Life before and after with SOS Children - an interview with Zulema, a former SOS child
29/09/2008
Well, we were a family of five brothers and sisters my mother and my father. And when my younger sister was born, my mother felt terribly ill and, a bit later, she died.
The eldest of my brothers is married and he is about 34. His name is Ramiro, next are Hugo, Oscar, Zulema (myself), and Janika. We all moved to the village when my mother died.
We had a nice family, but with scarce resources. We lived in a very modest house and my mother used to work to bring us up. But when my mother died, my father abandoned us There was a priest in my neighbourhood. He knew our situation and used to come to help us while some of our uncles and aunts took charge of us for the moment. The priest also knew about SOS Children's Villages, and thanks to him we became part of a new family at SOS Children's Villages.
How was your life at the SOS Children's Village?
I was five by then; now I am 24. I don't remember much of that time. What I remember, though, is the things I used to do with my SOS mother and the things she told me when I was a bit older. She told me, for example, that at the beginning I was very shy to her and that my biological aunt pleaded her to take good care of me.
According to my SOS mother, since then I had never asked anyone about my aunts or uncles. Actually, I hadn't notice the absence of my aunt because we, my SOS mother and the five of us, had moved into a new house at the village, that was my family, and of course, everything was new to me. I was very busy with the new things in the village and in my house. We loved our house; we were really happy. The house was big, with lots of rooms; each of us had his/her own bed.
A few months later, my new brothers arrived and everything became even better. We had more brothers and sisters with whom to play. Three more girls arrived and I had more sisters with whom to play.
What was your relationship with your mother like?
Good. I think my mother tried to do her best so that we could feel happy living in the village. We always felt her support and presence, although she didn't like to be behind us all the time, forcing us to do our homework or our duties. She just made us "feel" our responsibilities. She liked to supervise our routines but allowed us to do things ourselves. I think, in that way, we grew up more independently. I think it has been a good strategy.
I remember that when I was a child, we used to travel a lot. My SOS mother liked to travel a lot. I remember that once we went to Sucre (the capital of Bolivia). I was seven by then. We went by train. That was a wonderful experience because we travelled all together, all my brothers and sisters. Of course, my mother did not have a lot of money to buy a ticket for each of us, so we used to share seats, well, we were small children.
My SOS mother is from Sucre and she always wanted us to visit her town. And the tour in Sucre was wonderful. We visited a castle, churches, squares, many places.
What was your relationship with your brothers and sisters like?
In general, I am a quiet person; I don't give much trouble to anybody. I adjust to a situation, to a group easily, so I never had any problems with my brothers or sisters. In the beginning, we were five; later, eight, and finally, ten. That was great. We could share more than in any other family. Not many families have ten brothers and sisters, you know! We had four rooms in our house, one for our mother and the other three for the children. I remember that we used to close the doors of our rooms and play a lot. Sometimes, I even used to prefer to play more with my SOS brothers than with my brothers of blood.
And let me tell you about something very particular, something that can only happen at SOS Children's Villages. When I left the village to study, we were ten children; but as I moved out, a new child arrived, and since then it has always been like that: ones leaves and another one arrives. For that reason, we are now no less than 24 brothers and sisters in my "SOS family". It is a pretty large family, isn't it?
What about the relationship with the staff of the village?
When I was living at the SOS Youth House, the educator was Ms Pasten, who had, by coincidence, been my teacher at elementary school too; maybe because of that I had a very nice friendship with her. And with the rest of staff, I think my relationship was normal. Indeed, I was rather independent; I did not need that much support. But, of course, I always received the support of my mother and the economic support by SOS Children in general, especially the support of the village director. He was a very nice person. The village paid my registration and course fees. Yeah! I received a lot of support and thanks to that support I finished my studies at university.
Where do you live now and how did you start living independently?
I am now independent. I left the youth facility three years ago when I decided to live on my own. I rented a student's room with basic facilities and that is enough for me for the moment.
The time I spend living at the youth facility was a very nice experience. We were several teenagers sharing a house. We really spent good moments together; we would also quarrel sometimes, but that is a normal thing. I remember that we used to look after each other and that was a good way to support each other.
To move out of the house was a great challenge to me as well. I was 21 and I had to decide to live my life independently. By that time, I had created strong family ties with the girls at the house; so, the most difficult part for me was when we had to say good-bye. From that moment on, I would not participate in their activities anymore; we would not be living together anymore, and so on. That was hard, not only for me, but for them as well. They missed me a lot.
When I was at the village, we were ten people, in the youth facility we were eight; when I was in my rented room, nobody waited for me like the times before. That was hard, but it was something I had to face.
Something to mention, though, is that I didn't leave the house immediately. I was given like six months in order to find a proper place to live. I did the necessary things to move and so on. Finally, I think I was pretty much prepared to leave the SOS Youth House. Besides, my SOS mother was always there to help me to find a place. So, together we found a quiet, secure and descent place to live.
Tell me about your school days
Well, at school I think I was an outstanding student. I never obtained a diploma but my overall performance was more than enough. I was quite responsible, indeed, like most of my brothers and sisters. As I said before, my mother never needed to tell me, "Do this or that". Her presence alone was enough to encourage us to do things ourselves.
I went to school in the evenings, and during the mornings I took a technical course. Then, after having finished school, I started to work. I was lucky because the same year I had also finished my vocational training of "Special education" (education for people with special needs).
Soon I began to work in a kindergarten. Unfortunately though, I could not find something where I could actually apply my knowledge. However, it was my first job, and I took it. I began as an assistant, but soon I met someone who assigned me to work in a larger nursery school as a teacher. I worked there for almost three years.
At the moment, I am still working as a nursery school teacher, but not with children with special needs - which I would have liked.
What about university?
One day, almost five years ago, I decided to continue studying and I chose education (Educational Sciences), which is a five-year-course at university
that was in 2000.
I worked during the mornings and studied in the evenings. I am very happy and proud of myself now because I finished the courses successfully at the end of last year and now I'm only waiting to present my dissertation.
How do you feel now? How successful do you feel?
I feel very successful, because I have been able to achieve my goals. I observe many other children and youths in the country and, even in the village, who find it difficult to achieve their objectives, but I did. This is not easy, I know. It requires a lot of willpower.
Do you have a message for the children of SOS Children's Villages?
Well, what encouraged me to go ahead in life was having my own plan and my personal goals. For this reason, I advise them to make their own plans and have their own goals. The process of achieving things itself then implies to do things step by step, goal by goal, and whenever having reached something, keep on setting new goals.
What are your new goals now?
Well, since I was a child, I always liked the idea of running my own nursery school; now that I am a professional, I want to work towards achieving that. That is my greatest goal for the time being. That means a lot of work, I know, but I am determined to do that. I want to start with something small and enlarge the project until I can offer a variety of services to people. I would also like to give cheap or free service to poor children and people with special needs.
Is there something else you would like to tell us?
Well, I want to have a family, get married and have children. Since I was a child, I always had that in mind. I just wait for God to bless me with a family, but not immediately because I have several things to do first. I have a boyfriend now but we both think we have to wait; but it is within our plans to get married. My SOS mother would always tell me that whenever I finished my studies, I should enjoy my profession, travel, meet people
and later marry a good man. I think that is one of the greatest things my mother told me.
Relevant Countries: Bolivia.