6. back to the past, drive to the future

Jasmine informed Jazmin that the drive from Las Cruces to New England would take several days.  Jazmin was exhausted, physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually.  The first day she curled up in the back seat on a bed of blankets Father Thomas had given her, and just slept.  Jasmine was only vaguely aware of the legal trouble she was playing with, and was kinda happy that Jazmin was hidden under a blanket out of sight; she didn’t realize that just offering Jazmin a glass of water was a felony that could land her in jail.  The second day Jazmin felt a little more refreshed, and the overwhelming situation she was in, the anxiety she felt about her kids, kept her awake.  She sat in the front passenger seat as Jasmine drove though Colorado far away from the Nazi-style I.C.E. checkpoints in southern New Mexico.

“I want to welcome you to America, by the way” Jasmine said to Jazmin, as they were chatting about nothings in the late morning.

“Thank you” Jazmin said quietly and shyly.

“So what brings you here in the first place?  I mean, when they took your kids.” Jasmine inquired gently.  “What originally motivated you to come?  Where did you live before?  What was life there like?  We have a lot of time before we get to New England.  Tell me all about it.”

Jazmin sat quietly for a moment, thinking about her past, and the turmoil that brought her to this place at this moment.

“Well, I was born in Peru high in the Andes mountains on the East side facing the rising morning sun.  I lived in a little village, with only a few hundred people or so.  My mother passed away when I was very young.  My father was the … shaman? … the healer and priest in our village.  When I was 14, my father arranged for me to marry the younger shaman from another village, Rafaél.  He was only 30, but he was well respected in his community.  Our village only had my father, but his village had 3 younger shaman as well as an older highly respected one; and my father was getting very old.  So it was arranged that my husband would move to our village and inherit the responsibilities of my father.”

“For the first 2 years, we were so happy.  We started a family, and I had a son, and our village quickly came to accept, and trust, and respect Rafaél.  My father passed away a year after we got married, and Rafaél became our village leader.  Then when we woke one morning, the first thing Rafaél said was his dreams told him we needed to leave the village that day.  He got up and started packing at 5:00 or 6:00am.  He went out into the village that morning and tried to convince everyone they should pack their bags and leave, but no one listened; instead they started to think he was crazy, and did not trust him anymore.

“But we left with my son.  We did not have a llama or alpaca, so we walked down the only road towards the bigger cities.  That road was just a llama trail when I was born, but big foreign corporations had started building it into a road for their big trucks.  We tried to stop them from building it through our village, and it was a big fight for 3 years, from before I got married.  Rafaél was one of the biggest fighters against the road even at the beginning before he moved into our village, so everyone in my village loved him.  But then he was telling them to leave, not stay, and they just quickly gave up on him.

“Then late that afternoon, a bunch of trucks passed us as we walked down the mountain, and they drove up the mountain toward our village.  That night, they burned my village to the ground, and the next morning, they bulldozed the land and started building a small industrial complex there.  It was the only flat land on the mountainside.  We heard all the people in my village survived, all my friends, but they lost everything and were forced to leave their homeland.  The corporation was digging for gold in the peaks above our village, and they needed a place for their workers to live, and they built their city where our village was.

“Rafaél took us to Cuzco.  At first the big city was too much for me, but I learned to adapt.  Rafaél insisted that I take English lessons there.  I also went to regular school there, except for adults not little children.  So I was in school for 6 years.

“I also had another baby.  My other daughter.  Then I got pregnant with my third child, and she was born there in Cuzco.  We were leaving the hospital, and walking across the street.  I was holding Lilia in my arms, wrapped in blankets.  Rafaél was walking next to me, when suddenly he stopped, and pushed me so hard from behind.  I almost fell, but I didn’t; I just ran toward the curb to catch myself.

“But at that moment, a truck was turning left going really fast.  It smashed into Rafaél and killed him…” Jazmin’s voice got a bit quieter and trailed off as she finished that last sentence.  She paused, then continued with tones of anxiety permeating her voice “It would have killed Lilia and me also, if Rafaél didn’t save us.”

Jasmine held out her right hand as she steered the car with her left.  Jazmin took Jasmine’s hand, and Jasmine squeezed her a little hug.  The moment held for a minute, and then Jasmine gently, slowly released Jazmin’s hand as Jazmin released hers.

“Then I didn’t know what to do.  Someone told me about America, and then that night I had a dream that Rafaél told me to go there.  I worked some hard jobs to make money, but most times there was nobody to watch my kids when I worked.  I saved my money, got my stuff together, and started walking.  In Mexico, I heard all I needed to do was go inside America and ask for help, and they would help; and I found someone to help me get into America.

“But then they didn’t help when I got here” Jazmin suddenly started sobbing.  “Instead they put us in jail, then took my children away.”  Jazmin put her face in her hands and just started to outright cry.  Jasmine reached over and gently rubbed her back while remaining focused on the road.

Several minutes passed.  Jazmin slowly recovered her composure, and wiped the tears from her eyes.  Then she continued her story.

“Then they sent me back to Mexico without my children.  No one would tell me what happened to them.  No one would even listen to me.  I came back to America twice, but they just keep sending me back … to Mexico the first time, then to Peru.  I had to walk back here again to find my children.  Then you found me.”