Origins
0 (0 Likes / 0 Dislikes)
Hi, my name is Andrea
I live and work in London
The most of my family live in Brazil
I get on well with my sister when I see her
But that's only once a year
Do you spend much time with your family?
I spend quite of bit time with my family, obviusly
Less now since I left home and left university
I go back every other weekend
or...
every, say, three weekends
so yes, even quite a bit
Probably not as much as I could
Because the kids are busy and...
I don't have any parents anymore
and my husband's family live a fair way away so
Probably is not much as we'd like to
I try to, yeah. I try and spend as much as possible
I've got two sisters. My oldest sister lives in London
She lives in a houseboat actually, on the Thames which is very nice and
My little sister lives in Tenerife with my parents
I don’t, no. We’re geographically quite spread out.
Yeah, I do. I go to school in Toronto and they live there
I see them on weekends and whenever I can, really
Do you think you have inherited any family characteristics?
Often people say that I sound
and look a lot like my dad
which I don't see but
everybody else does so, I guess I have done
Yes, I do. A lot of people sometimes say
I look like my aunt... or my mother
but then, there a couple
my aunt and my cousins
that when people see us, they are like are you guys sisters?
unfortunately I think I have, but
probably not all bad
my family seems we have fairly good personalities and
it's usually fun being around them so
I think I might have inherited some of that
Oh absolutely
I get stressed very easily
I guess take things too seriously sometimes but
I really value spending time with my family
and that's probably a big thing that I've inherited
physically yeah, definitely
I think I'm quite slender and quite tall
which is ike my mum
In terms of personality probably not
no, I don't think so, no.
Yeah, definitely. I think from my mom I've got the kind of bubbliness
and chattiness, she's very much like that and
most of the time I'm like that, but then
When I'm in a bad mood I get the dad side
he’s kind of, my mum used to call him ‘a volcano'
because he kind of just ‘erupts’. He’s really peaceful most of the time
but then when you really make him angry he'll erupt and that's
kind of how it is with me
This is moment I think probably happens to all of us
where there was something
our mom or dad did between hated and
then we find that we’re doing it.
Do you know much about your family history?
Yes, I know quite a lote
some group of eccentrics really
my family was... essentially
they lived in Scotland and Argentina
different bits of Latin America
So I know, I know quite a lot about it
we're like great writters and historians
so, we do a lot of work with you know
colleting that, we did a lot of work colleting that data
about families history coming from Barbados
and go into Liberia wich is where I'm from originally
A little bit, one of my aunties did a family tree and...
it appears that I'm a badass
I think, a third generation Australian
originally, we came from County Clare in Ireland
so, that’s as much as I know.
Yeah, it’s quite interesting actually because
my father and my mother were both Catholic missionaries from Spain
and they met in Zimbabwe while they
while my father was a priest and my mother was a nun
and they fell in love and they kind of left the church
and decided to settle down in Zimbabwe and have kids.
Yeah, I mean Canada is a country of immigrants
so my family’s from Scotland and France
I remember conversations with my grandparents
them explaining but I wish I’d written more down because
it’s amazing how much you forget
You think, ‘I’m sure it’s so vivid
I’m sure I’d remember more, but I wish I did.
Does your family history play a part in your sense of who you are?
Yes, very much so
And part of that is that I was brought up in Latin America
speaking Spanish to my friends and English to my parents
so, in a sense, I was brought up between two cultures
and that, at the end, is part of who I am.
Definitely because family is a big part of me
and we just try to keep those connections going
I guess it’s a difficult balance in my head to see
how much is me and how much is my family
and knowing about my family history and knowing what I have inherited
which I’m sure there’s lots and lots of habits
that I must have inherited, but I feel a lot of it’s ‘me’ but it probably isn’t.
no, not really at all
I left home when I was about sixteen or seventeen so
I think my sense of identity has been very much formed
by my own belief systems and my own lifestyle
rather than being particularly keyed into anything to do
with my parents or my grandparents.