by Tim White
The greatest danger to our lives was my mom’s beauty. When men would come through the village, she always hid herself, along with me and my three younger sisters.
My brothers acted as men starting at six years of age. We all worked. But a special burden was put on them that was part of the machismo of our race. On a typical day when my father was at work, someone in the village raced into the center of the line of huts and yelled, “La policia esta llegando!” I still wake up at nights sometimes covered in sweat, my heart pounding remembering one of those moments.
There was something about the way that the police pickup trucks were driving to my village that sent panic through our community. My mother hid me and my brother Homer behind a tree a short distance from the village. She covered us with a bush. The babies in our hut were crying. As she rushed back to her babies, she was grabbed by two men, and I covered Homer’s eyes so he could not see. They abused our mother and then killed her while they were laughing, and I was watching.
I cried out, “Papá, alguien, vienen ayuda Mamá. Necesitamos un héroe, si Dios quiere!” It was a stupid thing to do, but I was only six years old. A big man with a big head and large hands whose uniform hardly fit him came over and found us. He grabbed me and Homer, pulling us from under the bush.
“I am the only hero you will see—and now I am your papa,” he said.
That was the last time I saw my home or my family. Homer was only five; he bravely hit the man with all his force. The man who called himself our new papa grabbed Homer by the neck with one hand and me by the other and lifted us off the ground, cutting off our oxygen. The men just laughed.
I remember hearing gun shots and riding in the back of a truck with a dozen other children. We had no idea where we were going or what they had done to our families. I thought my dad would come and rescue us. I remember whispering to my brother that when my dad came home from work he would take his machete and make these “hombres malos paguen por lo que han hecho!”
No hero came to save us. We cried, we prayed, and no hero came. My prayers changed to hoping my dad would not come; all these men had guns. I did not want Papa killed, too. I prayed for him and the rest of my family. I prayed for the soul of my sweet mother. And I prayed for Homer and asked for strength and wisdom to protect him.
We were moved to a big house in Tegucigalpa where I was told that I was a slave. I learned later it was abuse—modern human slavery but—then it was just a nightmare that no little girl should ever have to call real.
I will never forget Hernando Cortez. He was a large man who radiated evil in every way. He was the first to abuse me. And then he made me watch as he abused my brother. Cortez was a horrible, evil man: a monster. And there were evil tattoos all over his body. He was always sweating. I saw him shoot one girl right before my eyes. I try to forget watching my brother Homer being abused by him. They locked Homer and I in a room with other kids who had lost hope. Homer cried, “Papa . . . Mama!” I reached out my hand in the dark. It took a moment and I felt Homer’s tiny hand fill mine.
“I promise you, little brother, I will protect you and never let you go. I love you. Brother, I am your big sister. I will be your hero.”
When Cortez came to abuse me, I asked him, “Why do you do such terrible things? Are you really a follower of the devil?” He had a picture of Satan on his chest with 666 tattooed on his forehead. He was trying to sweet-talk me.
“You are a smart girl, I am not going to lie to you, we use the satanic theme just to put fear in our enemies. Actually, I am a born-again, Bible-believing, spirit-filled Christian.” He went on speaking in all sincerity. “I was saved from the streets and gangs by courageous Christian missionaries. When I rose to lead MS-13, it was my destiny. I knew it was God’s will because of all the good I could do. I take care of poor families with my money; if the whores work with me I treat them like royalty. And with my wealth, I keep far worse people from taking over our country and our people.”
The next day, Hernando Cortez, the born-again, Bible-believing, spirit-filled Christian sold my brother Homer, and he was gone. As they took him away, I was tied to a bed. I was broken; they had abused me repeatedly, but I no longer cried. They had drugged us both. But I still fought and scratched and bit when they took my brother away. I left some scars on Cortez, and he left a small scar on my face when he slapped me with his big gold ring on. My brother called my name: “Penelope por el amor de Dios me salve! Hermana mayor Pleše por el amor de Dios me salve.” (Penelope for the love of God save me! Please older sister for the love of God, save me.) I can hear his cries now. This was the last time I saw my little brother.
