Claudia Pineros-Blum

Story

I was born In Bogota Colombia. Born into a middle class family I enjoyed a very happy childhood with my older brother Antonio, sister Ines and younger sister Monica. My father (Juan) worked as an actuary for insurence companies and my mother (Ana Mery) was always at home. When I was twelve my father obtained a job in the neighbouring country of Venezuela, in a small city called Puerto la Cruz. The family moved there and for the first time I got to see the ocean. I spent my high school years living by the sea. When I finished high school in 1984 I moved to the capital Caracas to study Occupational Therapy. This meant living on my own, having to do everything for myself. I thoroughly enjoyed those years of healthy fun and freedom. I became a fully qualified Occupational Therapist by 1988 and I remained in Caracas working as one.

In 1989 my friend Ana’s relatives came for a surprise visit from Australia. I drove her to the airport to greet them. I met her grandmother, her aunt and her uncle Ladislao. Ladislao was to become my husband twelve months later in 1990.

I left my family and friends behind and came to live in Sydney the same year. As my mother I have always loved nature, and immediately felt in love with this beautiful land. At first it was hard, as any other migrant would tell you. You miss your family, your language skills are limited and you feel isolated as a result. Despite all these I was determined to adjust as I had done it before when I was twelve. I attended English courses at NSW University and within two years I passed my English and Occupational Therapy exams. I joined the work force as an OT and in 1994 I became a mother for the first time giving birth to Adrian Esteban.

Today, I’m still an OT married to the same lovely man and we also have Lorenzo Anthony born in 2000 and Alexander John born in 2005. By now I have lost my parents but I still have my brother and sisters, nephews and nieces overseas.

We can never predict what live will bring. I never imagine I would live so far away from my birth place. Life is never easy and when you are young you do not think much about the future. Life has been very busy working and raising a family with almost nil family support. The fact of having my family so far away is always being hard, especially as I had children and realised they wouldn’t know their grandparents and the same for my parents with their grandchildren. At least they had my mother-in-law. These are things you learn to accept and overcome in time. Life will deny you somethings but will give you others to compensate. I am and will be entirely grateful for my life and I can honestly say I have been very happy in Australia. As my love for Australia continues to grow I could never forget my bithplace and the lovely memories of my childhood. Bogota is a lovely city, I was there recently and I found a very modern, grown up beautiful city with all the charm of the Latin American world just the same.

For those future generations who might read this one day, all I have to say is:

Be happy and positive, embrace life, don’t be detour by adversity, always be humble at heart, do the best you can, don’t be too hard on yourself, respect others, love humans as well as your planet, be generous, don’t ignore suffering and most of all have a lovely life and God bless you all.

Claudia

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