Today I had the privilege of meeting Juan Carlos. He came into the pharmacy wanting to use the pay phone. We have a phone that you pay in advance, rather than coin operated. Juan was trying to reach his family in Puebla. He didn’t have very much money (under $1 in pesos). Puebla is a three-day bus ride south of Hermosillo. He had been sleeping in the bus depot for the last three days with no food.
He didn’t ask for help and was very embarrassed when we offered to help with his phone call to his sister. Because he hasn’t had any money, he hasn’t been able to call his family. But now his sister is able to wire him some money tomorrow morning so he can buy a ticket home.
As he has no where to go until tomorrow morning, he sat in the bus depot all day while we worked. When we decided to close for the day, we invited him to join us for dinner so we could learn more about his story.
Juan Carlos comes from an extremely poor family in Puebla. He traveled north to find work in order to feed himself and his family. He has two daughters (Isabelle and Alejandra). He was only able to earn 500 pesos a week in Puebla. That’s $40 US for a 6-day work week (or $.83 cents US an hour).
He traveled north to Sonora to work in the grape fields (not far from the city where we live). Unfortunately, he could only find a job in the fields that paid 50-60 pesos a day (US$4-4.80). That’s $.50 cents an hour, which is worse than what he made in Puebla.
One day a man came to the field to offer to take the workers across the border into the US. It cost him $1200 for the promise to be taken to Phoenix and then on to LA. He was supposed to be given a job once he arrived in LA. However, the actual crossing of the border is done by foot and takes approximately one week to cross through the border. He was supposed to be picked up once he got to the US to be taken north.
He was given a gallon of water before being dropped off. With that, he walked north toward the US. His description of the journey was horrific. The sun is unbearably hot and his water supply was severely limited. He came across two dead bodies of people who had gone before him but who couldn’t complete the trip. He believed he too would soon be dead.
On the fifth day they had entered the US. However, a couple others traveling in close proximity were captured by the border patrol. Juan Carlos says he fled because he feared what they would do to him. He said his brother was captured once trying to cross and was beaten by the agents that had caught him. Fearing the same, he raced back to Mexico as fast as he could. Three days later he arrived in Sonoyta, Sonora in Mexico. Due to heat exhaustion, he was hospitalized. When he was released from the hospital, he met a priest who heard his story and wanted to help. The priest wrote a letter hoping the bus company would reduce his bus fare and the priest then provided the other half of the fare. It was only enough to get him to Hermosillo (where we live and five hours south of Sonoyta).
Juan Carlos showed me the letter, so I took a picture of it.
His bus arrived in Hermosillo three days ago. He has been at a loss for what to do since then.
I asked Juan what his greatest fear was while in the desert. He said it was that his family would never know what had happened to him. Hundreds cross daily and are never heard from again. Juan says he begged God to save him and believes he is only alive because of God. Juan is a Catholic. He does not know the gospel, or anything about Christianity for that matter. Our hope is that he does now.
We may never see Juan Carlos again (he said he will never try to cross into the US again). Tomorrow he should receive the money from his sister and will be on his way to Puebla (a three-day bus ride). Jacinto, our manager and also from Puebla, will take care of Juan Carlos tomorrow morning. We asked him to call us when he arrived home so we would know that he arrived safe.