“After I left school, I went to work with my grandmother at Vaitea, cleaning up the wool lint during the shearing. We were three women per side and we had to work fast. Later I learned to remove the wool that was on the tables and the following year was ascended to work at the tables, where I earned a lot of money. We lived out there, where we had sheds in which to sleep and, if you wanted, you could stay over the weekend. I worked for 3 years.”

“My first daughter was born in the hospital and everything was peti (fine). The second was also born in the hospital, but that one was traumatic and I almost died. After that bad experience, I had my other five at home because I was terrified of returning to the hospital. At home my husband and my mother helped me. We would place a mattress on the floor and I would sit on it. My mother held my legs and my husband would hold my shoulders from behind. I remember once that I pushed three times and the baby came out so quickly that it rolled under the bed. It was funny because we couldn’t find the baby until he screamed and my mother was able to cut the cord with her teeth.” Maria laughs when she tells that story. “Thanks to God all of my children grew up healthy.”

“For me, the old way of life was both good and bad. Bad in the sense that we had to go all the way to the Rano Kau crater to wash the few clothes that we had and to get drinking water. I remember that we would go on horseback or walking, mostly women. In spite of not having water on hand, we always were very clean with our white clothes and we took care of our appearance. But life was good because we always shared, we respected one another and we always helped each other.”

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