HARD TIMES IN OUR NEW LAND

HARD TIMES IN OUR NEW LAND

Unfortunately for us, the sewing business changed. We couldn’t find work and now we had 3 children. We lived in a “single” and the manager was getting really mad at us because we couldn’t pay the rent. She was threatening to call the social workers or the police on us and putting a complaint on us.

I was afraid they would take our children and deport us without our family. I thought that they would take my children and I would have to return to Guatemala without my family. My home is here now, my family is here. After all the sad things that happened to me in Guatemala, I don’t want to go back there. People there were not nice to us. They don’t help the way people here do.

I thought without my children, without my life, what am I going to do in Guatemala? Better to lose all my things here and take my children with me and go away. I said to my husband, “Do you want to go with me or do you want a place to look for yourself?” I’ll look for a place to go and where to take our children.

So after a while, my husband said, “No, how can I abandon you with my children? Let’s go somewhere else, even if we have to sleep on the street. But we will be together—you and me and our children.” I said “OK” and we left. I took the children to school in the morning and we went looking for work. We didn’t find it, and we both were desperate. We didn’t have food in the morning and only for the children in the evening.

Everyday we would pass like this. Taking the children to school, looking for work and picking them up in the afternoon with nothing to show for it. Where are we going to sleep tonight? Sometimes he would get them and sometimes me. When it rained we would all get wet and I would see my children drenched. A desperation was coming over us. Mayra would ask if we had a found a place and I would say, “Not yet, daughter!” By now we were all on the street.