but her marriage vows to love, honour and obey, for better and for worse, were more important to her than protecting a child in her care.
Communication was another area where I had difficulties. English was not my first language and my foster mother told me a number of times that during the first six months theyâd considered âsending me backâ becausethey attributed my ârefusalâ to speak as a sure sign of mental retardation and they didnât want to be lumbered with a disabled kid. In fact I probably didnât understand a word they were saying or how to respond, so wisely decided to keep my mouth shut. For a long time there were different words floating around in my head and on the occasions when I did speak them I received a sharp slap across the face for troubling to talk in my native language. It took a while to sort out which words were acceptable and which were not but in the end the forbidden words faded away. These words were my last link to my real family and if Iâd known the importance of that I would have clung on to them forever. But I didnât know and anything that wasnât important to my survival at the time was let go.
Learning a new language and white culture from scratch didnât come easy. Any bad behaviours such as speaking without being spoken to, moving any faster than walking pace in the house, belching, sitting without my legs together and gobbling my food were soon whipped out of me with our motherâs pink fairy wand. This was a thin rattan cane that had once had a kewpie doll attached to it like the ones you bought at fetes. It worked wonders. The wooden spoon or a vigorous spanking were her other weapons of choice and if Julie and I were bickering she would grab us both by the hair and smash our heads together. The headaches were excruciating and thankfullythe head-banging stopped when Julie collapsed after one particularly vigorous episode and started vomiting.
Routine was another thing I wasnât accustomed to, but in no time I was conforming to the position of the hands on the clock like Iâd been born to timekeeping. Depending on where the hands pointed, it was bath-time or bedtime, time to eat or time to leave for mass. If I was absorbed in play or dawdling, the pink fairy wand would come whistling through the air and find its mark on my legs or arse. This meant that once I got to school I knew how to tell the time better than anyone else.
The life I had left behind and the life I was learning were different in other respects too. Apart from being checked daily for nits, and rashes that might indicate the presence of leprosy, and suspicious coughs, I had to get onto my bony little knees and repeat prayers after our mother until I knew the âHail Maryâ, the âOur Fatherâ and the âGlory Beâ by rote. I had no idea what I was saying but I mimicked her perfectly, while she beamed from ear to ear, no doubt pleased with herself for instilling the virtues of Christianity into her little savage. After that, I was allowed to ad lib a few prayers of my own â requests to help the starving kids in Africa, or asking God to look kindly upon my parents. According to my foster mother, I was born a sinner because my real mother was a woman of the night. It was only many years later that I realised she was calling my mother a prostitute and saying I was the result of hercarnal activities, which were completely untrue. But back then I took this as her way of saying that my mother was black like night-time and it was a sin if you werenât white, so I tried scrubbing my colour off in the bath. When that didnât work, I resigned myself to the fact that I would always be a sinner and the prayers I had been fervently offering up werenât going to do me any good anyway, so why bother. I decided then that at least if I were a sinner I could behave badly and be excused for it because mine was a condition of birth, not of
Communication was another area where I had difficulties. English was not my first language and my foster mother told me a number of times that during the first six months theyâd considered âsending me backâ becausethey attributed my ârefusalâ to speak as a sure sign of mental retardation and they didnât want to be lumbered with a disabled kid. In fact I probably didnât understand a word they were saying or how to respond, so wisely decided to keep my mouth shut. For a long time there were different words floating around in my head and on the occasions when I did speak them I received a sharp slap across the face for troubling to talk in my native language. It took a while to sort out which words were acceptable and which were not but in the end the forbidden words faded away. These words were my last link to my real family and if Iâd known the importance of that I would have clung on to them forever. But I didnât know and anything that wasnât important to my survival at the time was let go.
Learning a new language and white culture from scratch didnât come easy. Any bad behaviours such as speaking without being spoken to, moving any faster than walking pace in the house, belching, sitting without my legs together and gobbling my food were soon whipped out of me with our motherâs pink fairy wand. This was a thin rattan cane that had once had a kewpie doll attached to it like the ones you bought at fetes. It worked wonders. The wooden spoon or a vigorous spanking were her other weapons of choice and if Julie and I were bickering she would grab us both by the hair and smash our heads together. The headaches were excruciating and thankfullythe head-banging stopped when Julie collapsed after one particularly vigorous episode and started vomiting.
Routine was another thing I wasnât accustomed to, but in no time I was conforming to the position of the hands on the clock like Iâd been born to timekeeping. Depending on where the hands pointed, it was bath-time or bedtime, time to eat or time to leave for mass. If I was absorbed in play or dawdling, the pink fairy wand would come whistling through the air and find its mark on my legs or arse. This meant that once I got to school I knew how to tell the time better than anyone else.
The life I had left behind and the life I was learning were different in other respects too. Apart from being checked daily for nits, and rashes that might indicate the presence of leprosy, and suspicious coughs, I had to get onto my bony little knees and repeat prayers after our mother until I knew the âHail Maryâ, the âOur Fatherâ and the âGlory Beâ by rote. I had no idea what I was saying but I mimicked her perfectly, while she beamed from ear to ear, no doubt pleased with herself for instilling the virtues of Christianity into her little savage. After that, I was allowed to ad lib a few prayers of my own â requests to help the starving kids in Africa, or asking God to look kindly upon my parents. According to my foster mother, I was born a sinner because my real mother was a woman of the night. It was only many years later that I realised she was calling my mother a prostitute and saying I was the result of hercarnal activities, which were completely untrue. But back then I took this as her way of saying that my mother was black like night-time and it was a sin if you werenât white, so I tried scrubbing my colour off in the bath. When that didnât work, I resigned myself to the fact that I would always be a sinner and the prayers I had been fervently offering up werenât going to do me any good anyway, so why bother. I decided then that at least if I were a sinner I could behave badly and be excused for it because mine was a condition of birth, not of
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