{"id":4728,"date":"2018-11-02T14:29:01","date_gmt":"2018-11-02T22:29:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.entremundos.org\/revista\/?p=4728&lang=en"},"modified":"2019-05-27T17:16:24","modified_gmt":"2019-05-28T01:16:24","slug":"exodus-voices-from-the-refugee-caravan-part-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.entremundos.org\/revista\/uncategorized\/exodus-voices-from-the-refugee-caravan-part-1\/?lang=en","title":{"rendered":"Exodus: Voices From The Refugee Caravan, Part 1"},"content":{"rendered":"

The following interviews were conducted in Chiapas, Mexico, a week and a half after the caravan set out from San Pedro Sula, Honduras on October 13.<\/strong><\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n

Yongel is a heavy machinery operator. He said he\u2019s from San Pedro Sula, \u201cthe industrial capital of Honduras.\u201d He spoke about the extortion he faces and a lack of job opportunities.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Yongel: There are three important points that made me make this decision. One is the lack of work. Another is the insecurity in the country. And the third is that you can\u2019t live there because of the crime, because of the extortions.<\/em><\/p>\n[Interviewer: Have you been extorted?<\/em>]\n

They\u2019ve tried.<\/em><\/p>\n[Interviewer: How do they try?<\/em>]\n

With threats. \u2018We\u2019re going to kill someone in your family,\u2019 \u2018we\u2019re going to do this if you don\u2019t do that…\u2019 And they ask for a certain amount of money.<\/em><\/p>\n[Interviewer: How much did they ask for?<\/em>]\n

The last time they did this to me by phone, they asked for L5,000 [$200]. They threatened to kill my mother. They haven\u2019t done it, but you live with that fear. That it could happen someday. So, plus, the government also because it doesn\u2019t support you. So that\u2019s why my compatriots and I have been forced to leave the country, to look for new opportunities, new jobs. And maybe give a better future to our kids.<\/em><\/p>\n[Interviewer: Were you working now?<\/em>]\n

No, I wasn\u2019t working. The company I was working for closed because of a debt that they hadn\u2019t paid. The company decided to close and leave us without work. And if you have kids, a family, it\u2019s different. Because if you\u2019re on your own, if you don\u2019t work, it\u2019s OK. But if you have a family, your kids ask for food, if they\u2019re on the bottle you have to give them their milk. And you have to have money to do so. And for this you have to have work. Without work, you have nothing.<\/em><\/p>\n

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Nolveya Romero, from Olancho, Honduras, described a personal experience with land conflict. Such conflict is widespread in eastern Honduras where many families lack formal titles for their land and large land owners are increasingly resorting to violence<\/a> to effect land grabs.<\/strong><\/p>\n[Interviewer: Why did you join the caravan?<\/em>]\n

Nolveya: Because they threatened me\u2026 they killed two of my nephews. They\u2019ve been dead for three months. One they opened here [she drags her finger eight inches down the front of her stomach], the other they opened here [she makes the same motion on her flank]. For rivalries over land.<\/em><\/p>\n

When you work but there are people who want to take your land from you, problems come and they stay. Now my family moved to another hill. And four of us decided to leave. Three are already in the US, thank God.<\/em><\/p>\n

[They wanted our land] to harvest colored lumber.<\/em><\/p>\n[Interviewer: Do you know who exactly is threatening you?<\/em>]\n

The threats just arrive. They arrive anonymously. They just leave envelopes. The envelopes come below the door. I brought one but I left it in Guatemala, a lawyer there has it.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n

Salvador, 27 years old, managed to get through engineering school. And yet, he was in Arriaga after two weeks of travel with the caravan. He spoke about selling candy on the street to get through school and the coup<\/a> that ousted President Mel Zelaya in 2009.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Salvador: Maybe all of us have the same desire to be someone in life. But the problem we have is that the [expletive] governments we have don\u2019t let us. Look, I\u2019m an engineer. How many times have I had an honest job? To at least be able to say I have an honest job to earn a living. Instead, I always had\u2026 to finish my studies I had to be selling candy in the streets to earn just a little from the rich. And look at me now. I\u2019m in Arriaga, Mexico. Suffering. I\u2019m sick. Because the food they\u2019re giving out is just bread. Understand? That makes people sick. <\/em><\/p>\n

