Survivor Haunted by Memories of Residential School

Cape Breton Post
December 7, 2012

http://www.capebretonpost.com/News/Local/2012-12-06/article-3135460/Survivor-haunted-by-memories-of-residential-school/1

On Saturday, he and 17 other survivors of Canada’s residential schools will lead a community procession in Waycobah to unveil a special monument and exhibit dedicated to survivors. The event is scheduled to begin at 2:30 p.m.

“My emotions are running wild thinking about it. I will be reminded of it every time I pass by the monument,” Condo said in an interview Thursday.

But Condo has resigned himself to knowing that, monument or not, the memory of those years will never fade as he and others move forward, having survived one of the darkest chapters in Canadian history.

Shortly after the passing of the Indian Act in 1876, aboriginal children were removed from their home communities and taken to residential schools, where they were forbidden from speaking their native language or practising any element of their culture. The last residential school in the country wasn’t closed until 1996.

Condo was six years old when he was taken from his family in northern New Brunswick and brought to Nova Scotia, where he attended the Shubenacadie residential school until he was 16.

“We went in there as natives, and the priests and nuns called us savages. They taught us to be non-native and they tried to take the native out of us. They failed,” said Condo, adding he was also proud to be a member of Canada’s First Nations.

His memory of his time at the school is marked more by the labour he was forced to perform as opposed to receiving a solid education.

Condo worked the school farm and barns, along with ensuring the furnace was kept running in the school building.

“I was as black as coal one day and stinking to high heaven the next,” he joked.

“We were beaten and we were brainwashed. We were punished for showing or doing anything that involved our culture. We arrived at the school only able to speak Indian and we left with only a few words of our language, but we could speak Latin,” he said, noting a heavy emphasis by the schools to teach the Roman Catholic faith.

One of nine sons, Condo didn’t reconnect with his family until after leaving the school. His father had moved to northern Quebec and after spending some time there, Condo joined the army and eventually became a paratrooper.

He later became a chef and worked at various outlets across New Brunswick and Nova Scotia.

His journey to Cape Breton happened by accident when he picked up two hitchhikers near Halifax, who were headed to Waycobah. Condo was on his way to the mainland community of Millbrook when he decided to pass that turnoff and continue on to Cape Breton.

He eventually married and raised seven children.

“Those years in that school were a time of brainwashing. That is one scar that is not recognizable and is greater than any physical scar,” said Condo.

He said survivors today have Nora Bernard to thank for forcing federal and provincial governments into admitting the decision to create such a school system was wrong and deeply rooted in racism.

Bernard, of Millbrook, led the charge for school survivors with the help of Halifax lawyer John McKiggan.

“I am forever grateful to them both,” said Condo.

Among the other special guests at Saturday’s event will be Justice Murray Sinclair, who heads the three-member national Truth and Reconciliation Commission.