Mandel Old Woman- We Went Back and He Strapped Us
Hello this is Mandel. I’m going to tell a few stories what happened to me at Old Sun.
It happened at uh, it happened at the dorm, the boy’s room. It started out; I was really lonely. I was lonely for my parents so we decided to uhm… There was about four of us and so we decided to run away, hey. So, we planned it out and we, uhm, we planned it out so as soon as it got dark, we already had it planned and we took some pillows and put them on the beds so, just to say, that we were sleeping. Then there was a closet where we put all our clothes in there and we busted it, that closet, and we took our clothes. Then we dressed ourselves up and then we ran down the stairs, we took off.
Took off, and we ran past the, around the graveyard and there we slept there until it was daylight. It was around during fall; it was very cold. We were just hugging each other. We had… we didn’t know where to go so then we decided to go back. I was really scared everyone was really scared of the supervisors. So, we decided to go back to the, to the, to the school. We were standing beside the bar and there was this one of the supervisors, his name was Mr. Richard, he caught us and then he told us to put our hands together put our hands together and walk in a row, so we walked back. There was that old white building, he brought us down there into one of those rooms. That was the old that white building with that old kindergarten where people go to class over there.
So, he took a whip out and he told us to pull our pants down. Then he told us to bend down and he start, I don’t know it was some kind, I don’t know what it was, it some kind of thick leather. I don’t know how many times, about ten to fifteen times on the back of our, on our back. So, then he told us to pull our hands back out and he did that and same with me. He strapped us on each hand and those things were very painful at the time, when he was… Some of the people were crying, my roommates, the people I ran away with. We were just shaking all that time and gee. Out there when we were out there, we almost froze that’s why we decided came back but he caught us like I told you, he caught us. And we went back and he strapped us.
Then he brought us in to the dining room and there everybody was going back to school. So, we were sitting there just shaking and that was it. It was the loneliness that caught us that’s why we ran away, its very lonely out there. We can’t, I don’t know, we can’t stand. We never get to see our parents, never once two, three, times a week and its lonely and yeah but that’s why we ran away.
-Mandel Old Woman
Notes:
Oral interview with Mandel Old Woman. Conducted, translated, and transcribed by Gwendora Bear Chief. Old Sun Community College, May 5, 2022.
