”

I thought I’d soon wake up and she would say, “You can’t do this. This is not a place for you, Anna. You will never learn this. You can just go home now and don’t come back.”

At lunchtime, I followed Chung and the rest of the students to the lunchroom. It was filled with people of all ages and colours. I asked Chung where all those people came from and he said, “They are all students here. There are a whole lot more classes on the other side of this building.”

Chung continued, “Our class is a bit more unique. It is like a bridge we have to cross before we can join them. We have to spend enough time in this class so the teacher can see what level we actually are because we all come here with different backgrounds and levels of schooling.”

I made a note in my head to look up ‘unique’ in my dictionary that night.

“Some of them are high school dropouts, others from different countries all over the world. They are here to learn English and some got laid off from their jobs and now they need more schooling to get another one,” Chung explained.

“You are telling me that there are people who have lived their whole lives in Canada that have to go back to school when they are … um … older?” I asked.

“You got it. There are even grandpas here, Anna,” he replied. 

It was shocking for me to learn that there were that many adults in Canada going to school. I was so relieved to learn that I was not the oldest person in history to go back to school at the age of nineteen. I asked Chung how long he had been in Canada.

“Almost ten years. I’ve been coming to this school for a year and a half. I am here to learn how to speak better English and to work on my accent. I was in the ESL class for the first year.”

He still had a very heavy accent and it was hard for me to understand him.

“Did you already speak English before you came to Canada?” he asked.

“I knew a few bad words when I came three years ago,” I replied.

“Wow, you learned a lot in that time and you don’t even have an accent,” Chung said.

“What? I thought I did!” I replied.

“That is not fair. Most of us that come here from different countries have to work hard at it for years and years and we never completely lose the accent. Where did you learn to speak the English that you know?” he asked.

“I started working in a factory two weeks after I got here. I made some friends who only spoke English and that forced me to speak it but I embarrassed myself so many times. If a person could die from embarrassments, I would be dead and I have a feeling that it’s not over yet,” I answered.

“That is the only way to do it and I too have embarrassed myself a lot. In fact, I think I should change my name to ‘Chung Embarrassment’. That’s how many times I have embarrassed myself already,” he said.

I started laughing so hard I almost passed out. It was like he didn’t have a choice but to start laughing too. There was no more talking after that. I just couldn’t stop laughing.

Walking home, I was thinking about my day and how different this school was from the one I went to in Mexico. I actually ate a little bit and I laughed. I thought to myself, “I laughed at a school and that is probably a sin but that should be okay now that I have a card for that!”

I loved that I could watch TV if I wanted to. I had choices now and how to make the time pass was no longer an issue for me. All my surroundings started to look beautiful. I caught myself breathing deeply without even thinking about it as I walked home, still smiling about Chung Embarrassment.

My Low German thoughts were working hard at reminding me, time and time again, that it was still only the second day and they probably would detect my disability soon. I thought, “They are probably having a hard time figuring out how bad my situation actually is.”

I got my books out first thing when I got home. I just had to test this idea I had. I sounded the words of the day out in my head in Spanish and turned the page over and wrote them down. Every single word was right. I suddenly got that really nervous feeling that I was right.

Image

I looked up the word unique and read the definition in English than in Spanish. It suddenly hit me like a ton of bricks and it made a whole lot to sense to me. I figured it out and realized I had just cracked the code to a world of possibility and that it would drastically change my life forever.

I spent a bit of time bonding with my tears since they had wanted to be with me on and off all day. I decided to just let it happen so I could move on already!

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That realization was overwhelming, a feeling, unlike anything I had ever experienced before. I felt like the most powerful Low German girl/woman in the world.

I realized that the word unique was missing from the Low German language altogether and probably for this very reason.

I decided to think, with my new right to think, that “I have choices and I choose to think and accept that this is, in fact, the reason.” 

