Episod3: Super Big Girl

As I said before, I always have been a big girl. Even now I am a still a big girl. But I do not like that word "Big", it does fit to a woman. I would say I always have been and I am still a curvy girl. The difference is that I better accept my body today than before. I really accept the person I am today and I am not ashamed of saying I love who I am . But it was not all the time the case.

When I was younger, I was the biggest little girl in the class. You know it is strange how you always find in a class one and unique red-hair pupil, one children who always does the bad things in class, only one kid with glasses and in my case I was the big girl in the class. I had to face the worst names like Piggy Purky, Halloween potatoe, Slim fast or Bowling ball and so on...I could write a dictionnary of all the bad names I was given and I am sure that I can published it today ! But my weapon to struggle against this big discrimination was to be a good student with excellent results in exams and I was the best in everything: history, maths, French language because obviously my mum taught me French and we were talking all the time in french even when I was in her belly, therefore I could speak it fluently and with no accent, I was good at English litterature and mainly arts. I was a great artist. My teachers were so impressed by the choice of the colours I used in my paintings or the fashion drawings I did that they exhibited my works during all the different celebrations of the year. When my classmates discovered that I was a good student, they just gave up on harassing me and took another target who was Ted, the red-hair boy in the class.

But I have to admit that all the names the kids gave me at school did not touch me. I never went back home crying to my mum because someone told me something silly! No! I just focused on my objective that was to be a good student, the best one. Besides, if someone was very bad with me, I just fought back by responding with bad words too or by fighting, I mean by punching and boxing ! What can I say! I think that was my Moroccan blood that made me like this.

My parents were not worried about my weight. They used to let me eat what I wanted. I am not saying that I had messy meals but my weight was not the first priority of my parents because they always said that once I grew up, I would be slimmer. But I think that if they let me eat what I wanted is because they did not want to make me feel bad with myself. They always wanted me to be proud of who I am, whatever the others say. My mum spend a lot of time explaining to me that people and mainly my dad's family were laughing at her because she was Muslim. She never told me precisely the details but her family in law told her bad things about Ramadan, about Arabic people for instance that they were all terrorists, that they were women beaters, that they were dirty in the way they kill the sheep on Aïd celebration. But my mum always stayed quiet and never said something. She let them talk because her parents taught her to respect people who were older than her. But once my father got very angry during a family dinner. His family was watching a documentary on a poor algerian family and they were laughing at this family. My father looked at my mum who was unconfortable and he got up shouting at his family by calling them "narrow minded people", he then took my mum by her hand and left the house. They never went back to this house. They just interrupted all the contacts with dad's family. Even now, he does not talk to his parents and brothers and sisters. His family never apologized for having sad such monstruous words. All this story made my mum a bit unconfortable because she wanted my father to see his parents since such a thing does not happen a lot in Moroccan families but my father never accepted to see his parents again. As far as I am concerned, my grand parents never asked about me and even now. I had more contacts with my Moroccan grand -parents with whom I talked each week even if they are far away from us compared to my "american grand-parents" who live dozens of miles from us.

All these facts made my parents more relaxed on the way they educated me. They let me live at my own rythm. Sometimes , when I was visiting a doctor for a simple visit, he repeated again and again to my mum that I needed to loose some weight with some stupid diets and to do some sports. My mum signed me up at the swimming sunday classes and I became a great swimmer. But she forgot about the diets.

However it became harder for me to be a big girl once I was in the secondary school, mainly when I started to be interested in boys. At that time, there was an awesome boy I really liked. He was tall, slim, had black hair with fabulous green golden eyes. His eyes were so captivating that I always got lost in them each time I looked at him. All the girls were in love with him. Each time he was walking in the main corridor of the school, it was like a film, everything got slow and slow. Everyone was looking at him like in a shampoo ad. All the girls were looking at him and then they were talking to themselves by smiling. His name was Jonathan. Everyone was calling him John. He was my classmate at the photograph lesson. But gosh when I think of how I looked like when I was 16, I am just ashamed of my self. I looked so ugly. I had no taste in dressing up. I had big jeans with very short tops that showed my fabulous ass, such big ass. When I look at the pictures, I just wish that I could wear a jacket to hide this ass. Moreover I had Converse shoes with a different colours in each foot and a tiny back bag that made me huge.

Once Jonathan ask me at the end of a photograph lesson to work with me for a project. That was our first conversation.

