My Annecdote Part 1 (Intro):by Anne Dorothée Constant

    I grew up in the capital of Haiti, Port-au-Prince. At the age of 15 I came reside here with my father, my brothers, my step mother and her daughter. Now you might ask yourself where my genetic mother is, right? Well let's get back 8 years before my coming to America, when my life went from good to bad, and from bad to good at the same time. What the heck right?

    Well if you keep reading, your question will be answered.

    My name is Anne Dorothée Constant, I'm the cadet of a family of four. Like every other little girls I used to enjoy playing with dolls and having tea parties. The first 7 years of my life were the best, I had two parents that loved me and brought me gifts every time I didn't get myself in trouble. I loved playing with my siblings at home, in school, everywhere. It was good but at the end there would always be some cryings.

     My nightmare has begun in 2000, when my mother passed. I don't feel too comfortable talking about how this incident occured, so I will go a little bit further than that. Besides this is MY annecdote. After my mother's death I became lost, lonely. I know people always say a girl's best friend is her father, and I agree with that, but not having a mother is like a chair with a missing leg, or a house without heat during winter time, or a stove without gas. Useless I would say. I found myself with no one to confine in, no shoulders to cry on, no arms to welcome my broken spirit. My dad was as crushed as all of us were, I would catch him cry when he would thought that we were all asleep. I never went up to him and spoke about this matter until now. I knew it hurt him to lose his wife and the mother of his children. We lived with my mother's parents when my dad decided to go to the United States.

     I excluded myself from everyone, I stopped playing with my siblings, I kept all my feelings in. Was not a good idea. I started reading and writing a lot, and to tell you the truth, doing so would always get my mind off the harsh reality that I was facing at a young age.

    When I entered 7th grade which in Haiti supposed to be your first year in high school, I had only one friend. I had to find out how things worked on my own. I didn't have my older brother to guide me, he was too busy hanging out with his classmates. Boy was it a harsh experiment!

     I didn't have a person to look up to, a person to do my hair every morning anymore, a person to tell me I was beautiful. Indeed I still had my maids to wash and iron my clothes, make my breakfast, but what about my parental support. My grandpa, who was a tailor, would always be ready to go to his boutique since sunrise, and my grandma, who was a house wife, would stay home with the maids.

    Everyday in school, I would get teased and bullied because of my skin color. I grew up knowing that my black was refined and beautiful, I had nice long curls to die for, but it seemed like my mother went underground with my beauty. No one would ever look past my dark skin, students would call me ugly all the times, I would always go cry my eyes out in a corner, or in the bathroom.

    Being bullied is not a fun game to do, so I vowed to always protect my younger brother, who happens to be a bit darker with much more nice hair than I.

Did you enjoy reading my article?

Are you interested in finding out what happened next? Stay tuned for the second part of my Annecdote which will be blogged on Thursday, January 10