L'INTERVIEWEUR: Mabel, pourriez-vous dire et épeler votre prénom et votre nom.
MABEL HARRY-FONTAINE: Je m'appelle Mabel, Mabel; Harry,
Harry frappe Fontaine, Fontaine.
Q. Et d'où venez-vous?
A. Fort Alexander, Manitoba, la réserve qui est maintenant connue sous le nom de Saugeen First Nations.
Q. Et quelle école avez-vous fréquentée
A. Pensionnat de Fort Alexander.
Q. Savez-vous quelles années vous y étiez?
A. I say 1953 to ’60.
Q. Donc sept ans?
A. Sept ans.
Q. Quel âge aviez-vous lorsque vous êtes allé à l'école pour la première fois?
A. Sept.
Q. Vous souvenez-vous du premier jour d'école?
R. Oui, je le fais.
Q. Pouvez-vous nous en parler?
A. My mom and dad took me to this big huge building. We went in by the front part. I was clinging to my mom, her dress, as usual. That’s how I always used to follow here around, just hanging onto her dress.
When we went in the office was on the right side and there was another one on the left. It was super clean, a huge, cold, dark building. And there was a Priest in there and a Nun and my mom and dad were talking with them but I didn’t understand them. I just knew my language, Ojibway. I tried to ask my mom what was going on because I was puzzled. I didn’t know why they brought me there. All they said was (speaking Native language) “to go and be taught”. That’s how you would translate that. I’m trying to ask my mom and tugging at her dress, trying to get her attention to ask her in my own language what we’re doing there. And then I seen —
That was my first encounter with a Nun. She looked really strict. She went like this (indicating) to me, like that. Right off the bat there I couldn’t speak my language. So I kept quiet and I guess that was registration. The rest is a blur. I didn’t understand those Nuns or the Priest.
They looked scary to me. They just looked scary. Maybe I thought it was Halloween, or something. They just had a costume on. But they never took those costumes off. They always dressed the same with a big white stiff collar here (indicating) and a big stiff —
Nous n'avons jamais vu leurs cheveux. Et de longs voiles, de longues robes noires. Certains étaient gros et certains étaient petits et certains étaient grands et maigres. Certains d'entre eux avaient des lunettes. Tous étaient blancs. Et les prêtres, la même chose avec les prêtres, la même tenue sauf qu'ils avaient de grandes croix. Certaines religieuses avaient des croix ou des perles sur le chapelet, un grand et long chapelet. Et aucun d'eux ne sourit.
I didn’t know how to communicate except with my language. And then I heard two different —
Ils parlaient anglais et français, je suppose.
Right off the bat they screwed up my name. My name is Mabel Angela. They called me Mabel Angel. For a long long time that bothered me, right into my adulthood. They didn’t say my name right. But I couldn’t tell them because they didn’t understand me.
Q. Est-ce qu'ils ont mal prononcé votre nom tout le temps à l'école?
A. Yeah. And the kids started calling me that because they knew I didn’t like it. You know how kids are. They can be so cruel. Well, they were cruel to me. They didn’t bother saying “Mabel”, they used to say “Angel”, and that made me mad.
I survived somehow. I spoke my language. I must have been a stubborn kid. I knew I was a little bit spoiled but not spoiled rotten at home. I wish —
Mots anglais.
J'aimerais qu'il y ait un interprète ici. Ce serait mieux si j'en parlais dans ma propre langue.
Q. Voulez-vous parler de certaines choses en ojibway et vous pouvez également nous dire ce que cela signifie en anglais?
A. Ouais. Cela prendra plus de temps.
Q. It’s up to you, whatever you’re comfortable with.
A. Um-hmm.
Q. The only problem is I don’t understand Ojibway so I wouldn’t be able to ask you questions that are involved with what you say. But if we have it on tape there will be somebody who can translate it.
A. I used to speak my language anyway, with the other girls. I even know the places outside, when we were playing outside, where the Nun was far away. I still spoke my language. I remember under the stairs, the stairway, you know the stairs where there’s a space. I remember speaking my language there every chance I got. And in the washroom. But it was like a jail. That’s what we called it; a jail. They were not too far away, the Nuns, but I’m thankful. That’s what I keep thinking. I must have been a stubborn kid.
Ils m'ont beaucoup enlevé mais ils ne pouvaient pas m'enlever cela.
