Adriana S

Even though I was born in North Carolina, I grew up in a small village in Mexico. A small place surrounded by mountains where killing chickens was as normal as making breakfast. I’ve helped my mother slaughter goats, pigs, and lambs - and no, I’m not a serial killer. I’m just a girl who grew up knowing that life– and food –takes work. It wasn't scary. It was life.

By age 10, I’d wake up at 6:00am every single day to get started on my daily activities before going to school; by then I already knew how to start a fire, make tortillas from scratch, and cook full meals for my whole family. I’d helped raise pigs, quails, ducks, cows, goats, turkeys, …, and the list never ends. I’d been to the fields with my dad planting corn, wheat, and beans during the hot days of May and into people’s houses with my mom to clean them, just to earn a few extra pesos.

I helped kill animals for food, gathered eggs, milked the cows, swept dirt floors, collected wood, and washed clothes by hand. Life there was hard - not in a tragic way, just in the way that makes you grow up fast. And even though I complained (a lot), those years taught me how to survive, how to care for others, and how to get things done even when you’re tired, hungry, or sunburned.

Now, I’m in college studying civil engineering, drinking iced coffee every morning like a basic college student. But that girl from the farm? She's still here. She’s the reason I don’t quit. The reason I carry stories worth telling.