These biographies and interviews are part of the project «Ellas nos cuentan» , that our colleague Isabel Mª González Muñoz started last academic year. With them, we are going to get to know the lives and opinions of some «trianeras».

AURORA CEPEDA

Aurora is the mother of one of our students, María Cid Cepeda.

She was born on the 21st of April in 1972. She wasn’t born in Triana, but she came to Santa Cecilia when she was only one year old. She comes from a humble family, and her parents owned a family business, a bar in Aracena street, and she’s the third of four brothers. Her father is from Cádiz, and her mother from Jaén. Her mother married, had two of her brothers and then after his death her mother remarried with her actual father. She feels trianera of birth.

She studied in Vicente Aleixandre High School, and while studying, Triana High School was opened. Before that there were only the Vicente and the Becquer high schools. She lived in Seville until she was 25 years old, when she got married and moved to Bollullos, but she returned after a while and it was here in Triana where her two kids were born.

When Aurora was little she aspired to be a veterinarian, because of her animal lover family. Aurora has had many different pets: dogs, cats, chickens and chicks, hares, hamsters, birds turtles, fishes… but at the moment she doesn’t have any pets because she is not capable of seeing them locked up in a house. 

At the age of sixteen, she realized she wanted to become a psychologist, since she was fond of getting to know the whys of human behavior and how to be able to help others. From that moment on, she has worked in the field of employment orientation, and she collaborates with social organizations.

Aurora remembers the change from the dictatorship of Franco to the return of democracy, due to her not being able to leave the house nor study. It’s due to her sense of belonging, she tries to carry her feelings for Triana around, everyone here knows she’s trianera, even though she wasn’t born in the neighborhood. Aurora feels Triana is her “village”.

More curious facts: she attended the higher school of dramatic art and she drew a lot. Nowadays she attends singing classes and she does yoga and swing.

PASCUALA GARCÍA COLÓN

Pascuala is Pablo Mcgrath García’s aunt. She received the distinction «Trianera Adoptiva» for being the first woman to set up a ceramics workshop in Triana.

Pascuala García Colón was born in Seville, exactly in Albaida del Aljarafe, on April 23, 1956. She has primary school studies and is a ceramicist by profession.

Pascuala learned ceramic decoration from a painter at the Mensaque factory and it was Francisco Chaparro who gave her ceramic classes. In many aspects she is self-taught. With her family and her as leader, they opened a ceramic workshop that was also a store in the Santa Cruz neighborhood and later moved to Triana where they currently have their ceramic workshop called: Pascuala García Colón.

Mª LUISA AIDO DE ALBA

She is Álvaro Oliva Aido’s mother.

Maria Luisa Aido de Alba, also known as Marilú, was born on 19th December of 1973 in Cádiz. She runs a popular bar called “Bar la Oliva” in Triana (a neighborhood of Sevilla).

In 2003 she moved to Sevilla, where she fell in love with a man called Francisco José Oliva Saavedra, and two years later they had their first son, Álvaro. In 2009 they had another boy who they called Francisco, and soon later she started working at the family bar.

At first Marilú didn’t like Seville, she was scared of all the major changes happening in her life and saw the city with negativity. But although she was living her old life behind, she ended up falling in love with Triana and right now it would be impossible for her to leave this wonderful city. In her own words, “ the neighborhood is beautiful, it couldn’t be more beautiful”. 

She also is very grateful to the people of Triana, because they made her feel like she was one of them from the beginning and would not change a thing about them. Her quote: “These are charming, kind, and supportive people who welcome those who come from outside”.

Maria Luisa Aido de Alba is an example of a hardworking woman who reinvented herself in the neighborhood of Triana, that now has a beautiful family and runs a bar really integrated and loved in the neighborhood.