La Bajada, Cuba | Eleonora Vendetta, Google Maps

“Iowa?”

“I have a map, I’ll show it to you.”

While Mama ran to Father’s study, the girls eyed one another. It was Raquelin who spoke. “What will we do without them?”

Ana pressed her lips tight. With Father facing decades in prison, and Mama going into hiding, it was the only way. To keep the family together, they must first be wrenched apart.

She did not want to live somewhere else. She wanted to swim in the ocean, to feel the sea breeze. Cuba was her heart—its ocean, her soul. It was the first thing she saw when she flung open her shutters in the morning, and the last thing she heard at night.

When mama brought the map, Ana traced a finger around the shape of this ‘Iowa.’ There was no ocean there. There was no sea within a thousand kilometers.

How was a girl to live?

—

150 words

This has been an edition of What Pegman Saw. To read more stories inspired by the prompt, click here.

Inspired by the story of Cuban-born artist Ana Mendieta. who was sent to live an an Iowa orphanage at age 12, following her father’s involvement in the Bay of Pigs.

Mendieta said: “My exploration through my art of the relationship between myself and nature has been a clear result of my having been torn from my homeland during my adolescence. The making of my silueta in nature keeps (make) the transition between my homeland and my new home. It is a way of reclaiming my roots and becoming one with nature. Although the culture in which I live is part of me, my roots and cultural identity are a result of my Cuban heritage.”

Santa Ana, El Salvador | Lopez Lopez, Google Maps

It was here we prayed. Rosibel held the infant, while the boy clung to my chest. The older children sat solemn upon the bench.

We’d come so far, but there were miles more to go. Miles of jungle, of desert, of plain. Catching trains when we were able, walking when we couldn’t, and every day facing bottomless hunger, endless thirst, and the banditos that preyed upon the desperate such as we were.

It was still better than what we risked by staying in San Salvador. Ivanito shifted in my lap. He was but three, but he would never know a gang initiation, or to have to murder another man just to stay alive. Our kids would live a good life.

We were hard workers, Rosibel and I. We’d keep them safe. I breathed the scent of Ivanito’s hair and pressed my lips to his head.

Let nothing come between us.

—

150 words

This has been an edition of What Pegman Saw. To read more stories inspired by the prompt, click here.

Balbulol Dive Resort, Indonesia | Lera 76, Google Maps

Mr. Vanadel called my papa lazy, and it was true he was no fisher anymore. Instead he sat on our slant porch carving rosewood into asmat. When Mr. Vanadel said he should take them down to shore to sell them to the tourists, Papa just said, “What for?”

It was the same thing with everything. Him, so many times going out to sea, putting gas in the boat, then fourteen-hour days, earning pennies on the pound. He’d come back poorer than when he left. And if the rains fell, or the tides turned swell, or the winds blew in from the south, no man among us could break even. Which to me is why he said it, why I heard it more and more, and why I got to wondering if it made any difference if I finished school. Because the thing I had to ask myself, was: What for?

—

150 words

This has been an edition of What Pegman Saw. To read more stories inspired by the prompt, click here.

This seemed like such an idyllic place when I picked it, but I didn’t read far before I learned about the wrenching poverty suffered by most of the population. To learn more: Behind the beauty of Indonesia’s Raja Ampat islands lie poverty and neglect

Selma, Alabama | Google Maps

You may choose
To sleep in on a Tuesday
Roll late out of bed when you hear your sister call,
saying what you doing girl—don’t you know what’s on about?
you may never get to say no
you may have yourself a daddy-man
you may be sick, you may be poor
you may have nothing left to give, and still you have to give it all
it ain’t up to you.
Only thing you got, Child
is one day to use your voice
better use it while you can.
Raise your voice.
Catch a ride uptown
or even take the bus
or walk it, if you must,
even barefoot and pregnant, with a child on each arm.
Send them to wait in the vestibule
while you do it.
Then you go inside
sign your name and show your picture
and walk into the voting both where
You. May. Choose.

—

150 words

This has been an edition of What Pegman Saw. To read more stories inspired by the prompt, click here.

As of today’s writing, women in Alabama can still vote.