What do you think about this? What do you say? \u2026<\/em><\/p>\n

Do you know why the coup happened in Honduras? Because Mel Zelaya, what he was doing was creating jobs, helping the poor. And what did the [rest of] the government do, since they didn\u2019t like what Mel Zelaya was doing well, everything he had proposed, what they did was push him out. When Micheletti came, there was a coup and they pushed him out. They threw him out.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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Yani, an elementary school teacher from Col\u00f3n, Honduras is traveling with her husband and children. She and her family had woken at 3AM and walked for hours from Pijijiapan to a customs center on the highway where they were looking for a ride. She spoke about how the education system in Honduras has changed over the last decade.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Yani: We\u2019re a little tired from the walking we\u2019re doing, and the sun is really getting to us. But we\u2019re blessed because the people are treating us well, they\u2019re giving us food, clothing and they\u2019re treating us well. That\u2019s important. That encourages us to keep moving toward our goal. <\/em><\/p>\n

Our goal is to reach the US. All together and see what the President says, if he opens the doors to us, helps us. Because we\u2019ve left our country not because we want to but because the circumstances compel us to leave.<\/em><\/p>\n[Interviewer: What kind of circumstances?<\/em>]\n

First, there are many factors, but first because of the mismanagement of the president of Honduras [Juan Orlando Hernandez]. For the mismanagement, because that\u2019s the root of why we\u2019re so bad off in so many ways. For example, the canasta b\u00e1sica [a price index of the food that provides basic nutrition] is very high. We can\u2019t even afford eat. In terms of education, it\u2019s not free anymore. It\u2019s been privatized.<\/em>\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

In terms of health, we don\u2019t have medicine in the health centers. They just give you a prescription and you have to go buy it. And we see that that\u2019s not possible for us because we\u2019re people without a lot of money. There only the people with a lot of money can survive. We the poor, no. That\u2019s why we left. Looking to make things better for our kids.<\/em><\/p>\n[Interviewer: What kind of work do you or your partner do?<\/em>]\n

I\u2019m certified in primary education. My area has always been education, but I haven\u2019t been able to work much in it because education has been politicized. They practically only give positions to their people according to political party. So I\u2019ve never had that advantage that someone gives me a position in the education system.<\/em><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve worked in private schools but they pay very poorly. They take advantage of the fact that people don\u2019t have a job. So they pay very low in the private schools.<\/em><\/p>\n[Interviewer: How much do they pay?<\/em>]\n

I worked in one that had a position for six hours a week, and they paid L30 [$1.25] per hour. In others, they pay 60, 54 per hour. Effectively, they paid us half.<\/em><\/p>\n[Interviewer: Have there been any good administrations or presidents?<\/em>]\n

Yes. When Mel Zalaya was president, he was good because we the poor received a credit for electricity. Now today, we can\u2019t pay it because we the poor are the worst off. It\u2019s too expensive for us. And often it\u2019s not what we actually use. They overcharge us.<\/em><\/p>\n

But when Mel Zelaya was president he gave this credit and the canasta b\u00e1sica wasn\u2019t as bad like it is now.\u00a0<\/em>Now, this current president, no one likes him, because he exploits the poor. If he stays there managing things, he\u2019s going to be the only one left in Honduras.<\/em><\/p>\n

