Meet Orelia Moreno!
Orelia Moreno Shares Life in an
Ejido Family
Michocan, Mexico
(As told to Jenny Johnson, Journey North)
My mother is the first person to wake up in the morning. I wake up after
her and the first thing I do is make my bed. After this I must help my
mother prepare breakfast. We usually have tea and tortillas with beans.
I really like tortillas! . I can eat at least five for breakfast, three
for our afternoon meal, and two in the evening before going to bed. Each
day my family eats 75 tortillas. About every other day, my mother milks
the cows. I actually do not like to drink milk I then wash the dishes
with cold water and get ready for school.
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| Her mother braids her hair every morning |
Orelia preparing tortillas |
Collecting milk |
Every day I walk to school with my older brother Saul and my cousins
who live next to us. By this time my father, Julio Moreno, has already
left early to work in the fields. He works until three in the afternoon
everyday and then comes home for a big meal of soup with chicken, tortillas,
salsa and beans, nopales (cactus leaves) and tea or coffee.
Sometimes my father sends me to the village "tack" store to
get orange soda for special occasions. Or we will buy sandia (watermelon)
in the Monday Market in Angangueo. This is my favorite fruit! When I get
sick I get to eat special food like bread and cookies. My father then
returns to the fields by 4 o'clock and finishes two more hours of work.
The sun is now going behind the mountains.
After School Activites
In school I am writing and reading in the second grade classroom.
I enjoy my classmates, but I also like to come home and help my mother
with the daily chores. This includes sweeping, washing clothes and preparing
more food. When my work has been done, I can play with my cousins and
friends Liliaria 9, Claudia 9, Alma 6, Isabel 5, Olsvaldo 10, Eduardo
12 and Guismario 3. We like to play with our munecas (dolls) and
a game called canecas (marbles). Besides playing with my cousins,
I really like to watch Sunday Cartoons. We are lucky to have a television,
although many of my other neighbors have. Every two months, my father
and mother receive a bill for the electricity. Yet the biggest problem
is the electricity doesn't' stay on every day. One time we did not have
electricity for 13 days!
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| Playing "canecas" |
Enjoying her cousins |
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