Nanny who had never left Paraguay before she came to Surfside died in collapse
Leidy Luna Villalba, 23, had never left her small town in Paraguay.
She was very close with her family, and had never had a reason to travel far away from home. But the Villalba family was struggling.
Her father, who is employed on a farm in Paraguay, wasn’t making much, and Leidy needed money to finish paying her way through nursing school.
So, Leidy — who for a year had been working as a nanny for the first lady of Paraguay’s family — decided to take a well-paid job traveling with them to Miami.
The job was supposed to be an opportunity — a silver lining for the Villalba family. Instead, it turned into a nightmare.
On Friday, two weeks after the collapse of the Champlain Towers South condo building in Surfside, police identified Leidy’s body along with the bodies of her employers, Sophia López Moreira, her husband Luis Pettengill, and their 3-year-old son Luis Vicente Pettengill López Moreira III. Two daughters remained missing as of Friday evening.
Leidy’s mother, Juana de Villalba, told the Paraguayan press that the last time she’d seen her daughter was on Sunday, when the family had gotten together to wish her well and see her off.
Leidy asked her for her blessing to go to Miami, Juana said, and when she gave it, Leidy was overjoyed. Her daughter gave her a long hug and a kiss on the cheek before she left.
Wednesday morning, Leidy texted her mother, letting her know that she had landed safely in Miami. She texted her cousin too, telling him that she was excited to explore the city and go to the beach. She would arrive at the condominium only hours before its collapse.
“She’s the primary breadwinner of our family, and she went to Miami to work,” Villalba said. “She went for us. My heart is broken.”
Ida Roa and her husband Mario Gonzalez, who have lived on 79th street for several decades, went to the makeshift memorial on Tuesday morning to hang a photo of Leidy.
Villalba’s story has resonated widely in her native country — it was Villalba’s first trip outside Paraguay — because of what her trip symbolized for much of the South American country’s working poor. She was a nursing student and was earning money to help support her family.
“I’m really emotional and I feel immense sadness to come here,” said Roa, who is from Paraguay.
Still, Leidy’s photo had been missing from the memorial wall. Roa fixed that.
This story was originally published June 25, 2021 at 6:57 PM.