(Speaking Ojibway) Still yet today I speak my language and somehow I get a satisfaction out of that, that they couldn’t take it away from me because they tried. Gawd, did they ever try. Every day. And I had to fight that.
Q. Donc, maintenir votre langue et la connaître après avoir quitté l'école, cela vous a-t-il semblé une victoire?
A. Yeah, that’s the word I’m looking for. When I tell my grandchildren I say it in a way they don’t understand. I tell them I jarred them because that’s how they talk, children nowadays. I’m bringing up my grandchildren, three of them.
Q. Parlent-ils ojibway?
R. Non. Ils comprennent, mes enfants comprennent, Géraldine me comprend, Terrance me comprend et mon défunt garçon me comprenait. Il essayait de le parler beaucoup.
Q. Alors, comment avez-vous appris l'anglais?
R. J'étais vraiment obligé de le faire. Je devais communiquer en classe. Partout, c'était l'anglais ou le français. Alors je devais le faire.
Q. You were saying in your first few days they mispronounced your name, you didn’t know how to speak English and you weren’t allowed to speak your language, so how do you start to learn English? Do you just pick up words here and there, or —
R. J'étais assez jeune, je suppose, oui.
Q. Les autres enfants vous ont-ils aidé?
A. A lot of White people do that when they come into our communities. You don’t even have to teach them, some of them, they pick it up. I had to learn it in school, for school, for prayers. We used to always pray. We used to always go to the chapel. We used to always go to church.
In each place there was always a ruler, a big long ruler because we had to look straight ahead all the time and not turn around. If we did we got smacked on the head with a ruler. They were guards. They weren’t Nuns, they were guards.
I always wondered what kind of upbringing they were given. There certainly couldn’t have been love there. When you work for God you have to be a loving person. You know, I can’t remember a kind Nun in there. They were all mean in one way or another. I was just thinking they were so mean.
I’ve always been that way. I feel sorry for others more than myself. I used to feel sorry for the ones that had bladder problems and they would wet the bed every night. I thought they were educated when I think about it now. Didn’t they know that there was something wrong with them, why they wet their bed every night and they never took them to the hospital to get them checked out? Where were their brains? That’s the ones I felt sorry for because in the morning they were made to clean their beds and walk around with the wet sheets over their heads and parade around. There must have been about five or six of them every morning, parade around in front of everybody to shame them, to make them stop peeing their bed. That’s the ones I felt sorry for.
Q. Et il y avait des enfants qui arrivaient tous les jours?
A. Every morning, yeah, because they had weak bladders, I don’t know. If you got up during the night you had to go and ask permission to use the washroom. They didn’t wake up. They just slept through it and pee’d their beds. There was definitely something wrong with their bladders. Anyways, that’s the ones I felt really sorry for. Holy mackerel.
The next day they are teased, you know, by other kids. I don’t remember ever doing that. I had good teachings at home. I knew that was a mean thing to do so I don’t remember ever making fun of them.
You know what was the highlight? When kids ran away, when girls ran away and they got caught they were brought back and of course they got a strap. Some of them would fight back, would fight the Nuns. That’s what the highlight was. We were all pulling for them to take the veil off because I remember always being curious how they looked without that veil. Are they bald? Do they have hair? Because I don’t remember ever seeing hair at all. That band was just right around here (indicating) like that.
By highlight I mean it was exciting. We wanted those girls that fought back to pull the veil off. That’s probably why it was tight so nobody could pull it off. We wanted to see what they looked like.
Q. Est-ce que quelqu'un a déjà enlevé le voile?
A. I think so, yeah, but I wasn’t there to see it. I never got to see one without a veil or a bonnet, whatever they called it.
Q. I think if you see these same people all the time, always in the same outfit and never see their hair, all you see is their face and their hands, you start to wonder if they’re even human or, you know, like your mind must really wonder about that.
R. Je pensais que c'était Halloween et ils étaient habillés.
I remember there was this joke about a Nun. That was probably after we got out of the boarding school. It’s silly but it just came to my mind. The joke was what’s goes black and white, black and white, black and white?
Q. Quoi.
R. Une religieuse dégringolait dans les escaliers, parce que c'était la couleur de leurs vêtements. (Rires) Noir et blanc. Nous nous sommes moqués d'eux aussi.
I thought I was going to breeze through this. It’s the first time I ever had an upset stomach and a headache.
