Sophia

Hadiya

 I love my family. To bad they're not around. Ya. I’m from Poland. I love that place. Well, at least now I do. Ya see, me and my family are really poor, so we work all day and most of us never went to school. So me being the oldest, and because sis (my one-year-younger sister) can take care of the little kids and work too, I was sent to America. To the USA. To Cleveland Heights﻿﻿. So on I went. My purpose: to get good schooling, make some money + get a job, and write home every day. Theres only one problem... I hate it here! I used to hate Poland, but I guess you never know what you've got until it's gone.

 It's so lonely here. I have no friends or family here and no one that I know of here is from Poland. So I am alone and without the smiles of my own town. I live in a one-room apartment with a stove a cooler, a bed a table and a chair. But coming to an apartment that look's as dull as this, I didn't like it one bit. So I pined pictures of home and my town and family and friends all over one wall. But it wasn't a very big wall anyway. The place is almost like smashing all the rooms in your house into one, small room. Well, two rooms really. The only up side about this place is that 1. It has two windows, and 2. It has a tiny bathroom with only a toilet and a sink (no shower), thats no big change though though. We don't have a shower in Poland anyway. I mean at least they have real indoor plumbing﻿﻿!

 While I'm here, I have to go to school. School can be fun, but not all the time. I get a tone of homework and it's really hard! Thats because I never went to school until now. Well, almost. When Pa was still alive, and mama had only had me and sis, we had more money because pa had a job. So me and sis went to school. Then by the time sis was in kindergarten, I was in Grade 1, and the Twins had just been born, Pa lost his job. So we had to move out to a poor farming village. And then along came Bailey, and Dobry. Then right when we were settled in and thinking no other bad things could happen, pa got real sick and died. And he never got to little baby Gwidon. he was born 2 months after pa died. But I guess having 7 children wasn't that bad for mama, because with all of us working in the garden we were never short on food except for the first couple winters. With me And sis and some times the Twins helping out with the little ones, mama could get some work done. The problem was we were always short on water and in the winter we froze in that little shack of ours.

 Me growing up in a Farm town, always planting, I guess you could say I know a little bit about gardening. And while were on this topic of gardening I might as well tell something that I never knew existed. So I was walking home from school the other day when I see the strangest thing. Right across from my building is a vacant lot. And in that lot is a community garden! So I ran in the building up the two flights of stairs to my floor and into my room. I ran across the room to one window, and surprise, surprise, there is the garden down below me! I longed to go down and make my own little mark of assorted plants and flowers we plant back home. But I was afraid. What if they don't wan't me to be there? What if they yelled at me and told me to "get lost"? What if the people down there kicked me out because I was Polish and a foreigner? I was just a big old scardy-cat. So I decided that I would be a watcher not a doer. I always stood their at the window each day after school and did my homework while watching the people down there doing and doing s=and doing. And never did I stop wanting to be a doer.

 Finally I got up the courage and I went down there and I found a plot of land small, but I was the most secret place and the only one as close the back as possible, but being the Gardener that I am I made sure that my plant would have just the right amount of sunlight. I planted potatoes, beets, barley and my favorite, tulips. But that I made sure there was no one in that garden. I mean who would be? It was raining out side. But I did have a raincoat, yes. Ya iI had a raincoat but it was a real freezer out there. I had the small sense that I was being watched. And oh Ya I was being watched. So I turned around and then some guy came at me screaming "don't touch the tomatoes, Don't touch the tomatoes!" and he had a pitchfork in his hand and so I just ducked and quietly, trying not to be noticed by anyone else said.  "I'm not going to touch your tomatoes. I've got my own crops"  "Oh" he said and put down the pitchfork. Suddenly I heard a small giggle from above me and sure enough, a little old Romanian lady was sitting in the window looking down on us. "Don't mind Royce. He always gets antsy when theres a new comer. It's his "job" to watch Curtis' tomatoes over there. I think he's trying to impress that beauty in the widow across the street," she spoke so kindly and calmly like she had already seen me before and Knew all about me. "You mean the window above mine? Ya that's the room right above mine!" I said back. I was starting to shake and shiver. The guy Royce I guess his name is, was gone. So the lady Ana and I talked for another minuet or so but she had to leave. So I just curled into a ball and finished my planting. When right as I got up to leave a black lady rushed over to me. There was a younger girl with her maybe a few years older than me and she seemed to be pregnant! "You poor, poor baby" said the black lady and she wrapped a blanket around me. "You must be freezin' in that wet soggy mess. Lets get you inside."  "Thanks" I said once we got inside  "Now where in the world did you get an accent like that"?  "Well I'm from Poland"  "That a long way for a family to move aint it"? <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;"> "Actually I'm the only one that came out. You see my pa is dead and we do't have much money, so ma sent me here to learn and get some money to get us through the next couple winters." <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;"> "Oh honey pie I'm so sorry." <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;"> "Well, let me introduce you to the rest of the Gibb St. Garden crowd." And she opened the door to her apartment and there in side were about 20 big, smiling faces. At that very moment standing in a room with 20 smiles from every where in the world, at that moment I started to think that may America really isn't that bad after all.