Growing up on Guahan, I experienced being bullied in elementary school. It was bad that I didn't want to go back to school. Three of my elder cousins learned about it. So when they came by one day to clean around their ranch which was at the back of my family's first house. They took it upon themselves to teach me how to fight. They paired me up with their youngest brother who was a year older than me. But they, the elder boys, told us to fight. At first it was kind of funny...but getting hit in the face a couple of times...really hurt. But I was not allowed to cry. I had to fight back. So we did. We fought each other. We fought from their ranch to the back of my house. My eldest cousin, older than the three that encourage me to fight, saw us and called for me and his youngest brother to stop. He didn't yell at us. But his stern lecture about us being cousins and family comes first and fighting is a last resort..kinda hit home. Then he lectured the other three brothers about teaching us younger ones, about fighting.
As for that bully, well...you could say that he didn't walk out of the boy's bathroom the same way he walked in, the very next week. I learned later that the bully was another cousin from the mountain.
1 comment: