I was 14 and just had to leave that #@$%& Blood rez, so I moved to auntie’s house in Calgary. Three hours on a Greyhound, I arrived in the city of dreams - flooded with smog, cabs and limousines.
“Man, I am hungry, yo! Luckily auntie’s place is only 4km away. These city ndns call that a ‘hike’, but us rez ndns call it ‘going to the nearest neighbor’s house’.” I boast loudly outloud to my newly city ndn self, but, you know, in broken Blackfoot.
Auntie, she had quite the spread – peeling wood paneling galore, shag throw rug that’s no longer shaggy, a beautiful velvet Elvis hanging slightly crooked on the wall, and I'm sure pretty next to it there was a faded tapestry with rez dogs playing pool on it or something. A whole couch to myself to sleep on? Yessss.
"I'm sittin' in the lap, sittin' in the lap of luxury, and it sure feels good to me", I sing outloud to myself, not in Blackfoot.
My garbage bag full of old, but clean clothes is really digging into my shoulder, so I pour everything into the matching set of greasy cardboard boxes auntie left for me beside my bed/living room.
“Eat, O’mah’siik’iimi, eat!” my stomach screams to me, but, you know, in Blackfoot.
After the splendor of the wood panels and faux shag, I am beyond excited at the treats awaiting me in auntie’s mustard fridge with the door duct-taped shut.
“NAA’HAA, a Rutabaga?” I say to myself, ‘cause I don’t know how to say rutabaga in Blackfoot. Yep that’s all that awaited me in her fridge, a lonely rutabaga … but man, was it tasty.
Stomach growling, I head to Plains Indian Cultural Survival School down the road. I quickly register myself, and the Secretary goes “OMG, is that your stomach I hear? Miss Isla, will you take this boy to the cafeteria?”
Miss Isla runs the cafeteria with an iron fist, but today she ran it with a golden heart. She tells me she’s Ukrainian, then asks “OH’MACK’SACK’A’ME’ME – ‘dis your Blackfoot name right, or no?”
I laugh “it’s O’MAHK’SIIK’IIMI … but, close enough.”
Her: “Well, O, me I don’t like hungry kids!”
Me, confused: “Umm, okay?”
Her: “So today, you no more hungry no more. Every school day, you come here, end of day, Miss Isla give you big bag o’ bannock and big bucket o’ beet borscht. Starting today, you understand this?”
Me, blown away, thinking to myself "Daheck is a borsh, anyways?", but I say: “Oh I understand!”
That first day, after school (and every day for a year), Miss Isla hands me a big bag o’ bannock and a big bucket o’ beet borscht. The bannock is cubed, like dice. It takes me a while to perfect my technique, but soon I figure out how to butter 10 tiny cubed bannocks all at once. FYI - ten tiny bannocks equals one regular bannock.
I had never eaten a beet before (nor since, lol), and I still can’t pronounce borscht properly, but man o’ man, Miss Isla was working wonders in that kitchen.
I love that woman.
My auntie never really had much food ‘cause there was lots of us to feed, and I never learned how to say rutabaga in Blackfoot, but she gave me a warm place to sleep and a safe place to write.
I love her, too.