All About Me

by Cynthia Palomino

My and my small family

My name is Cynthia Palomino
I am happily married with Jorge, he is a Pastor, a chef and a lovely husband.
We have two children, Qorianka (14) and Sacha (9).
We are from Peru, South America, but we are living on the US now because of my husband´s job.
Here we adopted a pet, his name is Yaku, he is a chihuahua, very small dog but with a great personality.

My big small family

I have a big family in my country: my parents, siblings, nephews, uncles, aunts, cousins and my beloved grandparents.
In addition to being peruvian I am an indigeous woman of Chankas people. My family keep speaking our native language, Quechua, so I speak it, spanish and now I am happy to learn english too.
Since young, my mother has been an activist for our cultural rigths, she worked hard to graduate and then worked on the first proyects to have bilingual education on our lands.
Currently she teachs quechua at the university. She inspires me a lot.

My hobbies

I love read. My favourite peruvian writer is Jose María Arguedas, he wrote great novels, essays and histories in spanish and quechua.
I also love poetry. My favourite poet is Luis Hernandez Camarero, he wrote a lot of good poetry, but he didn´t publish it, he wrote on notebooks and then he gave it to his friends and family. His poetic work was compilated for a friend and it was published after he died.
I like to draw and paint too, it really relax me.
Finally I enjoy to listen music of various genres.

Activities I enjoy

I enjoy to walk in the nature.
I also enjoy traveling and seeing new places, specially places with history.
I like to cook with my husband, it is an activity that we enjoy doing together.
We love bringing the family together at home for a gathering.
I really enjoy gardening, like my mother and my grandparents.

My career

Since child I liked maths and social studies so when I grow I studied economics on my country.
After graduated I got a speciality on social projects design and then I worked for the goverment.
Speak two languages helped me to understand better the problems of our communities and to communicate it to the decisión makers.
It also give me the oportunity to recieve training as an native language interpreter, and then to work in the process of developing language policy.
I met friends of more than 30 indigeous peoples of Peru who became first interpreters in thier native languages. We keep communicating until now.

What I do now

When my husband was hired to work in the US, I leave my job to came here and keep my family together.
It was a hard decisión for me, but my husband have been taking care of the childrens when I worked several years, so I realized that it was my turn to do that.
I think it is a new adventure and a great opportunity for our family, now I enjoy taking care my children and helping my husband.
I am volunteer on the food pantry, and I also teach catechesis to the childrens on the church. I love to do that.
I took time to complete my master studies too, and now I am finishing my thesis work.

My goals

I have several goals, I want to reach them.
A short term goal is to finish my tesis and get my master degree.
A medium term goal is improve my english skills and then got the skills to became an interpreter too. It would be wonderful.
As a long term goal I would like to study for a doctoral degree and to become a social researcher.
I think that with my family support and with hard work I can reach my goals.

My dreams

I dream of giving a good future to my children and that they grow wisely.
I dream to contributing with my people and with other peoples.
I dream to be a better person every day.
I dream of getting old with my husband and having many grandchildren.

Thank you for letting me share with you my story