“We couldn’t say mum to her, she was ashamed of us” Since I was little, I took care of Blanca, my sister who is two years younger. I can remember a lot of the past. My parents had many problems. When I was eight years old, my father killed somebody. The husband of his ex-wife. He came home with a lot of blood. When the police arrived, they arrested both my father and my mother. We went to my father’s sister’s house. They were screaming at us and hitting us. After we heard that my father had to go to jail. Then my parents divorced. Together with my sister, we stayed and lived with my mother but she didn’t have the money to look after us. We lived in so many places. After the divorce, my mother rented a room somewhere outside the center of Cusco, up in the hills. We almost didn’t get any food. The neighbour had a little store and I’d sometimes be working there. For the work done, I'd earned fifty centimos (£0,05) and with the money I’d buy a loaf of bread. My sister and I spent almost the whole day on the streets; we didn’t want to be at home. My mother couldn’t pay the rent so we had to leave. My mum remarried and from this moment we weren’t allowed anymore to say ‘mummy’. She didn’t want other people to know that she had already been married and that she had two children. She was ashamed of that, she was ashamed of us. To the outer world she would say that our mum died and that she was our aunt. If we did call her ‘mum’, we were punished and hit. Her new husband didn’t want to take care of us either. He said that it was our father’s job, that we were his problem. Mostly when my mum left the house, we were left in a small, dark room which we couldn’t leave, we were there for hours. When I was about eleven years old, I was in last grade of primary school. My mum sold us to a school teacher’s sister. We had to live with her, somewhere far outside the center. I only went two days a week to school, the other days I had to babysit her two children. Later I couldn’t go, at all, to school. I had to wash clothes, cook and clean. And my sister had to take care of the cows. One day the baby fell out of his chair. The women screamed at us: ‘You are not worth anything!’ Because my sister was urinating a lot, she was send away. The women didn’t want her anymore. I didn’t want to stay anymore neither so we went back to our mom. She was very mad at us so she didn’t give us any food. After, we went back to school. My sister and i went a lot to shelters but we could never stay there together. I was too old. One day we heard about ELIM. My sister was going there but I didn’t want to. Finally I also went. The cook at ELIM was a friend of my mum and she too was thinking the whole time that my mother had died. We started to come more and more to ELIM and one day, they said that my sister could come and live in the girls’ home. At that time, the home had another director and she didn’t let me in because I was too old. I was twelve years old then. So “hermana” Nilda, the current director, took me to her home. I told her too that my mum was my aunt. Later she wanted to meet my father so we went to jail. My father told her the truth. In October 2007 my father was released. Two years ago, Nilda went to the United States for a necessary operation. Her son, Jeremy, with whom she is directing ELIM, lives with her so I stayed with him. But I was behaving really badly. I didn’t want to wash myself  nor help. It was so difficult for me to adjust to this new life after what I was used to. He warned me a lot and one day he sent me back to my father. Because my father had been in jail before, he couldn’t find a new job. So I had to work and all the money was going to him. When Nilda came back from the United States, luckily she gave me another chance. The old director left and the current director always said that I deserved a new chance, even if I was older. So now I live together with my sister at the girls’ home. In March of 2008 I will go to fourth grade of high school. After finishing this, I will go on to study tourism and to be a guide. I see my father frequently. He comes by or comes to church on Sundays. My mum calls once in a while and she still wants us to leave ELIM so we can work for her. But I don’t want that, I’m happy now. Shirley (15)