(I like to be called Mariajo)
Biographical information you would like to share (life and/or professional trajectory): I was born in a village in Cantabria and at the age of 10 I entered an internship in a nuns’ school. I believed that what we were told there was “the truth”. I did not hear any other speech.
Fortunately, when I went to study in Santander, my brain had to recompose itself to question absolutely everything I had learned.
But the leap into the void came when I went to Madrid without a job and to make a living. I had the good fortune to meet people who were very politically committed and with those wickerwork, I weaved the person I think I am. Being able to participate in the demonstration of February 27, 1981 to REJECT the coup d’état of February 23, 1981, is one of the most exciting things that have ever happened to me. Lamas, silence, fear, hope and joy, were united in a walk, where people took to the streets, with the firm purpose of defending an incipient Democracy.
I worked at the Ministry of Education in Teacher Training and Evaluation Programs. I found my best friends there and I am still with them.
I returned to Santander for personal reasons and I have found “my place in the world”.
I am very happy to live here and do the things I like to do: Reading, walking, chatting, listening to the radio, taking pictures, eating yummy things and trying new ones and being with my family.
I am very curious and I believe that you can learn from everything and everyone. Listening to people also fascinates me.
I signed up for this project out of trust, first in the person who discovered it for me and then in Palmar, the Coordinator. It has not let me down at all.
I didn’t really understand how it was going to unfold, and it felt like a “blind date” with nerves about whether I would be able to communicate well with the young woman who touched me and whether she was going to appear on the screen. I’m pretty digitally illiterate, but if I could do it, anyone can. I guarantee it.
The title already seems very suggestive and attractive to me. Memories shared with young and American people, it sounded strange to me but very, very good.
After this year I can say that for me it has been very gratifying, it has forced me to revisit my memory, to disorganize my certainties in order to reorder them in a different way and to tell these young women about it. The listening process has been mutual and I have learned a lot.
It is a gift of life, a “marvel” in the strictest sense of the word (something surprising and unique).
