I’m here waiting to cross to the other side just for a better future for myself. I’m not married or anything, but maybe one day I will. So I want to find a good job and something stable so that I can give something better for my family.
Aquí estoy esperando cruzar al otro lado, sólo por un futuro mejor para mi. No soy casado ni nada, pero tal vez un día sí me case, así que quiero encontrar un buen trabajo, algo estable, para que le pueda dar algo a mi familia.
There I am alone. My friends already crossed over and they are gone, they would probably feel bad because they are on the other side and I’m still here at the border.
Ahí estoy yo solo. Mis amigos ya cruzaron y se fueron, tal vez se sentirían mal porque están al otro lado y yo estoy todavía aquí en la frontera.
So, how does it feel now that you are done, that we can see the pictures the pictures that you took?
Here these are… that is the same one with Natalia and here we are, this is the entrance of El Comedor. Yeah, that’s another guy from Honduras. Oh, this is another guy from Honduras. Also, the entrance to El Comedor.
Yeah, there’s a lot of pictures of me that I want to show you.
That’s because nobody wanted to take a picture, so I asked them to take pictures of me then. That’s with the other Catracho from Honduras.
Oh this is the picture that the other guy was asking where this picture that was taken. This is the close up of the face of the guy from Guatemala.
So how would he feel seeing himself here on this picture?
Well, I don’t know, he is not here anymore. He’s waiting. He’s thinking. Thinking about where to cross or whether he will stay here in Nogales or whether he will go back. Who knows what he is thinking?
He looks young, doesn’t he?
Yeah, he’s like 22.
That person is carrying all his belongings in that plastic bag… It feels bad, because that’s all you own. That’s all you have in this moment. Though, maybe if that bag was full of dollars then it would make a difference.
Ésta persona está cargando todas sus pertenencias en esa bolsa plástica. Se siente mal, porque es todo lo que tienes. Todo lo que tienes en este momento. ¡Claro que si la bolsa estuviera llena de dólares sería diferente!
So there we are outside of the shelter, waiting for the van to come to climb up and bring us here [to El Comedor] for breakfast. That’s everybody who stayed at the shelter. They’re waiting for the van to come. Here that is a van, and we’re all climbing into the van and they’ll take us over to the Keno Initiative at the border.
How does it feel to be there waiting for the van?
So let’s see, what’s going to happen next? You got up and then you go where?
Oh this is still at the center. That’s the chapel where we can say thank you fo being alive and being here in Nogales. Everybody goes through the chapel and that is the place where we can just hang out and wait after we make the bed and pick up stuff. We wait in the chapel and then the van comes and picks up and brings us here to El Comedor for breakfast.
Oh this picture it is daylight already in the shelter, but they have not turned on the light and so you can’t see anything. It is all the people who slept there, and it is at the beginning of a new day. That is one more night at the border, thinking: Are we going to continue here? Are we going to go to another border town? What are we going to do?
So you have to deal with the border patrol and with the mafia, which one is worse?