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Families in Mesa Grande

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Emeteria Rivera Miranda and Julián Morales

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In this oral history, Emeteria Rivera Miranda and Julián Morales share their experiences as refugees who fled extreme violence in northern El Salvador as the Salvadoran civil war erupted in the early 1980s. Emeteria and Julian are elders who reside in the resettled community or Guarjila, El Salvador and who were once refugees in Honduras after they had to flee the violence of the war. Emeteria recalls what it was like fleeing El Salvador for Honduras as several massacres ensued during a Salvadoran military operation popularly known as the Guinda de Mayo. Villages in the region were bombed, and her family suffered from hunger. She explains that she first took refuge in La Majada, Honduras, where they met, and later they were moved to the refugee camp in Mesa Grande, Honduras. Julian explains how in Mesa Grande, he was tasked with working cooperatively in the gardens, and Emeteria describes her work leading refugee womens’ cooperative making of clothing.
There are situations of violence described in this oral history that some may find upsetting.
Emeteria: Well, good afternoon. My name is Emeteria Rivera Miranda, and I was born in the Cantón Manaquil valley of Rincón, the municipality of Nueva Trinidad.
I had twelve children. My first was named Teresa Morales Rivera. My second is José Morales Rivera. My third is Leonor Morales Rivera. Another was named Francisco Morales Rivera, another Juan Morales Rivera. Another daughter was named Marina Morales Rivera and Elvina Morales Rivera. Another, Juana Morales Rivera and Leno Rivera Morales, finally Rosita Morales Rivera. Ten of them were born normally while my two sons after Rosa did not make it.
Our job was to work in the cornfields. The women would prepare the food and the men would work out in the mountains. That was the job that we had as laborers.
No, not during that time. We heard nothing about it. Well, when we were there, we were very poor. We struggled to get food. We did not leave out one grain. We truly suffered. I suffered alongside my children because if we got an egg, the egg was to be split between four people, fried. I would try to make it into a torta to give to my four children. And then I would divide it into four pieces, and then we would pass each piece to one another, and the butter that was left was eaten by their father. Their father was named Santiago Morales Martinez. And, that's how we were living during that time. Juana still remembers the most because she ate like this for the longest. And that’s how I took care of my children. Giving them a little salt, when they got some beans, they ate it and from there the salt was what we were looking for to give to the children, because at that time we were all very poor. I had no grain even though I always bought my grain almost all my life. I worked hard beating corn to keep my children fed.
The day of the Rincón massacre, I was with my daughter-in-law. That night I had stayed to sleep with her there because my son told me, “Look, mama,” he said, “go with Fele,” he says. “Both of you together,” he tells me, “you won’t be afraid,” he tells me. One night we just slept with her and we slept apart. And then, the Rincón massacre had begun that day, and he was sleeping outside the house. That night all the men were sleeping outside the house and the women inside. And he arrived at six in the morning and his wife said, “well, it wasn’t him, sorry,” the woman told him. “Chepe, I don’t think you realize that the soldiers are coming,” she says. He says, “Of course I know, they’re coming right now!”
“I’m not staying here,” I told him. And what we did was grab a piece of a blanket each and put it in a sack and went on our way. At that point, one of my daughters that they killed told me not to leave. But we had to since we knew they were going to find us…and I could not get her out of there. She stayed and was one of the ones that they killed.
We went through the deep rivers with the water up to our necks. I carried Rosa on the nape of my neck and Juana was holding onto her, and Leno was handed to me in all that dirty water. The mud was up to here. And that’s how we crossed the river. The next day we headed for Los Amates and there we learned they already killed some women in El Rincón and another two had been lost. But [we learned] that the two who had gotten lost were taken away and put on forty loads of firewood and were set on fire. They were burned. And others were hanged. One of them was just about to give birth to a child and they slit her open to take the child out.

She was so close to giving birth, she only had fifteen days left. The baby was ready to be carried in one’s arms.

It was Juan Chato who was there. Yes, it was Juan Chato who did those atrocious things with the Atlacatl Battalion, as they were called, I can’t pronounce the word correctly.

Yes, the Armed Forces. People were killed, hanged, and thrown to a hillside there and were hanged in a house. Right after they hanged my daughter or, who knows when... they ripped her head off; they decapitated her. She was found in a pineapple field…those who found her first. And they brought her, but she was badly eaten up from the wild animals, from the dogs, from here [points to neck area] she was badly eaten up. I knew this because I saw her. We took her that day when we went to see her. They even stuck a spear…down there, just the way one would skewer a chicken. Yes, they did all of that to her.

