Outside the bamboo walls, a young girl in Ecuador wakes up and hears the roosters crowing, dogs barking and the water truck as is comes up the rocky path. Years later she lays on her bed in a concrete building and listens. All she hears is the train as it sounds its horn as it rolls along.
Selfless, resilient, humble and kind: all words to describe Cabrini graduate student Aide Cuenca. Growing up in Ecuador, she lived in a bamboo cane house. She shared her bed with her sisters in one room while her brother slept in her parents’ room.
Her dad was a security guard and attempted to go to school at the same time to get a degree. While he was fixing the fence, a nail hit his eye and not until years later did they see the effect. Later he went blind in one eye, making it hard to read and stay in school.
Providing for his family he worked many other jobs while Cuenca’s mother knitted crochet, sometimes selling them and taking care of her and her siblings.
They lived in the neighborhood called Arbolito (little tree) where they would wait for water trucks in the morning to get the water they needed for washing their clothes, drinking, bathing and much more. They had no running water and the water they got had to be boiled before they could drink it, which would use gas and cost lots of money.
Cuenca had four siblings and she is the oldest. She lived in Ecuador her whole life up until two years ago when she came to Cabrini University. Before coming here, she worked in her parish after school helping translate and navigate groups of people coming from the U.S. to help her community.
Cuenca got the opportunity to come to Cabrini University, where she is working to obtain a masters in leadership studies. Coming here was an adventure. Everything was about to change for her.
“I knew the food was going to be different and the culture, but the seasons were a big change. I went from having two seasons in Ecuador to four,” Cuenca said.
Cuenca brought with her two suitcases and when she arrived, she was surprised by how suburban it was. She was placed in Cabrini’s Berwyn Circle house, where she had one bedroom, two living spaces and a bathroom. She was surprised when she walked into her new room. She was used to sharing everything, in fact she never slept in a bed without her sisters. The people at the cottage gave Cuenca clothes. She did not have warm clothes for the upcoming winter and was thankful to be given these clothes.
Her bed had many pillows on it, which she was not used to.
“I don’t even use pillows,” Cuenca said.
What she did with all those pillows is place them around her. These pillows gave her a sense of security and safety as she was all alone more than 2800 miles from her family.
During her first semester at Cabrini, her dad got very sick and had to go into major surgery. She sat in class not focused on what the teacher was saying but if she would see her dad again.
“I thought my dad was going to die,” Cuenca said as she explains the struggle of not being there.
Cuenca traveled back to visit her family after that semester and she debated if she should just stop her education in the United States and stay with her family. Everyone in her community supported and believed in her. She continued her education at Cabrini and her dad returned to a better health.
Cuenca’s goal is to go back to Ecuador. She wants to help the community and propose new ideas with all the information she has learned in the United States. She thinks about her family and friends back home.
“I carry their stories with me everywhere I go. Even when I don’t believe in myself, I know people at home believe in me,” Cuenca said.
Cuenca does get homesick quite often and she wants to live in Ecuador when she is done school. She talks about people at home struggling and having little money.
“They’re amazing. They still have hope and a strong faith no matter what. They are inspirational,” Cuenca said.
