It was eleven at night when I was studying. It was one of those stressful and hectic days, when I was really worried because of all the homework I had, and which for me had become completely usual.

Ambiorix, I listened to my Aunt Carla calling. Please bring to me a glass of water that Hamlet is thirsty. Ok, I told her; I stopped doing my homework and I went to the bed where they were lying my aunt Carla, Hamlet, his husband; and Hector, their son, all of them watching t. v. I had not sat very well again when she called me again, because Hector wanted milk, and she asked me to prepare some for him before he slept. I stood up again in a really bad mood, for I had to finish my homework and they were just watching t. v. and I was serving as their bell boy.

It was not the first time they did it, they used to do it all of the time; they didn’t care if I were studying to send me to buy bread for them, any candy Hector wanted, or any necessary errand to do at home. Sometimes she sent me to buy something, and if she forgot to tell me something, I had to go back to buy what she forgot to tell me; moreover, if I had to go to several places I used to go, but according to Carla and my another aunt Iranny I did nothing at home. To top it off, she used to scold me and talk to me in a very bad way if I bought something she didn’t like. Some time she talked to me in that way while my mother was visiting me, and I could read the pain and bitterness in her eyes, for she never talked to me like that even when she punished me, and because I was not a child anymore, I was eighteen. She commented that situation to me, and told me that it was hurting her deeply that she had not money to rent a place for me to live alone.

It was really annoying to live with my aunts; I did not anything so they didn’t criticize. According to them I was going to drive crazy because I studied so much; I would become crazy even because I used to go everyday to Mirador Sur[1] to make exercises. At the beginning when I moved from my town to live with them here to Santo Domingo, I told them that I used to write poetry and stories. I think it was one of the worst mistakes I made, since whenever they saw me writing they used to make fun of me “Ahi esta el inspirado” or “ahi esta ese escribiendo mierda”, so whenever I wanted to write I had to hide from them. When I listened to music I used to listen to music in English; that made Iranny very angry “and now that’s what we are going to listen the whole day? Is there no another shit to listen to? To solve the problem Carla told me to buy some headsets, but later the complain was because when I had the headsets I couldn’t hear if they were telling something or wanted me to hear something they were talking about.