The day that changed everything
When I was six years old I only knew hunger and the sound of my mother quietly weeping at night, trying not to wake me up, while my father was almost a stranger to me. He spent his days workng, repairing appliances and truly doing anything to get his pay. My mother was a teacher yet the only lesson I was taught was how to wait. Wait for bread, medicine and anything really. Before we left, my father went away for work, hoping to find a job that could make our lives somewhat easier. He promised he would send money to us, that we would see him again, that we would follow as soon as it was safe. But then letters stopped coming, calls went unanswered, and weeks slowly became months without a single word. My mother waited as long as she could, but we had nothing here and staying here with nothing was a bigger threat than leaving. Soon came the day we finally packed our few belongings and stepped into the unknown. We did not leave because we wanted more, we left given that staying meant slowly disappearing. We were gone before dawn, when the sky was the color of ash and the streets looked ashamed of themselves. Mother said we were going far away to a brighter place and I believed her.
Hidden between the hills of Panama and Colombia there it was, the Darien Gap, waiting for us. It came unexpectedly. One moment there were roads, cracked and worn out but still roads, the next there was only dirt and and an endless, enormous green. The jungle did not roar like in the stories, it was much more quiet. It also wasn't led by some wild animals, but by humans. The jungle gave us warnings we did not fully understand and many false promises. I learned quickly that it had its own language. Insects spoke through their persistence, certain that our blood belonged to them. Mud spoke through the sucking sound it made when it tried to steal our shoes. Rain spoke the harshest, soaking our clothes and skin until we forgot what it felt like to be dry. The lines we walked in often broke, but we always tried to stay in a group, it was safer that way. There were other children, some were quiet and well behaved, while others were crying loudly, unaware that suffering was meant to be hidden. Adults carried bags of clothes and documents sealed in plastic. Children would often help their parents with all the luggage. With time everything became quiet, even the ones who bawled loudly at first were now focused on more important things, like finding a way to safety. My mother also spoke less as time went on. Her words became precious, shared only when necessary. When she did speak, it was to tell me to drink, to be careful, to look at her and nowhere else. Once, after I slipped on a wet root and began to cry, she did not scold me. She crouched in the mud, pressed her forehead to mine and said: ˝We must keep moving.˝ It sounded like she was trying to convince herself too.
Death was not dramatic there, it arrived without ceremony and waited patiently. I saw a shoe lying in the mud, nearby was a man sitting still against a tree, his eyes and mouth open, as if he had tried to say something but simply ran out of time. There were many unfortunate people like him. No one paid them attention though. Many would still breathe as they wait for death to pick them up yet no one would stop to offer help. To stop was to invite the jungle to remember you. At night, we slept in wrapped in plastic and fear. The darkness was thick and the cold air made our damp clothes feel like an ice bath. I remember listening to adults talk about rivers that rose without warning and paths that disappeared overnight. I remember my mother placing her fingers on my chest, counting my breaths, fearing they might wander off if left unattended. We were all extremely tired, still she would hardly get any sleep from all the fear and worry. Hunger became very familiar and demanding. It was even stronger than before, but my stomach learned to ache quietly. The problem was we brought enough food and water for only three days, since we were initially told this whole adventure shouldn't be longer than that. The third day came and we realized that was a lie told to get as many people as possible to pay their way through the Darien Gap. I was asked my mother when we would go home, but the question was followed by silence. I started to understand that home was already a memory. I was then left to hope we would find a better place to live, far from home, far from the jungle. The river was the worst of it. Water that looked calm but moved with intention, carrying branches, dirt, and sometimes people. I remember when we were crossing one of those rivers, the water climbed my legs, my chest, my throat. I was thinking that this was how stories ended, not with shouting, but with surrender. I felt too weak to try and fight the agressive waters, I didn't even know how to go against the river, I thought my fate was already decided, but then thankfully my mother pulled with strenght I didn't know she possessed. The river let me go, disappointed.
One afternoon, after days of walking, we came across a small, hidden village. People there sold food and drinks. My mother counted our money twice before giving it in exchange for a bottle of water and something to make hunger a bit more bearable. She let me drink the water first, and I was drinking it slowly, afraid it might run out if I drank too quickly. That village was a place that only existed to serve people like us, saving many lives each day. By morning we were walking again, leaving behind the last signs of safety as the jungle closed around us once more. We kept walking until we finally reached the end of the green chaos where we saw a river and long, narrow canoes waiting for us, their wooden surface worn smooth due to years of crossings. We stepped in carefully with a few other travellers. The river carried us away from the tall trees, and for the first time in days, we did not have to walk. It felt so peaceful suddenly. Hours passed in a slow, quiet ride. Eventually, the trees started to thin out and the jungle was pulling back into the distance as small villages appeared along the shore. When we stepped on land again, my legs shook, this time not from fear, but from the strange feeling of being still after so much movement. After that, the journey became a blur, turning into borders and roads that had no names. We moved through countries, sleeping where we were allowed and leaving before anyone could ask too many questions.
