Bios

My name is Karen Alcira and I am 35 years old. I was born in Managua, Nicaragua (Central America). My parents are María Lourdes and Karil José; they had me at the very young age of 21 and 25. When I was 8 years old, my brother Christian E. was born.

My childhood was one of the great stages of life that I enjoyed. I was a very happy, playful girl, loved to dance and participated in modeling. I was a very friendly girl and pampered by my grandparents, uncles and aunts. I studied my Primary and High School in a school for nuns called Colegio Pureza de María, where I met my best friend, almost my sister, María Teresa; we study together in high school and in university. This year she unfortunately died and it has been one of the greatest pains in my life.

In 2003, I began my studies of Architecture. Since I was little, my parents thought that I would study this profession because I was always a very detailed person: I loved to draw, I loved colors and I accompanied my paternal grandfather to construction projects. My grandfather was a Civil Engineer and had a construction company. In 2005, I started working part time in a construction company with the goal of having work experience and studying at night.

This time of working and studying at the same time was stressful and tiring, but I loved doing both. In 2017 I started studying two postgraduate courses, one in Interior Design and one in Garden Design. I did not manage to finish them because of the problems in my country that forced me to leave my country in 2018. I had to leave everything: my family, friends, work, etc.

At present I have been living in Canada for 2 years with my husband Lennin Zeledon. My husband and I met in 2016 through a mutual friend; my best friend Walter.

In 2018 I got married. It was a very small ceremony with our family and close friends. That same year in August, due to problems of the dictatorship of the government of my country, my husband and I had to leave the country, because our lives were in danger. In October we arrived in Canada where we requested refugee status. We lived in Toronto for a year, then for a better job offer for Lennin we moved to Birch Hills, Saskatchewan. We have currently been living here a year, and it is a very different place from Toronto, but we love it and we are waiting for the birth of our first son Liam Zeledon.