Q. I think you’re doing fine.
R. Je me souviens du cours de couture. Nous avons dû emporter Home Ec., Cuisiner et tout ça. Je me souviens que Sœur Cécile était son nom. Elle était grosse. Elle avait de grandes mains d'homme. Nous devions tricoter. Pendant longtemps, la première chose que j'ai apprise a été la perle tricotée, la perle tricotée, la perle tricotée, vous savez. Elle était effrayante. J'avais peur de ses mains. Vos cerveaux tremblaient si jamais elle vous frappait à l'arrière de la tête. C'était effrayant.
One was tall and skinny. She was in the gym. She was in the Play Room they called it, not the gym. That must have been the most relaxed one I’ve ever seen there. Because if you want to skate, if you want to go sliding, those were fun things and that’s probably why I remember her. She must have been the only Nun that ever looked I wouldn’t say happy, but more relaxed, more like human.
There were so many Nuns there for each different activity or subject. I don’t remember all their names. I think this sports one was Sister Victor.
Q. Pensez-vous donc que les seules femmes adultes que vous voyez tout le temps être si froides et sans émotion ont eu un effet sur vous et sur la façon dont vous étiez avec les gens après avoir quitté l'école?
A. Bien sûr! Après être revenu de chez moi, comme si j'étais juste arraché d'un endroit heureux à un endroit mortel. Il y avait tellement d'étages, il y avait tellement d'étages et nous étions tenus à l'écart, tenus à l'écart de nos frères, des garçons.
But I think the meanest one of them all was —
His name was Brother Lacoste (ph.). He was bald and he had a wart somewhere here (indicating) and there (indicating). He was a pig. He was a kokooish (ph.). But he also had lots of candy. That’s how he got me. Candy was very very scarce there, maybe two or three times a year we had it. He had candy all the time in his big long gown pockets. He would come in the Play Room with his hands in his pockets.
That’s how he got me to go close to him and sit on his lap while he played with me where his hands are not supposed to be, on my arse, on my vagina. He was gross. He was a fat fat dysfunctional human being. And he did that to lots of little girls. He took my virginity with his finger, of all things.
Later on in life when I started going with boys I was wondering because after you get to learn a lot, eh. My friends, boys, would say, “Did you get your cherry bust yet?” What the fuck is that? I didn’t know what that was. What’s he talking about? What does that mean?
Meanwhile —
And then I heard the word virgin. I thought I was a virgin. When I finally started going out and I didn’t have blood when I had sex, that means no issue of blood when I had sex for the very first time. And then I got angry, I guess, and hurt and what the hell, you know. What the hell is going on? I didn’t understand. Back then we were so innocent.
I forget how many sessions I’ve been in with Mel and Shirley. Every time I go something comes out of my mouth, something pops in my brain, and all this reverts back to the boarding school, never ever at home. Never. I was protected there. I was taken from there. I got used, abused, called down.
That calling down is a big thing. You should never call little ones down because they’ll believe it. I believed it. I know what I’m capable of but there’s that fear. I don’t do it. I don’t go for it. I’m scared of rejection and failure because I’m no good, even though I’ve got an education. I work at CFS. You ask my bosses over there. I don’t do what I’m capable of. I’ve got all these certificates. I can’t back them up. That’s probably why I don’t put them up on the wall.
Hey, I just thought about that. That’s why I don’t show them off because they’re there. I succeeded at the time I was taking those courses, focusing therapy, post-traumatic, you name it, all that. When you get right down to the job I can’t do it because I was told a long time ago I was stupid and I couldn’t do it.
Au travail, j'ai commencé comme support, puis je suis allé à l'admission, puis je suis allé à Frontline et de nouveau au support.
Q. Depuis combien de temps faites-vous ce genre de travail?
A. Since she (indicating another person in the room) was a little girl. She’s thirty-four now, thirty-three. Thirty-four. Since Geraldine was thirty —
I used to leave them to get training, training, training. And then one day I finally got a job. I couldn’t even —
(Speaking native language) I knew what to do from all this training but I didn’t do it. I was afraid.
Q. De quoi pensez-vous avoir peur?
A. Of failure! Because —
I wish I knew how to say that in English. I had all this training. I had high marks. I passed every time. When it came right down to showing what I learned I couldn’t do it because I was told I was stupid and I would never amount to anything. So it affects me, in answer to your question about how it affects me now.