By the time we reached Mexico, I had stopped expecting safety. Mexico itself felt vast but tense, full of motion and warnings that no longer hid behind trees. It was there, crowded streets and unfamiliar towns, that I realized the danger was still present, it was just changing its shape. This was the part of the trip that seemed quite simple, we were so close to our dreams, but trouble was even closer, chasing us faster than we had thought. I did not understand most of what adults feared, only that my mother's body grew tense the moment we crossed into Mexico, as if she were preparing to face every danger that roams the streets herself. It was there that I first climbed onto La Bestia, the train people called the Death Train, though no one ever said that name to children. From above, the train looked endless. We rode on top because there was nowhere else to go, and the train was the fastest way through the country. It wasn't painless or effortless though. Getting on top of the metal beast was frightening, since it rarely stops. It only slows down if you're fortunate enough, but for many it's still too fast. I learned quickly how narrow the space between living and falling could be. A single wrong step, a moment of sleep, and the train would keep going without you. I remember screams that ended too fast, hands reaching for nothing, and the way everyone learned to look forward instead of down. The metal burned our skin during the day and stole our warmth at night, and the wind was constantly trying to peel us away. Danger followed the train. It waited near the tracks and climbed aboard when it could. Men appeared suddenly, demanding money, demanding silence, demanding things I did not yet have the words for. Even if I did, no one would have listened, no one would have helped us. My mother covered my ears when she could, turned my face into her chest, and told me stories meant to keep my mind somewhere else. Hunger was still present, sharper than before, and thirst felt like a second sun shining inside my throat. We jumped off the train when we were told to, our bodies unsteady, tired from everything we have been through, but we still kept going. We ran without really knowing who we were running from or where would we end up. We just ran. After the train, the journey continued on foot, in hiding, through towns that were alive and hostile. People helped us sometimes, quietly and quickly. Kindness was hiding behind curtains of threats and battles fought by people who had already lost at life and were just trying to survive. People who were born into the wrong path. Sometimes though, help came with conditions. There were men who said they would take us north, that they knew the way, that they had done this before. To me, they were simply adults who spoke with confidence, and confidence felt like reassurance. My mother on the other hand kept an eye on them and asked many questions, weighing every word they said. The closer we came to the border, the quieter the world became. The usual sound of insects buzzing, the low murmur of distant towns, even the wind seemed calm. It was quiet, but far from peaceful or safe. Movement happened only at night. Shadows became companions, and every rustle set our hearts racing. Instructions were whispered in sharp, urgent tones. We were told when to walk, when to stop, when to lower our heads and breathe as softly as possible. My mother's hand never left mine, her fingers pressing firmly. The land stretched out, flat and wide, nothing like the oppressive green of the jungle, nothing like the rough and uneven mountains we had crossed before. Every step felt heavier, every mile measured in silence. Occasionally, we would stop and try to make ourselves as small as mouse while listening for sounds that might betray us such as distant cars, a barking dog, a voice that did not belong to our group. The air was dry and sharp, and the stars above us seemed brighter than usual. One night, after days of careful steps, we reached the border. We crossed quickly, our feet fought against the solid ground that would then reveal dust floating around. I did not know then that a simple line could carry more power than armies, more danger than rivers or wild animals. A single wrong move and we would undo the months we had survived. With that, the strange combination of fear and relief followed us, a burden I would carry for the rest of my life.
For ten years, that crossing shaped everything we did. It decided where we lived, which streets we walked, who we spoke to, how we spoke, what we said, what we did and so much more. It shaped this careful way we existed in the world, our quiet life. It felt like only silence itself could protect us. Many times I wished I could have said something, that I could have expressed myself, but a simple opinion was too risky. Instead of risking anything, I just grew older, I learned English, I found a way to appear invisible while still moving forward, I knew when to speak and when to vanish into the background. I was well behaved, I had decent grades, I always tried to be a good friend, to fit in. Life began to feel almost ordinary, as if the world had finally agreed to let us rest. And then, one day, men in uniforms arrived. Their voices were crisp, their certainty cold and stubborn. They were confident, just like the people who once guided us north, but this certainty did not promise safety. It meant return. It meant that the journey we thought we had finished, the one that had begun in fear, mud, and endless green, had not ended at all. The life we had built, the plans we had for our future, the past we thought we could leave behind, it came back. It had only been waiting, quietly, patiently, and relentlessly to take my mother's hand and mine and pull us back into motion, back to the world where we were never truly safe, back into the fear we had tried so hard to forget about. I fought an exhausting battle, and just as I thought that I had won, everything changed. I suddenly lost everything. It didn't matter that we never caused any trouble, that we tried our best to appeal to them, that we didn't even ask for understanding, just for a chance in life. We weren't welcomed. We never will be, because we have our little part of the world where we can stay forgotten and ignored, maybe turn into a statistic and nothing more.
With that, my life is about to change. I'm going back, however this time not through the Darien Gap and not as an immigrant.