B is For Bun

It's a sunny morning in early September and in the caravan Mama is helping me to get ready for my first day at school. After I have got dressed she brushes my long black hair until it shines and then gathers it into two tidy pony tails. I put on my small coat and then take Papa's hand in mine and together we step out of the door and embark on my new journey. Once again, my school is at the end of a lane, only this time the walk is longer and Papa has obtained permission from the farm owner to walk with me there and back every day. This is the second time in my life that I start school. Last time it was in a language that I knew and understood. This time around it will be different (see post Share The Moon).

After a walk where neither of us say very much we finally arrive at the school building. Papa and I wait in the hallway until a nice lady comes up to us and introduces herself as my new teacher. Her name is Mrs Jones and she wears glasses and has a kind face. I don't understand a word of what she says to Papa but she smiles warmly at me and I like her instantly. We follow her into an empty room and Mrs Jones shows me where my desk will be. Papa bids me good-bye and promises to return in the afternoon to walk me back home to the security of Mama and Sis in the caravan. And there I am, seated at my desk with my little feet nervously fidgeting under the table wondering what this new day had in store for me. The only person who understands my language has just disappeared and suddenly I feel very alone. The other children soon arrive and all look at me. It's always hard being the new girl but even harder when you cannot say anything to anyone. Luckily when you are not quite seven it's not so bad, you just smile and talk with your eyes.

Each day for an hour Mrs Jone's assistant, Mrs Watts, takes me away from the other children to a separate corner of the classroom where I can learn this new language called English that everybody else already seems to know so well. 'How clever they all are!' I think to myself. During our private daily lessons, we cover a new letter of the alphabet. Today we look at the letter B. We have B for Bun and B for Bus. There is a small toy bus on the table as well as a bun filled soft, juicy raisins poking out of it. We soon pass the letter B and every day there is a new set of words for me to learn but that bun still remains on the table. I have never seen such a thing in my life, and on some days I feel an enormous temptation to take a bite out of it, but of course I never do.

Soon we are up to G for Girl and G for Gate. By now the bun is a hard rock and the fresh raisins have become black shrivelled dots and, on all but on the hungriest of days, my temptation to take a bite of it has disappeared. I gradually learn to read English from simple books called 'Janet and John'. This new world of literature captivates me. I never knew that such a thing as books existed and hungrily devour Janet and John’s adventures one after the other and along with it this new language. I never in my wildest dreams imagined that children could do such marvellous things such as bake a cake, or go on a trip to a place called a zoo to look at animals in cages. Each morning, after my hour of special classes is over I re-join the other children for their regular lessons. Every day I understand more and more of the conversations around me and, one day ,I tell myself, I will talk.

To be continued....

Next post 4th November : This Lion Can Talk         



Note: All written content is the intellectual property of this Author. Image material is drawn largely from Pixabay with some small additions from private family archives.

Watching The English Part III

It’s raining and wet outside the caravan so I play indoors with Sis. Playing with a Sis who is not quite two when you yourself are already six is rather boring but there is nothing else to do. Mama tells me it's Summer but it feels way colder than any winter I can remember back on my island. I am getting tired of all these continuous changes and want to go back to my old familiar life but gradually I realize that this old life has gone for ever. I look at Sis playing innocently with her dolls in the middle of the caravan floor and I see that she does not have within her the beach, the sun nor the mountains as I do. It must be nice being not quite two and having this moment as your oldest memory. She does not have inside her the wave of sadness that washes over me as I yearn for the life that I had before this one (see post Share The Moon)

At night-time, unbeknown to Mama and Papa, I escape on my magic carpet and return home. I fly back over the patchwork of emerald coloured fields that stretched out before me on my arrival in this strange land, I turn down towards the warm waters of the Atlantic, skirting the coast of Africa, over the mountains and back to my beautiful Island. And there I am once again on my beach, listening to the roar of the waves as they crash on the shoreline, feeling the hot black sand on the soles of my bare feet, and the power of the scorching sun on my little six-year old face. I look up and see the majestic Teide volcano in the distance, silently watching over me as it did on the day of my birth and it’s a safe and warm feeling.‘ Mari Carmen ! We’ve missed you, where have you been?’ the mountains, the sun and the beach all ask me in unison. But I am too busy to answer for I have already jumped into the warm Atlantic waters, and after I have had my fill I lay on the black sand and dry off in the hot sun. After a while I fall asleep, and when I wake up I am once again in the land of chickens. 

One day Papa brings me a bag full of girls' clothes. One of his English co-workers has kindly given Papa the clothes his daughter has grown out of so that I have warm clothing for the coming winter. Papa tells Mama that this man is one of the Supervisors or 'Foremen' as they call him in English and this entitles him to certain privileges such as the first cup of tea and biscuit on 'The Tea Break' (see post Watching The English Part I And II). Jumpers, trousers and jackets are exotic things for me and I love trying everything on. I tell Mama it's a fashion show and she and Sis clap and laugh and I try out one outfit after another, swaggering up and down the caravan with my little girl hands on my little girl hips pretending to be a model. After the sadness, it feels good to laugh again.

The following week the same man brings his daughter to the farm so that I have a companion to play with. Her name is Jane and she is eight. We don’t have a language in common but when you are six and eight it’s not so not essential. We become friends and whenever her father brings her to the farm, we spend the day roaming and exploring our farm world. So long as we do not get in the way of the grown-ups, we can go where ever we want. And we do. We peek into the area where the adorable baby chicks are hatched, then onto the coops and cages where they are fed and fattened, and finally we silently pass the area where they are slaughtered and plucked clean for packaging and selling. We both understand the terrible fate that awaits the innocent baby chickens we were playing with earlier in the day. They are happily ignorant of their destiny and it’s better that way. For the first of many times in my life, I realize that it’s often better not to know what the future holds. Knowledge can bring with it terrible pain. The chicken farm also has horses and fields, and on sunny days when we are fed up with chickens we buy an ice cream from the farm shop with some of the wonky money I have saved. We then sit on a haystack and watch the horses prancing in the fields as we lick our melting ice creams. Jane and I have no language in common but we both understand the value of ice-cream on a hot day. I look up at the sun shining high in the sky above the two of us and realize that this same sun is shining at this very moment high in the sky above my Island and over my beach. Suddenly my old home does not feel so far away (see post Share The Moon).

The very next day a nicely dressed lady knocks on the door of the caravan and asks to speak with Mama and Papa. We don’t understand everything she says in detail so she goes away and soon returns with the owner of the farm. He explains to Papa in simple English who then explains to Mama and me in Spanish that starting next month I must go to school. We arrived in England back in early May and it's already the end of August. I must go to school, and it will be in English, a language that I hardly know. I am soon turning seven and am not sure how to take this. 

To be continued......

 Next post 21st October, 2018 : B Is For Bun

 Note: All written content is the intellectual property of this Author. Image material is drawn largely from Pixabay with some small additions from private family archives.