The Girl With The Blue Backpack.

There were some hard times when I lived abroad.  Where I was I was told it would be a lot easier if I told people I was from Canada instead of America.  I understood what they meant but I cannot be anyone but me.  The Iranians and some Paki’s hated Americans.

While at work, the Iranians and Paki’s would come in and start yelling at me.  They told me to go back home and speak with then President Clinton to straighten him out to their plight.  Me………yeah right I thought.  Some Brits would also holler at me for taking a job away from one of their own.  I never said anything at first but if a Brit had applied before me then they would be there doing my work.  I finally leaned over the counter to these people and asked them if they wanted to take their fight out onto the street.  They backed off then or I thought they had.

I could see the problems I was having if I had been how I usually was when standing up for myself but being in a different country, I just shut my mouth.  One man I was on the watch for was a man who just did not like me and was a woman beater, so I was always alert to my surroundings.  I would hear whispers from people who also watched out for me that the Iranians and Paki’s were out to get me for not heeding their warnings.  I heard how I was going to be killed while walking home, while at work,  how they would burn my house down, etc…   I walked to and from work and through the tunnels without fear but alert.  After many months of realizing that someone was following me, I found out later it was my contact that had been set up by a friend, but before knowing this, I was alert. 

One day as I walked into work, I would always turn to ask Sandra what was going on that day and what did I need to know.  That day she told me that the “new security person” was staring at me from over the shelf behind me.  I turned slowly, while lowering my sunglasses just as slow to stare right back at him.  And there was my follower.  He seemed to always be near me everyday at work.  And he would let me know that he had seen me on my way to work.  One day he was stretched out on a stone slab and when he spoke, he jumped the crap out of me.  I was not used to having someone have my back but in the end, it was the best thing for me.

One day right before Christmas we had a massive delivery.  It was very hard to get around all the boxes out back in our stock room.  As luck would have it I was asked to go out back to fetch something.  I got out there and could not find what I was sent for but all of a sudden there was smoke filling in the back by the door.  I was stuck.  To make a long story short, my “follower” had hauled me out of the back area and had called the police.  Seems someone had moved the dumpster so it blocked the back door and had started a fire in and around it.  After getting oxygen I went upstairs to wash up.  I was not about to go home just to change.  I cannot remember now if they caught the persons responsible or not but it seemed that my troubles stopped. 

I had a dog at home.  Man she could be a pain when it came time for me to go to work.  I was already to leave and she would not come in.  I had to go out to lug her in and where it had rained, there was mud so I had to change.  I was running late but made good time walking.  I really had to pee so thought I would go to the public toilets instead of having to go up 3 flights of stairs at work.  I was just going to turn the corner to go to the toilets when someone jumped out from behind a huge tree.  He had the balls to stand close to me and ripped my headphones off of my head and put them on his.   “What are you listening to” he asked.  I told him Bryan Adams.  He said he liked him.  I stood there just waiting.  He could not see my eyes because of my sunglasses.  I was already late for work and really had to pee bad.  Long story short again, I left him lying on the sidewalk.  I told him that if I peed my pants I was coming back to kill him.  I got to work and had to tell my boss what had happened because of looking a bit disheveled.  He could not believe who it was. 

I used to stop at the little shop across from where I worked to buy a pack of smokes.  One day the wife of the owner was there and she said, “There is the girl with the blue backpack”.  I turned to look behind me and she told me she was speaking about me.  Then her husband came out and they both told me how I had always been watched.    They told me that I was always noticed for how I walked with confidence.    I really chuckled then.  They told me the market people always liked watching me walk around.  I thanked them and went to work.  I found I paid more attention to the locals walking that day.  Not a lot smiled and they always held their heads down.  I wondered if that was because of all of the rain they had. 

When I moved back home, Mama and Colin came over to stay for a couple of weeks.  Too bad they brought the rain from there with them.  They wanted to go to the mall and I am not one to just want to walk around all of the stores so I told them I was going to get a haircut and would catch up with them.  When I was done I started walking to find them.  They had decided to sit and people watch.  When I caught up to them, Colin told me how I walked with confidence.  I just smiled.  I guess it was true even back then.  I do miss all the walking I did back there.  I should have had a fitbit then but still to this day never thought about me walking as I had heard from others.  I have never liked attention like that.  I am a background person.  I do not think about how I am walking, etc… I just go. And I am and forever will be a backpack girl.