Juana relates her difficult experience during the May Guinda, attempting to cross the Sumpul River with her four children.
- Chapter:
- Chapter 3: The Years of "Guindas"
- Interviewee:
- Juana
Transcription
We came down from Patamera towards Santa Anita, and then from there to Los Amates. It was a sad day, but we managed to come down with the children to Santa Anita at around 6 p.m. By 5 a.m., we had crossed the Sumpul River and arrived at Los Amates. Once there, at around 8 a.m. we were eating a small breakfast when we heard the sound of a mine detonating. Our coordinator said, “Let’s get out of here, the army is coming.” We began to run. We were such a big crowd, it would be difficult to say exactly how many of us there were. When we ran, the faster we ran, the louder the sounds became. Sometimes it became so loud that we would all throw ourselves to the ground, and then the loud sounds would stop. It was our own footsteps that we were hearing. When we came near the Sumpul River, one of my girls lost her shoes. When I found her shoes, I told myself, “My daughter I went down to the river and saw her huddled up in a corner next to some pineapple bushes. She told me,”Mommy, I came down so that my godfather would get me across the river but he couldn’t.” I threw myself into the river with four children. My husband went ahead of me carrying another child. I thought to myself, “If I jump in the river, the children will jump in too, and they'll drown!” I held my baby here, Pedro clung to my arm, José Rogelio clung to my other arm, and I carried the other two here. So I had four children. But the moment I jumped into the river, it had risen so much that the water came up to here. One of my children let go of me in the current but my mom was a little behind me and she was able to maneuver inside the water. As best as she could, she grabbed him by the shirt and took him to the shore. When I got to the other side, there were already a few children there who had made it to the other side. But the only thing people could do was to wrap them in their diapers and put them under the bushes. That’s where those children stayed. They weren’t dead. But the adults they were with couldn’t do anything anymore, it was like life had left them. They couldn’t carry those children anymore. It was a very delicate situation. I got out of that area, and then we headed towards San Isidro. We spent the night there and the next day we walked, and walked, and walked. We got to the same village where I was born. But at that point there weren’t a lot of people with us. There were only two families.