Only the company of Mamá and my sisters gave me the strength for the long journey ahead. For the third and last time that morning, we said goodbye to Tía Soila, Mamatoya, and the rest of the family through the guagua’s dirty, broken windows. We simply waved our hands and cried quietly inside the bus.
Meeting the Coyote
We undertook a journey that took twenty-one days. I had no idea that the first bus we took was headed to Guatemala City, la capital. I was naive to think that the bus would take us straight to the US where Amado would be waiting for us in our new home. Nobody took the time to sit me down and explain the rules or what the plan was.
We spent four hours on that bus, standing in the aisle, crying the whole way. When we finally arrived, I was disappointed to find that we hadn’t even left the country. Those hours had felt like an eternity in my ten-year-old head.
As soon as we got off the bus, Mamá said, “We need to find the coyote.”
“What do we need a coyote for?” I asked, confused.
Mamá ignored me and continued to hold my hand while she searched for the “coyote.”
Why do we need a coyote? I kept asking myself.
“Aren’t coyotes dangerous?” I asked again.
“Claudita, please stop asking questions,” said Consuelo. “Mamá is nervous right now. Don’t get under her skin. I’ll explain later when we have time to rest.” She whispered in my ear so that Mamá wouldn’t get edgy.
“That’s him,” Mamá assured us.
“Who?” I asked again. I covered my mouth right away recalling what Consuelo had said.
“How do you know that’s the coyote, Mamá?” Sindy asked.
“Over the phone, he mentioned that he would be wearing a white cowboy hat. Wait here,” Mamá instructed us.
She walked up to the man wearing the white hat. She wanted to confirm that he was really the one she’d made the deal with.
In those few minutes that Mamá was gone, Consuelo told me that a coyote was a human trafficker.
“The coyote will smuggle us across the US border from México,” she said.
“Smuggle?” I asked, unsure of what it meant.
“To move us illegally into the United States,” said Sindy.
“Illegally?” I tried to make a joke, but the girls ignored me.
Mamá motioned us to come to her to meet the coyote. The coyote was not at all what I had imagined. He was a tall, thin man who wore tight blue jeans, cowboy boots, and his white hat. He introduced himself as Javi.
Javi seemed eager to shake Sindy’s hand, but Mamá didn’t give him the opportunity to even look at her. I could sense that Mamá disliked him. I didn’t trust him, either. I don’t know what was it about him that rubbed me the wrong way. It could have been his tight blue jeans or perhaps his leather cowboy boots that made him appear taller than he really was. Javi felt our mistrust for him, so he cautiously guided us to the park where a larger group of people from all over Central America were gathered. We all had the same intention to cross illegally to the other side, El Norte.
The group was composed of older men and women, young girls, and children. The young girls would get nervous around Javi. Javi flirted back with them. He would wink at them while delivering his instructions. The way he winked at Sindy bothered me. Mamá didn’t take it lightly, either. From the get go, she put her foot down and made it clear that he should stay away from Sindy.
“Don’t you dare wink at my daughter again, you understand?” Mamá scolded him in front of everyone.
He nodded and put his head down, letting the shame sink in.
Tapachula
Javi’s instructions were clear and simple:
Pretend you don’t know each other.
Keep some distance from the coyote and from each other.
Don’t talk to strangers or stray off the road.
Everywhere you go, pretend that you’re on vacation.
We did exactly as we were told. Before dispersing into small groups, another coyote approached Mamá. This coyote was the opposite of Javi. He was older and had a thick mustache. He was short and chubby. He introduced himself as Marco. He wasn’t interested in checking out Sindy or Mamá. He had a serious face, and I felt safe around him.
“Why can’t he be our coyote?”
“Shhh!” Sindy hissed, reminding me to keep my mouth shut.
Marco gave Mamá some documents. She put them in her purse right away. All these things were happening right in front of me, and I felt lost. Confused.
“What did the coyote give you, Mamá?”
“¡Nada, don’t worry about it!”
