In October during my visit to Costa Rica I met up with a friend from the states. My sister and I met with her and her parents and we shared our story. Her father has a TV show on the local cable network. He invited me to come on the show and at the beginning of November and I took him up on the offer.
It was an interesting experience. I think I was a little nervous to start, but I think it turned out very nicely.
Let me know what you think!
Back in July I was in a press conference with some other Salvadoran adoptees and the organization that reunited us with our families. Here are a few videos from that day.
Its been a busy week here in Panama. I’ve been working with my family to help them set up their computer network. I finally have some free time, so I thought I would write about what had to be one of the worst traveling experiences in my 10 years of going to Central America.
It all started last Friday morning at 4am in Boston. That’s when I had to get up for my 6am flight. I’m not a big fan of early flights, but it helps in case you miss a connection or something. Anyway, I arrived in North Carolina around 8:30. On my way to my next flight I passed one of the monitors only to see that my flight was canceled.
Canceled? I’ve never had a canceled flight before. Epically ON THE DAY OF THE FLIGHT. When I get to the “would be” gate no one is there. I guess I was supposed to know what to do on my own. I found an agent at another gate and she told me to go to the service desk.
The service desk was moving very slowly…of course. Thankfully when it was my turn the agent tells me they are putting me on a 7pm flight out of Miami. I thought, “This isn’t too bad. At least I will be there tonight.”
I arrived in Miami around 2:30 in the afternoon. I signed up to use the internet and settled in for a 5 hour wait before my next flight. As 7 drew closer they made an announcement that there was something wrong with my plane and that we could not take it. Perfect. However, they did have another plane and they assured us it would only be a 45 minute delay.
We finally start boarding the plane AT 7:45. Around 8:10 we were all on and just sitting there. The captain informed us that we are waiting for catering. This turns into another 20 minute wait. Then it starts to rain and they close down a runway. We finally get out of there around 9.
Oh, and the catering we were waiting all that time for, is just drinks. They didn’t even feed us.
Once we landed I got out only to find an hour and half line for customs in front of me. Luckily they didn’t lose my bags, and my sister was there waiting for me.
We finally got home around 2am my time. By this time I had been up for 22 hours.
I think the only good part of the day was the car ride to my sister’s house. My niece and I were sitting in the back seat falling asleep on each other. I had this feeling like: This is the reason I put up with all the headaches of traveling. To be here in this car with my family. Somehow, in that moment, it all seemed worth it.
I’ve been running around all day getting ready for my trip to Costa Rica and Panama. I leave tomorrow morning bright and early. This is going to be a business trip of sorts.
I’m working on a project with my family in Panama. My father Luis has an embroidery business that he has been running in Panama for almost 20 years now. (After he left the revolution in the mid 80s he moved to Panama to rebuild his life. I may add a post about this part of the story.)
I’m working to help them create an order tracking system. I would like this to be a pilot for a bigger project of creating an open-sourced business resource for Central America. I’ll probably put a post up about that when I have a better idea what it is going to be all about.
In the mean time I am planning to do some more video interviews with various family members. Keep an eye out for those sometime next week!
Here is the article that appeared in today’s Boston Globe:
Reestablishing family ties – The Boston Globe: “Tears welled in Imelda Auron’s eyes before she began speaking.
The 31-year-old West Roxbury resident was one of thousands of Salvadoran children separated from their families during the 1980s, while the country was engulfed in civil war.
She had never spoken publicly about her situation or her reunion with her birth family.
But yesterday, sitting next to two other Massachusetts residents who have had similar experiences, Auron finally felt comfortable enough to discuss the joy, heartache, and anxiety that marked her quest to find her family.”
The article appeared in the City/Region section and had a couple of pictures that you can’t see as part of the online version. One of those pictures features half of my ear. 🙂
I only just met Imelda the other day, but I give her a lot of credit. I know it wasn’t easy for her to talk about what happened to her family. She did great. I hope talking about it will help her hear and deal with some of the feelings surrounding the death of her parents.
My sister and I have gotten a lot of comments on our video that we made, but what people may not realize is that it took many years of healing to be able to talk about everything so openly.
People may also not realize how lucky we are to live in a county that protects our freedom of speech. We may not always agree with our leaders and we may speak negatively about them but we don’t have to worry about the government storming into our homes and killing our loved ones.
I’m really happy we were able to get some press and I am very exited to work with everyone on building this network and getting our story out there.
Over the past few weeks I have been working on putting together an e-book of our story. I am taking some of the posts from the blog and organizing then in chronological order to make it easier to follow. I hope to be done with this project very soon and I will be posting it here for people to download. Be sure to check back!
On a slightly different note, I took part in a press conference today. This press conference was set up to announce the formation of the Pro-Busqueda Network that I blogged about earlier. We had a lot of help from Physicians for Human Rights to organize the conference.
