El Comedor - part 3

Shortly after I arrived at El Comedor, a pretty young woman approached me shyly with a smile. She grasped my hands, and spoke softly but rapidly - searching my face. My Spanish is still pretty limited…I squeezed her hands and nodding my head, smiled back, "Buenos dias, hermana." (good morning, sister). She gave a quick dip of her head and turned to find the bathroom.

10 minutes later she was back, this time talking even more intently, scanning my face. Carol was standing next to me and began to translate, “She’s offering you $2,000 if you’ll take her to Florida. She knows it’s dangerous to cross and she doesn’t want to go with someone who will hurt her. She says you look kind…that she will be safe with you.” Stunned, I slowly shake my head no…her voice grows more urgent, ”then papers, please sell me papers…put me in your pocket and carry me across the border to Florida. I have a brother there, he will pay you. Please…” Her name was Caterina and she talked faster than Carol could translate, so after a bit, Carol gave up and I followed the conversation as best as I could. And then Carol filled me in afterwards.

Caterina had been repatriated that morning. She’d been caught just over the border and sent immediately back. She’d lived four years in Florida with her brother, working in a hotel, had then returned to Michoacan (in southern Mexico) where she married and had 3 children. It wasn’t clear to me what had happened to her husband, but he was no longer in the picture. Carol was clear – no we could not help her get into the U.S. or get her papers. It was illegal for us, and could mean 20 years in jail for us and jail time in the U.S. for her as well. Caterina seemed confused that Florida was as far away as Carol described. Surely it was only a day away.

When Carol and I returned from the bus company Caterina was sitting on the wall outside El Comidor and we talked more. She’d been working in a hotel restaurant and enjoyed that work, but her mother and father had died and she’d ended up living with her sister and brother-in-law. “They do ugly things. It is not good for me to live with them, not good for my children.” She was desperate to get to the U.S. to earn enough money to get her children out of that situation…even though it meant leaving them for now in the care of people “doing ugly things. What choice do I have?”

That’s when her face crumpled and she began to cry. “What will I do?” I asked if I could pray each morning for God to answer that question for her. She said yes and asked for me to pray for strength and for God to help her.

And that’s what I’ll do. Her picture will hang on the bulletin board above my desk where I’ll see it each time I sit down to work. But…it hardly feels enough. On the day after Valetine's day, my heart got shattered. I'm praying it stay's that way.