That Takes Ovaries! (17 page)

My colleague and I were associates of a university-based conflict resolution program. We were making this grueling trek to the south of the country with two guides and a journalist in hopes that we would be granted a meeting with the leadership of a sophisticated and disciplined liberation movement. The rebels had been fighting for independence from the ruling government for more than a decade, in a war that had taken tens of thousands of lives. We decided that though a meeting was not guaranteed, we would make the trip to show the guerillas we were sincere in our desire to understand the conflict from their point of view. Understanding each side’s perspective is the third party’s first step in any conflict resolution process. We hoped this course might eventually lead to a face-to-face meeting between the warring parties.

The logistical arrangements of our trip were in the hands of Catholic priests trusted by both sides. Fortunately, they didn’t tell us about the potential dangers we would face. We were nervous enough; after all, this was the heart of a violent, protracted ethnic conflict. Anything could happen. We could be caught by government forces, perhaps, or caught in the cross fire of a skirmish. We chose not to think about it.

We were told that with government forces patrolling the lagoon, we’d have a better chance of escaping their scrutiny if we crossed in the dark of night, when rebel boats turned off their
navigation lights and maneuvered by starlight alone—everyone wanted to avoid flagging the government’s attention. Anxiously waiting in the hut, we drank tea served by our rebel hosts and engaged in conversation with our priest guides, one of whom was an amateur astronomer. Perhaps he decided to give us a lecture on astronomy to distract us from our nervousness. Leading us outside, directing our gaze to the magnificent constellations filling the sky, he convinced us that our view would be even more splendid from the boat. This made us almost excited about making what we knew would be a risky and illegal crossing.

At 2:00 A.M., the rebels determined we should begin our hour-and-a-half trip. We walked to the water’s edge to a rowboat with a small outboard engine on the back.
This couldn’t be for all five of us?
I thought. It was. Fear for our physical safety rose up my chest and into my throat. Two young guerilla fighters, no more than sixteen years old, were to take us across. I looked them over, hoping to find reassurance that it was okay to put my life in their hands. It did not take long to conclude that these boys, who had given up so much to fight for national independence, were not only competent but filled with a determination and purpose the likes of which I had rarely seen. Witnessing the young men’s strength, I decided to override my initial emotional response: I swallowed my fear and stepped into the overfull, rocking boat.

All was going well until halfway through our journey. In the middle of the lagoon, the motor spurted fumes and then stopped. Suddenly we became stationary and dangerously perfect targets, undetectable to other unlit boats whizzing past. A bolt of panic shot through me as I envisioned being hit, boat splintering to bits, bodies lost in the dark waters below.

To calm us, the priest began his second astronomy lecture, but I was unable to concentrate on his words. I studied the young guerillas’ every move as they repeatedly lifted the engine out of the water in an attempt to locate the problem. It was a combination of physical and mental inventiveness and ingenuity that left me awestruck. I may have felt scared, but I never
doubted I was in good hands. I was seeing a small example of what the liberation movement was capable of—endurance in the face of great odds. A part of me relaxed, and I was able to tune into the lecture on celestial masterpieces.

After what became a tense hourlong wait, the guerillas finally restarted the engine, and in another hour we saw the shoreline. Due to our delay, by the time we neared land, the tide had receded and the boat was unable to navigate any closer to the beach. We would have to walk a mile through the water, waistdeep, to reach the shore. I looked at my colleagues, exchanging glances of sheer panic.
Could we possibly walk that far in the water in the dead of night, our belongings over our heads, not knowing what we were stepping on, with only the stars to guide us?
I was sure I had used up all my reserves of courage just making it across the lagoon. So where was I to reach to find the strength to fight my fears that were now winning me over?

I did not have time to think about it. We were hastily ushered off the boat and into the water before I knew it. I looked at the journalist accompanying us, our eyes locked for a second, and she said, “Just keep walking.” With every breathless step I took, I realized that this was a war zone, and for once in my life, instead of reading about it, I was part of it.

Regardless of my utter exhaustion and a mind full of worries, by 4:00 A.M. we reached the beach. We were quickly taken to a convent and greeted by a nun, her face lit only by the candle she was holding. (The city, immersed in war, was virtually without electricity.) I took one look at the nun and wanted to run into her arms and cry. I knew she was aware of what we had been through, her face communicating more than just her warm welcome. For years she had been working with the local people, living in the midst of this deadly conflict. We followed her quiet steps to a bedroom, where she urged us to sleep.

Two days after our arrival, we were granted a meeting with the rebel leadership. We were grateful for the opportunity to hear their perspective on the conflict and to introduce ourselves and our work. Our experience in the country, however, was much
more than that two-hour meeting. The tenacity and fearlessness I had witnessed in the people—our guides, the young rebels in the boat, the nun—and the inspiring way they conducted their lives in the face of constant danger, helped me to see that the distinction between what we think we cannot do and what we must do is often not a matter of choice. On a personal level, I was brought face-to-face with my own fears, which I discovered were more relenting than I had thought. Experiencing fear can paradoxically move us more toward courage than cowardice.

In late 1993, I left my home, my town, my country, my children—my six children. I thought only of them when I made the decision—and it tore at my heart.