And my kids. It shows on my kids. And it shows —
They are drug addicts and alcoholics. My baby was an alcoholic. He started drinking when he was twelve years old. And in a year I was, too, screwing up my own life, screwing up my children’s lives. People tell me, “Don’t blame yourself for your baby hanging himself and taking his own life.” Don’t tell me not to blame myself.
— Speaker overcome with emotion
— End of Part 1
…he would still be alive today. So don’t dare anybody tell me not to blame myself because I do. It’s part my fault. I don’t take it all. I don’t take all the blame.
Q. Voulez-vous vous arrêter un peu?
A. No. That’s okay. My baby has been gone five years.
When I first heard about it, my baby, on the phone I thought my brain was trying to do the “what ifs”, the “I should haves”. I wouldn’t let it go there. I knew I was able to do it because a lot of people were praying for me. I was praying also to our Creator and to his mother because she went through that. Only her son didn’t kill himself.
And they helped me. They heard me. That’s why I’m still sitting here in my right mind telling this story. Actually, my baby’s death made me strong. The way I see it, if I’m still alive today his death made me strong. I don’t even know if I should try to explain the pain it is to lose a child, especially in that manner. But now, five years later, I understand why he took his own life. I tell God I understand why he didn’t intervene and I also understand he’s a very forgiving God, not like I was taught in the boarding school: You’ll go to hell if you do this, if you say that, if you look that way. They were a bunch of bull shitters. I didn’t believe them any more.
They taught me exactly different things to the way I live now, at least I try. I have my downfalls. I’m still a very dysfunctional person. I’ve been through many addictions. I’ve licked two of them but I’m not even trying to lick this one I have now. I have many addictions. I like smoking. I like playing VLTs. But pretty soon I’ve got to do something about playing VLTs because it makes me broke and that’s not right and it doesn’t make me feel good. Why do I keep doing things that make me feel awful?
Q. I wanted to ask you about —
You say they called you down a lot and as a child you were told that you weren’t very good or you were a bad person. You talked about having addiction issues and things like this. And now you’re sitting here and I see a really strong woman who overcame a lot.
Comment surmontez-vous cela? Comment êtes-vous ici aujourd'hui après tout cela?
A. The first thing that came to my mind is my parents. My dad didn’t talk much. My mom did all the talking. They showed me by example. What they wanted me to do they showed me. They didn’t tell me. Just every once in a while I had to be reminded but mostly they showed me by example. They lived the way they wanted me to live. That’s how I learned.
Vous devez avoir entendu les Anashinabe apprendre quand ils le voient plutôt que de l'entendre?
Q. Hum-hmm.
A. Well, that’s exactly what they did. That’s how they brought me up. Heck, I want to swear!
They come and take me from there. I was okay where I was. But they built schools. I think they tried to copy Hitler, you know. It’s a good thing somebody had a little bit of humanity in them, not to be like Hitler. He hated the Jews so he killed lots of them; millions.
There would not be an Anashinabe left if he did that to us. I would like to know who that White man or Frenchman or Englishman that had a little bit of humanity to stop something like that. I betcha it looked like that’s what they were trying to do to us, get rid of us.
But they were too slow. I’m glad Anashinabe likes muzshuway (ph.). They couldn’t catch up. Do you know what muzshuway (ph.) is? Making children, to put it mildly. We multiplied too fast.
Q. I just saw in a documentary a woman saying that Indian people having babies is a political act. I think that’s exactly what you just said.
So it’s the strength that you learned from your parents that has carried you through to today?
A. Yeah. That’s what it is. Yes.
Q. That’s good.
A. And most recently, five years ago, that made me stronger. I seem to be getting stronger instead of weaker in some areas. I thought if I lived through my baby’s death, I’ll live through anything. I lived through torture, (speaking native language), condemnation —
Q. Pouvez-vous nous parler un peu de votre parcours de guérison?
A. When I took that focusing therapy eventually I learned how to do it on yourself because your body remembers, even if you forget up here (indicating), or it didn’t register at the time so it can’t be a memory when it doesn’t register.
Q. It wouldn’t register because it’s such a horrible thing?
A. Yeah. Exactly. When it happens at that moment when it happened to me, you have this protection. You block it off. You wipe it off so it doesn’t enter your memory and it doesn’t hurt as much. You live through it. You don’t go crazy.
