Lately i have been thinking about my past.. things have happened, like it does to everyone, but a lot of it haunts me.
About 10years ago my parents sent me to a ‘School’ in Mexico called Casa by the Sea, a place that will forever haunt my dreams.
These doors…. the first thing i saw when i arrived to this so called school. I was bum-rushed by 2 girls and a few mexican ladies (who were yelling at the girls in spanish), pulled out of our car and taken to a tiny room overlooking the ocean… little did i know, that was the last time in 2 years i would see the ocean. I was told to take off my cloths and any jewlery that i was wearing or they would take it off for me. Given a shirt, sweat-shorts and flip-flops, i sat and listened to a woman named Sonia tell me how i was to behave and if i acted out of place, i would be sent to a room called ‘workseets’ and more severe misbehavior would lead to ‘R&R’ (room restriction… not nearly as glamorus as it sounds)… either way i would be removed from my ‘Family’ for at least 2 hours for something as simple as talking to someone, let alone someone that is a lower lvl than 3 (i’ll get into that later on).
After about 4hours of listening to rule after rule i was taken to the ‘Comidor’ (cafeteria) to eat the nastiest salad i’ve ever had in my life, tuna, peas, corn,tons of mayo, noodles… i forget the rest, but you don’t want to try it, trust me. Once i finished my meal, i was taken to these little beat-down trailers with row after row of these metal bunks. I was given 2 laundry baskets to put my belongings in of which i was only allowed to keep underwear, socks, bras, 2 books, 2 binders with paper, toiletries and towel (you might be able to see the baskets under the bunks in pic #2).
When i got all my belongings put away all nice and perfect like i was taken to a building full of girls, which i soon learned was the so called classrooms and all the girls made up seperate ‘families’. I was placed in Esteem Family, and was talking to the wrong people right off the bat. It was so confusing on knowing who i could talk to and who i couldn’t.. when you first get there your at the bottom, lvl 1.. behave and do good in school, you earn lvl 2… do even better in school, never get in trouble, pass seminars and you can apply for lvl 3. All of the first 3 lvls live in Families like the one i was placed with, Esteem, Alliance, Courage, Integrity.. and a few others that escape memory. Then there are the upper lvls, the privilaged girls, they helped out the families with school and kept them in-line basically. They had to be approved by student council and a few of the staff members (case worker, teachers, ‘MAMAS’) and they went from lvls 4-6. they got to wear makeup, shave, look in mirrors, wear sneakers and street cloths (when their shift wasn’t watching families). They were the girls that were going to be going home as long as they kept up with the ‘Program’.
The ‘program’, i should go into detail about that… we listened to self-help tapes 3 times a day (with each meal) and had to write nightly about what we learned from said tapes… we had group therapy, where we would read what we wrote the night before about the tapes and share our feelings about our progress, give ‘feedback’ to other girls on how they could do better… we attened seminars on self emprovement, where we would have to get in-touch with our ‘inner child’ and listen to lectures by a speaker telling us that we were bad kids and needed to change or we would be there longer. So many things happened at those semiars that i would rather not mention just because in my opinion THEY WERE COMPLETE BULL SHIT! Nothing i did in those seminars has helped me since i got out of there.
After about 6 months of independant study, seminars, scrubbing showers, sweeping carpets and those god awful tapes… I acted out, and in response to my actions i was sent to a boot camp in the mountain desert called High Impact (no shit, thats exactly what it was, and impact). The facility was about the size of a football field, surrounded by chainlink fence and seperated into three areas.. girls, boys and the track. I can only assume the guys side looked like ours.. in the middle of a dirt-gravel yard was a concrete slab with a military tent sitting on it, along one of the walls were three ‘dog cages’ used for punishment, small building in the back that had ‘showers and tiolets’… i say it like that cause the showers were just stalls and we got sprayed with cold water from hoses, and the tiolets didn’t flush, we had to put TP in a trash can and flushed with a bucket of water (once everyone had gone).
Our daily routine was to wake up (after sleeping on a square of rug with a blanket), given 5 mins to shower, change, brush our teeth and put our things in our tubs along the edge on the tent. we rolled up the sides of the tent and ate our watery oatmeal and piece of fruit (propbaly rotten if not close to it) while listening to yet another damn tape. We would then walk or run circles around a dirt-gravel track, 2000 laps would get you out, but get into trouble in any little way and get laps docked off.. some of us got really bad blisters on our feet from all the walking, the ones i had on my heels looked like ping-pong balls growing off the back of my foot.. we spent no less than 6 hours a day on that damn track, and if you refused to walk or do a chore, or even not finish your chore on time, you would be put into the dog cages.. on your belly, chin in the pebbles, legs streched out behind you with ankles crossed, arms either lain to your sides palms up or crossed over your back.. just pray that the cage you got put in didn’t have fire ants. If you got put into the cage during the day, you would have to wait till all the other girls laid down to sleep to shower, eat and then sleep… and if the staff felt you didn’t learn your lesson from the previous day, you wold be woke up before all the others and put right back into the cage.. most kids that went in the cages have perment scars on their chins, legs or feet. For dinner we would choke down boiled chicken (all of it, fat, gristle.. all except bone, to this day i can’t eat chicken), rice and a tomato while listening to another tape. After dinner we would write what we learned from the tapes and then head outside the tent for nightly fitness (like running a track all day wasn’t enough).
I was there for i want to say 4-6 months, but there was no way of telling how long we were there, but i will never forget the day they sent me and others back to Casa… we heard helicopters overhead all night and day for a few days, they hadn’t let us out of the tent in a few days.. then out of no-where they had all the guys and girls line up facing the fances in the track while they all argued in spainsh (like we didn’t know what they were saying, please), someone was yelling how too many kids had been brought here illegally and their licences weren’t valid, and that the place was shutting down and we were all getting sent back to our ‘Schools’.
I remember getting back through those big red doors and breathing a sigh of relief… was gathered up with the other kids that came back with me into a little room, we were given real food and told never to breathe a word about what happend to us while we were gone to the other students or risk getting sent to a worse school. Then much to all our pleasure we were taken to the ‘real showers’ and allowed to take as long as we wanted in the nice hot water, brushed our hair for the first time in forever, given nice warm clean cloths and sent to bed after they told us christmas was a week away… i cried myself to sleep that night, i had spent my 16th birthday in High Impact.
Christmas was an okay time at Casa, they let us get gifts from our parents (if they sent any), we ate some really good food, had a ‘party’ with a tree and singing and movies. After that i spent anther birthday there and a few days later my dad pulled me out and took me home.
Now mind you, this isn’t everything i went threw while i was there.. i made lvl 4 and rocked it hard… but this is the ‘Nutshell’ version.
