The robbers ransacked him, the police beat him to death, and the hooligans threatened to kill him. But these dangers are nothing compared to his determination to find his mother...
Poor Honduras
On January 29, 1989, Enrique, a 5-year-old Honduran boy, quietly left the house when he saw his mother, Lurdes, carrying a suitcase. Enrique seemed to sense something was wrong, clutched his mother's leg, and cried out loudly. However, Lurdes still left, and after she divorced her husband, she could not afford to support a pair of children, so she could only entrust the children to her relatives and smuggle them to the United States alone to earn money to send home.
After 11 years, Enrique has grown into a standard street gangster. Since he was 5 years old, he has only occasionally been on the phone, talking to his mother who is far away in the United States. Now, he fights and makes trouble, and even becomes addicted to drugs and becomes an annoying child. Enrique knew in his heart that if he continued like this, he would probably die on the street...
Enrique decided to smuggle himself to the United States and give himself a new life. Before leaving, he stared at his mother's photo for a long time, trying to keep in mind the appearance of his mother, who had not been seen for many years, and he did not dare to bring the photo, for fear of losing it on the road. He took all his savings with him, for a total of $57. The most precious thing was his mother's phone number, which he wrote down on a piece of paper and carried it, just in case, he also wrote the phone number in the inner layer of his pants.
In early 2000, Enrique bid farewell to his sister Becky and embarked on a smuggled journey to the United States. At this moment, he did not expect how difficult it was on this road, and countless life and death disasters were waiting for him.
Going to the United States was far more difficult than he thought.
Enrique, along with his friend Joss, entered Mexico from Guatemala. They had just picked up a train when they were spotted by immigration police. Like other stowaways, Enrique was crammed into a bus and sent back to Guatemala.
It was Enrique's first failure, and he didn't care and soon set off again. This time he was alone, and just 5 days later, he lost his shoes while sleeping on the train, then was caught by the police and failed again. The third time, he slept in a dilapidated house, and the immigration police found him and failed again. The fourth time, while he was sleeping in the cemetery, he was caught again...
The fifth time, Enrique pickpocketed the train and walked 800 miles, but was accidentally attacked by bees and his whole face was swollen. Lying by the railroad groaning in pain, he was then found by the police and sent back to Guatemala again. On the sixth occasion, Enrique's train reached the Rio Grande on the border between the United States and Mexico, across which he saw the land of the United States. But while he was eating by the railroad, he was found again...
Enrique never wanted to give up, and every time he was sent back, he was the first to set off again. On the seventh adventure, he pickpocketed the train again and came to Mexico. That night, Enrique picked up a freight train, followed by a stranger who suddenly grabbed Enrique's hands. Suddenly, 5 more people rushed out from the roof of the car, surrounded Enrique and beat him, and someone slammed Enrique's head with a stick, and the stick was broken.
Everything on Enrique's body was taken, and the piece of paper with his mother's phone number on it was thrown into the night. Even Enrique's pants were pulled off and thrown off the speeding train. Enrique pleaded loudly, his teeth had been knocked out 3 times, his speech was somewhat unclear, the other party could not find anything, and decided to throw Enrique out of the car.
Enrique panicked, it was night, and if he was thrown off the train like this, he would most likely not be able to save his life. Enrique decided to fight to the death, and he took advantage of the fact that the other party was defenseless, and suddenly got up and pulled his leg and ran. Enrique, wearing only his underwear, galloped on top of the rickety train. He fell and almost rolled off the train, but immediately got up again and kept running. Soon he was running to the rear of the carriage, and he had to jump over it to have a chance to escape.
The train was still speeding, and there was darkness all around, and Enrique knew that this jump would most likely kill him. However, the voices of the group behind them were getting closer and closer, and there was no time to think about it, and Enrique jumped forward, clutching one of the armrests between the two carriages with both hands. The wheel was at Enrique's feet, and he struggled to climb up, but suddenly a gunshot rang in his ear—Enrique didn't think anything of it, and immediately jumped off the train and rolled down the side of the railway.
Jumping, Enrique survived.
Enrique was lying on the edge of the railway, the train speeding by, and he was unconscious for a while before slowly waking up. Now, he remembered the scene where he had just jumped down, and he felt very frightened. Lying on the edge of the railway, ready to be spotted by the police, Enrique found himself unable to stand up, so he tried desperately to crawl forward. However, he only climbed a few tens of meters, and he could no longer support it, and he had no consciousness.
The place where Enrique fainted, near a small village in the Mexican state of Okisa. That morning, gomez, a farm worker, was out to work when he suddenly saw a little boy covered in blood and wearing only underwear, lying motionless on the side of the road. Gomez thought it was a corpse, and when he approached, he saw that the boy was covered in scales, his outward lips were covered in blood, his left face was swollen, and his eyes were bruised. But the child wasn't dead yet, he was crying.
Enrique squinted his eyes to see someone coming, groaning and wanting to drink some water. Gomez hurried back with a glass of water, and then called the village chief. The village chief immediately took Enrique back to his house, washed his wounds, dressed him with herbs, and prepared a large bowl of potato stew broth.