Posez-moi à nouveau cette question.
Q. Can you talk to us about your healing journey and what you’ve done or what you think has been helpful?
A. Oh oui. J'allais vous donner un exemple.
When I was married to —
I only had three children. My baby is gone. I have Geraldine and I have Terrance, another son. He’s younger than her. When I still lived with their dad on a different Reserve at Little Black River he was an asshole. Anyways, I used to be washing dishes and he would come up behind me and touch my bum. Each time he did that, like he did that several times to me —
I lived with him for five or six years; I was married to him. He’s lucky I wasn’t wiping or washing a sharp knife because my body would instantly react. The first time he did that to me, come behind me, sneak behind me and touch my bum I turned around and my hands were still wet. I gave him a big slap. Of course he slapped me back, without question. Where does that come from? How come I did that?
Even in a crowded place with chairs like that, with the arms, I would get up and happen to bump myself on my bum, oh, the message that was coming was awful from my body. That’s why your body has a lot to tell you if you investigate. So I did. When I started taking that focusing course I found out where that came from, from that Brother Lacoste (ph.). He used to touch my bum every chance he had, and not just me.
The first few times because I wanted the candy, I was a kid and I liked candy, and then I don’t know —
I’d say yeah and sit on his lap and he would check to see where the Nun was or if her back was turned. He wouldn’t give up the candy until he did what he wanted to do. After, when you’re just a kid, you don’t know and you know this is not right, this doesn’t feel right. I grabbed the candy and just ran. Every time he showed up you would see the little girls just scattering and running, running away.
Nous étions si vulnérables et innocents. Je n'ai jamais blâmé ma mère et mon père. Ils devaient. Ils devaient nous y emmener ou bien des rations, ça s'appelait alors.
Q. Bien-être?
A. Yeah. It was called rations, that’s Welfare today, Social Assistance. They would stop that and whatever else the government threw at us to survive.
Q. Puis-je vous poser quelques questions sur le père Lacombe (ph.) Dont vous parliez ici.
R. Frère Lacoste?
Q. Donc, il avait des bonbons avec lui tout le temps?
R. Dans ses poches, oui. Ils avaient de grandes et énormes poches dans ces grandes robes longues, on aurait dit. Ouais, c'était une robe.
Q. The Priest and the Nuns weren’t affectionate or nice to the students and when he walked in a room girls would run away, and so —
A. I don’t know his excuse to come in there.
Q. Donc, il semble que d'autres religieuses et autres prêtres devaient savoir ce qui se passait, ils devaient avoir une idée pourquoi ce type portait des bonbons avec lui et les filles le fuyaient tout le temps?
A. Yeah. They just closed their eyes to it. I remember one time sitting on his lap and he’s doing that and I’m looking, “oh please, turn around”, you know, for that Nun to turn around. But she was always busy somewhere else. He was smart. Perverts are smart. They must have, unless they were blind. Well, some Priests were doing it too.
When we had ideas later on —
There was a little girls’ room for the little girls and then big girls, it depends what age you were.
Quand j'étais petite fille et que nous étions dans ce dortoir qu'ils appelaient, il y avait des fenêtres à gogo. Ma réserve est North Shore et South Shore. J'habitais sur la Côte-Nord. Le pensionnat était presque directement en face de chez moi. J'ai essayé de me faufiler vers la fenêtre pour voir ma maison. Ça avait l'air si près mais c'était loin. Je pouvais voir ma maison depuis les fenêtres de la chambre, les fenêtres du dortoir.
You know, I don’t even remember if I talked about it with other kids there. I think I was too scared and everybody else was too scared.
Q. Y a-t-il d'autres choses dont nous pouvons parler pour votre cheminement vers la guérison et quoi que ce soit d'autre que vous auriez pu faire?
A. Well, it doesn’t affect me any more. Well, it does that much like about my bum, if I happen to bump it somewhere, or —
Parce que je sais d'où ça vient.
Q. Maintenant que vous comprenez que cela facilite la manipulation?
A. Yeah, much easier. I don’t know.
If you knew Anashinabe, if you lived with them there, they’ve got a sense of humour. There’s lots and lots of laughing.
I was thinking about —
You know when kids fool around or even adults, some adults, they poke each other’s arses and then they laugh. That used to bother me. Don’t you dare touch me!
