The Grade-School Project Gone Horribly Wrong

Dear Mom,

Do you remember back, way back, when I was in sixth grade? Of course you do; you have a memory like a steel trap. It was the class project for Open House, you know, when all the students would put together a presentation, and the parents would walk through the different classrooms and look at what the grades created. Our teacher decided that the sixth grade was going to do a presentation on the major rivers of the world. You remember that teacher, the bimbo blond, the one that gave me the role of “adult movie star” in a murder-solving class play. (That’s a crazy story for another day.) You did not like her one bit and that’s okay; I wasn’t fond of her either. She had her favorites, and I was definitely not one of them.

Anyway, for our world rivers presentation, we had to research the people, plants, and animals that lived around those rivers and re-create that environment in the classroom. The teacher expected us to make the river out of whatever material we wanted, such as fabric, paper, or cardboard, and to make posters describing the native flora and fauna. To top it all off, our teacher wanted us to dress in the traditional clothing of the people that lived there. The three rivers she selected were: the Mississippi, the Nile, and the Amazon.

Being in a Catholic school, the class size was small, less than 20 kids. We would be divided into three groups of about 5-6 in each. You, Mom, assumed that the teacher chose which river to assign us. In truth, we were able to pick the river, and I chose the Amazon. I will repeat that: I CHOSE the Amazon.

Here was my logic, flawed as it was. The Amazon was in a tropical rainforest. In my head, that meant lots of plants and animals, lots of stuff to talk about. And the Amazon had lots of waterfalls, at least I thought it did, having seen pictures in books about South America. I thought it would be really cool to have a waterfall as part of the presentation. Why I did not pick the Mississippi, the river that we could literally drive to in only a couple hours, I don’t know. I still wonder to this day.

That afternoon, you picked me up from school and I told you about the project. You always helped me with school projects, quite a lot actually, maybe more than most parents helped their children. Looking back, I am so thankful that you did. Anyway, I told you about the three rivers and who had what river. Unfortunately, I ended up grouped with students who were notorious for not pulling their fair share of work. It would be mostly me on this project, and by extension, you too. I then told you that I “got the Amazon.”

Your reaction was instant; you were not happy, not one bit. You grumbled about the fact that the Mississippi, such an easy river to present on, seemed to have gone to the teacher’s favorites.

I remember you asking, “Who are the people that live around the Amazon?”

“The Yamamas,” I piped up, eleven-year old me, attempting to repeat the name “Yanomami” that the teacher had said.

“Well, what do they wear?” You looked at me bewildered.

“The teacher said they were “lightly dressed” because of the tropical heat,” I answered.

“What does “lightly dressed” mean?” My mother asked, eyeing me suspiciously.

“Um, I don’t think they wear much,” I said sheepishly. You just stared at me and said no more.

After researching on the computer, you learned that “lightly dressed” was a nice way of saying “pretty much naked.” That weekend we piled into the car and drove to the nearest craft store. I loved the craft store. I was enamored with all the things to look at: yarn, model kits, paint, rows of fake flowers, home decorations, everything. You, on the other hand, were on a mission: to find something, quite frankly anything, for me to wear. How were you going to turn loincloths, beads, and body paint into Catholic-school appropriate attire? No time to dilly-dally and gaze at stuff today; up and down the aisles we marched. You would pick up something, examine it, hold it up to me, toss it in the cart, and move on. I don’t know how long we were there; the craft store is a sort of “black hole” of time. You think you are only gone an hour, and come to find out, you have been wandering the aisles for three.

We arrived home with our bags of purchases, hanging off our arms like we were pack mules. You immediately got to work. You had settled on a grass skirt, beige tee shirt, and floral leis. I looked more Hawaiian than Amazonian, but that’s okay. What were grade school parents in the Chicago metro area going to know? You also purchased a bag of dried cornhusks and intended to staple them onto the grass skirt, to make it look like it was made of leaves, I guess. That did not go as planned; the staples kept ripping the husks and they kept falling off. Eventually you used the glue gun, but that too proved to be problematic. The grass kept clumping up with the globs of glue it took to attach the cornhusks. I recall you sitting in the kitchen, the floor littered with the ill attempts of your crafting. All the while, I heard you muttering under your breath about that stupid teacher that gave me the Amazon.

You helped me make posters about jaguars, parrots, and piranhas, coloring them with crayons and markers. We cut giant water lily pads out of cardboard boxes and attempted to construct coffee plants and cocoa trees out of toilet paper tubes. We made a river out of shiny blue fabric and even had a cascading waterfall in the corner of the classroom. True to its name, the waterfall kept falling down, and by Open House night, it had a whole a roll of tape holding it up to the ceiling.

Open House night came and it was a real doozy. It was clear that the parents of the other kids in the Amazon group had much the same thought process as you did: to wear anything BUT traditional Yanomami “dress.” They came in grass skirts too with assorted floral shirts. Some of the kids in the Nile group were dressed like explorers from the 1800’s: khaki shorts, button down shirts, and helmet hats. I don’t know where they were going with that look. Perhaps they were thinking tourists in Egypt? One girl’s parents had gone to the Halloween store and bought a Cleopatra costume. At least that was closer to the mark.

However, the kids of the Mississippi were the best of all. They too had khaki shorts and white tee shirts, but they had little vests, the ones with all the pockets. Their bucket hats had fishing lures on them, and they completed the look with poles and tackle boxes. They sat on over-turned milk crates and pretended to cast into the river. They talked about the big catfish that swim in the water and the bald eagles that nested in the tall trees along the banks. Their presentation looked clean and effortless. It was all so cute. And there I stood, in a grass skirt, with cornhusks falling off of it.

Sometimes, years later, we reminisce about the old days at that school, the good and the bad. That project, along with some other real hair-brained assignments, inevitably comes up for re-examination and discussion. Specifically, you talk about how that teacher didn’t like me and sabotaged me by assigning me the Amazon. Every time it surfaces, the secret starts to gnaw at my insides. I want to speak up and tell you that I actually chose it, but I have stayed silent all these years. I just can’t bring myself to tell you the truth, because you were so upset with all the work, irritation, and struggles that the assignment came with. I hope you will not be mad at me. I hope that time has mellowed your feelings. Mom, I am so sorry that I was so stupid. I was such an idiot and you did your best with that awful hand I dealt you. You are an amazing person and a wonderful mother and I love you for it.

With much love and admiration,

Your, “I-don’t-know-what-I was-thinking,” daughter