A powerful moment in a person's life

I was 18 years old, just finished the school and had no idea what I was going to do next. I live in small town in southeast of Slovakia where chances to get a job you want is virtually nil and I hadn‘t had past an exam in order for me to get to a university. I was young just a boy and that‘s how I felt. All I wanted was to have a good time with my friends. But I guess you have to make a decision what you are going to do with your life, you can‘t just get drunk every weekend and depend on your parents. I wanted to see the world to travel and to start act responsibly. One of my friends was in England working as an au-pair and she sent an application form from an au-pair agency to me. I din‘t really feel I had any chance to become an au-pair. First of all I was a boy and to tell a truth I hadn‘t had any experience with the children at all. But I guess it was becouse of my lack of responsibility that time and not thinking about what I was getting myself into, I replied. After a week I had sent an application they called me from an au-pair agency and asked whether I would be able to come to England a week after. Without any hesitation I answered yes and started to prepare myself for departure.
So there I was after getting off my bus on a busy London street standing in front of my luggage and waiting for my new employer to show and pick me up. I took a look around and there she was, a nice Indian lady with a yellow car. During the ride to my new home she was trying to make some conversation but it was too difficult for me to answer, my English was really bad but at least I understood what she was talking about. In a pretty house just outside of London I was introduced to the rest of the family, husband and two daughters aged 8 and 10 years I was supposed to look after. After an introduction I went upstairs, had a shower, sat on the bed and started to think. What in a hell am I doing here ? I didn‘t feel well, I was tired, confused and even embarrassed. The first time in my life I was left alone in a strange place where I knew nobody, without any help from my family or friends. Shall I go downstairs ? What will I say ? “Well you wanted a war, you have to fight !“ I told myself and went downstairs. There I was explaind what were going to be my duties and they showed me the whole house.

After three weeks of working and trying to learn English by speaking to children I was told that even though I was very good in housework (I tried very hard to please them) they really expected a good English speaker who would teach their children and not the opposite way. You can imagine how frustrated I felt but I rang my au-pair agency and they found a new family for me. In the second family it was quite a different story however I still felt confused at the begining. They lived in east London they were black and had three children aged 6, 4 and 11 months old baby. That was something new for me becouse I had never had any experience with such a young child. But it was a sort of a challenge for me to change from a boy to a man and I had the biggest responsibility in my life. I started to enjoy to look after these children especially the baby after some time. You can imagine surprised look on faces of the people when I went with him to do some shopping. It didn‘t last very long though the mother of the children lost her job and I was after three months without a job again.
Family number three was living in north London and was quite poor but they still managed to have an au-pair. The reason a father of the three boys aged 3,6 and 9 years called an au-pair agency was that his wife was having an affair and she left home with her Irish boyfriend. It was a pretty interesting experience in this family, I celebrated the Christmas and the New Year with them. After holydays everyting changed, the mother was back and it all seemed as I was going to lose yet another job. But life is cruel sometimes, they had a fight in the kitchen (I was in the next room trying to soothe the crying children) and after that a husband left this time to live with his mother. Nothing nice to remember but at least i still had my job. It lasted only for next five months when again the woman lost her job and I was calling my au-pair agency again.
For the fourth family I had to travel to Oxford, city of students west from London. A woman without a husband one boy aged 9 and two twin girls aged 10 years. They lived in a nice house on a hill with a lovely view on the old city of Oxford. My job was to do some housework and prepare food for children when they come from school. The mornings were free so I was able to go to a private school every day and learn how to write English properly. I really enjoyed going to the school I made a new friends from around the world and my social life improved greatly, we were meeting after the school in pubs or in a club that was part of the school. Everything was going well my employer was happy I was happy and at last I thought this was the place I‘m going to stay for a long time.

But evertything changed again when they came back home from short holiday on a seaside. From that day the woman started to get upset ang angry with me for no obvious reasons ( I was still trying to please her and do my best, I even cut grass around the house and did some weeding which was not my duty ). This behaviour I couldn‘t take for a very long time, we had an argument and a really big quarrel ( she was swearing at me and answerd the same way back ) after wich she asked me to get out of the house in a week. This time I was not only without a job but without a shelter as well. But my friend from the school helped me so I stayed with her in her hotel room for one week.
After calling my au-pair agency yet again ( you can imagine how stressful it was for me to call them, I felt like total jerk and loser ), they found another family for me. This time I knew I was going to stay only for three months in this family becouse they were very well-off family and always had had a nanny from Australia to look after their children but their nanny agency didn‘t have anyone at that time for them so they agreed to take a boy au-pair for a change until a new nanny arrives (which was in three months). As I said they were reasonably rich, had five cars (one was for me to use ) and a beautiful house on the countryside just outside of London. Their three children were very nice, a boy aged 9,girl aged 7 and a 8 months old baby girl ( here we go again! ). I enjoyed the stay very much I loved the children especially the baby and of course I had a car for my free time so I got to know quite a big space in southeast of England ( from the seaside up to the city of Birmingham ). Another thing I managed to do was to take my exam in local colege and to get my certificate in advanced English (which I can‘t use in Slovakia but that‘s a different story ).
One story I want to write about is what happend during my stay in this family that made me realased for the first time how big resposibility I had when I was looking after these children. It happend after a weekend when the children went with their parents for a trip to London. Everything seemed normal on monday but I saw something was wrong with the baby, she looked okay but she couldn‘t close her left eye properly. I told this to her mother because I was worried. It hadn‘t looked very bad at that time, the mother decided to wait and not to go to the doctor straight away. On thursday we realased that not only the baby couldn‘t close her eye but the whole left side of her face was paralized.

I had never seen or heard of such a condision, when she smiled only her right side of the mouth twiched and a left eye was constantly open, she couldn‘t blink with it. I felt terribly awful I didn‘t know what happend to the baby and I felt like it was my fault even though I knew I had done nothing wrong. After seeing a doctor next day I was told that the reason why she was in that state was that on trip to London they stopped in a playing field and the children were playing on a slide. The baby had fallen of a slide and hurted her head badly. This didn‘t stop me from worring for the baby but at least it stopped my fear that it was my fault. She got better after seeing special doctors and taking some medicines.
So after a three months I was on my way to yet another family but this time it was really my last family in England. They lived in east London not far from my second family. They came from Nigeria had a nice litttle house and three children. A two boys aged 7 and 4 and a 4 months old baby boy. Here I found what I was looking for all the time since I came to England. Nice family, children that loved me and I loved them, not much housework becouse I was looking after a baby and a free time for me to attend a local college were I could study English. I found a new friends at shool had a great time but after a two and a half years of staying in England I had to go home because my visa expired.
So there I am back in my country standing on a very same spot from which I left two and a half year ago. But I feel different. I‘m not a boy anymore. I still want to have a good time and i still feel very young, but my whole atitude about the world has changed. Now I know what resposibility is and even though I still don‘t know what I want to do in my life I feel pretty sure that it all depends on me and I‘m not afraid to make a right choices.