National Adult Literacy Database

January 30, 2006

Here is Maria del P.'s story from Rabbittown Learners' Program, in St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador.

My Home

by Maria del P.

The place where I grew up was a beautiful and nice place, I grew up in Bogota City, Capital of Colombia. In this city you can go to different places. They have many theaters and movies in the night you can enjoy disco with a great variety of music salsa, vallenatos, rock, and classic. They have excellent restaurants where you find food from all over the world. Bogota has the International Airport for South America. Bogota is a historical city there is a gold museum where you can appreciate many things made of gold that was made for our native people in the time of the discovery for the Spanish people.

My family lived in the Teusaquillo neighborhood it is very nice with many parks and churches. We were living in a big house because I had 7 siblings. My house had 8 rooms and 3 bathrooms on the second floor and 1 on the first floor. My grandmother had a beautiful table and china which was kept in a closet. We had a good garden where we played with two cats Michin and Pamsa. Michin was black and white and Pansa was white and yellow. Michin all the time was asleep and Pamsa all time wanted to eat. When they died we had a funeral and put the cats in the ground in the garden. My little sister and I cried that day a lot.

I had a room with my little sister and sometimes I would sleep with my grandmother because she was a very nice person and she loved us. Some days we played Monopoly with my whole family especially when we were not outside. In front my house we had a park with a basketball court, a soccer field, swings and different things where the children could play. This section of the city was very safe. All the people helped their neighbors and everybody knew everybody and we had many friends. All the boys went to my house because there was 5 women there, of course my mother no one liked but my house all the time had many teenagers who asked for any of my sisters or my brothers. My three brothers are more older than me but we are very good friends.

Sometimes we would be outside the city with them swimming and drinking and there we learned how to smoke. This was with my friends and my actual husband. In many times we played in the park basket ball and in the night we would play hide and seek.

I have very nice memories about this time. In this park I knew my first boyfriend and I had my first party. This place is special to me. I will never forget this city and this park. I have pictures and I show my children.