Then Javi came over to our group pretending to be a tour guide and said, “Please follow me. I’ll be your guide for this trip.”
We each carried a light backpack with only the most essential clothing items. I always kept my thick sweater tied around my waist. Mamá carried a large purse under her arm and a small amount of cash handy. The rest of the money was hidden in her underwear. As we began walking I felt scared, but Mamá held my hand tight. Consuelo and Sindy walked behind us. We kept our distance from the rest of the group. We stuck together like a pack of wolves.
That same day in la capital, we boarded another guagua that took us toward Tapachula, Chiapas—México. We were fortunate to sit together. Mamá made sure of it. She pleaded with a couple to trade seats so that both Consuelo and Sindy were behind us.
Marco didn’t board the bus with us. Javi sat in the front talking to a young woman from El Salvador. She was beautiful and wouldn’t stop laughing at his jokes. I couldn’t hear anything he was saying, but his facial expressions were animated and comical.
A few minutes later, I began to feel sick from watching the trees pass by my window at seventy miles per hour. I fell asleep on Mamá’s lap. Three hours later, we arrived at Tapachula.
Tapachula felt immediately like home, as though we had never stepped foot into another country. As we walked through the central park, I looked at the shoe shiners, who were just patojitos, small children, who had grown strong perhaps too quickly. We were the same age, but I knew we were different. At home, I would go to school and play marbles, freeze tag, or fútbol with my friends. I didn’t have to shine anyone else’s shoes.
The streets were filled with hawkers. The singsong shouting routines of the street vendors rang in my ears as they tried to convince each passerby that they were selling the most innovative goods from another world. They were selling anything from sunglasses and purses to food. The food smelled good. I was always hungry.
The streets were also filled with music and laughter. I could hear marimba jingling in the distance; I was delighted by my surroundings and foolishly pointed to Javi, who was discreetly guiding us from a distance.
“Look Mamá, there goes the coyote!”
Mamá had no choice but to squeeze my hand, hard enough to silence me the rest of the way.
We were a small group of ten people: the four of us, the pretty Salvadoran girl with her mom and little brother, an older couple, and a single man. I wondered who or what this man had left behind. Was he traveling alone like Mamá had done three years earlier? If he’d left his children behind, I hoped he would go back for them just like Mamá was now doing for us.
Javi was in charge of our group. The first thing he did was to take all of us to a flophouse in the outskirts of Tapachula. I had never stayed in a flophouse before. We hardly traveled as a family. We only went back and forth from Mayuelas to Tactic and once in a while to la capital, where we usually stayed with Papá’s family.
Our first night in Tapachula had no moon; it was cold. Our flophouse room was just like the rooms in Mamatoya’s house, except Mamatoya’s rooms were spotless. This room had four dirty purple walls, two windows, two twin-size beds, and a metal door. I slept with Mamá, and Consuelo slept with Sindy. One of the windows didn’t have glass, just some iron bars that apparently didn’t convince Mamá. She kept her eyes open all night. The next morning, my sist
ers and I woke up with swollen bites, bites from mosquitoes that had easily come through the barred windows. Mamá had dark circles under her eyes.
Getting to Know Javi
The next day, early in the morning, our group gathered in front of the flophouse. Javi brought everyone scrambled eggs and tortillas. He called them burritos. I immediately pictured eating a donkey wrapped in a tortilla. While we devoured our burritos, Javi gave the adults instructions on what to do next. I stayed behind with the girls, trying to eat their leftovers.
“He’s kind of cute, isn’t he?” said Sindy.
“Not really.” Consuelo giggled.
“Who?” I asked.
Both ignored me, making it seem as if I was too young to understand their girly conversation about boys.
Then Mamá came up to us and said, “We’re going—get your stuff.”
“Where are we going now?” I wanted to know.
Again, they ignored me. Javi was walking behind us and overheard.
“We’re going back to the bus station where we plan to board another bus that will take us to Oaxaca,” he said, winking at me this time.