But, of course, I could never ever tell anyone in my Low German world about my discovery and risk being told what an idiot I am for coming up with such nonsense. It’s kind of the same as me knowing that George is my man hero and they think he is the biggest kind of schwein noagel on this planet and, no matter how and in what way I try to make them see it, they just won’t.

That made me so angry all over again. I got up and put on my Alanis Morisette tape. It started at the Ironic song. I looked up ironic in the dictionary and thought, “Ha li dechjat!” I had to close my eyes and picture George’s face telling me to breathe to get me through this moment of awakening.

I thought, “This is too much. I have to tell someone, but who would actually get it?” No one came to mind other than George and how he would put it: “No one in your life gives a shit about this the way that you do, Anna. You don’t actually have to tell someone; just know it and keep it with you.”

I dug my way out of those thoughts and went right back there again and it just got worse.

“Hello nerve problems, Anna! Do you hear yourself thinking and answering your own thoughts as if George were speaking to you? If he comes over right now I will hug him. No, you won’t, Anna, you don’t have it in you. Those are your Low German thoughts thinking schwein noagelish thoughts. Dios Mio! Snap out of it, Anna!”

I just couldn’t take it anymore. I got up and turned on the TV. I was shaking, sitting there with all that and thinking, “I hope George doesn’t come over right now. I don’t even trust myself right now. How the heck am I going to sleep tonight? Grrr … I’m doing it again!”

Since I had already memorized and figured out how to spell the words for the next day, I practiced writing sentences with each of those words. I would take a break and watch the Mexican news for half an hour and then a telenovela for an hour while I ate dinner. By the end of the night, I was exhausted.

The next morning I woke up feeling enthusiastic and doubtful at the same time, still wondering if this would be the day they would tell me that I don’t have a chance at this.

I thought to myself, “Stop thinking about that! This is a new start and I have choices now. I can actually choose what and how I think about something. I can choose to take the teacher’s advice and force my thinking from ‘I think I can do this’ to ‘I know I can do this.’” and that was a powerful realization. Click here to continue reading my story.

Huevos Rancheros

INGREDIENTS:

2 corn tortillas

1/4 cup of cheese 

1 slice of ham

1/2 cup of not fried refried beans

2 eggs (cooked any way you like)

1/2 cup salsa verde (I use my homemade, but you can also use the store bought salsa too)

DIRECTIONS:

Melt the cheese between the tortillas. I typically do this in a nonstick frying pan on the stove burner over low to medium heat. But you can also do it in the microwave if you wrap the tortillas in a damp paper towel first.

Warm the beans and cook your eggs to your liking. Assemble the huevos rancheros. 

1.Tortilla with cheese, 2. ham 3. beans, 4. eggs, 5. green or red salsa.

Discovering Useful Learning Skills under Painful Colony School Memories

Continued from Transforming Fear into Action

I woke to the sound of someone knocking on my door. I got up and tip-toed to the door to see who it was and there stood George with a TV in his arms.

I opened the door, he walked in, put the TV down and said, “The landlord was getting rid of this and I thought you might like it.”

He plugged it in and fiddled around with it for a while. He said, “I thought since the cable is included in our rent, it’s such a waste for you not to have a TV that can actually be connected to the cable.”

“You mean the cable you just plugged in?” I asked.

“No,” he said and explained what cable was, how many channels I had, and that there was even a Spanish channel included in the package.

He turned it on, put it to the Spanish channel and to my amazement it worked. I was completely thrilled about it. I wanted to hug him again but, instead, I just said, “Thank you.”

“So, how was your first day of school? What do you think about it?” George asked.

“It was hard. Learning all that English gave me a nasty headache but it went okay. I think I will be able to do this but it’s going to take me forever” I replied.

“I don’t think so. You are way too ambitious” he said.

I thought, “What am I?” I asked if he could show me how to find the word ‘ambitious’ in the dictionary.

“Absolutely,” he said.

I got my dictionary out and he wrote down the word and showed me step by step in alphabetical order how to find the word in the dictionary.