There’s lots of other —
Si nous faisions quelque chose de mal, il y avait un grenier, il y avait un sous-sol, il y avait la salle de jeux, où se trouvait la salle de jeux et l'étage suivant était l'endroit où nous mangions, la cuisine. Et nous devions tout manger, même s'ils brûlaient nos toasts, nous devions manger ça. Ils ont dit que nous aurions une bonne voix, et je les ai crus. J'ai toujours voulu une bonne voix pour chanter dans la chorale. Nous avons donc dû manger du pain grillé brûlé, du porridge et du beurre d'arachide.
On Sunday mornings before we go to church we would smell breakfast bacon. Oh, that used to smell so good. But it wasn’t even for us. It was for the enemy. It was for the guards! It was for the Nuns. It was for the Brothers. It was for the Priests. (speaking native language)
Do you know what “anemaykway” means? Do you really want me to translate? Praying woman. That’s what that means. That’s what the Nuns were called. (speaking native language) That’s the Priest dressed in black.
There was one Priest I liked. He was an old man. He was tall. What the heck was his name? Father Way (ph.). That’s one kind Priest I seen there, the only one. I don’t remember a Nun, seeing a Nun with a kind face. He was handsome, too. I’m not afraid to tell anybody they’re handsome or good looking. I seem to be saying that a lot today, eh. (Laughter) That’s one of the reasons I found him kind looking. But he was. He smiled at us. I found a little bit of love. I found a little bit of caring coming from that figure, because to me they were figures and he was tall.
Even in the Dormitories when I got to the big girls’ side, as they called it, there was a lot of touching going on there, too. I’m thinking that’s probably from Brother Lacoste’s teaching. There were lots of girls that touched each other in there, too. They would move their beds closer at night. On the small girls’ side we were made to sleep like this (indicating) all the time, like that. Our hands could never go under the blankets because they were afraid we might touch ourselves, I guess.
Q. So if you were sleeping and your hands went below the blankets somebody would —
R. Ouais, dites-vous de dormir comme ça et puis nous nous y sommes tous habitués de toute façon, je suppose.
Q. Wow. Tu dors toujours comme ça?
A. Heck, non. Je mets mes mains où je veux. (Rires) si je veux les mettre là, je le ferai. Voulez-vous en savoir plus? (Rire)
It’s like retaliation, eh, sometimes. But that’s how I became —
Don’t come near me. I had a lot of anger, a lot of hidden anger. It took my “geet” (ph.) to tell you about Brother Lacoste. “Geet” means bum.
I thank my body for that because how would you like to go around being angry about —
For instance, like me and wonder who the heck, you know, and I’m glad I went, I was meant to go through all that training. I started training and going to school when she (indicating) was just a little girl, three years old. So I’ve been there lots. But I didn’t become famous. I don’t have a big title behind me but I’ve got life experience. I’m sixty years old. I don’t need those papers to tell me what I can do. It’s caring.
Sometimes a lot of times I fall off. I want to follow in our Creator’s steps, footsteps, the way he lived when he was here because he says we’re the salt and the light. He didn’t you could be the salt and the light, like me. No. He says you are the salt and the light and that you are. That’s what I’m starting to believe. That’s why I keep saying —
That’s why I’m trying to bring up three grandchildren. They’re fourteen pretty soon, sixteen and seventeen. That’s a big generation gap but I always tell them I’m old-fashioned and I don’t like their music. I always tell my grandson —
Well, I’m not going to tell you what I tell him. I’ll put it a different way. I always tell him I don’t like your black music. But I don’t say black. I use the old-fashioned word. But I don’t want to say it here. Some people might take offence.
Q. So is there something you want to share that we haven’t talked about yet?
A. When I was crying what I wanted to say was I could have been not I should have been, I could have been a better parent. I guess my mom and dad’s teachings were weaker than what they did to me in school. They took away the person I could have been. I just realized that in one of my sessions with Mel and Shirley. Holy mackerel, imagine the kind of person I would have been if I didn’t go to boarding school?
I could still be with the years I have left and who knows, maybe I’ve been already. It feels like it sometimes. Sometimes it feels like I have rewards when I see my grandchildren.
Vous savez quoi, parfois ça m'évite.
Puis-je me lever une seconde? Je veux avoir quelque chose dans ma poche.