My roommates were other girls my age. They gave us drugs that took our memory away and made everything seem like a dream. One day we were standing in front of one the large international hotels dressed as prostitutes waiting for some old Americans to come and pay to use us. As we stood there, with men gawking at us and telling us how beautiful we were I began to cry. My friend, who was an older beautiful girl named Gabriela, tried to get me to stop because our Pimp Hernando Cortez was watching from inside the hotel lobby. Finally, he came out and started to yell at me to be friendly to the Gentlemen and that he owned me. Just then, from across the street came a Christian girl from Honduras who was there with her youth group. She was beautiful. Her name was Maria Jose Santos and her little sister Belen Santos followed right behind her. Nine or ten other Christian girls from lower middle-class families followed. The men in their group waited in a van watching. They were from the Wesleyan Church in Tegus. Maria and Belen are some of the most courageous people I have ever met. Little Maria stood up to Hernando and told him her testimony of how she had given her life to Christ and everything was forgiven and she was a new person. She quoted him John 3:16 For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believes in him will not perish but receive life eternal life. She spoke with otherworldly authority.
Hernando was a threatening, evil-looking man and he ordered them to get out of there before he killed someone. These girls belonged to him. Maria protested, No, these girls belong to Jesus. All the girls circled around those of us who were slaves and began to sing a Spanish praise song.
Oh alma cansada y turbada
¿Sin luz en tu senda andarás?
Al Salvador mira y vive
Del mundo la luz es su faz
Pon tus ojos en Cristo,
Tan lleno de gracia y amor,
Y lo terrenal sin valor será
A la luz del glorioso Señor
De muerte a vida eterna
Te llama el Salvador fiel
En ti no domine el pecado;
Hay siempre victoria en Él
Jamás faltará su promesa;
Él dijo “Contigo estoy”
Al mundo perdido ve pronto
Y anuncia la salvación hoy
As they sang about Jesus, it was as if Hernando Cortez was running up against an invisible spiritual wall. This little girls’ choir of determined, pure-hearted Christians sang this old song without musical accompany so sweet and touching. The evil Hernando could not penetrate this forceful display of Godly power. He turned and left.
The real story behind MS-13 and other gangs is that even though they do very evil things and are confused many times they have been known to let a person out of a gang if they know they are really converted to following Christ. But if they stop following Christ then they will kill them for leaving the gang. It is a world bogged down in desperation–a world in search of a real faith. These stories are few and far between and I did not know it until I was in my sixties.
We all cried as we watched this courageous drama unfold. The Christian boys in the van were all too afraid to enter this conflict. They watched with tears running down their cheeks as God worked through these pure-hearted girls. Out of all the slaves only Gabriela and I chose to go with the Christian girls to find a new life. But the first chance we could find we ditched these courageous gir
ls and headed back to the streets. The tattoos on our chests portrayed us as Mayan gangsters, communicating that we had become prostitutes and that we were owned by this terrible gang. We did not wish any harm on these courageous Christians.
MS-13 was a Salvadoran gang started in the US for protection against other criminals, and now this gang was becoming strong in Honduras. MS-13 stood for Marva Salvatrucha. Marva was the name for gangs, coming from a fierce ant. Salvatrucha may be a combination of Salvadorian and trucha, or alert. They formed for protection of Central Americans in the US from Mexican and African gangs in Los Angeles. Today, it is reported, MS-13 openly has satanic rituals, marking their children with 666 as they give them to the devil. They are international, having more than 70,000 members. They specialize in drug trafficking, illegal immigration, prostitution, kidnapping, human trafficking, gun running, theft, and extortion.
Both Gabriela and I wore scarves covering our faces, as many of the children on the streets of the city do. We dared not beg, so we stole food from the markets. Finally, we were caught by a police officer named Zeylaya who told us that he owned us now and that we would work for him. He took us to a corner, where an older police officer named Micheletti fought him for us. I hope you will never know what it is to be six years old and see two full grown men fight for you—to witness firsthand how brutal men can be when they fight—and knowing they are fighting for ownership of you—and yet not knowing who it would be better to win. Micheletti left the other police officer bloody and gasping for air as he put us in the back of his pickup.