“So, first I have to know how to spell the word before I can find it in the dictionary?”

“Yes, that’s right.”

“Ay, caramba! I’m in so much trouble” I replied.

“No, Anna, don’t say that. If you practice with the words you write down in class it will get easier, even if you are not sure how to spell something. You should still look it up and that word will most likely be close to the word you are trying to find and it will be on that or the next page,” he explained.

With a big sigh I said, “Wow, I have a lot of work to do.”

“You should give yourself a bit more credit, Anna. You actually know more than you think. It will be a lot of work but if you take it one word and one day at a time, and before you know it you will be well on your way,” he said.

“You really think so?” I asked.

“Absolutely and when you learn how to read and figure out what you like to read I think you will love it! You can just pick up a book and learn about anything you want or visit a place without actually leaving home. I think you will love it and really benefit from it.” 

“Wow, you are right. That sounds so amazing! I have so much that I want to learn about,” I replied.

The Mexican news came on the TV and they were talking about the nuevo peso (new peso) and how people were still having a hard time getting used to it. I said, “No way, I didn’t know about that. That is interesting.”

“You can understand all that gibberish?” George asked.

“Yes, well, enough to know what they are talking about. I am not sure what ‘gibberish’ means but it sounds like a word I would use to describe English when you guys talk really fast,” I said.

He laughed as he said, “Awesome! This will help you stay informed about what is happening where your family is. I better get going so you can do your homework.”

“George, before you go can you write down the word ‘gibberish’ for me?” I asked. He laughed and said, “Sure, but this one isn't in the dictionary, yet,” and still wrote it down in my notebook.

I thought, “I need to be well informed on the commonly used English words so it won’t turn into a  ´schmuck´ story all over again.”

George left and I made myself a bean and tweeback sandwich with salsa on it. I sat down to watch more news but it was over and a telenovela came on. I was so happy and thought, “This is great! I can learn more Spanish in case I ever go home and visit my family. I will have to know how to speak Spanish well enough to get by.”

I had a hard time falling asleep again. All I could think of was that not one person has said that I was a hard learner like I was in Mexico. “George thinks I am ambitious and my teacher thinks I don’t even need ESL.”

My Low German thoughts were telling me, “They will probably notice that when the real learning begins. This is just the beginning so don’t get all excited that you will actually learn, Anna.”

The next morning when I woke up I couldn’t help but feel excited about school. I went even earlier. I was the first one there. My teacher came soon after I arrived.

She said, “Good to see you here early, Anna. I’m so glad you came back.”

“I think I can do this” I replied.

“Try to tell yourself, ‘I know I can do this’ instead of ‘I think I can do this’ because that is the truth.”

I told her that my friend taught me how to use a dictionary and I asked her if she knew where I could find a Spanish-English one. 

“We actually do have some here in the school library. I will go get one for you if you think that will help. I didn’t realize you know Spanish. I thought you only spoke Low German.”

I told her that I had a hard time with the High German in the Mennonite school I went to. I never learned it but I read some Spanish books and, even though I didn’t really speak it, it was easier for me than the High German.

“So you speak Low German but in your school, you only read High German and that was too hard for you so you learned how to read Spanish on your own?”

“Yes, well, I did have a great teacher. Her name was Irma and she was our neighbour in Mexico. She only spoke Spanish. While we played she taught me the letter sounds and the Spanish alphabet,” I explained.

“Wow, that is incredible!”

While the teacher went to look for the dictionary the male Chinese student came into the classroom.

“Hi, Anna. I’m Chung. How are you?”

“I’m okay, I think.”

“So what country did you come from and how long have you been in Canada?” he asked.

“I came about three years ago, from Mexico.”

“What? You are Mexican? Wow, you do not look Mexican at all. I would say you look a bit more European than Mexican” he replied.

I thought, “European? What the heck is that?” and tried to explain it to him.

