A Story by Vanessa
When we were growing up other kids were confused as to where we belonged. Canada was a country where my grandparents came and went from, and from where aunts visited, and other friends sent gifts that arrived at odd times. But I was never confused. I was from Bequia. Where else could I be from?
But we got a lot of questions. Some kids, despite knowing who our father was, would insist we didn’t belong, and would demand to know “way you born?” They were never pleased with the answer. Our mother was foreign, so we must be too.
One student at Lower Bay said she got clothes from Canada, and took me by the hand to the toilet in the school. I seem to recall there being only 1 or 2 bathrooms. We locked ourselves in the stall and she showed me her panties from Canada, festooned with maple leaves, which meant nothing to me. She seemed disappointed by my blank look. I had lots of other kids show off pencils with Canadian flags and beavers on them. That is how I learned my symbols of Canada, from panties and pencils!
One test at the Anglican primary school asked me to name the capital of Canada. I wrote Toronto. It was the only Canadian city I had ever heard of. My mother berated me for it, saying that I was part Canadian and should have known the answer! I’m not sure how I was supposed to know all this without being told. I knew what the capital of St. Vincent was and that seemed the most relevant.
Someone kindly offered to tape some shows on VHS and send them down for us. They asked what shows we liked. We didn’t know any shows. We shrugged and smiled shyly. They named a few and we agreed. A few months later Anne of Green Gables and Road to Avonlea appeared at our post office on VHS, all taped from the TV in Canada. I watched those tapes many times and loved them!
But nothing made me feel more Vincentian than going abroad. Being among children my own age in Canada only reinforced that I was more Vincentian than Canadian. I did not know what a loonie or a twoonie was, I had never seen snow, and was cold in the Canadian summer. I gave just as many blank stares to the Canadian kids as I did to the Vinci ones with their Canadian swag, maybe more! The Canadian kids regarded us as non-Canadian, and for the most part that is how I felt. I was the little Caribbean girl stripping in the middle of a department store because I did not know that dressing rooms existed! A foreigner abroad!