Estella

As a child, I used to accompany her as she hawked bread, pastries and other delicacies in schools, factories and offices that could only be reached after several hours of walk. She carried baskets and other plastic containers with her left and right hands, and what her hands could not carry she put on her head. The more she could carry, the more she could sell and the more commission she would get at the end of the day. The commission was a pittance, 10 cents out of every peso. One day, after walking for several kilometers, she stopped on the road and sat down to massage her legs. They were hurting, she told me. She was also crying, although she tried hard not to show it, a scene that I played out in my mind over and over again when I was older — only when I was older and could finally understand what it meant. And what it meant was that a single mom was doing all she could to raise nine kids and that one day, in the midst of her struggles, she got so tired of walking she had to sit down and massage her legs to ease the pain. And despite her weary legs she went on and hawked and earned some money and we survived. I survived.