Mezzo Soprano: Memoirs of a Rez Girl

By Rhonda Head

Tansi!! My name is Rhonda Head and I am from the Opaskwayak
Cree Nation in Northern Manitoba located in the Treaty 5
Territory. I am the youngest of six siblings and my parents are
the late John Alfred Head and Hagar Head.
I am pleased to be able to share my journey of trials and
tribulations throughout my life with you. I have been fortunate
enough to be able to achieve one of my goals – to write a book
about myself, my autobiography.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Oct 1, 2018
• ISBN: 9781732508866

Book preview

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INTRODUCTION

Tansi!! My name is Rhonda Head and I am from the Opaskwayak Cree Nation in Northern Manitoba located in the Treaty 5 Territory. I am the youngest of six siblings and my parents are the late John Alfred Head and Hagar Head.

I am pleased to be able to share my journey of trials and tribulations throughout my life with you. I have been fortunate enough to be able to achieve one of my goals – to write a book about myself, my autobiography. This has given me the opportunity to continue to grow and share my experiences with you.

I grew up on the Opaskwayak Cree Nation with my family. I remember playing outside in the wilderness and not having any supervision. I thought this was the most amazing time when I was growing up. The connection to the land and nature was a part of my childhood and is always a good memory for me. I remember all the other kids in the neighbourhood were right there with me playing in the woods. Little did I know that we were not being nurtured or properly supervised. And as I grew older, when I spoke about my childhood with other members of Opaskwayak from different areas, they grew up the exact same way. We were left alone on the weekends, there was partying and we pretty well looked after ourselves growing up, and we thought it was normal. It was certainly not my parents fault for the way we grew up, as they both were shipped off to residential school, and the traumas they faced haunted them for the rest of their lives.

I always had this longing to leave the reserve and live in big cities. I just didn’t see myself living on the reserve all my life. I had dreams of travelling, of meeting new people, and just wanting to leave. I made it a reality and left Opaskwayak when I was 16 years and moved to Winnipeg, MB. I completed my grade 12 from the University of Winnipeg Collegiate, and went onto College in Toronto, Ontario, fulfilling a childhood dream of attending Fashion School and living in Toronto. This is where I started my vocal lessons with an amazing vocal teacher who believed in me.

When I graduated from college I moved back to Manitoba. I attended the University of Winnipeg and that’s when things turned a different route. My hearing started going, I couldn’t retain any information that I was reading and I started gaining weight. My body began to swell. Because of my sister’s impatience with me when I couldn’t hear what she was saying, I went to an Audiologist to get my hearing tested. From there I was referred to get an MRI. The results were devastating, I had a brain tumour and my world as I knew it would never be the same again. My world was turned upside down.

It took me a over a year to recover. The illness taught me that life is precious and it gave me motivation to follow my heart and dreams. It also taught me that to give up is the easiest thing in the world to do.

I’ve been a musician all my life; since I was eight years old I started playing piano, and when I was in Junior and Senior High I was in the school band playing the clarinet and alto-clarinet. I now sing with an amazing choir one hour from my community, and recorded three award-winning CDs and working on the forth one. This circle has allowed me to cross paths with some amazing people from all over the world. The music road has been good to me.

I’m excited to share my journey, experiences, trials and tribulations. The path has been met with twists and turns, mountains and hills, and all kinds of weather. I hope to inspire, move and motivate. My journey continues and is not over yet. Kinanaskimotin – I am thankful.

ONE

CHILDHOOD

It was a warm sunny day out, and I remember lying quietly on a branch of a tree, watching a tiny bug in its environment, walking on a leaf. I looked curiously at the bug as it was just living its life, and I just watched it. The moments seemed like seconds, but I watched for hours. I was alone in the forest, feeling the energy of the earth, not knowing how I really was connected to the land at the tender age of five. This connection with the land still remains with me today.

I remember when all the neighbourhood kids would play in the forest in our area known as ‘Cowhead’ or ‘Mameek’ during the summer time. We played for hours in the forest unsupervised day after day. I remember having so much fun, we played this game called ‘my-my chap-its’, a combination of hide and seek and tag. The game took hours to play, and sometimes the whole day. There were about 10-15 of us involved and there would be one person who was ‘it’. The rest of us would go and hide, the whole area of Mameek was where we would hide in the bush. ‘It’ would have to look for us, if they found us we could run, and if ‘it’ tagged us we would have to join their team and help look for the others. This would go on till the last person was found who would be declared the winner that day. Those memories of playing in the bush were my finest childhood memories. There was a dug-out that was a five-minute walk behind the community church, were we would go swimming weather permitting. It was called White Truck Sales. Sometimes we would spend the whole day there swimming. I watched how the older kids would swim out to the deep end and it looked like they were having a great time. How I wished I could swim in the deep end too. I just stayed close by the shore, thinking of how I was going to swim in the deep end.

I was determined, and I started practising how to swim in the shallow end. I kept trying to dog paddle over and over. I kept sinking, but I kept on practicing until I could swim. I didn’t try swimming out in the deep part till I was sure I could swim. I started out going closer to the deep end slowly and not rushing myself, and kept on practising how to swim. I did this till I was confident that I could swim to the deep end, and I did so with my sister supervising me. It was a very empowering moment for me when I swam in the deep end. After I knew how to swim, I was part of the fun that I imagined. No one taught me how to swim, I learned on my own, with determination.

In the winter time there was a pond where we would go skating; the ice would freeze over so clear that you could see the environment underneath the ice in the pond. The ice would be smooth as glass. I would lie on the ice and look through it to watch the water bugs and plant life sway in the water. I would watch and observe closely at the bugs and how they swam gracefully; it was amazing to me and I was totally mesmerized at what I witnessed.

At home during meal time, I remember eating supper with all my