The Child Sold by Desperation

I was born near a small town called Teopisca in Mexico. I was the oldest and had to take care of my 5 brothers and sisters when we worked in the fields with my mamá and papá.

 

We all picked coffee and corn together, and even my younger brother who was 2-years-old helped me spread the coffee beans on our driveway to dry them, or helped pick the lower ears of corn while I took the ones that were higher.

 

When I was 10, my papá lost his leg. We had an earthquake and part of our house fell on him. It was scary. His leg was bloody and there was bone sticking out. Mamá cried and cried. My papá had to use a stick to walk, but did not walk much after that. He could not work, and mamá stayed home.

 

My tío came by to patch the wall and the roof. Mamá and him talked a lot in whispers. My brothers and sisters and I would pick herbs along the road and in the forest that we would add to the water along with dried chile for the soup and tortillas, but the soup kept getting waterier and waterier. My youngest brother got skinny and sick. We had to gather wood and could not use the propane burner because we could not afford propane. Everyone worked very hard.

_____

 

One day, I woke up and my mother was crying. My 2-year-old brother died. We wrapped him up in a white sheet and we buried him. It was raining and cold. Afterwards we went home and my mother told us to go to bed, and I listened while my tío and my mamá talked. He said that he found a place for me where I could work and then send money home in Comitan an hour away. He said that I would be able to come home and visit.

 

When I woke up, my mamá had already packed a bag for me. She was crying. The bag had a change of clothes, and some tortillas. She put my coat on and said I needed to be brave. That I needed to help my family by working in Comitan. She said I would be able to come back once a month to visit. I looked up and saw my father's head looking from around the corner. He looked so sad.

 

My tío picked me up. We didn’t talk the whole drive.

 

When we got to the city, it was so big. I had never seen so many nice cars and so many people. We went to the mercado, and he took me to a carniceria there, and the man working took us behind his shop. He gave tío some money, and tío took me by the shoulder and told me to be good and to do as the man told me, and he left.

 

The man pointed to a chair and said we would go after the mercado closed. I cried in my chair quietly and waited until it was almost dark. I missed my family, and my mamá and my papá, and my bothers and sisters and especially Beto, my little brother who died.

 

After he closed the store, he told me to come. I did not know his name, and he called me ‘child’. He was not very nice. He did not smile at me. We got into his truck and drove until it was late. When we got to the place, he took my hand and my bag, and we walked towards a large warehouse. One side of the warehouse there were bodies on the ground sleeping on cardboard. At home we had blankets and slept on them, and the cardboard was cold and uncomfortable. I did not sleep the first night.

_____

 

In the morning we ate stale tortillas, and I was introduced to a woman named Doña Rosario. The other side of the warehouse was filled with yarn and had a kitchen. I met the other girls who were told to show me how to work. Our job was to dye the yarn.

 

It was smelly and hot, and the powders we used burned my hands. One of the girls, Selma, showed me a trick for how to wrap a rag around my hands so they would not burn from the powder and the steam. She was nice, and later that week she took me behind the warehouse and gave me some chocolate. I asked her where she got it, and she said that the man who delivered the yarn gave it to her, but that she had to do bad things. ‘Bad things?’ I asked. She said that the man touches her. She gave me a look, and I knew. We had a neighbor who my mom said did those kinds of things. She said never to go near him.

 

‘Does it hurt?’ I asked.

 

‘Only sometimes,’ she said.

 

Later that day, the yarn man came, and once he was done dropping off the yarn I saw Selma leave with him.

 

I waited for her to come back but she never did. I saved her two tortillas from dinner. When I asked the other girls about it they just shrugged their shoulders. I did not see Selma again.

That evening, when I was washing my skirt I noticed a small heart sewn into the waist along with the words 'I am always with you'.  I did not remember seeing it before.  It had to be my mother.  I missed her so much.  I cried that night as quietly as I could.

_____

 

Months passed, and I waited for my tío to pick me up, but he never did. I wondered if he even knew where I was. I wondered if my family thought about me. It made me sad. Work was hard. The money from my work went directly to my tío, and my family, and that was the only thing that gave me hope. That someday they would have enough from my work and I could go back home.

 

I would rub my finger on the threads of the heart stitching during the day to remind myself that I was loved.  I wondered if I would ever see them again.

