Cecilia Mogollon de Camacho 1930- 2008

My mother came to the world on a rainy day in Fusagasuga, Colombia, when Rosa- her mother -had two other children to look after, and her husband didn’t help much.

“It’s a girl,” the midwife said.

Rosa's other children waited with a neighbor in the next room.  Having suffered with post natal depression before, she dreaded the moment she would be alone with her new baby.

The crying child brought her back to reality, as the midwife cut the umbilical cord.

“She’s small,” the woman said.

Placing the infant by the mother’s breasts, the nurse hoped everything would be fine.

As she struggled to cope with the new addiction to the family, Rosa felt depressed.  How would she look after so many children on her own?

The small baby remained sick, even if she got her mother’s milk most of the time.  Six months after her birth little Cecilia had not put on much weight, and her mother expected another child.  In January 1931 she sent her with a young boy to her father’s family.

Cecilia grew up with another one of her sisters, also called Rosa and surrounded by many aunts.  She saw her mother sometimes, when she used to make trouble in her school, by calling her a bad daughter.

Cecilia trained to be teacher after finishing her studies and married her cousin Jose Ismael Camacho Arango.