My parents did a damn fine job brainwashing me. Seriously. A lot of people say that but I actually mean it. With every fiber of my being. My name is Amanda Joseph Saint-Cyr. I was born and raised in the City of Calgary, Province of Alberta. My father Luc Saint-Cyr is French Canadian and my mother Bella Joseph is of Haitian descent, having moved to the Province of Alberta from her hometown of Cap-Haitien, North Haiti, during the late 1980s. The first day of January 1986 I came into the world. And I've been wreaking havoc ever since. I grew up to be a six-foot-tall, fine-looking young woman with light brown skin, curly Black hair and pale green eyes. I often get mistaken for a Hispanic woman but I always tell people that I am Black. I'm a Black Canadian female. Deal with it.
In the summer of 2009 I graduated from the University of Calgary with my MBA. I tried to find decent work but 2010 ended without my finding anything in my field. I decided to explore life outside the Confederation of Canada for a while. I moved to the City of Boston, Massachusetts, and applied for a work permit. I began working for the Boston Museum of Science as a translator. Growing up in racially diverse Calgary, I was exposed to various languages ranging from French to Spanish and Portuguese. The one language my mother didn't want me to learn was Haitian Creole. I think that's part of the reason why I immersed myself in the Haitian community of Boston, Massachusetts. How I loved that fine, vibrant town. There are so many Black people in Boston, Massachusetts it's not even funny. The City of Calgary in Alberta is racially diverse but it's mostly Hispanics, Arabs and East Indians, with a few African immigrants and Afro-Caribbean people here and there. In Boston, I felt right at home.
It's in Boston that I met the young man destined become my significant other. Harrison Etienne. Second generation Haitian-American. The proud son of Haitian immigrants Cheryl and Michel Etienne. He was born and raised in the City of Boston, Massachusetts, and was attending Northeastern University's MBA program at the time we met. Something about this six-foot-one, lean and sexy Black man caught my attention as I spoke to some Portuguese tourists one fine summer day inside the Boston Museum of Science. Harrison Etienne walked into the Museum clad in a bright red silk shirt, Black silk pants and Black Timberland boots. He looked good enough to eat. I've always had a thing for tall, dark-skinned and ruggedly handsome guys. We don't have nearly enough of them in the City of Calgary and most of them are into fat White women. Seriously, there must be something in the water that Black men drink.
Anyhow, I was smitten with Harrison Etienne the moment he walked up to me. Of course, I tried to play it cool. Can't let him see that I want his fine ass. He's around six-foot-two, built like an NBA player but the Northeastern University student card hanging next to his car keys says otherwise. I've visited many schools in the Boston area, from Harvard University to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Bay State College, Emerson College, Boston College, Boston University, Gibbs College and Suffolk University. It's a University town, that's for sure. At all those schools I saw quite a few good-looking Black men. And I must say that Harrison Etienne seemed like the cream of the crop. What the hell was a fine brother like him doing unattached? I went over and introduced myself because I'm a really helpful sister. I was determined to help a brother out, as my Yankee ( that's Canadian talk for American ) friends might say.
Harrison Etienne looked me up and down, and gently shook my hand after I welcomed him to the Boston Museum of Science. Apparently, he was a civil engineering major at the prestigious Northeastern University in downtown Boston and he was working on a project. I was really helpful, even though I didn't know jack about civil engineering. I made sure I gave him my cell phone, Harrison blinked in surprise when he saw the four hundred and three area code on my cell phone. I explained to him that I had an international plan with a cell phone company in my hometown of Calgary, in the Canadian region of Alberta. In Calgary, we use four hundred and three and four hundred and eighty seven. In Boston, they've got six zero seven and seven eight one for the most part. Fascinating. That same afternoon, Harrison Etienne and I met for a few drinks. We had a lot of fun together. He was friendly, smart and totally relaxed. He had a lot of questions about Canada. To my surprise, his questions were very pertinent. He asked about the life of Black Canadian celebrities like the former Governor General, and of course the Black female Lieutenant Governor of the Province of Nova Scotia. I didn't think Americans knew anything about us Canadians. Americans live like the world is theirs and nobody else matters. Canadians seem to know more about United States history and politics than some Americans. Just to show you a thing or two about our different cultures.