Officer Micheletti drove us across the river into the hills to the city dump. He told us that there was no safe place for us and that we were now people of the dump. We had no birth certificates—no place to run too.
“I have a father named Jesus Benito Morales and a little brother named Homer Salvador Morales; he is only five years old!”
The old policeman said, “Your family is gone. Forget about them. There is only one possibly safe place for you, and that is the city dump. The only reason that I am risking my life against MS-13 is because I am a good Catholic and I have daughters your age. Even the police are often ruled by the gangs. I am risking my life and family to take you to the dump.”
He dropped us off at night, and we saw his taillights disappear. We looked around in the dark to see things that were made of a human being’s worst nightmares. The first thing you notice is the smell of the dump. Think of the most putrid garbage that you have ever smelled and make it a thousand times worse with continual fire burning it like incense. Mix in the smell of dead and rotting cattle, hogs, vultures, and human beings. We both vomited our guts out. We were having dry heaves when we could see people and animals moving through the dump. I had heard of hell, and this was what had been described to me. We ran holding hands, not knowing where we were going except away from those that were moving towards us, stalking us as prey. We tripped over something rotten. We both screamed.
The smell of the burning fires shed a little light, reflecting off the haunting forms of human beings scavenging around as they sized us up. Some cardboard boxes had little flames in them. We hid in the dark beneath a sheet of plastic and tried not to breathe all night long. We held each other’s hands tightly and could feel roaches run across us, trying to make their way into our noses. Rats were aggressive, and we were woken up by rats gnawing on our shoes. We held our cries and squeezed one another’s hand; this was our only form of communication.
By daylight, a little boy named Rolando had found us. He pulled back the plastic and asked us to give him our shoes. We said no, but even though Rolando was half our size, he looked scary with the mask covering his face. He also held a knife and a stick. When he reached out his hand, he had growing folds of wounds that looked more like something alien. I didn’t know it then, but it was scabies left unchecked. All the people of the dump had horrific health problems. In fact, it was the rampant venereal disease and community health problems and the stink of the dump that kept us safe from the gangs. We were considered garbage.
We stepped back from Rolando, but if you saw us from a wide-angled lens you would see that we were now in a place worse than Dante ever imagined his inferno to be. Children were eating rotten garbage; a little baby from a girl not much older than Gabriela was stored in a box to protect it from the vultures flying low over our heads. Gabriela screamed as we watched two vultures dive on the box and begin to peck the baby being stored there. Its mama was too high to notice. I tried to chase the vultures away. Now there were five, and they were almost as big as I. They pecked and squawked at me. One bit me in the small of my hand. Gabriela swung a board, hitting the bird with the nail at the end. The birds retreated. The baby cried; its eye was gone. It bled on me as I picked it up to carry it to its mother. A wild dog scampered towards us to claim the baby; this was a feast for such scavengers.
I ran and tripped, staring face to face with a wild boar, mean, snorting, and squealing as it bit Gabriela on the ankle, causing her to fall. She slapped the baby out of my hands and lifted me up as we ran to the body of a car to see the wild dog and boar fight over the right to eat a baby in front of all the subhuman inhabitants of the dump. The baby’s mom was too high to know anything was happening. We were too afraid to help. A garbage truck backed over the baby and killed it, putting it out of its misery. I can still remember the crunch of the baby being crushed. The mother did not even cry. No one showed grief. Gabriela and I vomited dry heaves from the smell and the sight. Flies covered us and mosquitoes bit us.