“White, Low German-speaking Mennonites live in Mexico? How does that happen? I have never heard of that before,” he said.

“Well, I have no idea how this happened,” I replied.

“That would almost be like Chinese Mennonites living in Iraq or Africa” and we both laughed as more students came into the classroom.

“What’s so funny?” asked a student.

“Aaah … it’s a long story” Chung said.

The teacher came back and handed me a brand new Spanish-English dictionary. When I picked it up I felt butterflies in my stomach and thought, “This is going to change everything. With what George taught me last night and this, I am going to spend every minute I have looking up words. I am never going to be bored again.”

The teacher wrote the words of the day on the wall and said, “Before you start these ones we will do a dictation of the words from yesterday.”

Chung noticed I looked confused so he explained it to me. I started writing like the rest of the students and I actually spelled one word correctly. I was so excited and thought, “Tonight I am going to work hard to memorize these words for tomorrow.” 

Memorizing written text I didn’t understand was actually something I was very familiar with. That was all I did in my school back home.

When it was time to do the newspaper articles again and whenever there was a word I didn’t understand, instead of asking someone to help me, I looked it up in the Spanish-English dictionary.

I figured out that it might help if I sounded an English word out in Spanish. That way I could hear the sound of every letter in the word, which was not the case in the English words. It was like a light bulb lit up in my head. It shone so brightly that my face turned red on the outside. Click here to continue reading my story.

Transforming Fear into Action

Continued from Drowning in Fear and Doubt

Tuesday morning came. I hadn’t slept much and my cousin, Izaak, never came to rescue me as I had secretly wished. I was a nervous wreck as I sat there thinking and knowing that there was no rescuing me from this. In order for me to move forward with my life, I had to go to school. I couldn’t even drink my usual instant coffee, let alone eat anything for breakfast.

While getting dressed, I decided to wear my jeans. I thought, “If I blend in a bit more, then people won’t be able to figure out that I am a Mexican Mennonite right away and I will have a better chance to make friends.”

I could hear my heart pounding as I walked through the door into the hallway. I just focused on the echoing sound of my footsteps while I walked down the stairs. As I walked out through the front door, the sun was shining so brightly that it almost blinded me.

I stood there for a moment to absorb my surroundings, inhaling the air that smelled like freshly cut grass. An elderly woman working in her garden spotted me, smiled, and said “good morning” as if I was just any person enjoying a morning walk. She couldn’t tell that, on the inside, I was freaking out.

I smiled back at her and said, “Good morning,” and thought, “Anna, just start walking!” I just focused on my feet as I put one foot in front of the other. When I approached the front door of the school there was a woman waiting for me. With a big smile on her face, she held the door open for me. She had shoulder-length medium blond hair and she was wearing grey pants with a matching blazer and a plum coloured top underneath. Her pink lipstick matched her fingernail polish and her toenails that peeked out of her open-toed, high heeled shoes.

She reached for my hand and said, “Anna?”

I shook her hand and said, “Yes.”

“It is really nice to meet you, Anna. I’m so glad you came today. My name is Julie and I am the principal here. Please come with me and I will show you where your class will be” she said.

I followed her to a long narrow room with a row of tables in the middle. There were chairs neatly placed around the table. One entire side and the end of the wall facing the street was constructed out of see-through glass.

She said, “Please have a seat and the teacher will be right with you.”

I just smiled and secretly wished that the teacher would be a woman. I really wanted to ask her but I was too nervous.

She noticed I wasn’t sure where to sit and said, “Anywhere is fine.”

I picked the chair at the end of the table, farthest from the teacher’s desk. I sat down as the principal walked out of the classroom and wondered if the seating arrangements would be like they were back in the school in my colony in Mexico.

Old Colony Mennonite School in Durango Mexico

My Mennonite school in Mexico was a three-room schoolhouse. It had a little room at the front on each side. The left side was for the girls and the right side was for the boys. These rooms were called the steefke. In this room, we would hang our hats and sweaters on the walls. There was one door on each steefke that opened into the schoolhouse.

