Q: Good Morning. How old are you?
A: I’m 25 years old.
Q: Do you have any children?
A: I have a two-year-old daughter.
Q: Where do you live?
A: I live in Boim, with my parents.
Q: You have someone in you family who has emigrated to Spain, right?
A: Yes, my father and my husband.
Q: Tell me about the experience with your father and with your husband.
A: When I was born my father had already emigrated, so I’ve lived with that all my life. When I was seventeen or eighteen years old, my mother decided to emigrate too. My father is a driver and my mother took a special drivers’ licence to be able to help my father in his job. So, at only eighteen years old I stayed with my eight-year-old sister alone in Portugal.
Q: Who took care of you two?
A: I took care of myself and my sister.
Q: So, you were responsible for your sister?
A: Yes, we lived in our parents’ house. I was studying in high school and my sister in elementary school. And that was our life for four years, always with the support of my boyfriend who is now my husband.
Q: How old was your sister?
A: She was eight years old. She is ten years younger than me. I had to prepare her to go to school, prepare myself to go to school, arrive home and do all the house chores.
Q: Why did your mother decide to leave you alone and go away to live with your father?
A: Because it was a very complicated phase in my father’s life. He was fed up with that life and either he had my mother’s support or he wouldn’t have left. But, back then my parents didn’t have financial conditions for that, so, always with my agreement, my mother decided to join him for four years.
Q: Do they live together in the same truck?
A: They lived together on the truck, yes.
Q: Do they travel around Europe.
A: Yes, all around Europe. They worked for the same company, my father still works for the same company. Together they could drive for 22 hours a day, they didn’t have to stop. Those who are familiar with this job knows they didn’t need to rest. They lived in the truck, they cooked in the truck. So, they lived like that.
Q: How did you and your sister communicate with your parents?
A: We spoke on the phone, every day. Back then, my father didn’t know how to use the internet, so we just used the phone. We spoke for about ten minutes, because it was cheap. If we talked more than ten minutes it was extremely expensive, so this was the way we kept in touch during the time they were together.
Q: Who usually made the call, you or your parents?
A: It has been always me who made the call, because, this way was cheaper.
Q: During the four years that both your parents were migrants, were there any difficult situations with you or your sister? Have you ever had an accident, or went to the hospital, for example?
A: During that time, I already had a driver’s license and had a car accident. I didn’t need to go the hospital, but my parents as they were far away, they were really worried about it. But everything went well, with no complications.
Q: How often did your parents visit you?
A: Once a month and they stayed for three or four days.
Q: Where was the headquarters of the company where your parents worked?
A: In Pamplona, Spain.
Q: You said that you had the support of your boyfriend, who is now your husband and father of your little daughter. Right?
A: Yes, he is.
Q: Did your husband also go to Spain?
A: He also emigrated almost a year ago. He got unemployed. At the time, the company where he worked, a printer, got into a difficult situation and he was fired for being the youngest employee. So we decided he should get the special driver’s license he needed to have the same job as my father.
Q: It is a totally new experience now with your husband?
A: Yes, a much more complicated one.
Q: Why do you say that?
A: Because to raise a child alone is very difficult. He went away the day my daughter turned sixteen months.
Q: What do you miss the most?
A: To get home and not have someone to share the everyday life with. At the moment we are trying to buy our house. It is complicated not to have someone to help you with this process. To go to the bank, chose the things we want to buy for our home. I try to do it when he visits us, but it is not easy to do, because he can only stay for three or four days.
Q: What about you? Do you have a job, or stay at home with your daughter?
A: I’m a lawyer. I work in an office. To tell you the truth, I’m doing an internship. At the same time I’m doing a master’s degree. So, I try to keep my mind busy not to think about life difficulties.
Q: Have you ever considered going to Spain to stay with your husband?
A: The only reason I am not there already is because he doesn’t want that.
Q: Your husband doesn’t want you to go. But if you went there would you chose the same life?
A: No, I wouldn’t. As I said before the headquarters of the company he works for is in Pamplona. On weekends and in the middle of the week they always come to Pamplona. So, I would see him one or two days every week which would be a lot better than now, when I can only see him every three weeks. But he doesn’t want us to go. He won’t be there for many years from now, so he thinks this is only a temporary situation. He doesn’t want me and my daughter to change our lives since he has no intentions to stay there.
Q: In your opinion, for how long will your husband stay in Spain?
A: Two years at most.
Q: Doesn’t he like his job?
A: No, he doesn’t. He is there because he really needs to be there.
Q: If he found a job here, would he come back?
A: Yes, immediately.
Q: How do you get in touch with him?
