Refuge in Mesa Grande

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Amanda decides to flee with her children to the Mesa Grande refugee camp in Honduras after her husband was killed in 1986.

Interviewee:

Transcription

In order to survive, I went to Mesa Grande because things here weren’t easy. All you heard were airplanes, military operations, and bombings. I was afraid. I thought to myself, "How can I be alone with my two children, what can I do?" I felt as if they had cut off one of my arms. To tell you the truth, when you have a husband and he dies, when they take his life away, you feel like they’ve taken your arm. You just don’t know what to do. You don’t know what to think. I thought, "Damn, how am I going to eat?" "How am I going to do it? If I have to go out on a guinda, what am I going to do with the children?" So, what did I do? I left. That was in 1986 and I returned in 1987.