I Remember

IPANEMA

So my mom left October 23rd 1983. A year before that we moved out of grandma's house into Larry's apartment in Via España. It was a multi family apartments as they call it with 5 floors no elevator. It had a club called IPANEMA on the bottom floor. It was a one bedroom apartment I guess paid for by the army. There were lots of Army families who reside in there. Mom married him then we came to live with her. We had to change schools and we got to attend Diablo Elementary school, an all American School for Army kids. I was put on first grade again and my sister in second grade. It was a cultural shock. I didn't speak a leak of english and did not care for it. We were immediately put on ESOL classes. Before we knew it, we learned the language and was proud spelling bees competitors etc. I won every reading contest. My mom left half way through our school year. I remember her leaving. She didnt wanted to say goodbye, but i remember seeing her peaking through the door in my classroom. I remembered lifting my desk top and just crying inside of there. I knew she was leaving us. It was the saddest day of my life. While momma was in Panama with us at the apartment with Larry, whom i hated by the way. I remembered going in the balcony and counting cars wth my sister, and us doing homework. Riding the yellow bus was a new thing. See at grandma's house we walk a mile to school and back. The American school was in the Canal Zone about an hour and a half from the apartment so we had to ride the big yellow bus. My mom wasn't the best morning person so she did what she could. She never really had us with her so that was new too. In San Joaquin my Cuca and the grans were always there. My sister would go to Concepción and I would be with Cuca or with Santo next door. She worked all the time, and went out on the weekends. You could say she had it going on. It was always something to do on the weekends back home. All the towns come alive from fridays to Sundays so my mom partyyyy. But she paid her bills, made sure we was well taken cared of without child support, housing or foodstamps. She was gorgeous, she couldn't stay home. I wouldn't HAVE. We were happy in our extended family arrangement. I Was.