It all started when me and my siblings were transferred to an asylum for orphaned children in Tenerife. I was 2 years old. We lived there for 6 years of our lives. Although many people believe that we should have had a very bad time, I see it as a very big advantage. Many children when they are growing up aren’t so good at making friends or communicating with people, but growing up in an asylum made it easy to develop my ability to talk to people easier. I lived in an asylum that had at least about 10 to 15 children; it was very easy for us to make friends and learn a lot about different cultures. There were many children from the ages of two to eighteen; we learned a lot from each other and still have some contact with them. Living in an asylum is not as bad as people think. We used to go on vacation every summer to a place called El Médano that is next to a beach. All of us had a lot of fun, played in the sand, picked octopuses to eat and watched movies together. All of us liked each other very much and had a good bond. Sometimes I miss all the activities we used to do together and all of the memories. Thank God all the children in the asylum were adopted by a lot of kind and funny people, including the three of us! I still think we’ve been very lucky to have been adopted and to be able to stay with my siblings. My brothers and I are different from others; many people do not like their brothers and they fight, but since the three of us had to take care of each other when we were little and we had no other family, we have learned a lot and no one will ever be able to separate us.
In 2008 we were adopted by a very kind couple who showed up with a very big smile. When we first met them I still stayed with my brothers because I was a little shy. We were taken to the McDonald’s to eat for the first time and I loved it. We were like monkeys running and climbing around the whole McDonald’s; I guess we were very happy to have been adopted and finally be normal children to explore the world and have a house. Our first house was not that far from the asylum, it was a beautiful white house, and we had a room that my brothers and I shared. Slowly we were learning the rules of the house, such as not throwing shoes that broke the TV; it happened once. Our parents gave us rules and also took us on vacation many times and we visited many new places like Denmark, Germany, Morocco and France. Every summer my mother used to make a photo album where she put all the photos of the site we visited that summer. Thanks to the fact that my parents took us on vacation to different places, I have been able to learn a lot about different cultures and types of people.
It’s very interesting to see how different people do things. In Denmark, for example, they eat dessert an hour after having dinner. Apart from going on vacation a lot, I also had to go to school. When my parents adopted me, I still went to the same school I went to when I was in the asylum, but I knew it wasn’t going to last long and I had to prepare to say goodbye to my friends. I already knew it was going to be hard to leave my friends I’ve known since I was 2 years old. A few months after living with my new parents, we transferred to a new school that was further away and although it was difficult to say goodbye to my friends, I was very excited because it was the beginning of a new chapter in my life. I had to meet new people and make new friends, but that wasn’t a problem for me. Everyone in Tenerife is so friendly that anyone can make friends.
About four years after I went to school in Tenerife and already lived with my parents, something very big happened. Our parents sat us down in the kitchen and said, “Next year you won’t have any more English classes, do you know why?” I looked at my brothers and we were all very confused. At first I thought it was because the school was going to stop teaching English classes, or maybe we were going to move to another school. I was very surprised when I found out it was nothing like that, my father had gotten a job in England and we were going to move there. This is where another great chapter of my life began.
When we were 10 years old, we moved to England on January first, 2012. Everything was very different; it was going to make it harder to make friends because I didn’t know any English. The houses there were bigger and a little more modern because where we lived was a poor island, so we had never seen such different houses. The first thing my parents did was take us to school so we could start making friends and learning English. Although it was a bit difficult to communicate with people, I used my hands a lot to communicate and surprisingly they understood me very well. I slowly learned English and after two years I could already talk to people and could communicate. At home, the routine did not change, we still maintained the same traditions as the celebration of the Three Kings, Santa Claus and everything else, and we also had dinner at the same time we used to have dinner in Tenerife.
My brothers and I played a lot in the snow and went to the same school. Slowly my brothers were growing up and finished compulsory basic education while I was still in school. My older brother got a job and my other brother went to another school. I couldn’t understand why we were separating, recently we were together playing outside and having fun, but now they were busier and didn’t have much time to be with me and I couldn’t figure it out. But everything changed when my father got a job in the United States.
In 2018, my parents decided to move to the United States, but we had to leave my two brothers in England because they were older and had jobs. That’s when I realized that everything was no longer like when we were children. I was older, but I never thought about it because as I was always with my brothers and it was all very fun. I didn’t notice how things were changing. Now, in New York, I had to do everything by myself; walk to school alone, have dinner alone with my parents and they were no longer by my side to have fun or to cheer me up when I was sad. When I started going to school in the United States everything was a bit similar; I already knew the language everyone spoke and could make friends very easily. I slowly started to become independent I had my first bank account and I started driving.
My life has really been a roller coaster. I have learned a lot about different countries, different languages and cultures. Sometimes I wonder what my next chapter is going to be? Since I was little, many things have changed and almost everything was next to my brothers, but I still have a lot to learn and study, now without my brothers.
— Tony