I did not see those things, but the son saw them, because he says that he took out the spear and saw how they had left it. Now when they were going to bury them, we continued to see them there. And so they buried them. And a nephew of mine arrives, and I didn’t come when they were buried. My nephew arrived and told me, “Aunt, there is no one to give us any food to eat,” he says, so I left and went to a house. And I began to grind, to get a big ball of dough that I had on the stone to give them food. After—they had quickly buried her with soil—after that they arrived and said, “look, we're going to look for Chavito,” they told me, “you all going,” I tell them, “well, I'm not staying,” I told them, “I'm leaving,” I told them. I left that ball of dough. It was already late, it was already four o’clock.

We left, and we went to find him on the hillside where he had been killed, because they kill him there together with her when they were working the periphery. They had gone up there to kill him.
At the time they were digging the grave, they heard a bomb in the distance which meant that the soldiers were returning. I was walking with two other women and they said, “you all get out of here and go off that way,” they said, “and we’ll get there later.” And they stayed and kept tossing the soil but hardly enough to cover my husband. My son told me that the tips of his shoes were sticking out from the ground. Of course, that was the case, because of the fear of the soldiers coming. But no, they didn’t enter El Rincon anymore. And after that, we could no longer live in the houses. When I returned eight days later to see everything I saw they had burned all the things we had. The clothes and everything.
Nothing was left. That day I had gotten up to make a big bowl of dough. I had the dough ready to make tortillas. There was the bowl full of dough. After that, we left the houses because we could not be in the houses because they would keep coming back. Almost two months later they came back to begin another massacre, this time of the family of Miria.
I was in Los Amates for a month first, and the children cried there. Rosa, Juana, and Leno cried. They were little. Well, we had to run. We ran towards the Sumpul River.
One had to figure out how to cross. I had my children cross on a dugout canoe. I went in and swam my way through with two pieces of cloth I had. And when we were there, the people started saying, “here they come, the soldiers are coming down.” The group from Los Amates that were with me went back to this side of the river, and they left me with the children on the other side of the river. And they cried because we walked without shoes in a big canal and we had to throw ourselves into those channels. There was a deaf older woman there, and then we stayed there. I told them, if they’ll find us, they’ll find us.

Then another man came and said, “let's go up here, and we can see where we can cross.” Where we were able to cross, we began to pray. There was a little boy and a little girl, and we were hoping they would find us.
I had my two littlest ones, I would cross even if I had to pull the other little one. That was Juana; she was ten years old. Leno was eight and Rose was six.
The next day, I went to take the kids and I went to where Don Felipe who lived down here in Guarjilita and had returned to Los Amates. So, we were there, and I spent a month with them.
One month after they killed the family, my son told me, “Mama, if you want, we can go to stay with my Uncle Magdaleno,” he tells me, so I wouldn’t have to take care of the kids since he already had two boys and his wife was pregnant. “Maybe it’s better that I go there.” I said, “Get ready, you can’t be with those kids there.” My brother arrived at Magdaleno’s and he said, “you have come here and you’re missing out on food. They are giving out food in La Virtud,” he said, “for all those like you.” So, what we did was we went to La Majada. And after that, after some days went by, they began to kill the Salvadorans there. And so then, people had to be taken up to Mesa Grande.

Julián: From what I remember, the man they killed was Honduran, who worked with Loncho there, distributing the handouts. It wasn’t that they had taken him out, rather, those from La Virtud told him to go to La Virtud. The man was Honduran. Be he never returned. We don’t know what became of him because he never came back. After that, they took the man who was in charge of distribution, Don Loncho, some say they took him away. And the internationals arrived and said, “they’ve taken Don Loncho!” And what they did was they chased after them and caught up to them. And so, what they did was send him off to a different country. I didn’t find out what country, but I know that what they did was send him off to a different country. They took him, but he was lucky they did not kill him. I realized that’s what happened. But the other man was a Honduran.

