Though Merced’s life was literally and metaphorically on fire, she still hesitates to describe the situation as bad. They were rooting for me, supporting me.” She booked the role. "Everyone teamed up and tried to make it better. They dressed me up and did my hair," she shares. It was the first time she felt a sense of compassion, of community. So her family and neighbors rallied around her. She had prepared for it and, above all, she was excited about it. I mean, it wouldn't make any sense," she says. Just one day after the fire, Merced had her first proper audition for The Sound of Music. Her father, who was working that night, arrived at his own address to put out the fire. When the fire started, she was home with her two brothers and her mother. "I was over at my friend's house that night, and I was begging to sleep over," she recalls. She vividly remembers that summer evening. Her life was by-the-book normal for a while, until an electrical fire destroyed her family home in 2008. Merced returned to Ohio with newfound appreciation for her heritage, culture, and food. Then, somewhere along this journey, something shifted for her, and the punishment became a reward. She felt like a foreigner - and like a toddler, too, relearning the basics from scratch.
Merced was "mad" that she had to trade her Northern Hemisphere summer for a Southern Hemisphere winter. At the time, the decision to send her to Peru felt like a punishment. Merced settled into her mom's family house, but she didn't feel at home.
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