“I came to visit Geneva, and because of the [sanitary] situation I cannot go back home now. I hope it’ll soon be over, I want to see my family again. In South America we are very affectionate, very attached to the family. I have 5 daughters, it brings me a lot of happiness. With them I feel good, I am full of joy, very happy. But now I’m depressed, I want to cry because I need my family. I know I have to work on myself, but I can’t really manage to do it.

I was happy before. I didn’t have much, but I worked, I lived peacefully, I was happy inside. Is it the universe? Is it God? What do I know? When you receive that thing inside of you, you are happy from within. Maybe you don’t have any money, or just enough to eat, live, but there’s something that fills you with happiness, with joy. You can’t buy happiness, you can only find it within. You can have all that you want, cars, planes… but if you aren’t fulfilled, then it’s all pointless.

Loving oneself is what most of us are lacking. Every day I tell myself: “I need to love myself, accept myself the way I am, with my mistakes, with my flaws, love myself despite everything.” But it’s not easy… I often have low self-esteem, maybe because of the lack of affection from my parents. I never knew them… neither of them. It always makes me sad when I think of it because having to move forward all alone was a very important aspect of my life. My mother’s sister raised me, I think she loved me, but it’s not a mother’s love.

You realize that when you have something, you don’t value it. But when you don’t have it… There’s always an emptiness, a little hole. And no one will ever fill it. What am I? Air? Today is mother’s day in Argentina, but I’m all alone. Everyone is congratulating me for mother’s day, for my family, for my daughters. But mine? Where is she? So is my life… I’m a mother, but I was never a daughter.”

(Parc Mon Repos | translated from Spanish)