Nusly the Migrant

17 days in transit

It was just last year that Nusly was able to realize one of her dreams, that of a church wedding with her husband of some eighteen years. The wedding was held in their evangelical church. There was live music, a meal and a number of attendants all well dressed in wedding attire. I guessed that Nusly’s parents may have paid the bill. A minimal amount for the church hall, all the finery might have been rented and the church ladies likely prepared the meal. Nusly and her husband, Yeico, were clearly happy.

Nusly as a bride in 2022. Isaac, her youngest son, is in the foreground.

A year later Nusly and her seventeen year old son, Jefferson, are in Delaware after a two week journey from their village of San Andres Iztapa. The cost of the trip with a coyote (also known as a human trafficker) was Q150,000 or almost $20,000 which is secured by the home of Nusly’s parents. Apparently, they had a good coyote as they traveled to the US border in his car without incident and he “arranged” to have the two pass through immigration as asylum seekers. So, they are in the United States legally pending an asylum hearing. They are staying with friends, former neighbors from their village and are sleeping on the floor until they find work and are able to find an apartment. A Colombian friend who works for a non-profit in Pennsylvania helping migrants has referred them to an organization near where they are located. There they can get help with employment and find an attorney who will help with their asylum case.

Nusly had another dream many years ago. She wanted to be a doctor. It was not only out of reach financially for her family but at age thirteen she was abducted and gang raped. At fourteen she gave birth to a disabled son who is now is his early twenties and lives with her parents.

I first met Nusly at the school that several of my sponsored kids attend. She was working in the school cafeteria, always had a big smile on her face. She and her youngest son, Isaac, left home at six in the morning and walked a mile up and down hills, rain or shine, to ride the bus for forty-five minutes to Antigua. The only time Nusly was not smiling was when she saw Beyker, then aged about four, enjoying school. Nusly was teary eyed seeing a child the same age as Isaac enjoying something she could not afford to provide for her son. At some point I capitulated and thought, “what is one more?” Isaac was enrolled and the two boys became best pals.

Isaac now seven is both sad and angry. He and his sister, Sharon, who is about eleven are living with their father who has no work. For the next couple of weeks, the remainder of the school year, Isaac’s father is making the trek to Antigua with Isaac for school. He spends the day in a nearby park as he doesn’t have enough money to go home and come back for the boy. One day last week Isaac missed school as his father did not have enough money for the bus fare. I think once Nusly and Jefferson, find work they will send money.

Jefferson is a nice boy, smart, the top of his class in a private school. He had one more year to go before graduating. He dreamed of going to law school and now he may find himself killing pigs or chickens. Nusly says she has made the journey for her children, so that they might have opportunities to realize their dreams that she never had. I am not sure how that is going to play out in the case of Jefferson. My wish is that Nusly would enroll him in high school as soon as possible but I fear that is not going to happen.

In my lifetime I have had some harrowing adventures but I have to ask myself if I could have done what Nusly has just done. She left home and family and everything she knows for a potentially very dangerous trip to a country where she doesn’t speak the language will have to live in the shadows and send the greater part of her earnings to pay off a coyote and support her family. A family that she may never see again.

I do not think those of us whose only knowledge of hardship was being told to finish our meal as there were starving children in India, China, wherever have any sense of the desperation that leads to fleeing one’s homeland. We simply cannot relate to those who have lost all hope, who literally do not know where the next meal is coming from. Nusly’s job which paid almost nothing went up in smoke, there was no other work in her village for herself or her husband, her kids complained about only eating beans, her landlord said that he wanted their metal hovel with a dirt floor back. She was haunted by her own lost dreams and encouraged by friends and family members who had made the trip and supposedly found the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. She dreamed of a refrigerator and a bed for her daughter. Maybe with a bit of luck her daughter will get a bed for Christmas. Not her mother but a bed.

This afternoon I sent Isaac and his papá home with two bags of food. No beans. Only non-perishable items such as powdered milk, cornflakes, bananas, Incaparina (local nutritional drink), peanut butter and jelly and bread. I told papá that Isaac knew how to make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. The second bag contained dog food for Isaac’s beloved, once rescued (and neutered) dog.

I find myself with mixed feelings. I enjoyed the fact that, unlike many in Guatemala, Isaac was part of an intact family. No more. Part of me is angry with Nusly for abandoning Issac and his sister but I cannot begin to relate to her feelings that the only way she could give her kids a chance was to leave for the United States. I suppose that everyone, including Nusly, thinks that she and Jefferson will be back within a year’s time with their pockets stuffed full of money. And that Facetime will suffice for the absence of the children’s mother in the meantime.

One can only hope that the current push to eliminate corruption in Guatemala will change things for all of the Nuslys and Isaacs. No more dangerous trips. No more coyotes. No more broken families. No more sad children.