'I find it exciting to stand in the light'

'Important events last month: incidents involving telephones'. Browsing through her own youth care file, Moraya Lopez (25) sometimes cannot suppress a laugh. She stops at a report from 2014 and reads: “Moraya's phone was taken away because she could not keep to the agreements regarding its use. She said her phone was lost, but turned out to have it in her possession.”

She nods. “Yes, that was Moraya indeed.”

Her fingers continue to slide past 'reports', 'assessment forms', 'advice and evaluation reports'. A4 pages were typed up about an adolescent girl from Amsterdam in terms such as 'aggressive' and 'obese'. A girl who 'lies' and 'runs away' and 'doesn't keep appointments'.

File 107 is a four centimeter thick stack of Moraya with a brown cardboard cover around it. But which Moraya is this about?

The cover was already around it when she requested her file as a young adult from the Child Protection Council. She applied the tabs herself, “with the relevant information”.

Because it was certainly there. Here, 2012, a letter to her guardian. She was thirteen. Moraya reads: “I know exactly what I'm missing. Love and attention like I should have gotten as a little girl.”

Clear, right? But she doubts whether the group leaders at all those living groups have read the letter. Then they would have known that she still felt a little seen with that telephone, her only connection to the outside world. Maybe then they would have understood why she found it so difficult to hand it in at six o'clock at night, preferring to hide behind the barricaded door of her room with it, where things often escalated.

The youth care file starts with a police report: 'March 11, 2011. Hi Lobke, I am sending you…' But why not with a description of who she is? Moraya Lopez, two brothers, daughter of two musicians, loves games (Ligretto!) and Italian food. Has the big smile of her Puerto Rican father and yes, also his Latin American fullness (definitely not obese).

But even that she has a beautiful voice and already wrote her first song in group 3…

Piggy, where can you be now?

In the laundry or in the laundry basket?

(accompaniment: finger snapping)

…is not included.

Four centimeters of Moraya and no letter about music? While, uh. Moraya Lopez has just launched her first album, is in demand as a singer at conferences on youth care and will be in De Kleine Komedie in Amsterdam on February 25 with her theater performance False start – tickets via moraya.nl – in which she plays and sings about a childhood full of care.

The posters are hanging, the flyers have been made and at home, in her apartment in Amsterdam, she is making the final preparations. Promotion for the show. Every day a post about yourself on Instagram and TikTok. Shouldn't be a problem. In fact, as a third-year HBO creative business student, she learns how to approach this as a media professional.

Your behavior changes because of what you experience and how people treat you

And yet, it just doesn't work. Every Friday she makes a whole plan about what she is going to post next week, “and then I see the days fly by without…”.

How is that possible?

“Yes, good one. I have no problem showing myself on stage. But on social media…. I think I find it exciting to be visible, to stand in the light.”

Maybe you've never done it that way?

“Beats. I have always kept myself small. I thought for a long time: can I be there? Thought there was something wrong with me. That I'm not good enough. That no one wants me. And with those thoughts I unconsciously keep myself small. Who am I to give someone else a flyer of myself? But eventually I'll do it. My mission is bigger than my fear.”

What is your mission?

“Letting the child's voice be heard. There are so many children who are powerless. Who do not feel heard or seen, within and outside youth care. So this story is not about me either. It is a story of many, and I am grateful to be able to tell it.”

Mother drinking, father out of the picture. Moraya Lopez was nine months old when she was first removed from her home. Then back home. Out of the house. At home. Difficult years in which she felt like she was alone.

One anecdote.

She pours another cup of tea.

“I had turned seven that morning and my mother had been baking apple turnovers all night to hand out at school. But when I woke up, she was asleep. I couldn't wake her up. Playing the recorder, cold washcloth, shaking, curtains open; my regular ritual. It didn't work and my brother had to go to school swimming so he couldn't help either. And I couldn't find the apple turnovers anywhere. Yes, one baking tray, it was on the stove, but I didn't see the other one anywhere. In the oven of course, but I didn't know that. And it was already eight o'clock.

“That one baking tray was never enough, so I just cut them into pieces. And I would also hand out erasers. Go, in a bowl. I walked to school with that. But I was too late. The door was already closed. Too late on my own birthday, I sat in front of the door crying with those apple turnovers and erasers. A teacher opened the door, but I didn't honestly say what was going on. I didn't want to put my mother in a bad light. That had an effect on her, I knew that. And I didn't dare go into class either. I was terribly ashamed.”

Moraya had pinned her hopes on her father. Daddy's little girl. She had never seen him, he lived in New York. She had been conceived from a short-lived romance, she understood, but she had never seen a photo. “I really wanted to know what he looked like and if he knew I existed.”