Mamá didn’t notice. I looked back and smiled at him. Mamá noticed that and squeezed my hand. I was beginning to like Javi. He wasn’t such a bad guy after all.
When we got on the bus, there were no more seats available. Javi stood up and offered his seat to Mamá.
“Sindy, sit here and let Claudia sit on your lap,” said Mamá.
Sindy’s face turned all sorts of colors. It went from pink to red to purple. No matter what color her face turned, she did not look in Javi’s direction—at least not in front of Mamá.
Sindy took a seat and I sat on her lap. Mamá stood in the aisle, holding Consuelo’s hand, keeping Javi away from Sindy and me.
Sindy hugged me and buried her face in the back of my neck. I could sense her giggling and feeling important. Sindy had a crush on Javi. She didn’t mind that my hair was sticky and smelly; I hadn’t showered in two days.
“I love you, abispita,” she whispered through my short, tangled hair. I’d never felt so special.
When a few people got off the bus, Mamá and Consuelo found a seat in the back. A few minutes later, the lady sitting next to us across the aisle got off. Javi didn’t waste any time. He immediately snatched her seat. He didn’t care that the pretty Salvadoran girl was still standing in the back of the bus aisle, holding on to the luggage rails.
I was starting to feel sleepy, but I didn’t want to miss this for anything in the world. Sindy’s hands got clammy and began to tremble. She could sense Mamá glaring at them. But there was nothing Mamá could do from back there.
Javi was desperate to talk to Sindy, but Sindy wouldn’t look at him. I kept smiling and winking at him, playfully. He smiled back at me and said, “Why do Guatemalans laugh three times when they hear a joke?”
“I don’t know,” I said, shrugging my shoulders. Sindy kept quietly looking out the window. She pretended to be distracted by the sky and its clouds.
Javi continued with his joke, “Once when it’s told, once when it’s explained to them, and once when they understand it.”
I pretended to understand the joke and laughed a hearty laugh, holding my stomach. Sindy couldn’t help but laugh, too. Javi and I kept laughing throughout the trip. My laughter was so loud that it traveled to the back of the bus. A few seconds later, Mamá touched Sindy’s shoulder and said, “Go sit in the back with Consuelo.”
Sindy got up and Mamá took her place. I sat on Mamá’s lap and soon fell asleep. Javi had no choice but to keep his jokes to himself.
A few hours later, Javi instructed us to get off the bus. The group gathered in front of a street taco stand. I was hungry again. Mamá bought us each two chicken tacos. Then she warned us not to talk at all. “Mexican people recognize our Guatemalan accent. It’s better not to speak, even among ourselves,” she reminded us.
What accent? We all speak Spanish, I thought. But I didn’t say it out loud. I didn’t want Mamá to pinch my hand for the gazillionth time. I ate my tacos in silence.
The Art of Peeing
We traveled from city to city riding on buses. Most of the time I slept to avoid getting carsick. The night caught up to us riding on the third bus. The road was dark. I couldn’t see any stars in the sky. We rode on that bus for six consecutive hours. Three hours into the bus ride, I began squirming around. I had to pee badly. I almost cried keeping it to myself, until I finally mustered some courage to tell Mamá. She laughed and handed me a plastic bag.
“How am I supposed to pee in a bag?” I complained.
“Easy. Pull down your underwear, bend down, and open the bag with both of your hands. The bus isn’t going to stop for you to go out and pee!”
I was relieved that the inside of the bus was pitch-black, but once in a while, the bus driver would turn the lights on to check up on the people sitting or lying down in the aisle. I was petrified thinking that he might turn the light on right in the middle of my bathroom scene. I didn’t want Javi to see me under such humiliating circumstances.
Thankfully the bus driver kept the inside of the bus nice and dark for me. I followed Mamá’s instructions perfectly.
“Here you go,” I said, handing her the bag after I was done. Mamá tied a knot and set it on the floor next to me. The bag resembled a water pillow filled with orange Tang.
