That day they woke us up at four in the morning and gathered us together as if it were a morning show, putting us in groups and distributing us: some by car, others in vans. I got a closed truck, very hermetic, where we were 27 people. I said to myself: “My God, I can’t believe they’re going to put me in one of these closed things for so long!”. But luckily the tour was ten minutes. And then, on a mountain: “Run, run!” So until we get on one coaster heading for Santa Elena.
In that group there were many children. With us, there were five: a one-year-old baby and others between 7 and 10 years old. Two kilometers after leaving, the police stopped us. The agents, we’d been told, were already paid, but they’d suggested we carry a $20 bill, just in case. It was $20 for $27, go figure.
Then the guide got out, spoke and the policeman told him: “Ok, go on.” We hadn’t even advanced 500, 600 meters, when the patrol came behind us at full speed, with the siren on, beeping to stop us. At that moment we said: “Well, this is screwed up”, because one of the patrol got on, with a lot of fuss and a machine gun, and told the guide: “You’re a liar, I should shoot you in the head”. The children began to cry, a woman to scream… and the two of them arguing:
– Hey no, look at the pattern…
– That I don’t want to talk to your boss, that you’re a liar.
Apparently the man had told him that the chief of police knew, but the other said he didn’t. I don’t know if they had given him little money.
– That I’m not going to talk to anyone, move to one side, that I’m taking them all prisoners. He turns around.
At that moment we said: “Well, this is screwed up”, because one of the patrol got on, with a lot of fuss and a machine gun, and told the guide: “You’re a liar, I should shoot you in the head”
Normally the guides say that if they take us prisoner, they take care of it, but faith was a bit lost at that moment. We had not gone back even a kilometer and a truck very large black, with the famous pattern. They crossed in the middle and got off. The policeman pointed the machine gun and I thought: “They’re going to come in here and I don’t know what’s going to happen to us.”
But they managed to fix the situation by passing him a good ratatouille, which is how Guatemalans say money, and the policeman let us continue, with the black truck in front of us all the way, making way for us. Thus, every time we passed a patrol car, those in the black truck were there and waved their hands at us to advance.
We arrived at a restaurant in the middle of a town. It was 10 in the morning, too early to eat, but you had to eat. They gave us orange juice, a tortilla, cheese, beans, beef, very tasty, with onion… They told us that wherever we stopped to eat, we should do so, because one never knew later when we could do it again.
We headed out again, and when we reached a river intersection, we parted ways. I was going to Santa Elena and the others were going to a place called El Naranjo, on the border with Mexico, further north, because they were going to Cancun, to solve the famous false visa and be able to fly to Mexicali to cross the border. Unfortunately, I don’t know about them, and neither about Lauren. That was the last place we saw each other. I hope you have arrived safely at your destination.
When we crossed the river, the guide in the black van told me: “Come on, Cuban, you’re going the other way.” And then he spoke with a man in a combi, which was on the route to Santa Elena, and he took me with him. I told him: “Hey, are you going to leave me alone?” And he replied: “Don’t worry, if that man hands you over to someone other than the one I’m telling him about, we’ll kill him. He and the whole family.” He told me the same way.
He gave the man 40 dollars and said: “Look what I’m going to tell you: you give it to me there, make sure nothing happens to it. And if it goes well, I’ll have more work for you.” So the man took me to a small town, one of those typical ones that have many markets outside the houses –there was such beautiful fruit, melons, oranges, grapes, even strawberries–, and I didn’t understand it.
The man took me alone, but in the end about five more people got on board, and I had to hide my nationality, because, as they said, they would look at you with a bad face if they saw that you were Cuban.
Finally the man left me in Santa Elena. Just before arriving, I contacted the person who had to pick me up and sent him my location via WhatsApp. He was waiting for me, he got in front of the truck and said: “Put down the Cuban,” as if I were a sack of potatoes.
From there, he took me to a motel, a very humble, simple little hotel, but they were really a few days that I used to rest from the entire journey, which had been quite stressful until then. In fact, I felt very safe in Santa Elena, in Guatemala.
“Look what I’m going to tell you: you give it to me there, make sure nothing happens to it. And if it goes well, I’ll have more work for you”
I met Juan and Juana, the manager of the little motel and the cook, a very kind, very kind old woman. She had lost her husband in the pandemic and she had to sell everything to go live with a son, but she was building a house thanks to the work that her manager gave her.
Despite being what he was, because he was a human trafficker, I saw that man help several people in the four days I was there. The first day I saw a Cuban couple, his name was Yasmani and he worked on the island as an ambulance man. On July 11, he took to the streets to protest, but afterwards he was so disappointed… The funny thing is that he told me that the next day they were beating them to defend the ambulance parking lot, to hit the Cubans. on the street. “But how is it possible?” He told me. So he came in and said, “Hey, the ambulance is broken, it can’t go out today.” And he went back to his house.
“Brother, after what I experienced on July 11, the repression, the blows and those who were imprisoned, I said to myself: ‘I can’t continue in this country,'” he told me. He asked his relatives for help, took out a little money that he had gathered from a business and started for Nicaragua.
They were going to take him and the girl first to Los Naranjos and then to Cancún and Mexicali. They were charging $7,000 each, apart from the ticket. By the way, they had to travel first to Barbados, then to Jamaica, a stopover in Panama and from there to Nicaragua. Tremendous return that they had to give. I didn’t see them anymore, because they left at dawn. And those were the last Cubans I saw in a long time.
Morning:
On the border with Mexico, if you don’t pay the ‘tax’ you get shot
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