On each side of the schoolhouse were rows of benches that had a desk attached to them. They were the length of the whole side of the schoolhouse, leaving a wide walk space between the boys’ side and the girls’ side. The teacher’s desk was at the front in the middle facing all the benches.

Image by Miguel Bergasa

There were four levels and books we learned from that would go with the levels. The first one is the Fible. Which we started with at the age of six and we were seated according to our birthdates. The oldest would sit at the first spot starting from the right side and so on. The youngest would sit by the wall.

The Fiblea, the youngest kids, would take up the first few rows of the benches when coming into the school. Then the next couple of rows would be the Catechisma, then the Testamenta, and the Biblea would sit closest to the teacher.

In each of those groups, we sat in order from the best learning student sitting at the first spot on the right side of the bench toward the middle of the schoolhouse. Then the second-best learning student sat next to the best and so on. The one who was at the lowest level, the ‘hardest learner’, would sit at the end of the bench against the wall.

Whenever the teacher decided that a student was a ‘better learner’, the one sitting to their right was made to switch places. There was a term for it: “unja dreien”, meaning “turn under.”

My birthday is in September so I was somewhere in the middle when I started as a Fiblea. It didn’t take long for me to be at the bottom. About once a week I would get “unja je'dreit” until I was at the bottom.

The same thing would happen when we moved to the next level. The catechism we would be seated according to our age. In the first week, I started getting “unja je'dreit” by all of my friends until I was at the bottom again.

Then, after the catechism we moved up to the testament. Again I got “unja je'dreit” until I was at the bottom and that was where I stayed when all my friends moved on to the Bible. That is when my mom decided that I could just stay home and help her with the chores around the house.

Seven years later, as I sat in a classroom in Ontario, Canada waiting for a teacher and wondering if I would have to sit at the bottom again, a Chinese man walked in. I silently wished he would go sit at the front of the classroom but instead, he came and sat down beside me, smiled, and said, “Good morning.”

Shortly after that, another man walked in. He had brown skin and dark brown hair and he sat down across the table from me. As my heart was pounding, all I could think was, “Why? Why couldn’t they go sit at the front?” Finally, a woman walked in with an arm full of books.

She put the books down on the teacher’s desk and looked right at me and said, “You must be Anna. My name is Marian and I will be your teacher.”

I was so relieved. She looked like a nice person. She had really dark brown hair rolled up into a bun with side bangs.

She was wearing a navy blue shirt that complemented her big blue eyes and she had a beautiful calming smile. She was wearing the most gorgeous dangly turquoise earrings I had ever seen. I thought, “If only I could wear those.”

She asked if I could come to her desk so she could help me fill out some paperwork. I walked to her desk hugging the backpack George gave me tightly in my arms. Eight women and two more men came into the classroom. I sat down and Marian said, “Now that everyone is here, this is Anna. She will be joining us in this class.”

Everyone said hi and started writing in their books while she helped me fill out some more paperwork. She put a story in front of me and asked if I could read it to her. I thought, “Oh crap, here we go. Now everyone will hear me and know how bad I am at this.”

As my heart skipped a beat and struggled to keep beating, I told her that I couldn’t read and she said, “Just try a few words and see if you can do it.”

It took me a long time to work up the courage to actually do it. In a broken, shaken-up voice I read the first word out loud. I turned all red but I kept going. I just read the words that I could and when I got stuck she helped me. I read one paragraph and she told me that was good. Everybody got up and I thought, “It must be the end of the day now.”

It felt like it had taken me the whole day to read that paragraph.

“It’s break time now. You are welcome to stay in here with me or go outside if you like” she said.

I thought, “Wow, they just got up and walked out. The teacher didn’t even say, “sen min'üten posie.” (Ten-minute pause) I stayed in the classroom with her and went over the books while everyone else went outside.

