My dad can’t live in Puno. The mountains are too tall, and his lungs are bad. Last year, we packed up our lives in Puno and moved to La Paz. I was the only new kid at school. It was so terrible that my mom and I moved back to Puno, so I could go to school with my old friends. I rarely see my dad anymore.
I do not have a good home environment with very toxic parents and maybe verbal abuse but I don’t really know what counts as that. Therefore whenever I am at home for extended periods of time, it is just horrible for my mental health and I am in so much emotional pain. My older brother found a host family for me initially in Rhode Island, but then they found out they were pregnant and kicked me out. As everyone had already settled into their living situations and it was right after the first week of classes, there weren’t many options so I had to sublease an apartment to make sure I wouldn’t get kicked out again and traveled back to the Notre Dame area. So I’ve been there for the rest of the semester because there would be no way on earth I would be able to do school while living at home. Loneliness and isolation are already having an effect on my mental health, but it would be so much worse if I was at home.