They don\u2019t invest [in education] like they did before. Because they gave school supplies to the kids, backpacks, they got a credit according to what grade they were in. It\u2019s not like before; they don\u2019t give that credit anymore.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The following interviews were conducted in Chiapas, Mexico, a week and a half after the caravan set out from San Pedro Sula, Honduras on October 13.   Yongel is a heavy machinery operator. He said he\u2019s from San Pedro Sula, \u201cthe industrial capital of Honduras.\u201d He spoke about the extortion he faces and a lack […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4638,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[453,457,1],"tags":[1412,525,561,901,1430,899],"class_list":["post-4728","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-frontpage-en","category-migration-en","category-uncategorized","tag-caravan","tag-honduras","tag-honduras-en","tag-mexico","tag-migrant","tag-migrants"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.entremundos.org\/revista\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/img_3685.jpg?fit=2880%2C1829&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7ljt7-1eg","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":8549,"url":"https:\/\/www.entremundos.org\/revista\/frontpage-en\/understanding-the-migrant-caravans\/?lang=en","url_meta":{"origin":4728,"position":0},"title":"Understanding the Migrant Caravans","author":"EntreMundos","date":"1 abril, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"by EntreMundos Staff \u00a0 Over the last few years there has been a social phenomenon occurring in Central America:\u00a0 the massive caravans of Honduran migrants.\u00a0 And Salvadoran, Guatemalan and even Mexican migrants have joined in.\u00a0 What are the reasons for these caravans?\u00a0 A Honduran, using the alias,\u00a0 \" the curly-haired\u2026","rel":"","context":"En \u00abFrontPage\u00bb","block_context":{"text":"FrontPage","link":"https:\/\/www.entremundos.org\/revista\/category\/frontpage-en\/?lang=en"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.entremundos.org\/revista\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/pag.-23-map-from-the-document-panorama-de-la-migracion-internacional-en-mexico-y-centroamerica-2015-cepal-oim.-note-numbers-have-changed-up-to-2020-scaled.jpg?fit=1200%2C808&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.entremundos.org\/revista\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/pag.-23-map-from-the-document-panorama-de-la-migracion-internacional-en-mexico-y-centroamerica-2015-cepal-oim.-note-numbers-have-changed-up-to-2020-scaled.jpg?fit=1200%2C808&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.entremundos.org\/revista\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/pag.-23-map-from-the-document-panorama-de-la-migracion-internacional-en-mexico-y-centroamerica-2015-cepal-oim.-note-numbers-have-changed-up-to-2020-scaled.jpg?fit=1200%2C808&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.entremundos.org\/revista\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/pag.-23-map-from-the-document-panorama-de-la-migracion-internacional-en-mexico-y-centroamerica-2015-cepal-oim.-note-numbers-have-changed-up-to-2020-scaled.jpg?fit=1200%2C808&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.entremundos.org\/revista\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/pag.-23-map-from-the-document-panorama-de-la-migracion-internacional-en-mexico-y-centroamerica-2015-cepal-oim.-note-numbers-have-changed-up-to-2020-scaled.jpg?fit=1200%2C808&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":4752,"url":"https:\/\/www.entremundos.org\/revista\/migration-en\/exodus-voices-from-the-refugee-caravan-part-3\/?lang=en","url_meta":{"origin":4728,"position":1},"title":"Exodus: Voices From The Refugee Caravan, Part 3","author":"EntreMundos","date":"3 noviembre, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"The following interviews were conducted in Chiapas, Mexico, a week and a half after the caravan set out from San Pedro Sula, Honduras on October 13. \u00a0 Juan Carlos, from the small city of Comayagua, Honduras is traveling with his wife and three children. 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She never got to go to high school. In Arriaga, by the tracks of the\u2026","rel":"","context":"En \u00abFrontPage\u00bb","block_context":{"text":"FrontPage","link":"https:\/\/www.entremundos.org\/revista\/category\/frontpage-en\/?lang=en"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.entremundos.org\/revista\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/joselynmarvin.jpg?fit=1200%2C799&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.entremundos.org\/revista\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/joselynmarvin.jpg?fit=1200%2C799&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.entremundos.org\/revista\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/joselynmarvin.jpg?fit=1200%2C799&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.entremundos.org\/revista\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/joselynmarvin.jpg?fit=1200%2C799&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.entremundos.org\/revista\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/joselynmarvin.jpg?fit=1200%2C799&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":4540,"url":"https:\/\/www.entremundos.org\/revista\/politics\/the-migrant-caravan-and-the-murder-of-a-saudi-journalist\/?lang=en","url_meta":{"origin":4728,"position":3},"title":"The migrant caravan and the murder of a Saudi journalist","author":"EntreMundos","date":"19 octubre, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Jamal Khashoggi\u2019s murder by a US ally has sparked outrage in the US, but dozens of journalists murdered under US-backed regimes in Honduras go unnoticed. 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