I fell asleep again on Mamá’s lap. When I woke up, the bag was gone. I noticed that the floor was moist. Suddenly, a sharp odor of cooked corn infiltrated my nose. I could recognize that smell miles away. I hoped the people sitting on the floor didn’t get wet with my bish.
Sindy’s Choice
The next morning, we arrived in Oaxaca. It was raining. The streets were empty. We stayed four nights in different flophouses. These flophouses resembled jails with barred windows, no curtains, and sometimes no glass. I knew well what a jail looked like after that night with Mamá. Most of the rooms had the mattresses on the floor. They were dirty, empty rooms filled with fleas and other pests.
During the day, we weren’t allowed to leave our rooms unless we had to go to the next flophouse. Javi would bring us food, usually chicken tacos, tortas, or sandwiches. At nighttime, Mamá would take out a few quetzales from her underwear and exchange them for pesos the next day.
The coyotes, Javi and Marco, had planned the course of the trip carefully. Any time we weren’t traveling or moving from flophouse to flophouse, we waited as all the groups who were coming from other regions of México gathered. Our group kept getting larger as we got closer to our destination.
One day, when we were all together, I counted up to thirty-five people. But the numbers changed every day, sometimes more and sometime less. People would come and go. I’m not sure what happened to everyone I crossed paths with on our journey. I often wondered whether they arrived safely to the other side or changed their minds and went back to their countries.
Meanwhile, during the day, Consuelo and I entertained ourselves by playing hand games, singing, or reading magazines or newspapers left behind by the last guests of the flophouses. Consuelo would read us the newspaper. In one of the sections, she read about the Guelaguetza Festival that was held in July—it was already August. The last two Mondays of July were special days, known as the fiesta de lunes del cerro.
“Too bad I missed the dancers with their colorful trajes,” I said. I pretended I was a tourist on vacation, visiting exotic places and meeting new people, just like Javi had said to do.
Sindy slept a lot, still sad and angry for leaving Guatemala behind. Mamá had practically forced her to come with us. I remember the night we were packing, getting ready for our trip, how Sindy had begged Mamá to let her stay.
“I don’t want to immigrate to the US, Mamá,” she cried.
“How can you expect me to leave you here? It broke my heart to leave you behind three years ago. I can’t do that again. My heart won’t take it,” Mamá cried back.
<
br /> “But what am I going to do there? I’m already eighteen. All my friends live here! My life is here. I don’t want to go, please don’t make me!”
Tía Soila, Mamatoya, Tía Negra, and Consuelo were listening from the patio, crying. I was hiding behind the bedroom door listening.
“I want to stay here with Tía Negra,” said Sindy. “Please Mamá, I beg you.”
Then Tía Negra rushed into the room and said, “Leave Sindy here with me, Victoria. I will look after her. She’s like a sister to me.”
“Get the fuck out of here, Negra. I’m not leaving my daughter behind again. Not even over my dead body!”
“Victoria, please, leave her here. Sindy’s depression could get worse in the US,” said Tía Negra.
“So you’re the one who’s been putting shit in her head. She’s coming with me whether she likes it or not—whether you like it or not!” screamed Mamá.
Tía Negra was nonconfrontational. She walked out of the room, tears streaming. Mamá didn’t give Sindy the choice to stay, even though she was already eighteen and considered to be an adult.
Throughout the trip, Sindy always suffered from massive headaches. Consuelo and I rubbed her head, trying to soothe and comfort her. I couldn’t picture myself living in a new country without Sindy. It would have felt like my hand was missing a finger. I somewhat understood Mamá, but nobody understood Sindy, except for Tía Negra.
“Ouch!” she cried when one of my fingers would get stuck in her curls.
“Sorry, Sindy,” I said, kissing her forehead.
Sindy was like a delicate pink camellia longing for her motherland.
“Let’s play the missing game,” I said to both of them, inventing a new game.
“What’s that?” asked Consuelo.
“I’ll start. I miss the river,” I said.
“I miss Tactic’s meadow,” said Consuelo.
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