I have become a horrible person who has done horrible things. I’m a monster now, and I’ve earned it. From what I have seen, I believe we are born wise and innocent, and I can only assume that I was also born that way.

But things shifted, and I lost my way.

The aim of this is not to give excuses. Not to tell you about my sad childhood. From what I can tell, we all have things to heal from. Any excuses I could give you would just be hiding my guilt behind insufficient pleas for mercy.

I mean, I guess you could say I was a hard kid. My paw was rough with me, ever since I can remember. My ma wasn’t happy with it but he was rough with her, too. I think she just tried her best to make him happy so that he wouldn’t go off the deep end all the time.

And yeah, maybe I was pissed, and I took it out on my teachers, mostly. I got in fights a lot with the boys at school. I liked getting hit. It was like this physical proof of the way I was hurting inside. If it left a mark, even better. I had a map of scars. A story that my body narrated. I thought it was deep. Smarter than all of them.

My name is Amara and my first memory is looking up into the canopy of bamboo swaying in the wind, and the sounds of birds.

I was born in Wat Chalat Rakhang in northern Thailand. I lived there with my family and we had a small plot of land that we farmed. We lived near a bamboo forest where my family would go to harvest mushrooms and herbs.

My brother and sister were younger than me, and we were happy playing together while my parents worked. We were happy, but my parents were sad. They worked hard, but we could tell they struggled.

I had decided to take a sabbatical from work after my father passed away. Something in me needed change. I had always been curious about Colombia, and so I decided to buy a one way ticket to Barranquilla, and spend some time there. The point was not to leave forever, but just to have an open-ended return date.

The first 2 or 3 weeks were mostly about orienting myself to the new culture. It was at once extremely poor, and opulent. I found myself most interested in the boys and girls who sold cigarettes and chewing gum out of boxes, and the little shoe-shine kits some of the boys carried. My heart went out to them.

I was born near a small town called Teopisca in Mexico. I was the oldest and had to take care of my 5 brothers and sisters when we worked in the fields with my mamá and papá.

When I was 10, my papá lost his leg. We had an earthquake and part of our house fell on him. It was scary. His leg was bloody and there was bone sticking out. Mamá cried and cried. My papá had to use a stick to walk, but did not walk much after that. He could not work, and mamá stayed home.

Some stories have a beginning, a middle, and an end. And others are less direct, and seem like they don’t happen in that order. They happen and then seep into your awareness for months, years even. Sometimes a person's ignorance of what is happening as it is happening can protect them. Sometimes God's grace comes from denial.