The Middle Passage

Burr, it is freezing on this revolting ship. It has been the third day; they keep us down here in this scrawny place. It feels as if it were just yesterday, playing and helping mother with the food, then they showed up. They killed and kidnapped my people, and brought us to this unholy place. Now we stay only below them. We watch them walk, talk, and laugh as they enjoyed watching me and my people suffer. Many had died, many had survived, and this is what they call, “The Middle Passage”. As each day goes by, I witness many scrutinnization. Women are being beaten and raped, children are being starved, and men make us dance just to please them. These filthy, disgusting looking men are poor excuses of men. They are very aggressive. I could not believe what they’ve done to a widowed mother, her child. They snatched the chilled from the mother’s arms and threw the child over board to feed the fish with very sharp teeth and big fins. Next, they took the mother and boated her beautiful face until it looked like a chubby, curved, bloody, ugly ball. After seeing that situation, I knew this was going to be a very, long jittery journey. As I sleep, I hear deafening noises. I wake up to look to see where the noise was coming from. As I looked up, I see sparks coming out of these medal objects. The sparks were so loud, I couldn’t here people that were near me scream. When the noise ends, I hear woman cry for freedom, children were cooing as they were chained to the wall. I tried to yell out to god to ask, “ Why, what have I done to deserve this? Why must my people and I suffer so much tragedy?” but all that came out was a faint, soft, whisper. Soon, I smell a stench so bad, my nose began to burn. They never let us go to the bathroom; they make us go on our selves, or on each other. I look to see what they smell is, as I walked around, I noticed that a little girl was in a corner, urinating on her self. In the other, a mother is also urinating but not on her self, on a person! She looks as it were nothing. As I got closer to the wall, the smell gets even worse. The smell was so bad that I began to taste the bitter, nasty smell on my tongue. I walked closer, and closer. I found out where the smell was coming from. It came from a pile of fences and urban. I began to vomit. I fainted and fell a sleep as we kept getting rocked back and forth on the colossal. Finally, the ship began to slow its speed down. The men bring us to the deck of the ship. They lined us up into rows of ten. Then a man with a white coat walked up top me. He looked at my teeth and my body parts. Just wanted to die but I closed my eyes and held back the tears. I felt so ashamed and embarrassed. Finally it was over. They took us to this small ban like building. There was a crowd of me, but not only men, woman also. A man pushed me on a stage. Next a man who talked very fast held me by the arm, and took my clothes off. I shoved him away from me, and tried to run, but two other men grabbed me by the arms and brought me back to him. I noticed a woman walk over. She was wearing a dress so beautiful, it made flowers look better than doves. She pointed at me, and then gave the man some green papers. She took me to a car, she told me to lie down and fall asleep as she gave a blanket to cover my body. When I woke up, I was at a place where plants were growing and little buildings were everywhere. A few months later, the woman in the pretty dress gave me a bag of food, clothes, water, and money. She then told me to run up north. It was a long journey. I finally made it though. It was long but it was worth it. I was so exuberant, that I jumped up and down with joy. I began to sing, “Yes I am free, I went through many situations, but that is what god wanted it to be, Yes I am finally free!” That was what the middle passage of my teenage life.

This was done by : Sharon Cambra
Date : November 12, 2009
Cohort: 8c