Myself and two other people who had been separated from their families gave statements. We shared a little about our stories and what we are hoping to get out of the network.
Check tomorrow’s Boston Globe for coverage!
Pro-Búsqueda is putting together a network for families of people that have been reunited or who are thinking about reuniting. This is the brief description of what they are trying to create.
What we wanted to initially do was to put people who have been reunited in touch with each other, so they can share their experiences and look at positive ways to remain involved with their biological families, with Pro-Búsqueda and with El Salvador. We also see the network of ‘jóvenes reencontrados’ as a good way to pass on information to others in the same situation who have still not found, or made the trip back to meet, their biological families. As I’m sure you know, it’s quite a daunting experience to come back to a country which you hardly remember (or don’t remember at all), to meet a family which you didn’t know existed, so it would be great if there was some more support State-side for people trying to prepare for a reunion.
This sounds like a great idea to me. While meeting my family was a great experience for me, it was also difficult at times. Not difficult because we didn’t get along, but difficult because I had no idea what to expect from them or from their culture. My childhood in the US was much different from my siblings’ in Central America. It was also difficult because here are these people who you are supposed to be very close with, but you really don’t know them at all.
Honestly, I don’t know if I would have used a resource like this when I met my family, but that’s just because I was a lot younger back then.
I think this is a great idea and I can’t wait to get this going. On a side note, it looks like Sunnaze who I wrote about earlier is going to be involved with this as well.
My very first video interview with my older sister Eva.
Today I moved out of my the house I have been living in for 19 years. Its an odd feeling to see the room that you most of your life growing up in empty. As I walked around the house a flood of memories came back from various parts of my child hood. I have so many memories both good and bad here. More good than bad. Part of me will miss it and part of me won’t. I know that everything changes. No matter how hard we try to fight everything will change.
I still have a vague memory of driving up to the house for the first time. I remember looking out of the car window at the stone wall fence across the street. As we drove by my parents said “here we are.” I remember having a funny feeling as I looked up at the house. I had a funny feeling again this morning as I drove up to the house for what might be the last time. This was a different feeling however. I can’t describe but it was strange looking up into what has been my room for the past 19 years and knowing probably would never see it again.
Its strange to think how much has changed in our lives since we moved there. When I moved in I was just starting the first grade. Now I am all grown and on my own. Half the time I spent there I had no idea I had family looking for me. The other half I spent visiting them.
I find the way people deal with change interesting. So many people are afraid and fight it. But change is like a the great river of life. You can try as hard as you want to stop the river or swim against the current but it does no good. You will most likely drown. However I think the thing we forget is that we need change…we demand it. Its a tricky situation however. We change too much and we lose ourselves. We don’t change enough and we become board and lazy.
In the end I guess this is a good thing. In order to be our best we need to forget everything we know and start over. so now…I will start over.
Its been a busy past few weeks. I was in Disney for a week with some family and then I went to Minnesota to see my younger brother’s graduation. I was home for two days then I left for CR.
I arrived in Costa Rica last week and spent a few days with my older sister. She had not started her new job yet so we had time to hang out. We were pretty lazy just watching movies and catching up.
I can’t believe her daughter Danny is almost nine. Time really flies. When we first met Eva told everyone that she was pregnant. Its been a lot of fun to watch Danny and every one else grow up over the years.
Monday the 21st I left for Panama.The trip to panama was a little interesting because I missed the morning bus. There is a new bus station since I had been here last and the Taxi driver went to the wrong place. By the time we figured out where the correct place was the bus had already left. The driver was really nice though. We chased after the buss and wait by the side of the road for 30 min hoping we hadn’t missed it. We finally gave up and he took me back to the station to see if there was a later buss.
The taxi driver was nice enough not to charge me for all the time we spent looking for the buss. Lucky there was another bus at 11 so I exchanged my ticket for that one. This bus did not go all the way to David panama where my family lives so my father and sister met me at the board to seek me into the country. 🙂
The next day was my birthday which our family celebrated by getting me a big cake with a picture of a doll that looks just like me. I spent most of the day watching season 2 of house with my little sister.
The last time I was here was a year ago and its amazing to see how much everything has changed in that time. My little sister isn’t so little anymore. She is 15 and in 11th grade. Soon she will be off to college.
The city of David is also getting bigger. They are building new raod and new housing compolexes. About 6th months ago they moved into a new house. Its really nice and not too far away from there old house.
I really enjoy my time here even if its doing nothing and watching lots of episodes of House. I’ll be here for a couple of more day then its back to Costa Rica.
I was able to do a little video interview with my sister about our blog. Hopefully I’ll have that up soon . I’m also planning on interviewing other family members about there experiences.
Well thats it for now. I’m here for 10 more days then back to the US.