I was eight years old when happened one of those events that would follow me to the grave.
I was on a ship direct in Salvador de Bahia, Brazil, to move there with my uncle and aunt.
America had become too violent for my not young anymore tutors, even worse for a little girl, so we decided all together where to go.
Since my elementary teacher had talked about his trip to Brazil, I was in love with the image of that Country: the colors, the holidays, the animals ... all seemed a paradise.
Except that no one ever told me that paradise could become hell.
It was about ten o'clock at night and I was in the cab of my uncles, sleeping soundly, when suddenly BRRROOOM! a powerful roar rattled the entire ship.
From that moment, my memories are fragmented, as were my eyesight because of the water that had begun to flow into the ship.
The crew was trying to plug the leak by closing many doors, leaving people to die drowned, but soon the ship tilted to one side.
I was crying in terror, in that corridor full of water: I wasn't able to find my uncle and aunt anywhere and some people around me were floating lifeless "[][][]!" I heard a voice, but I was too young to understand those Portuguese words.
A teen guy who at the time I would defined a 'grown boy' had approached me, making me questions that I did not understand, "I'm scared!" I said through tears and he, with a beautiful smile, just picked me up and started to run down the hall to get to the lifeboats "do not be afraid" he added in a broken English "My name is Sam," he added as he tried to open a heavy door with one arm "[][][][]! Sam!" I heard screaming when the door opened, revealing a stern-faced and worried adult in his forties.
I watched them speak a strange language, before I could stretch out my wet hand, like everything else afterall, to pull weakly the man's dress "sir ... you saw my uncle and my aunt ...?" I asked on the verge of tears, getting a confused look from him.
The teen that continued to hold me in his arms, holding his forearm under my backside, seemed to translate what I had asked to the elder "I'm sorry, we do not know where are your uncles" I was told by Sam.
As we were quickly loaded on the lifeboats, I saw my tutors on one of those little yellow boats, but I didn't even had time to call them out, that one of the pulleys gave up because of too much weight on the lifeboat and the little yellow ship's bow fell down, spilling people inside the icy ocean.
After that scene, my memories started to become more confused, among cries, tears and the arrival on the Brazilian coast after a night spent on those rafts.
The only things I remember about that horrible event are the sound of the sea, languages that I didn't understand and the safe warmth that emanated from Sam's body.
I was holding onto him so tightly, that after years I still wonder how he managed to keep breathing.
Once there, I was completely orphaned in a country that didn't know.
American social services were called for me, but since my uncles had changed their citizenship, and mine, before we moved out, I was entrusted to an orphanage there in Salvador.
For three weeks I thought I was being completely left alone, until the serious man I had met on the ship...returned.
He came there to take me to his house, without I would even know why.
Maybe because I was just miserable, perhaps because his son need a sister who made him less scapegrace.
I didn't search for a reason anymore, when I saw the beautiful "strange house" from which you could see the ocean, I just cried for happiness and sadness.
I had lost the only family I had left, but fortunately I had found another one that would become just as important.