AS TOLD TO BC PIRES

My name is Emma Hanna Andrew and I haven’t seen my parents since March 30, 2019.

My parents, Colin and Janine, will see me “in the papers” in Newsday before they see me in person at Piarco.

Literally. I hope to be back in Port of Spain on August 9.

My sister Monique, my only sibling, is two years older, but there’s no downside of being the second child.

But I really wanted to have a younger sibling. Because I think I would be a better older sister than Monique.

She’s a good older sister. It’s just I would have been better. No younger-sister rivalry in saying that. Really don’t think so.

I spent the first ten years of my life in Petit Valley and the next ten in Maraval. So I say I’m from Port of Spain.

I’ve been in Europe, mainly Spain, for the last two and a half years. By myself. Occasionally with Monique in London.

We lived in a townhouse community in Petit Valley, a bunch of kids all the same age but I’m only close to one now, Alexa Brash.

In Maraval, the houses were bigger, and not so close together. I liked the personal space. But I missed being really close to friends.

I was raised in Christianity but I would say I’m agnostic.

This teacher was telling us this amazing story about this guy who worked really hard to turn his life around. And then, at the end, she said, “This is all because of God!”

[caption id="attachment_903345" align="alignnone" width="768"] Emma Hanna Andrew was hit in the back of her head by accident and suffers from headaches as a result. -[/caption]

And I was, like, “Why would you teach kids that? Why can’t it be of his own doing, his own self-motivation that he was able to conquer (addiction) and do something amazing with his life?”

I have good memories of Dunross Preparatory, my first school.

(Because) I like being by myself. Some of the kids, I just knew they cared about things I didn’t care about. And they were very cliquey.

I didn’t do SEA, just went straight into the British Academy. Really small classes and everybody was accepted for being different. So I kinda felt the same.

The teachers, like Sarah Garcia, my French teacher, and Miss Ali, Spanish & French, were really good.

I’d just turned 18 and my mom was passing through Glasgow and I was at home in Maraval, in pyjamas, my hair crazy, when the phone rang.

My mom said, “This lady says you can live with them if you want.”

I said, “Okay, I don’t know who these people are, but cool!”

Best decision I ever made in my life. Ever. I spent three months in Glasgow with a family I never met before, doing art courses and working two jobs.

They weren’t relatives, just friends of my aunt, but Katherine & Brian Woods are like a second mom and dad now.

I didn’t (finish) A-Levels because I have chronic migraines due to occipital neuralgia, nerve damage in your neck, which caused migraines every day for the two most important school years of my life.

I was crying at school, missing out words in essays, really unhappy. On the third day of my second term at A-Levels, I