Lauren, the novice sailor

My name is Lauren. I´m 13 years old and I´m the seventh son of a peasant´s family. My father has a field where he cultivates wheat, barley, rice, oat and more cereals. Moreover he has two cows, some chickens and one donkey.

My old Brother, Juan, will inherit the fields and the animals while Pedro, José and Ramón will work for him. Marian, my sister,  married the baker and Sofia, my other sister, will marry a farmer soon. My little brother Jaime and my little sister Isabel will work with my father in the fields until they´re 10 years old, when they will enter into the church. So, I have to choose either going into the church to become a monk or going into the sea and become a sailor.

My mom Andrea prefers that I become a monk, but the life in the convent was so boring that I decided to go to Cadiz and participate in a ship expedition. I live in a nearer village, so my father brings me to Cadiz in a cart.

While I was on La Pinta, mi mother cried saying to me that it was really dangerous.. But I wanted to live adventures!

In the ship, I sleep in the cellar, in a room with many coys (the hammocks where we sleep), there are people of my age and even younger than me. My bed in my house was cleaner than here. Here it smells so bad that at night, it´s impossible to sleep; at least the first days, because the rest of the sailors, snore so hard… Anyway, the days fly away and the hard work makes me sleep so deep.

The old sailors teach us how to work on the ship, moreover, we have to sweep and scrub the ship, and we have to sew the sails that are broken… and many things more.

The first days I got dizzy, this was the first time I travel on a ship, and the waves make me vomit, but finally I got used to it. We travelled one or two weeks on the ship, when finally, a hot afternoon, and the watch shouted "Land! Land! Land!". We are in Canarias…

Marina Járboles

2ºB ESO