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Now that I had made this life-changing decision entirely on my own, I felt the need to pause, to truly look inward and gather strength for the road ahead. I came to understand that the strength that carries you forward does not come from the outside. It is not found in the encouragement of Costas Cotsiolis, Manuel Barrueco or even Pepe Romero. David Russell had already shown me where that strength truly lives: within myself.

It was my decision. My dream. And yet, I knew that something deeper was pushing me forward something rooted far beneath the surface. It was my past, my origins, my history. It was where I came from, and where my mother had long taught me never to return. There was no way back, only forward, toward a new reality and a new version of myself.

My mother had lived her entire life moving forward in exactly this way. Through her example, she showed me that there was only one direction: ahead.

She gave birth at just nineteen years old, in Santa Cruz, Bolivia, in 1969, a Latin American society steeped in contradiction. On the surface, Catholic values and moral virtues were loudly praised, yet when a young, poor woman was left alone to raise a child, she was met with the full weight of hypocrisy. Survival required strength, resilience, and solitude.

My mother had become an orphan around the age of twelve and she was raised by relatives. She never spoke about her past, never. Only in the final months of her life did she share brief fragments, distant memories she could still access. Her past was buried so deeply within her that much of it had faded entirely. I was born in December, which makes it likely that I was conceived during Carnival, that wild time when, throughout much of Latin America, education, restraint, and Catholic morality momentarily dissolve in a deeply male-dominated society.

After my birth, my mother was still living in the countryside near Santa Cruz. But small villages can become unforgiving places when a young woman is left alone with a child. So she made a difficult decision and moved into the city, where there were at least more opportunities to work and survive.

I carry faint but vivid memories of that time. My mother took any job she could find. We lived in the slums of Santa Cruz, in a tiny 4-by-4-meter shack made of wooden planks. There was no electricity, no running water, and when it rained, water would flood into our single room.

She seized every opportunity to improve herself, hoping for better work. I remember accompanying her to evening classes where she learned to sew and design clothes. She was training to become a tailor. While she studied and practiced, I lay on a blanket on the floor with a few simple toys, eventually falling asleep. My next memory was always waking up back in our small, humble shack.

Even my toys were improvised. My first tricycle had no wheels. My mother had found the frame in the trash and later asked a carpenter to carve wooden wheels for it. I played with it joyfully; I remember that clearly.

During the day, my mother worked tirelessly. In the evenings, she sewed. Soon she had enough tailoring work to stay home more often, designing dresses and skirts while I stayed by her side.

But her determination did not stop there. She pushed forward again and began working as a maid for European families; households with higher expectations, stricter standards, and different habits. Her reliability and discipline made her highly sought after within the European community.

That was how, one day, a German gentleman was looking for a maid. Within the European circle, my mother was recommended. This was the moment she met Mr. Schlieder, a German civil engineer working in Santa Cruz for the German government.

Soon after, my memories settle into a quiet routine. After school, I would go home and do my homework. I attended a modest school run by a Catholic organization, which also included a kindergarten where my mother had enrolled me at a very early age. Over time, my mother’s relationship deepened, and after a few years she married Mr. Schlieder and became Mrs. Schlieder. Not long after, I held my little sister in my arms for the first time. By then, we were living together in a beautiful house and we even had a swimming pool.

My stepfather soon became simply my father, the only male figure I truly knew. Yet another person would become profoundly important in my life. When I was eight years old, my parents decided to send me to Germany to stay for an extended time with my German grandfather. It became the greatest adventure of my childhood.

I was to fly alone, all by myself, to Frankfurt, Germany. A small boy, suddenly asked to make a gigantic leap and learn how to adapt. Of course, at that age I didn’t reflect on the meaning of such a change. I followed my mother’s path without question, without fear.

And so there I was, carrying memories of our wooden shack in the slums of Santa Cruz, sitting inside a giant airplane, flying toward Frankfurt with stops in Lima/Peru and New York/USA. The flight attendants took care of me, and I was even allowed to sit in the cockpit with the captain for nearly an hour. I still remember the massive towers of clouds below us, glowing red and gold in the light of the setting sun.

My grandfather and grandmother picked me up at the airport. I clearly remember the moment and I know I wasn’t afraid, only curious, full of wonder about what lay ahead.

In Germany, my grandfather treated me like his greatest pride, his most precious treasure. He called me “Mein Goldjunge” - my golden boy. Almost immediately after my arrival, he took me to the opera. The day before, we went shopping, and I was dressed in a suit with a bow tie. The world I had suddenly entered felt unreal, almost magical. But I absorbed everything like a sponge.

My grandfather showed me everything he believed was important: the historic library, the symphony hall, the opera house, and long walks through the park. And of course, he bought me toys, but not just any toys. I discovered my love for building model airplanes and ships. Almost every day I completed a small model, carefully painted it, and admired how closely it resembled the original on the box.

One evening, my grandmother helped me get dressed, and we drove to the opera in my grandfather’s car. The image is still vivid in my mind, as if it were yesterday: Rossini’s The Barber of Seville. The classic stage setting, the humor, the laughter—I laughed freely too, comforted by the sound of the audience laughing along with me.

That was the moment my grandfather planted the seed of music deep inside me; a seed that would never leave me for the rest of my life.

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Every time I think back to that opera, a smile rises on my face without effort. One scene, in particular, still lives vividly in my memory—the moment that made me laugh out loud. Even today, I find myself drawn to operas with traditional staging, quietly hoping to relive those sensations, to feel again what touched me so deeply back then.

But by then, the seed had already been planted. The time I spent with my grandfather was the most beautiful period of my life. I was in a foreign country, surrounded by a language I did not understand, far from my mother—yet none of this felt frightening or limiting. On the contrary, I moved through that world with open eyes and a wide heart, absorbing everything with pure wonder. I could never have imagined that this very country would one day become my home—the place that would give me opportunities, open doors, and shape the path that ultimately made me who I am today.

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