— End of Part 2
…the people in there. It’s just the way I feel.
I’m talking about the Residential School. That’s why I wrote it this way. When the thought came to my mind I wrote it down right away because I forget. It took away the person I would have been today. It took away the person I would have been today. And then that realization again. Imagine what kind of person I could have been? Imagine the kind of person I could have been right now; no addictions, no dysfunction. I would have been the Anashinabe Creator meant for me to be.
But then I’ve got to come out of there and say I could still be. I’m only sixty years old. I’m not out to make an impression. I’m just old-fashioned. That’s what I always tell my grandchildren. Why don’t you get this? Why don’t you get that? You know, all the modern technology.
At work I have a computer. I don’t bother with it. I don’t like it. I hate it. I could never learn. I know how to find the cards, to play cards; that’s it.
Q. Voulez-vous jouer au solitaire?
A. Yeah. I learned that from my grandchildren. They have a computer that’s old. They want Internet and all that stuff. But I keep away from that. It’s scary. You see, I’m really old-fashioned. Where did I learn that?—My parents. But they’re not even my biological parents. My mom put me there when I was a baby, my biological mom, because she couldn’t keep me. She’s from Oser River. My dad was —
Three times already I thanked her before —
What do you call that? She’s eighty years old. Alzheimer’s. She’s starting to get that. Before she started getting that I thanked her at least three times for placing me where she did. I was just a small baby. That’s the only mom and dad I knew.
Q. Avez-vous autre chose à dire?
A. The money I got, the $10,300, I figure I was in there more years than what they gave me but that’s okay. I’m too tired to prove to them I was there longer. I don’t want to bother with that. It took off a little stress for a while. That’s what money does. It makes you happy for a while. It took away a little stress from me. I had these bills for years and years and years. People were starting, you know, bill collectors are phoning me and threatening me. They don’t bother me any more because I paid those bills. That’s why I was thankful for that money.
I shared it with my children and grandchildren. That’s it. It doesn’t last long.
But I still have to go to court for a Hearing. I just hope they don’t ask me questions like what was their names. You know, they shouldn’t come up with surprises. They’re going to have to accept and believe me when I tell my story. My friend went already for a hearing. She’s the same age as me. She says that they didn’t even ask me the questions I thought they would. It seems like they don’t believe you. She said that she started naming —
Because she’s got a better memory than I do.
— naming most of the Nuns that were there, the Priests and the Brothers. She knew them. And they stopped her. They stopped her and they asked her something else. “They talked about something else unexpected but it’s just like they were trying to trap me”, she said.
Jesus, I wonder if I’ll ever make it to the Hearing. Some people go there and freak out. I guess that’s the ones they believe.
I don’t know. I was really nervous coming here. And then I’m thinking, holy mackerel, when I go to my Hearing how am I going to be because honestly when I worried before I came here I started feeling anxious. I’m starting a headache. My stomach was getting upset. When I walked in here and seen all these people I was nervous.
Imagine, my mind will just go blank in that Hearing. I don’t want that to happen.
I wonder if I could take the tape you’re going to give me, the copy?
Q. Le transfert prend un certain temps.
A. I know. But my Hearing is taking so long. God knows when it’s going to be. It’s supposed to be this month. This month is almost gone. I mean, can I take that to my Hearing and play it?
Q. I don’t know. I don’t know what they allow there. I’m not sure.
A. Anyways, there’s a lot more. I keep pushing away.
Q. Est-ce mon souffle?
A. No. (Laughter) But it’s a longer story. I would be here all day if I told you everything.
Avez-vous d'autres questions?
Q. Non, je pense que vous avez répondu à toutes mes questions.
A. Ouais? D'accord. Que dois-je faire après être sorti d'ici? Allez vous saouler?
Q. Non.
A. I don’t drink. (Laughter)
Q. I can’t say don’t.
A. I’ll go play slots. That calms me down; my addiction.
Q. Well, there’s counselors here. There are people you can talk to. Our interview is done but that doesn’t mean you need to leave the building right away. You can do what you want to do.
A. Dormez un peu?
Q. Yeah. I think you just did something that’s pretty hard so I think you know how to make yourself feel better after something like this, so you do what you’ve gotta do.
Merci beaucoup. C'était incroyable. Il a fallu beaucoup de force.
A. I can’t say it was my pleasure because it wasn’t.
— End of Interview