My Childhood Adventures with Rivers and Sheep

 

 Once upon a time, there was a little girl that had a life full of adventures.
She liked to swim in the river. The deepest part of the river was as deep as a two story house. That’s how I saw it when I was little. My brother and I loved to play and hang from a tree branch and jump to the river and swim.

 I was 10 years old at the time and my brother was around 13 years old. I always saw the world from my own perspective. I pretended in that time I was Pocahontas and my adventures began in the river.

 My family, on the other hand, believed that the river was dangerous for a girl of my age since I was ten and growing to be a young woman. One day my father called me and told me that I can no longer go to the river with my brothers because I was already grown and it was dangerous for me to be out there.

 They didn’t want anything to happen to me but I insisted on going to the river with my brothers. Since I was so persistent, I told them I will stay close to my brothers, and I will do anything, such as the chores, and I will not complain. They decided to let me go to the river with one condition: I had to dress like a boy so I could be safe, according to them. I didn’t understand but I agreed because I love to be close to nature. My parents found the solution: every morning I was Pocahontas, but I dressed like Tarzan.

At that time, I did not understand why they loved to complicate the world for a little girl that only wanted to have fun. I believe that my parents were paranoid because I was practically raised in the river since I was 5 years old. I didn’t understand why they would not let me be myself.

But now that I have kids, I understand the dangers of the world and I become that person that my parents were when I was little, with my kids.

How I saw the world when I was a girl was full of adventures waiting for me to have fun. We pretended to be characters from cartoons.

I remember when my little brother was 7 years old and he decided that he was going to go with us to the river, so he can be cool by doing something dangerous, according to him. My older brother was 13 years old and I was 10 years old. We decided to go swimming and my little brother was 7 years old. He decided to stay close to the river to find something fun to do. He was playing with three water snakes; he had one around his waist and the other two were in the ground. When we come back from swimming, we saw a snake in his waist that was moving. We asked, “What do you think you are doing with that snake on your waist?” and he responded, “I’m playing with it. Anyway, it is dead.” My older brother removed the snake from his waist and he threw the snake back in the river. The three snakes were alive and my little brother thought that they were dead. These adventures in the river end soon for me. I think that my parents just were buying time in order to find something and keep me busy at home.

This Tarzan thing went on for a couple of months. After that, I had to stay home because I was growing up, according to my father. My father decided to give me a sheep so he could keep me busy doing something at home since I couldn’t go to the river anymore. My family didn’t raise sheep, but my father had a friend who did. One day, I remember I was sad and upset because my parents did not let me go to the river anymore. My dad surprised me with a baby girl sheep and I was no longer alone at home. I named her Muneca, meaning “doll” in Spanish, and I ran around the house with her. She was very smart and I taught her to listen to me. When I called her name, she knew it was time to play. She came to me and followed me all around the house. If I stopped, she stopped, and if I decided to rest and sit, she would sit with me. She was the most wonderful gift that I received when I was a little girl.

That was my life when I was a little girl full of adventure. I remember I couldn’t stay still and I was full of energy. Now that my family is older, we get together and talk about our childhood adventures and laugh. My childhood was wonderful because I viewed the world without worrying. I know that my parents were always there for us, even though we were a big family. From these experiences, I realized that my parents were right about the world being a dangerous place. My view on adults changed for the better. I thank my parents for the way the raised us. Today, I’m the person that I am because of them.

My Childhood Memories in the Farm

My father was a farmer and he used to have a lot of animals, like chickens, cows, and horses. I remember that at the age of 3 I learned how to ride a horse and I helped my father feed the animals. One day, a cow got sick and died. She left her baby calf an orphan so I helped my father feed the calf with a bottle.

When I was 5 years old, I remember my first day in kindergarten where all of the children were crying for their parents. Everywhere I turned, a child was crying and I couldn’t stay in class. While the teacher was trying to calm down the kids, I snuck out of the classroom, jumped the fence, and went home. When my mom saw me she asked me, “What is going on and aren’t you supposed to be at school?” I answered, “Mom, I’m scared. All the kids are crying. Are they in danger or what?”

When I was 9 years old, I liked running and climbing trees with my older brothers and I remember we just loved to play along the river close to nature. Of course sometimes we had to help our father take care of the cows so they would not be too far. I liked to help my father with chores, it was fun. I remember that I was close with my brothers all the time playing having fun and going to school.

I rarely talked to my parents, they were always busy and I was living in my own little world full of nature and discovery. When I was 10 years old and my brother was 7 years old, we were wandering by the river. We climbed a tree and saw a big black snake that was at a stake close to the river. We started to throw rocks from the top of the tree, we made the snake fall into the river then we left. It was fun.

I remember my brother and I were riding the same horse and we made the horse run too fast. The horse fell on his knees for a second and then he stood up again. The feeling of almost falling off the horse was scary.

One day it was raining so hard that when we come back home, the ditches become little ponds. I remember I was 10 years old, I saw a black snake swimming close to the horse I was riding. I told my older brother, who was 13 years old at the time, that the snake was going to climb over my horse and I started crying. My brother started laughing at me, he told me to keep going, and not to worry because it could not climb the horse because it is not a tree.

When my brother was 7 years old and I was 10 years old, we liked to drink the milk fresh from the cow. We learned how to milk the cow; we just waited for our father to put the cows in the fence. We liked one cow in particular that we named Lolita because she was a nice cow, she did not kick us and let us extract the milk with our hands. At first it was hard, but we learned that we have to squish and pull in order to extract the milk. When my brother and I drank the milk, it was warm and we started laughing when the fat of the milk covered our lips like we had some kind of white mustache.

My family is big; we are four girls and three boys; two brothers and a sister are older than me and one brother and two sisters are younger than me. I decided to talk about the happiest moments of my life. I had many adventures when I was a child and most of the memories I have, I remember being closer to my brothers, riding horses and playing with them. My sisters were not as adventurous as me and my brothers; they would rather stay at home because they were afraid of the animals, even the horses and the cows.