Bullies by dictionary definition is too “seek to harm, intimidate, or coerce”. You can be bullied by students, siblings and even teachers and this can come in many forms such as physically verbally or using technology luckily, I had only been through two of those.  My family were very frequent travellers when I was young. The smallest time we have spent in a new house was a week and longest was three years in Australia. 

We moved so often that I never really had the chance to make friends. Even if I tried, something bad usually happened. Perhaps because of my inexperience to understand basic social interactions such as when to distinguish the difference between someone trying to be funny and someone just being a bully. It wasn’t until I moved back to Samoa in 2015 had I realised that most of my schooling in Australia I was bullied.

I would think that the main reason I was targeted was because I was different. My hair was curly like a gilded poodles and skin as brown as chocolate, by body was more matured then the other kids so my size was bigger too. We may be living in the 20^th century, but racism is as real today as it was back then. Back in primary and middle school I was raised in white washed areas. This meant that the majority of the neighbourhood was of people with white skin. I have had kids hit me every time I was near them, but they brushed it off saying it was an accident. They would steal my belongings and bring them back broken unless it was money, than they would keep it for themselves and more was done but only from the fair skinned people.

I had spent most of my lunch time either at the sand pit or library. I enjoyed those places because it were places, I could build anything I imagined. The library had Legos for kids to play with and the sand pit was this huge box with sand. You could scalp anything with the sand, but you were not permitted use water or bury anyone. I had saw kids use water any way. But when I went to get a tub of water a friend of mine stood in my way with some other girls telling me to stop what I was doing because I was not allowed to do it. And then she flipped the tub causing the water to cover me. I stood there cold and really embarrassed pointing my head to the floor. The girls then started laughing at me I couldn’t take it any more so had went back to the sand pit crying. Two kids saw this and told me to tell the teacher, but I didn’t want to speak to anyone. One of my biggest regrets was never really reaching out to someone especially a teacher and family when stuff like that happens. It is very important to let people know when bad things are happening to you so help may find you. It may be tough and scary at first, but I assure you that if you don’t seek help and let the negative feelings fester inside you will regret it as I did.

 One day my only two friends who were Greek and I started building with Legos. He had built a funny house and I, a dog created completely out of Lego side by side. When the librarian had passed, she gave praises to the two and even put theirs on display but gave not even the slightest attention to me. I was happy for them but still felt blue. Even when my sister and I were defending another Samoan kid who was a brother of her friend from these notorious white boys the teacher gave me and my sister detention but not the bullies. For a month, these kids would scatter out trash from the bins onto our yard.

 In Samoa I was able to find true friendships that wasn’t forged out of desperation, pity, or someone else’s benefit. I found that it wasn’t normal to have your friends put you in awkward positions or situations that you didn’t want to be in, leave you unless it was convenient for them to be in your presents and embarrass you to make them laugh.  By moving to Samoa I now know that friends were actually people who would make you feel wanted and help you with what they can. They humoured you to have a lot of fun. They are there to tell secretes too that were too hard to give to others. True friends are a home away from home, my best friends are my second family.