“I think you are going to do great in my class. You won’t even need to start in ESL like most people do for whom English isn’t their first language,” she said.

That comment made me feel really good. I thought she was going to say, “There is no level low enough for you at this school so don’t bother coming back.”

She brought me a bunch of books to take home and work on, including a dictionary. I asked where I should sit and, with a confused look on her face, she said, “Anywhere you like, Anna.”

I sat down on the first chair, closest to the teacher since no one was sitting there before.

As everyone came back into the class, she wrote down ten words on the board for us to copy and practice spelling. I took out one of the notebooks that George gave me and remembered to take a deep breath as I wrote my first word in it.

I was happy that no one was sitting on either side of me so I didn’t have to worry about someone watching me write. At lunchtime, I stayed in the classroom again. My teacher asked if I had brought anything to eat. I told her that I couldn’t eat when I was nervous.

She came and sat down beside me and offered me some of her strawberries and potato chips. I ate a few strawberries and one potato chip. She got up, walked to her desk, and picked up a bright green diary with purple flowers on it. She gave it to me and told me to write in it every day. She said that I could write about anything I wanted to, and not worry about the spelling at this point.

When everyone got back from lunch break she handed out newspaper stories for us to pick and cut out. She told us to find the “who, what, when, why, and where” and write them down. I picked one based on the cover photo. After I cut it out I looked around and watched everyone to see what they were doing. The woman closest to me noticed that I looked confused and offered to show me what to do.

I worked on that for the rest of the day and by the time three o’clock came, I had a massive headache. While walking home I began to feel the effects of not eating and began to feel sick. When I got home I forced a bit of food down and took a nap. Click here to continue reading my story.

Not Fried Refried Beans

Ingredients:

2 lbs. dry Romano beans (I do the whole 2 lb bag and freeze some)

8 cups water
3 tbsp of olive oil

1 tbsp cumin

2 tbsp Tex max seasoning  
salt to taste

10 roasted chilaca/poblano peppers 
2 cups of grated Munster or Mozzarella cheese 

Directions:

Pour the beans into a large bowl, cover with water, rinse and drain the beans.

Place beans, 8 cups of water, olive oil, cumin, Tex-max and salt in the slow cooker.

Give it a stir, cover and cook on high for 4-6 hours. 

Check the beans halfway through, if it looks like most of the water has evaporated, add a bit more to get the beans covered and again, stir and place lid back on.

The beans are done when you can push the back of a spoon against them and they mash up easily. 

With a potato masher or a hand blender, mash or blend beans.  

It won't take long as they will be very soft.  Mash as much as you like - leaving them a bit chunky, or mashing longer to make them smoother. 

Roast, peel, seed and chop the peppers. 

After beans are blended add chopped roasted peppers, cheese and stir it all together. 

Serve immediately hot on tostadas, as nacho dip, side dish, in a flour tortilla as a burrito, taco filling, tamale filling, mix with rice and other dishes for later, they freeze well too, I freeze them in serving-size portions to make huevos rancheros.

Drowning in Fear and Doubt

Continued from Seeing Beyond Menno Blinders

“Oba, George, how does a person get ready to go to kindergarten when they are about to turn twenty years old?” I asked and held my breath just thinking about it.

“Oh fff… crap, Anna! I can’t even give you an answer or imagine how that must feel. Why don’t you think of it more like taking it one day at a time and breathe, Anna, breathe. You are turning blue! F#ck Anna, why do you do that?” he asked.

“I don’t know. It just happens when I am thinking about something that freaks me out” I replied.

“Well, stop it! You are starting to freak me out. If that happens at school, you should talk to the principal. From what I hear she is a kind-hearted human being and she will help you figure it out if it does” George urged.

“I brought you a backpack and some school supplies I don’t need anymore. I thought you could use them.” George handed it to me and said, “Try not to worry so much; it’s only making it worse. The first few days might be really weird for you but, once you start to get to know people, you will make friends and I’m sure you will start to enjoy it.”

