TRANSCRIPT
TRANSCRIBED BY Jasmine Singh (x 4)
What do you remember from your first few days in the United States when you arrived?
Only one thing, that I feel like the whole USA is opposite to India. The switches are opposite, the taps are opposite, everything is opposite and houses make too much noise. It’s not comfortable.
Do you remember what you were feeling when you first arrived?
Scared. Emotional. That's it pretty much, not more than that.
When arriving here, do you remember who picked you up? Where did you go?
I came to the house, our house. Your uncle lives here, so the whole family was waiting on us, on me and Avleen. And everybody came to pick us up actually. The whole family came to pick us up. All the family members, your uncles, nieces, everybody was there.
What did you do during your first week in the United States?
Because Avleen met her cousins first time, so it's all about Arlene, Avleen, Meghan getting together. They were too much in each other, that was too much fun to look at them. How they played with each other, they never met but they just got together right away. So that's the best part.
So seeing your daughters and your nieces like, play together?
Yeah, like playing with each other, knowing each other. Avleen and Meghan were 20 months and Arlene was almost four, so about to go to school for the first time. So the whole day, they were teaching each other poems. They testing their knowledge. It was too much fun, and their fights too, and their jealousy.
So that’s what you remember during your first week. A more fun question. Was there anything you ate that was totally new for you that you hadn't had before?
Yeah. My brother-in-law feed me a burger, which is a beef burger which I knew after two years of telling me it's a mixed veggie burger with a lot of sauce in it so I couldn't find the taste.
Is there a memory from that time that you're surprised that you remember?
Yeah. Avleen met first time Meghan and Arlene, in two minutes they went to the backyard. Avleen was very verbally aware of too many sentences in that age. And she did, in circles with them, ring-around-the-rosie, the whole poem with them. And Arlene didn't even know at that time. I still remember that. First two minutes. That was amazing.
Thank you so much.
That's it?
That's it.
* The contributor of this story has asked that their name be withheld.
