Chapter 1
This event happened to me a long time ago. My name is Moses, I am 22 years old but this happened when I was 19. I am from an Amish Community in Pennsylvania. My father's name is Joseph and my mom's name is Gloria. I Have 13 siblings, 10 girls, and 3 boys. I am the oldest boy, and 4th child of the family. Two of my sisters are already married.
You may be wondering why I have so many siblings; it's because that is how it is around here, and I mean the Amish community. Making babies to work on our farms, we always need a hand around, and it is not a bad idea considering the fact that we are novice when it comes to Advance commercial agriculture, so we had to work hard for every grain we eat and every soil we plow.
After my 6th grade, I told my father that I will like to stay with one of my sister that was married and lived in San Francisco, California. He agreed after a long hesitation. Few weeks after my father granted me the permission to stay with my sister in San Francisco I packed up my luggage's and headed to the airport, San Francisco here I come. I haven't been to a place so beautiful, when I was in my little town in Pennsylvania I use to hear about the greatest city in the world and the golden gate bridge and to be honest it didn't disappoint.
Since I had an outgoing personality I made a lot of friend's and had the greatest moments of my life. From where I come from its usually just whites but down here the diversity is off the charts, all kind of races most of which I haven't seen before, so it was sort of fascinating. Getting use to the technology was one of the hardest parts but I got use to it anyway.
After I finished my high school I decided to visit the Amish community and stay a year with my parents and siblings before moving back to San Francisco and probably enrolling in a university.
I took a one-way ticket from San Francisco to Pennsylvania. When I arrived at the airport late that afternoon I boarded a taxi to take me to my home town. The taxi drove me for about an hour before we arrived at my place. I paid the taxi driver and he drove away. I was dress in a white shirt and navy blue jeans and was carrying two portable languages that contain my outfits and other stuff.
I opened the gate leading to our compound and stepped on the front porch, I was expecting my younger brothers and sisters to come rushing from the house to welcome me because they were aware of my visit but nobody showed up to welcome me, the fact that they haven't seen me for over six years left me wondering how they would look like. I was excited to see how much they have grown and how they have been since I left. I was also eager to see my dad too, although he was kind of mean to me when I was around but not as mean as my mom.
My mom was one of the reasons why I decided to stay with my sister and her husband at Los Angeles. She was impossible to live with, she was always mean and hostile, and she yelled at me for any reason and also wop us when we misbehave. Since I was the oldest male I endured most of the brunt of her anger. so I was glad I left when I could. As I stepped closer to our house it seemed like I had never left, I notice that the environment has barely changed. Our five bedroom two story home looked the same, it still has patches on its wooden and cemented walls and its old raggedy paint was as old as it was when I left 6 years ago.
Since nobody came out of the house to welcome me or seems to be waiting for me. I realize that they might have gone someway maybe the farm or something. I stepped closer to the door and tried to open it but it was locked. So I want to our animal ranch at the backyard to get the keys to the house. The keys to our front house have always been hidden at a particular corner of the horse barn, and only my family members are aware of the location.
Since there are 15 of us including my parents it is only feasible to hide the keys in one particular area. My only fear was that they might have change the location. Luckily enough the keys was there. And just like I expected the horses in the barn was missing which indicates that my family went to the farm.
Then it came to me, "it was the farming season!" no wonder nobody was waiting for me. Around here we take Agriculture very seriously just like you take work very seriously in the real world. If you don't work you don't eat so if you don't farm you don't eat. So my family members and our horses had gone to the farm about 5 miles away to work on our farm. There are almost no cars around our community so we rely exclusively on horses and carriages for our transportation. We have one hose carriage that can carry about six people and some farm tools.
I used the key to open the door, went to my room that I share with my two younger brothers.
I brush my teeth and took a shower, and lay down to take a quick nap for some hours before my family arrives.
Few hours later I was awoken by noises of hoses and chattering, it seemed like my family have return. I slowly got out of bed put a shirt and trouser on and walk down stairs. I was immediately rushed, hugged and kiss by my little sisters and brothers. They have changed so much that I couldn't even recognize them, they have grown so big. my youngest sibling was a girl and she is 10, she was 4 when I left so you could imagine. Basically I didn't recognize most of them.
It was like being around strangers, my sisters has grown so mature that 4 of my younger sisters even got chested. You could imagine how it feels like to be kissing and hugging beautiful girls, too bad they were my sisters.
Like I said before I have 13 siblings, 10 girls, and 3 boys. Funny thing about my family and maybe others around our community is that we are one year apart on our ages. So it goes like this Abigail is the first born, she is the one I stayed with, in San Francisco (22 years old) Bethany is married and lived in our community with her husband a few blocks away from the family home (21 years old) Michelle lives with us, she is my immediate senior sister, she has a long blond hair and blue eyes(20 years old) then me Moses(19) next it my younger brother Andrew(18) then my sister Claudia(17) And brother Joshua(16) And sister Hannah(15) sister rose(14) sister Diana(13) sister Deborah(12) sister Bethel(11) and my youngest Adah(10)
I was really happy to see my brother Andrew because I hang out with him a lot he was about 6'0 tall now. I was also happy to see my arch enemy my sister Michelle that I often fought with when we were younger. She looked so beautiful and I wish she was not my sister at that point, she was about 5'9 and had a little weight on her which seems to have made her figure more pronounced, she have a large breast and wide hip. My 17 year old sister Claudia was about 5'7 or so, she was a smaller spitting image of my sister Michelle except that she was brunet. So there was a lot of screaming, shouting and laugher. They hugged me and started asking me questions, while I was looking at the front door to see when my parents will come in.
I heard my father's voice from the back door, so he must have went to drop the horses at the barn. My father was a serious man the shaking hand type but my mom has always been the pants in the relationship. When he came through the door, I ran to him and huge him nevertheless. He was wearing a round hat and a matching black suit, telling from the look on his face I knew he was happy to see me. My dad look really old now he was about 5'11 too slim and was 59 years old, his long bear was completely white and was about 5 inches below the jaw. After meeting my dad he went upstairs. I was waiting for my mom to come through the door but it seems like she was still at the backyard so I decided to go out to meet her.
When I got there my mom was adding more grain to the granary bin. "Hi mama" I said she looked back at me and said "Moses, when did you come home" "some few hours ago" I replied. She was wearing a white scarf and a black dress. My mom was 47 years old she also look older than her age with signs of gray hear, she was about 5'7 and about 210 pounds, a typical Amish chubby house wife.
My mom is a very conservative woman and acted really formal she only smiled at me and I didn't attempt anything stupid like hugging her. We talked for a while and I delivered the message my sister asked me to send to her. She asked me whether I have eaten anything I said "no" and she asked me to go inside and tell my sister Michelle to come out and help her so she could finish faster and make dinner.
After dinner we gather in front of the house and talked about everything that has happen since I left. I told them about California, the girls the culture the schools and everything I could remember. We stayed up late till about 1 am before we went to bed, there were about 5 rooms in the house, my mom and dad share one and I share one with my brothers and my sisters share the rest. The night was cold and I slept like I have had before, I was so happy to be home.