“Don’t cry mum,” I finally managed to mutter, “You will be fine I promise.” I reached out and wiped the tear on her cheek with the back of my hand and for that moment I felt like the mother and her child. She couldn’t even bare to look me in the eye and at least tell me she wished me the best because deep down inside her she knew she wanted me to stay. She wanted to raise her teenage daughter but she couldn’t.
“Have a safe flight.” Said my mum. Those were the last words I heard her say before my journey into life was about to begin.
The plane ride seemed like years but in reality it was actually four hours. The reason it if felt so long was because the whole flight long I cried. The reason behind the tears was that I was going to miss the life I knew, the friends I had made, but above all my mum. All I could think about was the plane crashing and me being with her forever but in the spirit world. My twin brother who was with me thought I was going crazy because I couldn’t stop crying. Deep down somewhere in his heart of stone I knew he was feeling the same way I was but just not expressing his emotions.
Finally after what seemed to be a lifetime we arrived and for a second I preferred being on the plane than in the strange airport in Kenya that I would eventually get used to. There were so many faces that would soon become very familiar. The line to get through immigration was so long I thought I would never get through. Luckily my brother who has ten times the patience that I have was there to support me.
The drive on the dark streets of Nairobi seemed so endless. I was looking out the window trying to absorb every inch of my new surroundings, but it was too dark to have a clear view of the city. Apart from the occasional screeching of tires the drive on the tar road it was silent and I didn’t know what to expect from my new school. I was finally able to admit to myself that I was nervous. When we reached the gates of the school all I can remember is the look on my brothers face when he saw the campus. There was a huge pool that looked so inviting under the moonlight. The school building itself was the biggest building meant for teaching that I had ever seen? Not to mention the field, it was so big. It looked like a whole new school could be built on it and there would still be space for two soccer fields. Opposite the field was a lake with a tiny island in the middle. The dining hall stood on its own little island and there were two bridges connecting the dining hall to a path that led to the boarding block. The boarding block was beautiful. It was in a fan shape and there were vast gardens surrounding it. To the left of the boarding block stood the sports hall. I could tell by the size of the place that there were a lot of students, which was a bad sign for me.
Settling in was the hardest part. In the British system high school starts in grade 8 so I officially was high school. In the beginning I thought it was going to be all peaches and cream, little did I know it was hell on earth? I used to cry everyday. Sometimes I used to cry so hard that I couldn’t go to school the next day. Everyone thought I was just a spoilt brat. I had no friends, my roommate didn’t like me and believe me it was a mutual feeling. I felt left out all the time and everytime the girls would talk about their mums I would run to my room and cry. It got so bad that the head master suggested I leave boarding, but my mum simply wouldn’t allow me to. She used to call me every Sunday at five pm and the only thing I used to do when she called was cry. When we had holidays we would fly home and the hardest part was going home and having to come back to school or hell as it was commonly called.
It took me one year to get over myself. In grade 9 I finally stopped crying and I didn’t care about anyone! I became a ‘tomboy’ and had no girl friends. I used to hang out with the boys and get in every other week. Everyone said I had an attitude then, and it wasn’t a good one. They thought I was mean and rude, and I agree. I became a wild child at that point and no one could control me. It was like I was possessed by some supernatural power. I had finally realized that I had no parent on my back and I could do anything I desired. When I think about it now those are the days that shaped the person that I am. I now know what I don’t want to become in life because of the person I was before. I don’t think I can be blamed for my actions at 14 years of age because if I had a parent figure around I would not have done a lot of the things I did that I now choose to forget.
