«My migration story officially started in 2019, just before the pandemic, but it actually started much earlier. In 2016, my dad decided to take the first step and make his way to Spain so that, one day, my mother and I could join him. Those were hard years, marked by physical distance, but also by a family bond that became stronger than ever. As Venezuelans, we did not grow up imagining a migrant future, but the diaspora changed us forever.
My dad lived through everything: he was a waiter, a baker's assistant, an Amazon delivery boy for a day, a courier for Glovo. He travelled around Tenerife, then Oliveira de Azeméis, in Portugal, until finally arriving in Madrid, where he could breathe a little after trying so hard. Overcoming obstacles became part of his routine, and his perseverance gave us hope.
When we were finally reunited, what we dreamed of as a happy ending was, in reality, the beginning of another challenge. Becoming a family again under the same roof after more than three years apart meant healing, adapting, readjusting. Teaching and relearning love to someone who had experienced loneliness, cold, expense and uncertainty was not easy.
Emigration is not something I would recommend lightly. It is an experience that breaks you, demands and transforms you. But it also allowed me to discover emotional parts of myself that I didn't know about. We have broken a thousand times, but we have recovered a thousand times. Today I understand that love sustains, that humility protects and that, like bamboo, one must learn to bend without breaking.
That has been my biggest lesson as a migrant».»
Valentina Constanza González Arciniega.
Stories like Valentina's are a reminder of why we in Curiara we believe that migrating is not just about moving from one country to another, but about sustaining links while everything changes. Behind every shipment, every daily effort, there are trajectories marked by constancy, adaptation and a deep desire to meet again.
Accompanying these paths means understanding that money does not travel alone: travel the love, responsibility and hope of those who, like their family, have learned to bend without breaking. At Curiara, we are inspired to be part of the silent care that allows migrant stories to continue to be written with dignity, togetherness and a future.