For a Better Life
[00:00:00] [Video begins] Musical Introduction
[00:00:05] Dear mom, I figured out that you did not love me because if you did you would not give me up for money. I cry from the heartbreak of not having a home. Now I'm in a cold world all alone.
[00:00:15] Music continues, fades to rain
[00:00:29] [SFX: Thunder]
[00:00:30] My father was very abusive.
[00:00:32] [SFX: door opening]
[00:00:33] He used to come into the house drunk every day.
[00:00:36] [Background music resumes]
[00:00:38] He didn't care.
[00:00:40] [SFX: crying]
[00:00:42] I was born in Tunisia. There you can have four wives as long as you can take care of them. And he didn't do that. [music ends]
[00:00:56] I had to steal several times in order to eat. But the main one that I remember was when I was five years old. And it was actually my birthday. I got caught.
[00:01:09] And in Tunisia they truly believe in chopping off the hand if you steal and um, a French tourist, Florence, she paid for what I stole while the guy was actually about to chop my hand off. So, I ran home to my mother and she actually followed me.
[00:01:27] [Woman speaking French in the background]
[00:01:29] And they spoke for a couple minutes. And there was a financial exchange. I started crying right away.
[00:01:43] Everyone was there. My father was actually there. My brothers, my sister. She bought me from my mother. It was $100.
[00:01:55] It happens a lot because the families can't provide. A lot of tourists come there. I was sold for a better life. We just got on the plane right then and there. No documentation, no nothing. And the same exact day we went to France.
[00:02:22] When I got there, I was happy. Florence, she celebrated my birthday there with her family. I started eating cake that I never had before.
[00:02:33] [SFX: Blowing out candles]
[00:02:36] Maybe I was too young to sit there and realize what was really going on but later on the night after her whole family left, I was laying in bed and she wanted to get sexual.
[00:02:58] Either she had money or she was within the airline business. We traveled everywhere. And she was very abusive but after traveling for four years with this abuse and separation from my family - I didn't speak to them not once the entire time. We came to Dominica, she got married.
[00:03:21] [SFX: church/wedding bells]
[00:03:23] Brian, her husband, he was a father figure more than she was a mother figure.
[00:03:31] [Background conversation, scraping]
[00:03:34] Her abuse wasn't visible to other people. She used to nearly kill me when he wasn't around.
[00:03:42] [SFX: car horns]
[00:03:45] What really was a life changing issue was when I was nine years old I first came to New York because her husband had work out here.
[00:03:53] [background music resumes]
[00:03:54] She starved me for two weeks. She broke 6 bones in my back, my knees, she cut my right leg open, she banged my head against the sink. She broke my elbows too. This was all in one day.
[00:04:10] I was in the middle of the street, just laying out bleeding. It wasn't even that long ‘til someone actually took the effort of getting me out of the situation.
[00:04:23] The ambulance came and got me and I went to the hospital, right away.
[00:04:39] [music]
[00:04:34] I was hospitalized for about a year and a half.
[00:04:41] She ended up going to jail. She did 5 years in Riker’s and then she was deported for 20 years.
[00:04:48] [SFX: door slams]
[00:04:50] This was when I was 10 years old and my family's in Africa. I just got out the hospital, I mean I don't know what I'm doing. I don't know anybody, I don't speak English.
[00:05:03] Brian, he went to court and tried to get me back and I wanted to go with him, but they wouldn't let it happen because of the history with Florence.
[00:05:14] I was in foster care as of that moment.
[00:05:19] They put me in three foster homes and I did not cooperate whatsoever.
[00:05:27] One of the kids said something about my mother. I mean I just took his head and I banged it against the wall.
[00:05:36] [Music]
[00:05:42] I was very angry. That's the part that hit me the most because I was aware that okay, there's clearly no one to turn to. And that's when I went for suicide.
[00:05:55] That was my lowest point. That's when I tried to jump off the building.
[00:06:03] [Music]
[00:06:09] I got on the roof and I had one foot off and I was about to kill myself. And a guy grabbed me. They put me in Brunswick Psychiatric Hospital. I was just mentally messed up in the head.
[00:06:25] That's when I got into Little Flower Residential Treatment Center.
[00:06:30] And that was basically the turning point.
[00:06:32] [Music]
[00:06:35] At first, I used to fight everything. People used to say my name wrong I used to curse them out. To see kids getting restrained that used to emotionally hurt me. I still have some kind of triggers.[Music fades]
[00:06:52] We had therapy. We had nurses there. That's what I needed, the support. I had great relationships there. They watched me grow. The point was to be there for maybe like 3, 4 years but I actually ended up staying there for 9 years.
[00:07:11] I didn't want to leave that place. It was like home.
[00:07:15] It was 18 years old, we had a poetry slam at Little Flower. I wrote it from the pain, that was my first way of like letting it out. I was actually angry at my mother.
[00:07:28] [Music resumes, new song]
[00:07:30] Now I'm in a cold world all alone with no one to call my mom. Everyday my anger builds up and I might blow up like a bomb. You never call, maybe you think I'm dead. The only way I wish you were alive is in my head.
[00:07:45] After letting it out, I was able to get a different perspective on it.
[00:08:50] I asked them you know is there any way possible you can communicate with my family? And it was one call that made it happen. I was just shocked.
[00:07:59] [SFX: phone ringing]
[00:08:01] My mother was on the line. She said "I love you". I said "I love you, too." I don't look at the price of - oh that's how much I'm worth. No, my mother didn't know that I would go through the abuse. She wanted me to have a better life. I can't fault her for that. Yeah, I still love my mother.
[00:08:19] You can't really allow what happen in your past to control where you're going. Keep progressing, keep going forward. I've been able to overcome a lot so I'm thankful to go through that system. It saved my life.
[00:08:40] [Music resume, new song] [end credits begin]
[00:09:19] [Music/credits end]
[00:09:30] [Video ends]
