In just nine years, Orlando Akunya became popular in his city. In the 60s in Haria (Lansarot) there were only two bodies. One of them was at home. His family was able to buy him thanks to the money that his aunt Milagros sent from Venezuela, where he emigrated when the drought was placed on the island. “This TV was boomI blackmail “My colleagues from school and, if they helped me make my homework, let them go into my grandmother’s house to watch TV, 10 or 15 children came the best,” he recalls with love.
The history of Orlando is the story of thousands of people in the Canary Islands, who recently saw their relatives in Latin America in search of the future. They did it on ships. Sometimes legally, but sometimes secretly. “Now we are on the other side, because we have important economic development, but we should never lose the prospect,” he says.
The first of his family to leave the island was his uncle. He did it on a ship that sailed from the peninsula and stopped at the Arcife dock. “The family of my grandmother was completely dependent on four lands that I had, and on the sale of agricultural products. In those years there was a rather strong drought, and there were five of them. Everyone could not run away with what was here, ”he recalls.
As many of his friends made then, his uncle “armed” in Venezuela. “He worked on the first that he was offered in rural areas. The lord of Galicia gave him a job and a place for life. The information that he sent here was that it was very good there, that the earth was very grateful and that I hope to pick up my aunt in the near future, ”he recalls.
In two and a half, in 1963, Milagros and his son left Lansarota. In Venezuela, three lived in the room. “I was small and saw uncertainty. My grandmother has always been: “Oh, God, God, how will these people go there? “Remember. Every day they were looking forward to the arrival of Carlos, the postman, with the hope that he would bring news from the other side of the ocean.
Five years later, Milagros and her husband received their own land and began to send money to the Canary Islands. This bonanza was reflected in the house of Orlando, as well as in the house of other islanders. The neighbors began to buy lots and reform rooms. The first devices also arrived in the city.
“I remember the return. Summer always temporarily came to someone, who brought part of Venezuela, ”he says. His aunt also traveled to Lansarot on vacation once. “The husband did what was unthinkable in the city. He rented a tourist machine and took my grandmother to see tourist centers. Jameos of water, to the Hotel of the Farions … ”, he says. “I suggested that from my aunt throughout the city, because it was different, very modern,” he smiles.
The pride of the emigrant
In the 70s, Milagros began to send money so that his relatives built a house in the fishing village of Punta -Muhers. What he did not know is that over time this house will become his rescuer in order to be able to exist in recent years in Venezuela. “From the 90s, the news began to change. There they walked not as good as before. Although they did not tell us not to worry about my grandmother, we watched how television and other family members already knew that they were not so good, ”says Orlando.
“We asked ourselves why they had to go from rural areas to the city in order to be able to talk to us on the phone. Then we learned that because of the absence of money they had to withdraw the phone, ”he adds. Meanwhile boom Tourism and fishing in Lansarot found the island economically remove.
The hypotheses were confirmed when Milagro decided to sell Punt’s house. “Then we realized that they even need to buy medicines. My father and my uncles sent him bags of medicines, things that were needed and money, ”says Orlando. “We send him help without asking for it. I think that this is the pride of the emigrant, not having failed and not ask for help from the site on which he left, ”he thinks.
Things continued to change, and five years ago Orlando found out that the grandson Milagros made the same trip as she, but back. He emigrated from Venezuela to the Canary Islands, in particular, to the island of Tenerife. “I tried to get a job. Then we brought him in Lansarot, he lived in my aunt’s house for three months, and today he is the head of the household store and brought his wife, as his grandparents did, ”says Orlando.
Milagros died in Venezuela at the age of 94 in December 2024, but his story forever celebrated his family. He is now 59 years old, and he is a professor of geography and history at the State Institute of Canary Islands. Among all the lessons that your students move, it is that there is no need to give something for granted. “In the class, sometimes I have to tell my experience to tell you that maybe I studied thanks to emigrants. Thanks to the money that my aunt sent, I had the best life, and then I had to send money there because my aunt was needed, ”he emphasized.
“There are times that are from EMI, and there are times when we are from IMI, and history changes. We are not crazy, let’s not create stereotypes, because the Canary Islands have always been a place that emigrated, ”he says. “I always say this because students receive messages that say that an emigrant is the one who is to blame, and I must actually put them. This is my mission, my sand grain, ”he concludes.