There are not many things that have happened to me that are interesting. The only interesting experience I have ever had is something that happened to me when I traveled to the United States. On my journey to the United States, I experienced something that I can never delete from my mind. When my father and I were almost at the border, I believe halfway through the trip, we got separated from the group of people who were also coming with us.
Our trip started in September of 2008. We planned our trip to take one to two weeks. We started at San Salvador, the capital of El Salvador. We rode a bus from San Salvador all the way to Guatemala. Once in Guatemala, we had to walk for a day but that went well.
The second time we had to walk was when things got interesting. This time we had to walk for three days. When walking, we felt that we were in a house that was burning. We were sweating and we had 4 bottles of water that we drank in less than an hour. After walking for a couple of hours, we had to cross a road that was supervised by U.S. Immigration. We saw a cloud of dust at the horizon and we realized that it was immigration. When we started to run, we noticed a truck that was heading towards us. The truck was like a cheetah running for its prey. We ran to a nearby forest and while we were running, I felt my dad grabbing me and pulling me in the direction of a bush. This bush was really small but big enough for my dad and I to hide. It didn’t have many branches. When we were under the bush, we saw four ICE officers run by our faces. We heard them yelling “Stop running!”
We stayed under that bush for about five hours. We felt the ants biting our bodies but we didn’t want to move because we didn’t want to get caught. After five hours of suffering we decided to go and look for a house where people could help us. We were lost for about a week without food. We drank water from puddles, and most of the time we hid from everyone. On the Sunday of that week, we were really tired and hungry. We had been walking so much that the soles of my dad’s feet were bleeding and I had to support him. It was dark and foggy and we couldn’t see far away. We saw a building but we didn’t pay much attention to it. We continued walking in the direction of the building. When we were in front of it, we noticed a cross, we had encountered a church. We went and asked for help. The people there were very kind, they gave us food and they let us borrow a phone to call my uncle who then sent another coyote to come pick us up. This memory can never be deleted from my mind.
When I started this journey I had big dreams in my mind. I knew that it was going to be hard traveling to another place by land. Most of the people immigrate to this country seeking for more opportunities. I came here looking for a better life. I had to go through a lot to accomplish it, and now I have accomplished it. I didn’t find what I was expecting to find when I first got here, but I have realized that because I stood strong and I didn’t gave up, I now have a better life and more opportunities.