A: With him it is totally different than it was with my parents. To begin with, phone calls are cheaper, so we talk on the phone every day, we also use the Internet, for example by Messenger, because he insists on following the daughter’s growth at a distance.
Q: Do you use video call or Facebook?
A: Yes, I do. I use it as much as possible. Until I run out of credit on the Internet account.
Q: What do you share with him on the Internet?
A: I send him videos I do with my daughter, I take a photo of my daughter every day and send him, too. There are other things we share. For example, he had an accident six months ago and he sent me photos of what happened, to explain me the details.
Q: Did he get injured in that accident?
A: No, he didn’t. It wasn’t even his fault, but other people were injured and he was uncomfortable with the situation. Basically, we share our everyday life via the Internet.
Q: When he visits you, every three weeks you said, how does your daughter react?
A: It is a contagious joy. When she realizes that her father is at home, it is as if her mother is a little put aside and feels that she has to pay attention to her father and grandfather. The other grandparents and the mother are left out and we understand that her intention is to give affection only to those two.
Q: But has it always been like this, or when she was younger, did she react differently when they got home?
A: It has always been the same way. Her father emigrated recently, but her grandfather has always been an emigrant and she never found that strange. It’s normal for her to see them from time to time. Amazing!
Q: As far as emigration is concerned, do you and your husband have the same idea about it our do you face it differently?
A: I think we have the same idea about it. I understand that he had to go away because he needed to and he knows that for me, being here alone is not easy. We reached an agreement. We were going to sacrifice to make our future a little better, but we also agreed that it would be for a short time, because the situation is not good for us. We got married recently and being far from each other at this stage is very difficult.
Q: You have mentioned before that your husband had an accident. Was is the most complicated situation he got though or were there other serious situations?
A: That was the most serious situation. However, he had a health problem and I wasn’t able to help him because I was far away. That worried me a lot. He can say it is not serious but you only believe it when you actually see it with your own eyes. It is not easy.
Q: Has this health problem been solved or does it persist?
A: It persists. We are trying to solve it, at my insistence. But he can only go to the doctor every three weeks and when he has diagnoses exams to do, we cannot always schedule them for the days when he’s here…
Q: Does he have new friends there? Does he get along well with the Spanish or his relationships are more with Portuguese people?
A: In the company where he works there are Spanish and Portuguese and he gets along well with everybody, but his friends are Portuguese. He feels that, as he is in a different country, he is not treated the same way. So he feels more comfortable in the company of Portuguese people.
Q: Does he send you money regularly or does he bring money when he visits you?
A: Well, his salary is deposited in our joint account. So I know first how much he has earned in each month, before himself does. I can tell you that he only spends what he takes with him from Portugal. He never moves the bill, never withdraws money from an ATM. He is there to save enough money for as soon as he can return to Portugal.
Q: So, if you could, you would go to Spain to live with your husband?
A: I wouldn’t think twice.
Q: Even if you hadn’t a job there?
A: Yes, even if I were unemployed for some time.
Q: What are your dreams for the future?
A: First of all, I want my husband to come back as soon as possible. I want him to find what he is looking for here and not have to be far from me or our daughter. Then I wish my father to return home, too. I only feel complete whey they are both at home. Basically my big dream is two have them close to me.
Q: Your mother was in Spain for four years and then she returned. Why did she return?
A: She returned because I was having difficulties in handling the pressure with college. It was very hard for me to take care of my sister and study at the same time. So, she decided to return in August 2015 and I got pregnant shortly after, in September. Therefore we decided that she would stay here, my father had already a much more stable life, my mother no longer needed to work abroad and now, as we use to say, she is my right arm. She’s the one who takes care of my daughter so I can work.
Q: What about your father? When is your father coming back home for good?
A: My father is always postponing his return. He’s always saying he paid for my studies, and when he’s done the same for my sister, he will come back. But I honestly do not think he’s coming back. He likes his job and that’s the main reason why he doesn’t want to leave it.
Q: Maybe when he retires. Do you think it’s going to be like that?
A: Yes, I do.
Q: Do you feel that the fact that your husband is in Spain has any advantages or only disadvantages? What are the advantages and disadvantages?
A: The only advantage is financial. There are a lot more disadvantages: the disadvantage of not following closely the growth of his daughter, the disadvantage of recently, for example, having spent his birthday alone, on the festive dates of the people he loves he is always away. Being always alone is very difficult. I know what his life is like. I’ve been with him twice and I know what he’s going through.
Q: Have you already been there with him?
A: Yes, twice. I’ve been there for six weeks and I truly know what he’s going through. It is extremely difficult. So, there is only one advantage and many disadvantages.
Q: Thank you for your collaboration.