me. It was the only education I knew until I was forced to leave home.Nate Regouski - A Short Biography
I grew up in a small town on the cost of Panama. My parents and I lived
in the tiny fishing village of Mezillo where the long arm of the rest of the
world seldom reaches. In my early years I helped my uncle Pe'Pa Montero harvest
snails along the rocky shore of the ocean. Although it was backbreaking
work, I enjoyed the long hours in the hot tropical sun with my uncle, and his
long rambling conversation did much to prepare me for the life ahead of
me. It was the only education I knew until I was forced to leave home.
Early one morning when I was 11 years of age, Pe'Pa and my parents left for sea on my family's dilapidated fishing tug, never to return. No bodies were ever found, no wreckage ever washed ashore. I was picking snails that day for shipment to far away restaurants in France. At the end of the day Pe'Pa was to meet me and help me fill my pail until the sun was enveloped by the sea. He never came. After it was dark I carried my pail down the long road to our home and waited for them to return. When I woke early the next morning to an empty house, I did not know what to do. I stayed in the unbearable heat of the house all day, because I knew if I went to a neighbors it would only lead to the confirmation of my worst fears. At sunset I gathered the courage to walk down the path to Maria Olma's home. The dirt of the road was still warm from the days sun beating upon it. When I arrived at Maria's home and knocked on the door, she opened it and immediately took me in a long embrace when she saw the tears cutting through the grime on my face. She then asked what was the matter and I told her how my parents have not returned from sea for two days, along with my uncle.
I stayed with Maria and her two young daughters for a month before we all gave up hope that my family would return. After that there was another month that passed before it was decided that I would live with my cousin Camilla. Camilla was the daughter of Pe'Pa's ex-wife, Paloma. Camilla was born after Paloma had left Pepa and moved to the United States and remarried. I was very scared to move so far from home, but I was greeted with open arms by Camilla and her husband Philippe. They also had a son, Ricardo, with whom I got along wonderfully at first.
Ricardo soon began to feel that I had invaded on the family and started treating me with indifference. For a while he did not speak to me at all. This was very hard for me, but I learned it was better than the mean and dirty tricks he would soon start to play. At the age of 13 I could not take it any longer and I left the home of Camila and ventured on my own.
I
wandered the country side for the next two years, getting around on railway
cars. At first I survived by shoplifting at the small town stores of the
remote cities the trains went through. Over time I began hunting for small
game along the tracks using a sling-shot, and I became very good at catching
rabbits and various kinds of fowl. There were many nights spent hovered
over a campfire, roasting some type of small animal, eating cattle corn or soy
beans picked from a farmers field along the way.
When I was 15 I stopped in a small town in Georgia and was staying near the tracks along the bank of a small creek. I was fishing one day along the creek when a boy a little older than me wandered along. His name was Jonathan and we formed an immediate bond that lasted throughout the summer. On that first day we met I took a chance and told him my story and why I was there, and he accepted me as his friend non-the-less. For the entire summer Jonathan would come nearly every day to fish or talk or go for hikes in the surrounding forest. As fall approached Jonathan said he had to start school soon and asked if I wanted to move in with him and his father and go to his school. It turns out his father was an alcoholic and Jonathan was for the most part raising himself. The day that I first went to Jonathan's home, he simply told his father that I was going to be staying there for a while, and as far as I knew, that was all that was said. He never asked when I was going to be leaving or spoke to either of us much for that matter. Jonathan's father for the most part went to the bank once a month to cash his social security check and put 200 dollars of it in a jar for Jonathan to do with what he wished until the next check arrived. The rest was spent at the three bars throughout the small town in which we lived.
I started
school that year under the presumption that I was Jonathan's cousin from the
Midwest who's parents had died in a car crash. I was terribly fearful at
first that I would fail miserably in school, but on the contrary picked up the
material without much effort at all. Before the first year was over I was
tutoring Jonathan in subjects he was having trouble in, and by the time I
graduated I was at the top of my class and prepared to attend Amherst, a small
college on the East Coast, on full scholarship.
I graduated in 4 years with a degree in South American studies as well as a degree in American literature. While I was a sophomore on summer break I met a beautiful and wonderful woman named Stacey while we were both working as interns at an organic farm in West Virginia. We spent most of the summer together and when fall came we could not bare to be apart. We spent the next two years doing everything we could to see each other. She was a student at Texas A&M and there were many trips on Grayhound busses or traveling with lonely people who were kind enough to offer rides.
Stacey and I graduated the same year and we moved to the winter wonderland of
Minnesota. After spending the summer
working menial jobs in Northern
Minnesota we moved to Minneapolis, where we rented a house. I soon found a
job writing articles for a local metro publication,
and also as a translator for the state of Minnesota. Stacey found work as an assistant
to a medical dean at the university of Minnesota.
Shortly after the New Year in 1997 Stacey found out she was pregnant with our first son River. We had a hasty wedding in March of that year. Less than three years later she had our second son Forest and we recently added a new member to the family, Stephanny. For the past 7 years we have been getting by and doing our best to raise our family in a happy home with all the support and caring and love we can give them. Stacey quit working after River was born and has had a few short-lived jobs since then to try to help make ends meet. I have slowly worked my way up to assistant editor and am soon hoping to make the transition to the one of the local news papers as a journalist, columnist, or reporter.