In part I started by giving insight on my siblings. I hope you could gather that it's a tough subject for me, and with 6 to go I think will take a detour and go back them further down the line. I want to go back a bit. Back to before I was a problem. Something you may not know is I was born in Latin America during a Communist revolution. I went as far as being named after Augusto Cesar Sandino. The mythical working man's icon who the Communists in Nicaragua chose to represent their Sandinista movement, even though he had been dead for 40 years. Even though my name paid homage to the poster boy of the revolution, my parents were far from sympathizers.
In the years preceding the fall of the Somoza dictatorship my father worked for Dr. Roberto Incer. The head of the Central Bank of America. He was basically in charge of all of the government's money. He was also in President Somoza's inner circle. My father was in charge of the Incer family's security detail. His team protected the Dr.'s family and he was also the Dr.'s personal body guard. This meant that where the president was, the Dr. was, and thus my father was. In those days the president had a personal military force known as the Nation Guard. They were basically killers with badges. They had special privileges and were known for abusing their authority. They were also known for making problems 'go away' The people in the neighborhood knew that my father was affiliated to the government. They saw his fancy vehicles, his tailored suits, his American cigarettes, his Ray-Bans, and his guns. They assumed that he was a member of the Guard.
Early in my mother's pregnancy (with me) in 1979 is when Somoza was overthrown. My father's proximity to high ranking officials and plain old fashion intuition lead him to flee to Costa Rica just before it all went down. It was a hard decision for him. His options were leave his pregnant wife and her 3 kids in a war zone or possibly die. when the Sandinistas took over they began jailing, torturing and killing government officials, especially members of the National Guard. My father met many of them through his work. He was offered high ranking positions. He told me many times that he could not turn a blind eye to abuse of power and would probably find himself a target within the organization. With all that, when the rebels took over our neighborhood, the people in the neighborhood wanted to appease the new regime so they pointed out my father as a member of the National Guard.
The day they came to the house they were looking for my father to 'talk' to him. They would have arrested him, and my mother would have never seen him again. My oldest sister was in her teens, my other sister was a baby and my brother (the good one) was a kid. I was in the womb. A troop of young, long haired 'soldiers came to the house that day. There were four of them headed by a hot headed, trigger happy nut case. He was deliberate and harsh. He was going to get information from my mother one way or another. When she told them that she had no idea where my father was, the punk got irate and came close to striking her. My mom being barely 4' 10" and 125 lbs would have succumb to any physical attack imparted by this maniac. That day her, my brother, my sisters and I would have all met our maker. God being an ever present force in my mother's life was there that day and found his way into one of the other young soldier's heart. When he saw things getting heated and heading a possibly fatal direction, he mustered up all his courage and intervened in my mother's behalf. He stepped in and told the leader to calm down, and that my dad wasn't there, and they should be moving on. A few years after the war the same guy that saved our lives happened upon my sister at a party. He remembered her. They were married and he is the father of my niece.
I was born a few months after the Sandinistas officially took power over Nicaragua. My father was still hiding out in Costa Rica. Soon after my birth he re-entered the country by land. He wore a hat emblazoned with FSLN (Frente Sandinista de la Liberacion Nacional) which is the Communist's political party, The Sandinista Front for National Liberation. He knew he had to blend in. He was not going back to live under the new regime. He was going back to see his new born son (yours truly) gather some money and gear and find his way to a new life, in a new land, but where?
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