“The best day of your life is when you find out you’ve won the lottery. The ugliest ones, on the other hand, are all those who come after, and every day is worse than the last.” Word of someone who was kissed by luck, winning a record prize in the lottery, but shortly after found himself immersed in a nightmare from which it will be very difficult to get out. The story of Pedro Quezada, a Dominican living near New York City, reveals that money can sometimes be a source of trouble.
Pedro, who is 49 years old, came from a very poor family in Jarabacoa, a small town located in a rural area of the Dominican Republic. At the age of 18, in an attempt to get out of that absolute poverty, he decided to emigrate to the United States and after years of menial and occasional jobs he also managed to start a small emporium in 2006. Although his economic conditions had improved, the man was not satisfied with his life: “I could no longer bear the fatigue of having to carry all the activity alone, working even 18 hours a day. That’s why I played the lottery every week, I had a dream.”