María Haoa
“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.”
Featured Reports:
Patricia Lillo Chinchilla
Patricia Lillo ChinchillaPatricia Lillo, daughter of Eusebio Lillo, thus a descendant of the composer of the Chilean national anthem, and Elba Chinchilla, has lived for more than 50 years on Easter Island, as a result of her older sister Elvira marring Marcelo...
Alberto Hotus Chavez
Alberto Hotus ChavezAlberto Hotus, 82, is Chairman of the Rapa Nui Council of Elders. This was created in 1980 with the aim of recovering the investiture of Rapanui chiefs and rejecting the delivery of individual titles of land ownership, a situation that was opposed...
Matusalem Masú Hey
"Matusalem" Masú HeyMasú Hey’s family name really should be Edmunds. His father, Enrique, is the son of Henry Percival Edmunds, the English administrator for the Williamson & Balfour sheep company between 1903 and 1930, and of Sofía Hey, the mother of the first...