About Us: Terechu Rondo, Moderator
Just as you all do, I too have emigrant relatives, in Mexico, in France, in Belgium and I lived in Germany and the USA myself. Two of my great-grandfathers emigrated one to France and the other to Cuba, but both returned in time to start a family in this their own region and thereby ensure my birth.
I was born in Sotrondio, right in the middle of the Asturian coalfields, in 1955. In those days the mining valleys were over-populated and the streets were bustling with kids. We used to fight over a couple of square yards of cement in any of the little squares to bounce a ball or play hop-scotch.
The bad part was that people didn't make a dime and the working conditions in the collieries were frightful. By the mid 60's half of the kids I knew were gone, mostly to European countries.
My paternal grandfather's construction business went bankrupt in 1960 (his partner ran off with the money and a lover) and my dad was out of a job. The only options available then for a father of two were either the pit or emigration. My parents chose to emigrate to Germany and my brother and I stayed with my grandmother María, one of those extraordinary women who raised a bunch of kids during and after the Civil War and never once complained about anything. She used to tell her anecdotes with such a sense of humour that it sounded like her life had been a comedy throughout, but she always concluded by saying: [There was] so much want!"
In 1964 I joined my parents in Germany, where I went to school (I got my translator's diploma in English/German/Spanish from the Ministry of Culture of Baden-Württemberg at the age of 20), had a a great time in general, married and had a daughter. I moved to the USA with husband and child in 1977, but in 1982, after a complicated divorce procedure, I grabbed my daughter and came to live in Asturias.
Since then I haven't budged, other than to go on vacation, of course. I married in 1989 for the second time, this time an Asturianu. Having lived in other countries has allowed me to weigh up advantages and drawbacks and I have come to the conclusion that Asturias holds everything one can expect out of life: wonderful landscapes, mild climate, good food and drink, a reasonable standard of living and righteous people.
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