Dear Aunty, thanks for your last letter.
Yes, I feeling much better.
The Lindenblüten-tea did the trick for me.
Aunty, you know what I notice, I becoming Swiss.
I find myself eating raclette and fondue
no more red beans and rice and beef stew.
I used to get upset when codfish was hard to get
but now I eating salmon and ham
with a slice or two of melon.
I drinking wine instead of rum,
eating zopf instead of raisin bun.
I buying lamb in the shop by gram.
Imagine that. And I watching me weight.
Don’t want to get too fat.
I have to watch how I eat chocolate and BaslerLäckerli
cause too much ain’t good for me.
Aunty, I buying peaches,
not papayas, apples, not guavas
But everybody loves ripe bananas.
Aunty, I walking the street not smiling
with people I meet, and if strangers
come up to me and want to chat friendly
I think they batty, especially if they want
to talk ‘bout family. It’s too personal, you see.
I getting irritated when people not on time.
Before I never used to mind.
I don’t call out to me friends in the street
‘cause it’s not discreet.
I stop the children from playing calypso too loud
‘cause the neighbor below
going pound broomstick on me floor
and spit sharp words in me face
when she knock me door.
Aunty, when I making recreation
I packing on clothes, not taking them off
rushing up mountains instead of down to the sea.
I snow boarding and skiing
not wind-surfing and snorkeling
dusting snow off me clothes, not sand.
I can still get black or tan but it don’t last long.
Two weeks after I looking like a white woman.
Aunty, I can even understand a little Swiss German
not bad for a woman coming from
a tiny island in the Caribbean .
So aunty, I telling you,
I becoming Swiss, for true.
© Althea Romeo-Mark
Published in Ticking Along Free: Stories About Switzerland
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