Immigration and poverty

Many of the folks I know here talk about immigration. I have friends who have told me they tried to go illegally and got caught and sent back. One friend told me it was the worst experience of his life. Recently a friend of a friend decided to try to go illegally to the States. She payed a coyote $7,000 to get safely to the other side, into the United States, only to get caught in Mexico. She has been detained in a correction facility there with other immigrants trying to flee the desperate situation in Nicaragua, I'm not sure if she has gotten back yet.

One of my best Nicaraguan friends here just confessed to me that she is thinking of going to the States. She wanted to know my opinion, what was possible, if I thought she should go. We talked about the possibilities, she said she has family members there that have been living for years without problems, and that they are all set. She has two young kids who she says she would leave with her mother, which means she would only remain as a faint memory to them as the years pass by. I didn't tell her to go or not to go, that's not my decision. But I told her the stories I have heard, the stories that everyone hears, yet despite these stories the risks seem smaller than the toll of continuing to live in abject poverty.

It's hard to know where to put myself in this. Because in reality I am a representation of the oppressor, I am from the United States, I can go back there without having to do hardly anything, I just flash my passport and I'm home free. Literally. But what ARE we doing? If the United States wants to worry about border control and limiting the flow of illegal immigrants into the country we need to do things differently. No matter how many walls or barriers or obstacles you put in the way desperation takes over. What if we tried, rather than closing our borders, to open our hearts and assist in the development of poor countries so that the population would not need to leave their homes and their families and their tierra behind? What if we think about working from the bottom up, starting with those who need help the most and giving them the tools and resources to develop their own land? Instead we continue to build walls to try to protect what we have, hoarding our goods and our resources because we are afraid of what we might lack if we have to share it with others. I believe that it is our fear of sharing what we have that makes us seek more. We crave more because who knows, tommorow it might be gone. But where does that leave those who never had anything to begin with? If we try to throw crumbs to the masses that are collecting around our walls we will soon be overtaken and forced to open our doors and break down our walls because they will not stand if enough pressure is forced upon them.

So why don't we begin by being open to those who are seeking our assistance rather than immediately hiding behind fortified walls?

The reality

Carolina wants to talk. I wonder about what it might be. She tells me that she is having problems with Leo and wants my advice. As I walk out the door I call her to tell her I’m on my way and ask her again for the complicated directions. I repeat them to myself as I walk down the street to get the bus. For once the bus isn’t too crowded, I have to stand but there is no one pressing into my bones as if they are trying to grind me up. I ask the bus driver if I am at the right stop. He tells me to get off, that it is the correct place. As I get off the bus I realize that I am not where I thought I was, and I don’t recognize the streets. I call Carol and she comes to get me. I see her walking down the street in her flowing white pants and tight black shirt. As usual she is well dressed with her hair flowing behind her. She greets me with a warm hug and a kiss on the cheek. We walk to the house, the streets are torn up so we have to walk by the side of the houses and avoid the huge holes that are gaping open where the tubes are being put in for the ‘aguas negras.’ The sewage system is having to be re-done because someone bought the wrong size tubes and they were crushed when the streets were put back together the first time. The chevallos see us coming as we walk down the street and run inside giggling. As soon as we walk in Carol shows me Angel’s foot which is red and swollen and has an open wound near his toes. Someone was burning trash down the street she tells me and a plastic bag flew up and landed on Angel’s foot while he was playing. She shows me the ointment they were given for it from a neighbor. It is an eye cream, only to be used for opthomological problems it says on the side.

We drag the rocking chairs outside the house so we can talk. It’s too hot to be inside and there is at least a little bit of shade that offers us respite from the burning sun. I watch as folks walk by. Women walk by with their children’s hands held tightly in theirs as they walk by the huge holes in the street. The children peer down into the hole that is at least three times as tall as they are. Carol’s nieces and nephew run in and out of the house laughing at us sitting outside. Carol rebukes them and threatens them that if they don’t behave she will have to pegar them. Angel comes out to proudly show off the white cream that his grandmother put on his foot that I bought for him at the market. Carol yells at him to get back inside so that the polvo won’t infect his foot more. Then she begins to talk. She talks about the first boyfriend she had and how they were together for three years, then he hit her and she left him and started dating Leo. They have now been together for 12 years and have two children together. She tells me how she has kicked him out of the house before when she found out he was dating other women, but really that seems to be the thing that worries her the least. He is always with other women she tells me. But what is the worst is that he verbally abuses her. He tells her she is fat, she is ugly, she is nothing. She says at least he doesn’t hit her, she wouldn’t stand for that. She tells me that a man at work is in love with her and he says that if she leaves Leo he will take care of her. But she doesn’t know, she says. She doesn’t know the other man very well, and perhaps it is better to stay with the evil you do know than go with the unknown. The bottom line, she tells me, is that she can’t survive financially without Leo. She makes only 300 pesos quincenal, which is about $18 every fifteen days. Half of her pay is taken by the credit card company which comes to her work and takes her money to pay off a debt that she incurred with them. She won’t be able to feed herself and her kids without the money that Leo gives her. Carol is so strong and so smart. She and Leo have at least been talking more lately she explains. It has been better lately, they haven’t been fighting, they have been working things out. But still, she says, it’s not good enough. She doesn’t want to live with him, but she doesn’t have a choice, she doesn’t know what to do.

Similarly, I don’t know what to tell her. I explain that I can’t tell her what to do, I have never been in such a situation. I can’t tell her to leave her husband, but I tell her neither do I think it is a good idea to be with a man she doesn’t know, even if he says he will help her. We end up at an impasse. She has no where to go. No one to go to. Her mother tells her to ‘aguantar,’ to continue with Leo, because things will get better. She knows better than that though. She knows that the women will continue, just as it has with her father and her mother. But perhaps this would not be different with any man. But there is always the possibility for hope.

As the sun gets covered by clouds Carol tells me she wants to paint my toenails. As I look at them they are pretty gross. The silver polish that I had put on more than a month ago has worn off but still holds on in other places. I relent, although I am not entirely comfortable with the idea. As we get situated Carol tells me that she knows belleza and went to school and cuts hair and knows how to do manicures and pedicures. She declares that my feet are much to filthy to paint my toenails so she is going to wash them as well. She gets a basin and puts shampoo in it to wash my feet. She then spends at least an hour scrubbing, cleaning, and beautifying my feet. I have mixed emotions about this process. It is amazing to have someone tend so carefully to my feet, but at the same time I feel embarrassed that she is putting so much energy into my feet. It is better to just leave them unattended. She is appalled at how dirty my feet are, she says she doesn’t have any pumice stone to scrub them but that I should by some for the next time so she can clean them better. She then goes out to the pile of dirt that lays just outside the door and grabs a pumice stone from the pile. As she triumphantly returns to me she shows me that this stone is exactly what she wanted. She dips it in the water to clean it off and then vigorously scrubs my heels until they look clean again. As she finishes I admire how beautiful my feet look. My toenails are a deep burgundy and she grimaces as I slip my feet back into my dirty sandals, they no longer seem to belong there.

Carol and Daniela walk me to the bus as it starts to drizzle. This would be the second rainfall since last October, we are almost in May. Unfortunately it is only threatening, and it doesn’t actually rain at all.