Chapter 1 - "Escape"

This is the story of my life from the moment I was born into this world and in order to tell this story I would have to go back to the very beginning where it all started.

A long time ago in a third world country, in a post war state, my father was born in the countryside. He came from the poor family that lived in a small house, which was built a long time ago by previous family generations. At a young age, he had to do all the house chores to be able to get food in the house. This was the way of surviving. There was no freedom to express. At that time, my father was also beaten by his father, who was also beaten by his father (my grand grandfather) - as my father said. It was like an evil circle and routine running through generations. This is how they were disciplining children at that time. Being the first born child, he eventually had to take care of his younger siblings. That would mean also “stealing” to support the family.

During an unknown period he met my mother. My mother was also coming from a poor family and lived in the same village. She was quite a tomboy at a young age, but would grow up to become quite pretty according to what they said. The circumstances on how they met is still unknown to me, so I can’t really tell you about it. My parents eventually got married to each other, but it is still uncertain if it was out of love. In their culture it was normal to get married in order to fulfill parents’ expectations as a family duty.

After a certain period of time, my parents wanted to have a better life and decided to escape from poverty. They did it by rowing a small boat under the stars and passing through the border patrol undetected. During this escape, there were also my father’s relatives and other acquaintances on the boat. Everybody was so scared, because they were afraid of getting caught, which could happen any time. Once they reached the land, they believed that they would start a better life.

To be continued...