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Ana Ovejero
Morning was filled with enthusiasm and anxiety. The truck arrived at 5 o’clock, the sun just rising in the horizon.
Martha remembered when they moved to the town called Magdala. Father Vicente has lost his job taking care of the horses of the patron, a landowner who was more interested in money than keeping a man that needed to feed his wife and six children. They moved from a country house in which each member had a room to a battered hideous hut in which everybody shared a room. The cold of the winter got through the wooden slots set as walls, the gas heater lacking strength to get everybody warm. The children had to woke up at seven o’clock and walked the two kilometers that separated them from school. The teacher was strict, her face a wrinkled mask covering his longing for retirement. Martha couldn’t even read aloud the short poems assigned to each student. Every time she had to pass to the front of the classroom, her tears ran down her colored cheeks. Dide, her beloved brother, her ally, always reassured her, “Next time, you will be able to do it. Don’t worry. I know you will.”
For Martha, living in Magdala meant loneliness, failure, emptiness. For her mother Mima, it meant frosty mornings, washing the over-mended clothes of her children, her frozen hand hurting, her husband’s feelings growing somber and somber with every day without work. He just got changas, different jobs like cutting the grass for a kind neighbor, poor as himself but who knew how desperate a man could become without money in his pocket, the picture of the children growing thinner and thinner.
The winter in the hut was impossibly harsh. They felt ostracized from the rest of the town. When the opportunity for a new job appeared, Vicente was full of doubts. They had to cross the whole province to get it. They had to move to a strange land, in the time in which there were no photographs that could show your destiny. His wife, the backbone of the family, was determined; it was better to travel blindly than to die of starvation.
When the truck arrived that morning, every piece of clothing was already packed. Each child carried his or her possessions in a small bag made of patched black cloth. Vicente and Dide, the oldest son, took their places in the cabin of the truck beside the driver; Mima and the children in the cage in which horses and cows used to be placed. Along with them, some chickens and a small pig, rabbits and a proud rooster. The bed took most part of the cage, so the children and Mima travelled the 5-hours trip in a corner, growing stiffened with every passing minute. The truck didn’t stop in any place. Vicente only had enough money to pay for that time. He had saved for months, putting every penny in a glass jar that Mima used to fill with homemade jam. The children took the trip as an adventure. Mima and Vicente had told them of the change of their living conditions, but they didn’t understand much. They believed that it couldn’t be worse than where they were living then.
The holes in the road made the truck move like a ship, from right to left, from left to right, Victor, the youngest son, vomited twice, emptying his stomach completely. The earthly way left a cloud of dust behind the truck. It was so desolate that, when the children tried to play a game looking through the small windows in the cage, there was nothing that could be described. At midday, the ate chicken sandwiches and drank some milk, the drink that accompanied every meal. The meal was kept cool in a container with frozen water. However, it was a l little warm and Mima was worried it could made the other children sick, too.
The last part of the trip, they already felt the change in the atmosphere. The laughs filled the cage, a game trying to foresight the shape of the new house. As the day became brighter, Marth saw the changing sky as a sign, her longing for a new start visible in her twitching hands, for the possibility to finally rip open the cocoon she felt trapped in.
When the latch came down, the rays of the sun enlightened the children’s heads, the wind caressing the grass. They ran towards the house, calling each other’s name as they explored the open gallery, turning the rooms upside down, destroying spiderwebs in their paths. Covered with sweat, they discovered an ombu, circling the enormous tree several times, laughing uncontrollably. The tanque australiano, an immense pool, replaced the claustrophobic air of Magdala, inviting them to jump, to splash, to clap, to dream.
At night, they ate some pork and some milk, sitting surrounding the lamp of gas in the middle of the kitchen. They savored the new life ahead, together. A family that despite facing thunderous storms, remained hopeful, magnificient, invencible.
mail: ana.ovejero@gmail.com
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