All of the dump people would eventually die of disease—it was only a matter of when. This is the life of the poorest of the poor in the emerging world—the people without birth certificates or identity. They have no nation, no protector that does not want to use us. Here, God does not hear our prayers. Or if he hears our prayers then his people do not hear his direction or purposes. This is hell—real hell on earth, as garbage burns and our hearts turn subhuman. At least in Tegus the high altitude kept us safe from the mosquitoes that carry malaria. Rolando handed us a couple of lids from peanut butter jars to hold over our mouths and noses to block the smell. Inside the lids were glue so we could get high and numb the pain of living in Dante’s inferno. This glue or paint thinner also killed brain cells, and many of the kids acted like they had brain damage. The men came over to claim us. We both tried to fight.
A crazy lady named Lucy hit the men with a baseball bat and claimed us. The men backed off as if we weren’t worth the trouble. Crazy Lucy looked like someone who would kill another in his sleep. She took us to her home: a wooden box with plastic over the top with a little fire and some garbage that we would eat. Today it was rotten avocados. Lucy was crazy and talked to herself all the time. But evidently she wanted to save us from the sexual abuse she had suffered for years, so she gave us a safe place to stay.
At night the gangs would come and drop off dead bodies. Gabriela and I would hide in Lucy’s box. They would take the recycling that had been found and pay for what they were given. A spoon was worth a lot. Jars, clothing, rubber tires, old wallets—it was amazing the stuff we would find. All of it was sold for almost nothing. If we could earn twenty cents a day we were doing great. We had to pay protection money to a gang to protect us from the police. Kids would mate at the age of eight to ten—if they were not being used by another old man. No one ever mentioned it, but HIV ran rampant in the dump and hunger was our constant companion. Gabriela began to sell herself for food to take care of me, and Lucy didn’t seem to mind. It was a horrible thing she had to do, but she said it wasn’t as bad as the abuse or slavery from before because now she got to keep the pay. The pay would often be a few pieces of stale food or costume jewelry scavenged from bodies. Each day someone was killed or injured.
Explosives would go off or infected needles would poke someone. A hog or cow living in the dump would get a kid or the vultures would get a baby. There were only a couple thousand of us living there, but as many died, t
here were always fresh-faced new kids the next day. They had been driven to experience their own hell by not being able to survive on the streets.
We liked the fact that once in a blue moon we would get a meal out of the relief workers and the chance to rob Americans. Their cameras, watches, or wedding rings could be sold for a week’s pay when we sold them to the middle-men. We enjoyed touching the relief workers with scabies-covered hands. Or giving them lice with a hug.
Finally, it was bound to happen. Someone saw Gabriela’s MS-13 tattoo, and our owners came to get us. They reminded us that we belonged to them and that we must stay in their gang or die. We told them that we would rather die, so they took Lucy and threw her off a bridge to demonstrate to everyone that they were not to be resisted. I ran down to Lucy’s body out of breath from the smoke and inhalants that I had lived on. And when I reached her old, decrepit body she had a few breaths left.
She said, “Daughter, I pray to Jesus for you,” and then she died.
Gabriela told me to run and crawl while she distracted the men. When MS-13 came to get us she told them she would make up for them not finding me. She was a very pretty girl and persuaded them to leave me for another day.
That evening, I was alone—a victim without hope. Most people never know really what it is like to have absolutely no home except hell on earth. It is a cold feeling at the core of your being swallowing your sanity, and I will never forget.
As I sat there, too sad to cry, a family returned to unload their garbage. They were poor; I had seen them before. Their youngest daughter, Belén had smiled at me another time. I was six and Belén was five. Belén was with her dad, Cruz Santos, who had grown up on the streets, robbing to stay alive. He had been taken in by an orphanage named Manolito. He was raised there by kindly Christians, and when he became a teenager, he left for his home country of El Salvador. There he began to run with the gangs until he met a saintly wife, Elicia. She too had been raised on the streets and had turned to Christ, becoming involved in a good church. The two fell in love and were married. Cruz began a new life to work for the church. Now his youngest daughter, Belén, kept asking him who was going to help the kids of the dump. That night, when Belén saw me, she spoke to me as a person. “¿Cuál es su nombre, chica guapa?” (What is your name pretty girl.)