The swing
You wouldn’t believe it, but Gregoria did not speak in public
until a few years ago. Now she speaks with everyone – at home,
visiting neighbours and on the bus to Matagalpa. Not that she was
a passive nobody before. Her whole life she has been fight-ing and
thinking, but her experience in the union has just given her a new
tool.
To Gregoria, her children are everything. She is determined to
give them every chance to have a better life than she had. As a
child Gregoria lived in fear of her stepfather’s domination
and violence. Gregoria was 13 when the stepfather killed her mother.
After, he went to prison, and Gregoria took care of her smaller
sisters and brothers.
Gregoria wants to change history and works hard to achieve that.
She thinks that there should be more to a child’s life than
work and encourages all of her children to play and to go to school.
She shouts at them when they display timidity or violence.
Behind the house she has built a swing of rope and a canvas sack.
Only the children are allowed to use it. It is the only toy in the
village made of materials that could otherwise be used
in the household or in the field. |