I was the only parent they had. Their father, my husband, had left years earlier when I was pregnant with our youngest, making our economic situation very difficult. My minimum-wage salary as a secretary wasn’t enough. It paid for three days of food and four days of worry. I faced a hard choice: Remain in El Salvador, unable to provide the clothes and food my kids needed, and the education they deserved, or get to the United States where I could work and send money home so they could have a decent life—but without a mother. When my parents offered to care for
them, my father was insistent: “What’s going to happen to you here with six kids, alone? You
have
to go to help your children.”

My sister, who had already made the hazardous trip to the United States, sent a letter:

She said the coyotes, guides for those making the illegal border crossing, take ten, fifteen, thirty people, demanding half the money ($2,500 per person) in advance. Yet if they decide they don’t have enough to cover the costs of the whole group, they purposely “lose” a few en route and proceed on.

I knew it was a chance I had to take for my children. My generous sister sent the $2,500, so I gathered my strength and put my faith in God. I left home while my youngest slept. The older ones, fourteen, twelve, and ten, were crying and hugging me good-bye as I left in the dark of early morning. I brought nothing with me, just my pants and blouse, my sadness and tears.

We walked for endless days through El Salvador and Guatemala, passing lush, green mountains. I barely noticed their beauty due to my grief and my anxiety about the uncertainties ahead. Our four coyotes quickly became abusive, hitting us and threatening further violence. One night they raped the fourteen-year-old girl from our group, in front of all of us. She was sobbing and screaming, we all were, but we couldn’t stop them. Our lives, and those of our children back home, depended on our enduring their abuse. We spent two weeks with these men.

In Mexico, with new coyotes, things got worse. Fear became our daily companion. We walked through the jungle for days at a time, scanning the bushes for robbers, coyotes (real ones), cobras, and dangerous
pantanos
—quicksand-like swamps. We
were soaked much of the time from crossing river after river, sometimes at night, illegally. When some were too scared to cross in unsafe and rickety rafts, the coyotes dismissed them, saying, “Then stay.” Once our group got lost in the thick of the jungle for a full day. We walked without food, unable to find a path out. When we made it to a river at nightfall, we were so hungry we caught crawfish and ate them raw. Occasionally, we paid men to drive us in perilously overcrowded cars. Once we spent four days straight on a train with nothing to eat but peanuts.

Wherever I was, whatever I was doing, constant worries chased me: How are my children doing without me? Will they be okay? What if I am killed? My family does not know where I am or how I am doing. They won’t know what happened to me. I am alone.

Our coyotes in Mexico hit the women, grabbed them, and sometimes took one away, out of sight for a while. One night they threatened to throw each of us into the river and drown us unless we did what they wanted. What they wanted was to rape all the women of our group at once.

I was trembling, terrified, as I approached one of the coyotes, a man from my hometown. Half begging, half threatening, I said, “Please, if you let them rape me, I’ll escape and tell both of our families back home.” He knew that meant they would all openly condemn him.

He spoke with the other coyotes, then said, “Don’t worry, they won’t do anything to you. But you aren’t to leave this room, or even open the door.”

“What about the other women?”

“I can’t do anything about that. Just take care of yourself. The others aren’t important.”

That night, I heard screaming, sobbing, hitting, and blows. Asking for God’s help, I sat huddled alone in that room, crying all night long.

The following day, and for days after, all the women were still in tears. The men had even raped the fourteen-year-old again. We went numb; we had already paid our money, a huge sum,
and on some level felt it no longer mattered what happened to us because we were going to be living in the United States, and that was enough.

In Mexicali, on New Year’s Eve, we attempted to cross the border by scurrying through dark, dirty, underground storm drains with only flashlights to light the way. The Border Patrol caught some of us, including a señora and me. It was a nightmare. The prison guards hit us to get—they said—the truth: our names, where we were from, why we had come. We lied, saying we were Mexicans, so that when they returned us “home” we wouldn’t have to start from El Salvador again. The whole two hours in prison, the señora and I couldn’t stop crying.

After they “returned” us to Mexico, we waited three days and, determined, tried again, this time from Tijuana. We watched the Border Patrol, and when we saw them arresting other people trying to cross, that was when we ran and ran. I was shaking with fear all the way, but we made it!

It had been six weeks of terror and tears. Like the others, I was traumatized. After making it to the United States, I tried to forget the hell we had all lived through. What else could I do? I found work quickly in a fruit-packing factory and sent money to my children as soon as possible.

I am comfortable here with my sister in the United States, though I never stop feeling the lump of sadness sitting in my stomach and throat—my children are so far away. If you asked me today if I made the right decision by coming, I can’t say I did. My kids need me, and instead they have to grow up without me. My littlest, only two when I left, doesn’t even know me. At least they have money to live on, are in school, and have a future. Before, I could not say that. I don’t feel it was the
right
choice to come to the United States, but I don’t feel there
was
a right choice—either way, my kids suffered.

Last month, seven years after my trip, my twenty-one-year-old daughter arrived. I was worried about her making the journey, but she knew the dangers and insisted on coming. Luckily she didn’t face any problems, and though the ache I feel from
missing my other children has not gone away, at least now my daughter and I have each other.