-Hi Sarah!
-Hi! (I was becoming so red)
- I wanted to ask you if you would like to work with me on the photographic work we need to do for next week. I saw your central park pictures and they are great.
-Euh (I did not what to say). yes !Why not ! that will be fantastic!
-Can we meet tonight at the librairy at 5?
-Yes, 5 will be great!
-Well Sarah! (I loved when he said my name) See you tonight at the librairy. Nice earings by the way.
-Thank you.

I touched my earrings. They belonged to my mum's. Her grand-mother gave them to her mother then she gave them to her daughter, then mum gave them to me. They were in gold and were long Fatma's hand with a green pearl in the middle. A moroccan treasure. These earrings became my lucky item since that day.

I was stressed all the afternoon. I was not concentrating on my lessons. My History teacher was talking about the Second World War but I could not hear him. I was only thinking at Jonathan and his eyes. At one moment, my teacher asked me a question. Obviously I did not hear it and for the first time in my life, I did not have an answer. I just responded to the teacher : I do not know.

My teacher stared at me like he saw a ghost or something. I can understand, I always gave the good answers. The teacher just replied:

-Are you sick Ms Jenkins?
-No sir!
-Well I am sure you are sick, you better go to the bathroom and put some water on your face because you do not look very fresh.

Everybody laughed.

I got up, took my books and followed what the teacher told me and I went to the bathroom. I left the class without saying a word. When I was about to leave the room, I heard some classmates laughing at me and calling me "Hippopotamus back to the zoo". I turned back, looked at them in a very bad way and left the room.

Once I was in the toilets, I looked at myself in the mirror, turned to see my ass and said at loud:
-They are right, I look like a hippopotamus.

I felt sad suddenly. So sad. I entered in a toilet cabin and sat on the toilet. I was about to cry but suddenly a group of girls entered in the bathroom. I stayed mute.

They were certainly 3 or 4 girls giggling. The first one talked. I recognized the voice of Jamie Reynold, the sexiest girl at school. She was with her bitchy band.

-I am so looking for 5 o'clock!
-Are you going to be there?
-Oh definitely! I would not miss that moment for anything in the world.
-What do you think he gonna tell her?
-I don't know that maybe she is beautiful, the most beautiful girl in the school, after me of course! She giggled.
-How much did Jonathan bet?

When I heard the name of Jonathan, I stopped breathing. I stucked on the toilets. I could not move. These bitches were talking about me.

-He bet 20 bucks that he could touch her face and 50 if he kisses her!
-Oh beurk! said all the girls together.
-How can he kiss her? She is so hideous and big! Have you just seen her jeans, I am sure we can jump in altogether!
-Perhaps we can throw it on the sky and it will cover the huge atmosphere hole in Australia!


They all laughed at the same time like chickens.

-Come on girl, just 15 minutes left before the big show.
-Yes some lipstick! Perfect!
-Come on girls let's get ride of the big coackroach!

This insect name was the word that just killed me. For all these girls, I was a hideous insect. What did I do to them? I never swore at them. I never looked at them in a bad way. I even never talk to them because they are not my friends. I always have been in my little world and never bothered someone in this fucking school. I found that unfair. So unfair. I felt some tears sliding out my right cheek. The deepest and the blackest side of me wook up and started to give me orders. A tiny me appeared in front of me telling me:

-Sarah, what are you doing! Don't cry, you are not a kid anymore! Why are you crying! You know that these girls are stupid bitches. They can not even read a book! Don't be like that! Wake up! Get up! You gonna go to your rendez-vous and do a mess to the librairy. Don't you forget! You are moroccan and as you mum always says to you ' Nobody can harm a Moroccan girl". When the little voice used the word Moroccan, I just wook up, ready to fight.

I said louder and louder and repeated it: "Nobody can harm a Moroccan girl", "Nobody can harm a Moroccan girl", "Nobody can harm a Moroccan girl".. I was repeating these words as if I was in a kind of sect and it worked. I felt the energy travelling in my body, such energy that I gave a huge hook kick on the door that I broke it. A girl who was washing her hand, looked at me scared and run away.

I look at the mirror. My face was red as if I run the New York Marathon. My heart was beating so fast that it could jump out from my chest. I looked at my eyes and I recognised my mum's eyes. I took a deep breath and took the direction of the librairy. 5 minutes left before the big show as the bitches said. They wanted a show, I will give them a show. The biggest show in their fucking miserable life.