Tina lives with her 14-year-old daughter and 7-year-old son in a suburb called Ciudad España, in Tegucigalpa, the capital of Honduras.
“I love my children with my whole heart and with my whole being. They are the only good thing I have.”
Tina’s parents split up when she was three years old. Neither of her parents wanted to take care of her, so she was raised by her aunt until she was 12 years old and in the 6th grade. Her mother spent her time with other men. Her dad was the kind of man who was more interested in the women he was with than his children. He didn’t even care if his children had shoes. Her uncle and aunt cared for her even though they already had 6 children of their own. When she tells her story, she laughs at the darkest moments trying to make light of her hardship.
She met the father of her children when she was 15 years old. She thinks that the relationship was always broken.
“I was too young I think.”
He was an alcoholic and he was impulsive and jealous. He never hit her but he did abuse her psychologically. He used to say no one else would love her because she was ugly.
“He left on the 7th September 2012.”
He now lives in Miami but they still talk over the phone.
When she was younger, she believed in love. But now she finds it hard to believe or trust people. She doesn’t believe people when they say they love her because she has failed in love so many times before. Now she believes in good moments and she tries to enjoy those moments with people as much as possible. She thinks people stay together for as long as it suits them.
“That’s why I can’t love anybody. Except for my kids,” she says and laughs. “From when they were born, I made sure they had what they needed. As long as they are well, I am well. If they eat but I can’t, that’s okay. Nothing else matters.”
She’s been with Antonio for 3 months, but they were best friends for 6 years before they got together romantically. Tina knew a lot of Antonio’s former girlfriends. She used to lend him her bedroom. And he would look after her children when she needed a break from motherhood. They were confidantes.
“Antonio is beautiful. He’s really special. But he still has some issues with jealousy. And I think I am a bit bipolar. I am angry.”
She used to swallow her issues until it hurt. She went to a doctor who told her that she needed to speak about her problems or eventually she would have a heart attack. So now she tells Antonio when something bothers her about him and he puts up with it.
“When Antonio tells me that he loves me, I don’t believe him. I tell him that he should find someone who knows how to love back. Because I can’t.”
She has always wanted to travel. But until she joined the caravan she had never left Honduras. The caravan was an opportunity that she couldn’t ignore.
Traveling alone with Antonio for such a long time has been stressful.
“There are days when I say that I want to be alone. I have a headache. Go away! And I escape,” she laughs. “I escape because I’m used to being alone and at this point in my life to have someone with me all day is really stressful.”
She likes to be solitary. But she also likes to have Antonio around because he listens to her and offers advice.
Her refuge in the past was working. She has worked since she was 15 years old. Her first job was in construction assisting builders. She also made and sold street food and has cleaned houses. She always wanted to be an engineer but she never got the opportunity to study. Every day she would leave her house at 5.30am and return home at 7pm.
“That has been my whole life. I’ve never had the time to enjoy myself.”
When Antonio told her about the caravan, the news coincided with her being let go from work.
“In Honduras, if you don’t work, you don’t eat.”
In Honduras, she lived in a house owned by the father of her children. He would regularly threaten to kick her out. She has always wanted her own home. After she heard about the caravan she withdrew her life savings (6000 lempiras; US$245) to make the journey with Antonio. She didn’t have enough money to bring her children. She could barely afford her own passport. The children are being looked after by a good friend of hers.
Even if she had enough money, she didn’t want her children to suffer on the journey. She had previously tried to enter the US with her children using a smuggler.
“It was horrible because the smugglers kept more than 100 people in a small cellar. The heat was unimaginable. There was only one bathroom for all those people.”
The smugglers planned to put 500 people inside a trailer but they were stopped by Mexican immigration before they had a chance. From there Tina and her children were kept in an immigration detention centre for one month and 6 days before they were deported to Honduras.
“There were mountains of people in the detention centre. There was only one bathroom and they would put the air conditioner on really strong. The food was awful. I never thought that I would be locked up in a place like that.”
Tina’s children said they didn’t want to go on the journey north with her. They said that they never wanted to experience that again. They hated being locked up.
Now that she’s on the road, Tina feels better about leaving them behind. She wants to be away from them for the shortest time possible. But she feels free at the same time. Before she left Honduras, Tina was expecting a difficult journey to the US. But she has found many good people who have supported them along the way. Now that she is in Tijuana she feels relieved but helpless because she can’t cross the wall.
“It’s like I want to eat the apple but I can’t. We’re here but we’re not.”
She is tired of the caravan and of sleeping in shelters. The bathrooms are filthy and she doesn’t want to shower in the open air in front of everyone. They are sleeping under blankets and at night they get wet. She thinks she’s getting sick.
“I feel like my head is going to explode from the cold,” she says.
In the US, she will take whatever work she can get.
“There’s no job I wouldn’t do.”
Tina’s aspiration is to give her children a better future. Her daughter wants to be a veterinarian and her son wants to be an engineer. But Tina can’t afford to pay for their studies.
“It’s horrible to live so miserably, in a country where there are no jobs, where there is crime, where there is poverty. The most hurtful part is to see our kids starving. The only people who don’t try to get out are the ones who don’t have any ambition. If a person doesn’t do anything, they’ll never overcome.”