At fourteen she found him on Facebook and three years later Moraya traveled to California in search of her roots. Her father had died – an accident – but Moraya received a letter from her grandmother, written by her father for her fourth birthday. “He knew I existed!” “We're having a party,” it said, “and I love you.” February 25, when Moraya performs in the Little Comedy, coincidentally is his birthday. “Is he still a bit involved?”

Rules, rules, rules. Shower so late. That's how late the laundry is. You are put into a mold in youth care

In California, Moraya noticed how deeply she had hidden the child within herself. She stayed with her family for five weeks, but she didn't want to do anything herself, such as doing the laundry or going to McDonald's for WiFi. They wanted to pamper her, protect her like their child. “Well-intentioned of course, but I was dependent on them all the time. That is one of my biggest allergies.”

Her childhood stopped around the age of six, and since then Moraya has taken care of herself. “Clean up the room, change the bed, go to school myself.” Mother was often away at night and Moraya would wake up before she heard the door unlock. “Always alert.”

She buried her inner child even deeper when she was removed from her home at the age of eleven. Her mother allowed her brother to continue living at home, but not her. She didn't understand anything. Thought it was her fault. Then she moved, fourteen times in total, from
one living group to another, because there was no permanent place anywhere.

Describe that eleven-year-old girl.

“Cheerful, from the outside. Smiling, 'we'll get through it'. I wanted to hold on to that. But inside: broken.”

How did that manifest itself?

“Playing the clown. Things also went wrong in high school. I was looking for confirmation. Then just a role as a joker. I was sent away. Another school, another living group. Constantly moving. My file says I ran away and was aggressive. But your behavior changes because of what you experience and how people treat you. That made me extra sad afterwards: that no one saw where that behavior came from.”

But don't you also have psychologists working with you in youth care?

“Yes, but many care providers expect you to reveal yourself during the first conversations. While, that takes time. And why does that have to happen in such a treatment hour, on their terms? It doesn't work that way with children at home. If they are angry and you sit them on the couch to talk about it… No, you will have to wait until they come to you one evening and say: 'Mom, this happened today'.”

Didn't you feel that space in such a living group?

“Well no. Constantly different group leaders, varying shifts. I had a click with some of them, but of course they were not always there at the right times.”

What was the atmosphere like in such a group?

“There was a certain tension. Everyone is there for their own reason. All packed with emotion. But that is not openly discussed. Not even by the group leaders. And we also just did fun girl things. Hair straightening, hair dyeing. My poor hair, haha. But all it took was one thing, like that phone, and the bomb exploded.”

Why did you have to hand that phone in at six o'clock?

“Rules, rules, rules. First brown then white. First savory then sweet. Shower so late. That's how late the laundry is. You are put into a mold in youth care. And if your feeling is not there for a moment, then there is no room for that. Somehow I understand that, because rules are rules. And at the same time I don't understand it.”

Moraya would like to give youth care a better look at the child's inner world. “I am the child with emotions and I have no idea. You're the adults, you know how that works. So teach me how to deal with it. Teach me the world.”

She has fond memories of the family home in Hoenderloo where Moraya lived when she was fifteen. Six girls, two family parents. Fixed faces. Homeliness. “Just playing games together at a big table. Oh wonderful!” She realized that she would never live at home again, which also gave her peace of mind. Then back to Amsterdam. Room training. Study. Perspective.

Moraya wrote the song when she was eighteen File 107, about privacy in youth care. She had sent it to a friend with whom she was doing experiential theater and who put her on the spot. “Who else wants to sing something?” the director had asked. “Yes, Moraya…” She was allowed to record the song in a professional music studio, including a video clip, and was asked to sing about the child perspective at numerous conferences. An eye-opener, also for herself. “I can do something,” she realized. 'And people are happy with it' Through the many reactions, she discovered that she was far from the only one with this experience.

“Here, the flyer.” Moraya slides it across the table. She herself is standing in a long white dress and a child hugging her.

That child…

“…Is my little self. How do I find it again? My inner voice. I always pushed her away. That is what the show is about.”

Will you be able to find little Moraya now?

“Sometimes yes. Like, I really like the rain. Then I want to go outside and I have the urge to skip. Just to kind of… thank you, life, thank you.”

Skipping like a child.

“But I don't give myself enough space for that yet. So now I have a cupboard full of craft supplies. Glitter, diamonds, paint to dab. I never tinker. But I do want it. Little Moraya likes to do crafts. And not, like big Moraya: with results, to fit the mold. But simply, without purpose. That is my intention now: seek out fun, cheerfulness. That, if I feel good enough, and I find it terrifying, I might one day become a mother myself. Hopefully.”

So this child on the flyer is also your…

“Yes, exactly.”

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