The move occurred during the summer months between sixth and seventh grades. I was feeling so horrible about leaving the foster girls behind that my parents thought it would be best if I were attending church camp when the day came for the girls to move in with their preschool teacher. For me the result was to compound my grief, for I was going to camp (an enjoyable event) instead of staying home to spend the last few days possible with my sisters. I have no doubt but which my parents would have made it clear that I had no choice in the matter had I attempted to stay home; but for whatever reason I didn’t hold my parent’s responsible for making any of the decisions forced upon us at the time. I took full blame and responsibility though I had no choice.

I cried almost constantly the whole time I was at camp. I’m talking big time sobbing almost every minute day and night. I absolutely hated what was happening and hated myself for it all. On Wednesday night, after the girls had moved to their new home, my parents came up to camp and offered to take me home, but what good would that be – the damage was already done. My agony only intensified. On Friday night the came made a big effort to comfort me. They bought one of those dogs that is made for people to write on and every camper and staff member wrote personal comments and condolences on it and gave it to me. I dearly appreciated it but drew little comfort from it. We moved the Sunday that camp let out, and I sobbed almost the whole way – an eight hour trip.

The new home was miserably hot and humid. It literally made us sick because we were not accustom to it at all. During the first three weeks living in our new home the temperature stayed above 100 degrees and the humidity remained above 100%. I had never heard of a “heat index” before then. The whole family ate, slept, and lived in the basement of the house during this time because the heat was more than we could endure.

Prior to this move I had encountered very few people of different ethnic or racial origins. In the new location the ratio was slightly more African-American than White, and there were a large number of Hispanics who were seasonal workers in the fields. It was a time of extreme tension between blacks and whites in the region, with racial riots prevalent in the schools. I had grown up believing God loved all people equally and wanted His people to do the same. Prejudice was a word I didn’t even know the meaning of until we moved. In fact, there were many slang words common among the people of the area we moved to that I didn’t understand at all. People spoke very fast and slurred their words together, making it very hard to understand what was being said even if there was no slang in the sentence. People thought we were retarded because we didn’t understand them. A strong majority of the students in the elementary school I attended (a k-8th grade school) carried a switchblade every day to school, and there were very few virgins among the 7th and 8th grade girls. The principal of the school was having an open affair with the 4th grade teacher who was married and had two children in attendance at the school. It was common for the older grade students to get drunk on most weekends. I thought we had moved to hell. The culture shock was overwhelming.

There is much more to write on this subject, but this is enough for starters.