Carlota remembers fleeing with her newborn during the “May Guinda” in 1982.
- Chapter:
- Chapter 3: The Years of "Guindas"
- Interviewee:
- Carlota
Transcription
All those posts were taken by the military. They put up a barricade and everyone left... The people ran away from Patamera.
[And where were you?]
I was there; in a place they call Rama Caída.
[What do you remember about those days?]
What I remember... Well at that time... I had a little girl, very young, in those days I had just had her. About three months after she was born that guinda happened. And I had to flee with the little girl. The military took over the whole whole area... All the positions were taken by the military, we didn’t know where to go. Some of us went to the ravines and endured hunger. During that time we... For twelve days all we got to eat was a small piece of tortilla. We had been on the run for several days, and I was taking care of my baby. How could I have any breast milk if I wasn’t eating anything? And the babies had to cry. When we were running away from the army, the comrades gave babies a small piece of a pill to make them sleep. So that they would sleep. They cried. And they cried more when they felt less safe. And the older children didn't want to breastfeed, what they wanted were tortillas. There were times when we told the older kids that they could speak. We always gave them breast milk. We gave them breast milk so they wouldn't cry. But they asked for tortillas. They wanted tortillas. And I, at that time, when... On one occasion, it was nighttime and I was left only with my husband and so we walked at night. Me, with my newborn baby girl and, I remember well, we walked towards El Sitio. We found soldiers there. And so at night we walked, but my husband explored during the day so we knew where to go at night. My husband went out alone during the day to explore so we knew where to go. His idea was to get me to Honduras, at that place I was telling you about. He got me through there. That was because we could no longer sustain running away with the baby. She almost died once when out of fear he covered her mouth and nose. She seemed to be dead for a while. I thought it was strange that he wouldn't give her to me to breastfeed. That was at about 8 p.m., when the baby passed out. But she regained consciousness at about 3 a.m. He told me to breastfeed the girl. It seemed strange to me that she wasn’t crying of hunger.
"Wow," I said, "She woke up."
She had passed out because he suffocated her, because he was worried the soldiers would find us. The girl lived and she is a fully grown woman now.