No choice but to hit the road
At La 72, a refuge for migrants in Tenosique, Tabasco, in the south-east of Mexico, Flaquita is in charge of the kitchen team. She is gradually and willingly taking on more responsibilities in that role.
Eventually, Flaquita takes a break, dries her hands and agrees to sit down for a chat. We sit in one of the corridors, from where we can see a group of newly arrived migrants, exhausted by the heat and their ordeal, seeking a place to rest and regain their strength for the onward journey. She begins to tell us about the day she herself arrived at the hostel with her son.
“We were dehydrated, with sore feet and aching bellies, but once we stepped inside this place, we didn’t feel alone anymore.”
Before arriving at the hostel, Flaquita and her son had spent a number of days on the road, battling with hunger. “Sometimes you couldn’t even get a glass of water because you were an undocumented migrant,” she explains. She vividly remembers the food they were given on their arrival: a bowl of soup, along with some meat, tortillas and a soft drink.
Flaquita is from El Salvador and talks about her homeland with a deep sense of nostalgia. “It’s a very beautiful place,” she tells us, “but it’s also extremely dangerous. There’s so much crime. ”
Worse than that, there are gangs who recruit boys from a very young age. “My son wanted no part of that world. He’d left home to hide from the gangs, who were threatening him,” she explains. So, one day she decided to leave her country to protect her son.
“If they threaten you or tell you they’re going to kill you, you’ve no choice but to pack your bags and hit the road.”
They met a group of migrants from Honduras, who warned Flaquita that the route was very dangerous for women. “There were terrors around every corner. You could be raped, kidnapped or find yourself in some other kind of trouble,” she says. She followed the migrants’ advice to disguise her appearance, and continued her journey dressed as a man.
“You try to salvage what little dignity you have left after your journey, after leaving your country behind.”
Now, Flaquita no longer cares about reaching the United States. She likes Mexico and wants to start a new life here. She knows that there are wounds that still need to heal, but she finds comfort in her day-to-day life at the hostel.
“Being here gives you the time and the opportunity to start again, to sort your head out. You can work out what you want and where you want to go.”
In #PushedToTheLimits we see the hardships that drive people to flee their homes and continue to bedevil them along their migration routes.