_____

 

One day I was coming back from the outhouse, and the yarn man was waiting there on the path. He asked me if I wanted some chocolate, and I said I did. When I reached out for it, he hit my head, and I woke up in the back of a van with my hands and feet tied and tape around my mouth. There were other kids too. We were tied to the floor of the van. Some of the kids were crying, and one of them, a boy, was very still. It was dark, and I could see a dark liquid pooling around him. It smelled in the van like poop and vomit. I did not know where we were going. I was too scared to cry.

 

When the van finally stopped, they got us out of the car. The boy who was very still did not move. I think he was dead. He looked like my brother did when he died, We were led to a shed with bars on the window openings, and there were other kids already there along with a plastic barrel of water and a cup. There was poop and mud piled up in the corner.

 

One of the girls who was in the van with me started crying loudly, and a girl who was already there when we came told her it’s better if you don’t cry. A boy who was also in the van with us asked her what type of work they would be doing. And the girl answered that they don’t work. That sometimes they come and take one or two kids from this shed, and that they never come back. She said she sees the guards loading coolers into trucks, and that a couple weeks ago one of the guards tripped and there were organs in bags and ice that tumbled out

 

When she said that, two of the other girls started crying loudly for their mamás, and another one of the boys started vomiting. I just looked out the window at the dark sky.

_____

 

I think I was there in that cell for 11 days. During that time there were kids that would come and go. We did not talk to one another much at all. On the third day, they took the girl away that told us the story about the organs.

 

Every morning I wondered if they would take me next.

 

And then on the 11^th day a miracle happened. When the guard came in that morning he took a girl and a boy but as he was leaving with them, something happened and he fell. The boy he was taking away took the machete from the guards holster, and he gave the guard a good whack on his thigh. The guard started yelling, and I just ran. 

 

I was certain someone would catch up to me but they never did. I was so tired and was not wearing shoes and my feet were stabbing with pain. The next two nights and days I walked until I couldn’t anymore and slept in the forest.

_____

 

On the third day I was afraid and very tired. I was lost. I had water from the streams but no food except for the herbs like the ones I used to pick for soup. I could hear traffic now and then from a road in the distance, and when I got to the road I saw that it was a small dirt road. I waited there for many hours before a truck came. There was a man and woman in the truck who stopped for me. They were nice.

 

They asked me where my home is and I told them ‘Teopisca’.

 

‘Teopisca, Mexico?’ they asked.

 

They told me they picked me up near La Libertad, Guatemala. That they were on the way to El Cruce near Flores. They said they go to a church and that the people there could help me find my way back home. ‘

 

‘My name is Isabel, and this is my husband Hugo, and you are going to be okay, okay?’

 

They gave me a blanket and some tamáles and a mango and showed me to the back of the truck.

 

I started crying and the lady put her hand on my shoulder and told me again it was all going to be okay. The man smiled and had a kind smile.

 

When we got to the the town, we stopped at a church, and everyone was nice. I was given new clothes and I took a bath in big bathroom, and I slept on a big cozy cot with warm blankets.  They wanted to take away my skirt to wash it but I would not let them.  I fell asleep with my finger on the heart stitch.

_____

 

The next day, Isabel brought another woman to meet me. Her name was Isa. She gave me a doll, and asked me questions about my mamá and papá and my home. They said they were going to try to find my family in Mexico.

 

They took me to the lake to fish, and I played with my doll and missed my mamá. One morning Isa told me to get my things together. They had found my family and they were going to take me home. I started crying and I was happy and also anxious that my family did not want me.

 

We drove all day and into the night in a car. When we finally arrived, my mother was sitting outside waiting for me with my father. When I got out my mother started crying and she held me so tight it hurt. I have never heard her cry like that. She kept saying how sorry she was, how sorry she was, how sorry she was. And saying prayers of thanks and asking God for forgiveness.

 

My father also cried and hugged me. My brothers and sisters were there also but a little nervous to see me at first. Isa took a wheelchair from the back of the car that they brought for papá.

 

Mama asked me if I got her message.  I pulled the skirt out of my bag, and showed her, and she just cried and cried and cried.

 

I sometimes get sad and scared remembering what happened.

 

I don’t know why I lived but I did.

 

I am grateful to be with my family again.