Cristina and Diego: «We don't go to spas or restaurants, we save every year to go to the Sahara with full suitcases»
Yusef spent two months in Ferrolterra putting down roots in the hearts of his foster parents. “We got married in September and he walked us down the aisle. He had a great time, we ate, we danced, and, at night, Cristina and I went on our honeymoon and he returned to the Sahara. What caught my attention the most was that, when we were going to say goodbye, we had an interview on the radio in Ferrol and they asked the Saharawi children what they would ask of their families before leaving. Yusef said: 'I would like them to come see me, because where I live no one ever comes,'” Diego is still moved when he remembers. That December, Cristina and Diego fulfilled Yusef's wish: they traveled to the Smara refugee camp in Algeria. «There we met his sisters and his parents. They welcomed us very well. They are a very grateful people. His sister also wanted to go out and come with us. So that summer Yusef and Fatima came. Because we have little, but I love a lot.
Two pregnancies in 2020
How does the blood family receive this family that is born of solidarity? "We have a lot of personality, sometimes we don't even tell them what we're going to do," Diego smiles. And Cristina adds: «Or we say it the day before!».
«Yusef told me the first year: 'How lucky, you're like Cristiano Ronaldo'... Hahaha, but if I have an 84 Ford Orion. 'You have a house, you eat and have dinner every day, what more do you want? You have everything,' he told me», Diego shows us the wisdom of the great little Yusef.
He is already a son to them, like Fatima. The link is very strong. «What I feel cannot be explained with words. Watching them grow is comforting”, says Cristina.
Yusef, Fátima, Futella and Munina with their Galician "brothers at heart" Breogán and Mariña, who went to visit them with their parents in December at the Smara camp, in Algeria Diego PitaThe arrival of the sweet Najat, Yusef and Fatima's cousin, a Sahrawi with Spanish nationality, was a turning point. Cristina received her at her house, in Narón, in September 2020. Najat traveled pregnant when the restrictions due to covid were relaxed. "I told him, 'You have to come. If you come, your son will be born and will have the nationality. If not, you will throw your father's work overboard so that you would have nationality, ”Cristina stood up. "I told her: 'Najat, let you know that you have my house', and after 12 days she appeared at the door!"
@wjz Didn't they learn how to use Jack stands in auto shop?
— JDO Fri Mar 19 12:32:16 +0000 2021
Cristina and Najat were due to give birth around the same date. They shared the expansion of the universe of her gut, maternal concerns, confinement (in October 2020) and half a birth that was not easy at all. But Najat's final assessment is positive.
“It was a special experience. I have known Galicia all my life, I was in foster care in Vigo and, pregnant, I was welcomed at Cristina and Diego's house. I felt very good, safe, with good people. Come on, we are a family! They took great care of me and the most beautiful thing is that Cristina was pregnant with me and we experienced everything at the same time. But home is home, like your house there is no...”, Najat explains in audios, who says that in his camp in the Sahara “we are all very close to everyone, it is not like there”. “We had a bad time because we don't live comfortably, but we are happy. Now, if there is a Saharawi mother who can give birth there in Galicia, I encourage her. During the delivery I had an internal hemorrhage and, if I were to have her here, I think she would not be talking to you. Here many women die giving birth », emphasizes Najat, who today feels happy to be in Algeria with his little Khaled, with his pineapple, together with his mother, although he would return« a thousand times to Galicia ». From here, she misses this other branch of the family, "friends, other moms I met in prenatal and postpartum classes, midwives Natalia and Isaura, and also those at Hospital do Salnés, with whom I am in love." , to the pediatrician Lupe... They are wonderful people». «That's where I gave birth to my son, I feel very connected to Galicia, I have no words... I also miss the smell of grass from Galicia, the village, I love that smell, it gives me life. I will return, I will return a thousand times.
Before this announced return, her friends-brothers Cristina and Diego have gone to see her and the rest of her family with her little ones Breogán and Mariña, who was born in O Salnés, almost at the same time as Khaled. “It was a great surprise that they came. I loved. I hope they come back," says Najat. Meanwhile, they maintain the daily connection by WhatsApp.
The Roig Pita family treated themselves to a trip to the Smara camp before Christmas. Cristina, Diego, and their little Breogán and Mariña went there. It was the first time for Mariña, the second for Breogán and the sixth for her parents. “Mariña hardly found out, but my son learned more in the camp than in any class he could have here. But the truth is that I don't know anyone who has only been once. If you go, you want to repeat. It gives you a lot. You will not see us in spas or restaurants. Of course, we spend on food... But our biggest expense of the year is to go to the Sahara. We save every year to go to the camp, and you have to save a lot to go with full suitcases!: first-aid kits, shoes and clothes for the children... But a lot of people helped me, my friend Marta and her family, midwives, women from the breastfeeding support association. I paid for nothing that was in the bags. I pick up a phone to say that I am going to the Sahara and I always receive help”, Cristina stresses.
Breogán and Mariña are little Three Wise Men who help those from the East. That is what their parents tell them, who have not lost their connection with the Sahara since 2016 and their debut as Yusef's foster parents. The heart is bigger than the desert.
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© Copyright LA VOZ DE GALICIA Sapolígono de Sabón, Arteixo, A CORUÑA (SPAIN) Registered in the Mercantile Registry of A Coruña in Volume 2438 of the Archive, General Section, on pages 91 and following, sheet C-2141. CIF: A-15000649.
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