Pedro describes his experience living in Mesa Grande, a refugee camp in Honduras, and shares his memories of resettling in Guarjila.
- Chapter:
- Chapter 4: Refugee Experiences
- Interviewee:
- Pedro
Transcription
In the refugee camps they made houses for each family, right next to each other, built out of boards. The UNHCR got some trucks that brought from who knows where: they brought maize, rice, and sugar to Mesa Grande in trucks and then they gave each family its ration, for example. They made lists by name: today it’s so and so’s turn, go receive your supplies. They gave out potatoes, rice, and finally they brought cattle and slaughtered them and gave a couple of pounds to everyone, for each house and each person, and they brought papaya, they brought… all kinds of things to give out, and then they told us that we would be repatriated. All of us who wanted to go back were written down on a big list, and when it was time to come back, they brought us in trucks, everything was in pieces: beds, bowls, everything you need for a house. We arrived in Poy and in Poy we were interrogated at the guard posts, in Honduras and El Salvador. We were there for a day, they wouldn’t let us through. Then they made us wait another day in Salvadoran customs, asking us questions and I don’t know what else. But they finally let us through. We took a detour in Amayo. The trucks, the buses that were bringing the people—the people were in the buses, and the trucks were bringing their things: beds, lots of wooden things. We went through Chalate, a huge group of trucks and buses, that was the first settlement. After that we came to Guarjila, they had us get off in a big field of dry grass and we made tents as best we could, we found sticks and leaves and piled grass on top, and we lived like that for a while. Then they made houses out of poles and we used rocks or even mud to build the walls, and we lived there. Then we heard a lot of noise about the Peace Accords, and that we wouldn’t have to flee or be afraid anymore. We were happy, I was happy, I said, “I hope they work it out,” so that we wouldn’t have to sleep in the woods anymore. And so it was, after that they signed the Peace Accords.