Enrique was knocked out of 3 teeth, his face was swollen, he could not chew, and could only drink soup spoon by spoon. Coincidentally, the mayor happened to be passing by this place. The village chief immediately stepped forward to explain the situation, hoping that the mayor would take the poor boy to the town hospital. The mayor was very angry, but he was not willing to watch a child die like this, so he let his driver drive the van and take Enrique to the hospital.
Enrique curled up in the back of the van and began to cry quietly again, telling the driver what had happened to him last night. At this moment, a police car appeared in front of him, and the officer stopped the van and began to chat with the driver. Enrique recognized the voice, the man who stole 100 pesos from him last night. Enrique curled up and did not dare to make a sound, and the officer made small talk and left.
Not surprised when the truck drivers learned that the officers had robbed Enrique, he said that robbing money and beating immigrants on the train was something that the policemen often did. That night, Enrique was taken to a small clinic where the doctor stitched up his wound and did not collect money.
Early the next morning, Enrique set off again.
The average Mexican doesn't hate these stowaways and even shows a lot of compassion. So, as Enrique walked down the street with a blue nose and swollen face, a pedestrian came up and handed him 50 pesos and left without saying anything. Then another man handed Henrique 20 pesos and left without saying anything.
Enrique limped toward the railway outside town, and he had to climb another train to continue the journey below. Just then, Enrique saw a car slowly passing by, and he reached out to stop the car, hoping that the driver would give him a ride. Unbeknownst to Enrique, the driver was an immigration police officer who had just left work, and Enrique was sent directly to the immigration checkpoint and then back to Guatemala. His seventh adventure failed again.
Without even thinking about it, Enrique embarked on his eighth adventure. This time Enrique learned his lesson that he would no longer trust anyone, would not take the bus, and would have to jump before the train stopped at the checkpoint, sneak past the checkpoint and catch up with the train that had just left the station.
Catching a train is a very dangerous thing, countless people have died under the wheels, Enrique is already very experienced, and there is no big problem in climbing on the train. This time he lay on the roof of the carriage, firmly grasping the bulge on the edge of the carriage, carefully observing his surroundings to make sure no one was near him.
In early April 2000, enrique completed a third of his journey through Mexico. Most of the time, he lay on the roof of the train and didn't dare to move. In the eastern Mexican state of Veracruz, Enrique saw a 20-meter-tall white statue of Jesus. Many stowaways were shocked and whispered prayers, and Enrique looked at the statue of Jesus like this, and there was an indescribable feeling in his heart.
In the evening, the train passed through a small village, which was not very fast. Suddenly, Enrique saw villagers on both sides of the railway, mostly women and children, running along the train, throwing something at the stowaways on the train. Enrique was afraid that it was a stone, but when he got closer, he saw that it was a bag of food, and Enrique received a blue plastic bag with bagels inside...
The train went on, and Enrique met the police twice in a row, but the policemen did not embarrass him. There was also a van driver who even let Enrique hitchhike and successfully passed the San Luis Portos checkpoint. In the last part of the journey, Enrique seemed to be much luckier, and he received the help of many strangers and successfully arrived at the new Laredo next to the Grad River. Across the river is America, Enrique's twilight mother, somewhere there.
A big problem arose, enrique had already lost his mother's phone number.
Enrique only knew the phone number of the tire shop where he had worked, and all he could do now was call the tire shop owner and ask him to go to his family to ask for the phone number, and then make another phone call himself and let the tire shop owner give the phone number to himself. That is, he needs to make two phone calls and he needs money.
Enrique found a broken plastic bucket and two rags and went into town to wash the cars of others. But the competition in this line is also fierce, and Enrique only earns 30 pesos a day. He was reluctant to pay for food and had to queue up at church, where there was a free meal every day. In this way, for 15 days, Enrique was hungry almost every day to earn money, and twice the money was almost enough, but he was ransacked by the police and had to start again.
It wasn't until May 19 that Enrique finally bought two phone cards and called the owner of the tire shop in his hometown to get his mother's phone. It was on this night that Enrique finally heard his mother's voice...
On May 21, 2000, Enrique promised a local "smuggler" $1,200 to finally get a chance to go to the United States. The "smuggler" took Enrique and two other stowaways to cross the Grande River on a tire in the dark of night, evaded patrolling police in the gutter, and successfully entered the United States.
Immediately after that, the local person in charge of the pick-up came by car, and Enrique and two other stowaways got into the car, knowing that he had arrived in the United States. Enrique fell asleep in the car, he had never slept so soundly in so many days, and by the time he woke up again, the car had driven more than 400 miles to the city of Dallas.
Here, the driver asked Enrique to call his mother, who had agreed for $1,200, but they temporarily raised the price to $1,700. Enrique's mother had no choice but to borrow some more money and remit it to Dallas. Afterward, the men sent Enrique to Orlando, where mother Lourdes' boyfriend drove over and took Enrique back to Northern California.
Enrique trekked 12,000 miles, spent more than 80 nights, and experienced 7 failures before finally meeting his mother, who had been away for 11 years...
Enrique was lucky because more stowaways like him died on this long journey...