The cave and I
At the age of six when I fully began to comprehend the world people close to me gave me the impression that America was paradise. It was a place where everyone wanted to be. I will observe closely family member of mines migrated to the United States and brought back barrels of food stuff and clothes. Their arrival from America was Christmas to me. There bought with them thing my mother could not afford. There told us stories about this magnificent place. My interpretation of was that America was heaven. Everything was perfect. You did not have to work hard. Everything was at your convenience. Their stories evoked in me a strong passion to migrate to the promise land. When I was nineteen years old I bought a plane ticket and migrated to America.
I stayed at my cousin’s house. The first day he treated me as a king. The second day he told me I had to work. My first job was roof construction. I had to ascend a ladder and pry the shingles from the roof with a shovel resembling a fork. I struggle to pry the shingles off the roof because I never worked so hard in my life and my body was not accustom to the cold weather. Every day I attended work from seven in the morning to eight at night. I was mentally confused because I was trying to compare my belief of America to what I was experiencing at the moment. Sometimes I would wake from bed thinking that it was a dream but it wasn’t. I still had to go out there and work for minimum wage. The realization slapped me in my face and I began to think critical. I started to wonder if I had to pay rent, buy food and clothes would I have any more left for myself and my family. The answer to the question was already answered.
America is not a bed of roses that people perceive it to be. You have to work really hard just to survive in it.
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