Bullying Eliminates Your Self Expression

I was eleven years old when I got promoted to secondary school (high school).My hope and dreams were to attend a boarding school in Bo, Sierra Leone. I made up my mind to go to one of the must popular schools in Bo, called the great Bo school. Although I knew some discipline history about the school, I still wanted to enroll there because it was the best school for higher education. My first day at the school, I had feelings of inside me that told me that an emphasis on discipline was going on in the school. Moments later, my eyes started viewing the environment and I came across some signs on walls that said, “Only the strong survive. Be a real man. Survival of the fittest.”

As I walked along some blocks, I saw two boys fighting and others standing looking at them without separating them. I saw others bullying the younger ones by calling them names and taking things from them. They cried for help, and I felt sorry for them because of the way the seniors were bullying them. Someone was passing by and I rushed to him to tell him to stop those boys from bullying their friends. He knocked my head and said, “Shut up! If you don’t know the games or behaviors, then welcome to the manner’s market man.” I didn’t say anything because I didn’t want to get knocked again. All I could say is that if that is the behavior, so be it.

After experiencing the behaviors of the school, I learned how to become strong and survive. According to I saw going on in the school, I realized that it was all a form of bullying. Sometimes I wondered if the administration or teachers of the school knew about the bullying going on among the students. One morning I went to the basketball court to play. I met three boys and two of them were bullying one other by calling him names, and beating him. I got closer and asked them, “Why are you guys bullying your friend?” They jumped on me and started kicking me, knocking my head. They tied me up for hours. After releasing me, one of them asked me if I was freshman. I said yes and he said, “Oh I see. Well, what I am going to tell you is that you freshman are stupid and don’t have power in this school.” My feet and hands were trembling as if I was under a gun point. My mind and thinking locked up and my strength inside me stood up with feelings of violence and hatred to fight back for justice, unity, and freedom among us. In that school, I felt as if I didn’t have a mouth to speak. Every day, I was bullied more than three times. My self expression became more limited, not even sharing talk with my friend.

I sat for hours imagining the words that came out of that for nothing creature’s mouth. Later, I went back to my room and saw that my box was open and some of my provisions, money, and clothes were stolen. I ran to our room leader and explained what happened to my box. He told me to leave him alone. I still tried to express myself; the fact was that money was to pay my school fees for the semester. The prefect told me to kneel down and put my hands up, but I refused to do it. He called five boys to beat me up and I was forced to sleep under his bed for two days. After these two days, he released me and told me wherever I see seniors and juniors playing, eating, studying and or even talking, I should not be there for my own good. “You got that boy?” he demanded. I answered yes sir, and he said I could go.

I said to myself, “Why me, lord? Why me? Why should all of this happen to me? Why did you allow me go through all this?” I was too young to have committed any sins that deserved such a punishment. I was such a bright and lovely child. Loved by all, where did I go wrong? The pain and beatings lingered in my head; they were so vivid that I wondered if I would ever forget but I couldn’t have prevented it from happening.

I remember one day at the examination hall, I couldn’t even spell my own name and I was kicked out of the test. When my parents heard about it, they were frustrated and thinking that I was going crazy or mad. Indeed, I was out of my five senses because I pulled off my uniform and jumped on the street naked for hours before my parents could find me and take me to a psychiatrist for a brain check up. I was in a mental hospital for nearly a month before I was discharged. After recovering from the incident, I realized that it was the beating, punishments, harassment, threats, and intimidation that I went through in the school by my school mates that caused the trouble from that time; I decided to leave the school. My heart was full of hatred and violence, as if I wanted to hurt someone. My senses became weak and I was afraid of interacting with others that were my seniors. It made me not trust anyone. I wouldn’t explain my problems to anyone, not even if I needed help to solve them. I started dealing and solving my own problems.

Since I came to the United States of America, my life is full of joy and happiness. In my mind, I always think that things like discrimination and bullying cannot happen here. At all of the places I have been with my case worker to be introduced to other agency workers, people were very polite and kind to me. They provide everything I need, like food stamps, AHCSS, shelter, clothes, and school. May God bless and protect them for helping me to become a better person in the future.

I started going to school on September 20, 2005 at Catalina Magnet High School in Tucson, Arizona. My first day at school I noticed that there was discrimination and bullying happening in the school, This makes me upset because of what happen to me in past.