He continued, “I’m sure you will meet some jerks along the way. Unfortunately, they are everywhere. But you are a strong brave person, Anna. You left your entire family and everything you have ever known because you believed that was the right thing for you. I believe if you can do that you can do anything you set your mind to. I believe this is the right thing for you.”

When you start learning, all it will take is that one teacher to tell you what you need to hear and you will get all inspired to go discover the world and accomplish amazing things. I can feel it. You will probably forget all about me” he said.

“George, how could I ever forget about you? You are the only person that is sticking up for me and making things happen” I told him.

When George left I was feeling a bit better. He worked so hard to convince me that everything would be alright. I knew that I was starting to drag him down with my doubts and I felt bad for doing that, especially when I looked through the backpack he had brought me. Everything in it was brand new. I thought, “Oba nee (oh no), he bought all this for me!”

I got a notebook out and practiced writing my name. I was having a hard time concentrating. I kept thinking about Mark and how strange he was. I wished he would just forget about me so I didn’t have to tell him to leave me alone.

Finally, the longest Sunday had come to an end but I couldn’t fall asleep. I felt like a child counting down the sleeps until it was my birthday and the start of school.

I lay there thinking, “Dios mio, what have I gotten myself into? Maybe I am not strong or brave. Maybe I am the stupidest person that ever lived.”

I was beginning to doubt my decisions and was feeling very anxious about everything. All I could do was picture George’s face telling me to breathe, over and over until I calmed down. I forced myself to think of all the good things George had told me earlier.

The next thing I knew Marco Antonio Solis dressed in a white robe appeared in front of me. He put his fingers under my chin to lift my head so I had no choice but to look up at his face. He looked right in my eyes and sang, “Anna, si no te hubieras ido sería tan feliz. (Anna, if you wouldn’t have left I would be so happy).”

He came closer and closer and whispered, “Anna, su alma vive en México por favor regrese a casa conmigo. (Anna, your soul lives in Mexico so please return home with me.)” I could feel his breath on my skin. He slowly drifted away. When I could barely see him anymore, his face turned into my grandpa’s face and he said, “Onna, waut doest dü? (Anna, what are you doing?)” Then he faded away.

I woke up and remembered where I was and realized that it was Monday morning. I thought, “Oh no, even Marco thinks I shouldn’t have left and my grandpa who has passed is wondering what on earth I am doing.”

I suddenly had the biggest knot in my stomach I had ever felt. I didn’t know what to do with myself.

I got up and did what I knew every Low German person in my colony in Mexico was doing: my laundry. I came in with a load of dry laundry to the sound of my phone ringing. I picked it up and said, “Mama?”

“Ahhh, no, it’s Bree. Hi Anna, how are you?” she asked.

I told her how miserable I was feeling. 

“I have a tape that is perfect for those kinds of feelings. I will bring it over she said. Have you had lunch yet? I have to bring some stuff back to George’s apartment. I can pick us up something for lunch on the way if you’re up for it” she said.

“Yes, I’m up for that.”

“Great, also I have a bag full of clothes I was going to drop off at the thrift store, but come to think of it they will probably fit you perfectly. There's some Guess jeans, t-shirts, little jackets, some boots, and some princess makeup I don't use anymore.”

“Sure, I would love to take the clothes, thank you.”

I got so excited, folded my laundry really fast, sat down, and waited for her.

 When she got there she handed me a bag of Taco Bell and said, “This is the only Mexican food I know around here so I hope you like it. And here, whenever I can’t sleep, I listen to this music, it takes me to a heavenly place in my mind. You should try it” she said handed me a tape of Enigma.

I didn’t really understand the concept of a heavenly place in one’s mind. I put the tape on and we sat on the floor and quietly ate Taco Bell, listening to Return to Innocence. When the first song ended she asked, “Do you like the food?”

I told her that she shouldn’t call that Mexican food but it was better than George’s Mr. Noodles with wieners and cheese whiz and we both laughed.

I thanked Bree for the food and the tape. I loved the music and it reminded me of the music I used to hear playing in the Mexican church in Nuevo Porvenir on Sunday mornings. We always rode past it with our friend’s horse and buggy on the way to our old colony church in Schoenthal. We always sang the lange wies (long melody) only.

Bree said, “I think George and I are done. It’s time for me to move on. We don’t want the same things and it’s just causing too many fights. I’m going to miss him, though; he is an amazing man. I don’t think I will ever find another man like him. This really sucks!”

“At least it will be easier now that I have been moved to the afternoon shift. I won’t have to see him every day” she said.

“I was wondering why you weren’t at work today” I replied.

“They are getting busier again so they started an afternoon shift from three to eleven. I love this shift. There are only a few people on it and I don’t have to get up so f#cking early every morning” she said.  

She asked if I had figured out what I was going to do. I told her that I was starting school the next day and she said, “You know, Anna, I think you have made the right decision. You are a natural people person and you will do really well in school, I just know it. Our time here will pass no matter how much we wish we were born into a different situation but we can’t do anything about that. The only thing we can do is accept it and go after what we want and that won’t happen unless we do the work and never give up. I know you have that in you. Maybe one day I will figure out what I want and go after it too. I just wish I knew what that is” she said.

Bree bright up the bag of clothes before she left. I sat back down on the floor and turned the Enigma tape back on. I lay down on the floor, surrounded by the voices singing Return to Innocence. I closed my eyes, thinking about everything Bree had said.

In my beautiful purple satin Sunday dress I lay flat on my back in a beautifully crafted wooden boat. The boat had a long narrow pointed front that curved up high in the air and rounded back down to the middle of the boat. An oil lantern hung down from it, shining a soft light on me as the boat slowly drifted me away.

Image

Looking up at the stars as the tiny sparkling waves drifted the boat further and further away, I could feel a slight warm breeze on my skin. It smelled like fresh summer evening air mixed with the smoke from the oil lantern and a hint of George’s cologne. It began to smell more and more like George.

I felt his warmth right next to me so I glimpsed over without turning my head. He was wearing nothing but a pair of torn jeans and his tattoos.

He put his hand on my cheek, stroked it with his thumb, and slowly moved my head to face him. I opened my eyes, looking right into his blue eyes as he said, “Anna, why is it happening again? Breathe, Anna! Breathe!”

I jumped as I inhaled a deep breath. I woke up to the sound of what I thought was my own breath but it was the heavy breathing in one of the songs Principles Of Lust that woke me up. 

I sat up and thought, “Wow, Bree was right. This music really takes you to another world.” 

I was so disappointed that I had woken up. I really wanted to go back on that boat.

I tried to force myself to fall back asleep, hoping to get my dream back, but my darn Low German thoughts wouldn’t leave me alone. Every time I closed my eyes and tried to imagine myself back on that boat, Jake Dyck force-kissed me with his garlic warscht and mescal breath. I got all nauseous and that was the death of my bountiful dream.

I got up and continued doing my laundry thinking about my mom and wondering if my younger sisters were helping her with the laundry like I did before I left. Monday had finally come to an end and I was feeling absolutely terrified about starting school the next day.

As I got ready for bed, I turned the Enigma tape around, pressed play, and lay down, hoping that my dream from earlier would continue. Instead, I tossed and turned all night thinking, “Will they tell me on the first day that there is no level low enough for me? Will my teacher be a man? What kind of people will be in my class? Are they all going to laugh at me when they find out I can’t read or write at all?”

If my cousin Izaak would have stopped by to offer me a ride back to Mexico at that moment, I just might have abandoned my orange floral love seat, my beautiful purple dress, and taken off to Mexico in the middle of the night. I wouldn’t be the first Low German person to have done that. Click here to continue reading my story.