Emeteria: After they killed those people, after they killed that man there, those who were accompanying us, then they said to us, we are going to take us to Mesa Grande. They asked us for our opinion about where we wanted to go, to Mesa Grande or to a place in La Mosquitia, as they called it. Then, we decided to go to Mesa Grande and asked that they take all of us. Then what they did was they held a meeting with the men who had arrived to let us know how we were going to make our departure. That they were also going to take those of us staying at the river that was near La Virtud, the men would meet us there to tell us what they were going to do and everything regarding us leaving. They decided on the day that we were going to leave and told us to get everything ready, so we could be taken there.

And we were not just a few; there were a lot of us who were going. When we got there, there were already some that were making what over there they would call “tents.” At that time, they called the houses “tents” that they were going to give us. In these tents, they put up to five families inside to protect them from the rain. They were taken to the grasslands and it’d be raining. When we didn’t have—well, when there were no tents for everyone—and there you would get by under the rain. And then the men who had gotten there started to make tents to give to the people that were still coming.

For us, since my brother came, we were given a tent for four families. So, we stayed in those tents.

Well, I was filled with joy because I had said, all of us would be there together, we had a place to be. They gave us small meals, and clothes, because we didn’t have any clothes.

Julian: I began to get to know her when we were in La Majada. I guess I liked her. From there, we got to know each other more because she was staying a little closer. I guess I began to take an interest in her and it worked out.

Emeteria: I’ll tell you about that. We were in San Simón and from San Simón we had to bring our product to La Majada, and to La Virtud. We got up early because we had to leave at two in the morning, so we could arrive at eight at La Majada, and so that’s where he met me, as he says.

I saw him on that day of work. And I saw him because he was going there, and I asked Teresa: “Who is that man?” I said. “That’s Don Julián Morales,” she told me. I saw him with lumber on his shoulder, a small machete, and a drinking gourd, like this one hanging here. And one day, as he says, since I would get up early and come right back, on my way back early from working, he says he followed me and wanted to catch up to me. And so, we ran into each other on a path I was headed down and he crossed my path. He was headed down and we crossed paths. And at that point, I thought, where can I go from here? He followed me to that point and I couldn’t go another way [laughs]. That’s how it happened. And there in Mesa Grande, we got to know each other well, because he would come to visit Goyo. He’d show up there to chat with my brother, and that’s how, well, he was coming for me—not to talk with Goyo. But he didn’t say a word to me, he didn’t say anything, he felt embarrassed.

So, what I would do when he arrived is I would go inside the tent and they would stay in the corridor talking. “He can talk with Goyo,” I would say. And then when the wooden rooms were made, each one was given a room.

“Ah look,” I said, “my father can stay in the tent.” “They’ll get one later,” they told me. And so, we got to each other more, and he felt confident enough to show up where I was living.

Julian: My job was, what we did was work in the gardens. There were groups, and one would go with them to work since there was no other work. There was a fence. We were surrounded by a fence, and no one was allowed to go outside. If you left, you would get caught. One man, he died already, Don Balbino, he didn’t like using the latrines. He would go outside of the fence. They dragged him in front of us. They didn’t kill him because he was older. If he had been young, they wouldn’t have let him be. And the soldiers hit him again. The soldiers were from Honduras. On one side they watched over us, and on the other side there was another line of soldiers watching over to see who would go out.

They would give us all kinds of food, beans, rice, they would give us all the things we need. It was people in solidarity from other countries who would send us things. Trucks would arrive full of things, and there were storage areas to collect and distribute it.

Emeteria: There, in Mesa Grande, they would bring us used clothes and they would bring the fabric to make dresses for people. I, as the coordinator, I coordinated 24 women and the rest were men, but the men were fewer. We would give them pants, already made, but a lot of those that were already made didn’t fit them well. And the women, among themselves, coordinated the groups, they would say, “today, it is your turn. Bring six women to make clothes.” That’s what I would do. I would take them to make the measurements to make the dresses. In a month, they would say to me, “today we will bring another six women, so they can make dresses.” And that’s how we did it, since there were 24 of us as I said, I would have the women make them three times. And I would not have them make new dresses. I would work with the old one that they would give me. It was difficult for them to make my dresses. I remember that in all that time we were there, they didn’t give us a lot of dresses. There were about five new dresses that I put on. For the girls as well, since we had to bring them too to the groups of little girls, we had to make them clothes. It would take a while before their clothes were ready. It wasn’t everyday that they were going to say to them, bring the little girls. No. They would give them that little bit of clothes, even if they were old.

The girls were studying since they were in La Majada. Since then they had been in classes, and in San Simon, too. Since then, my daughter began teaching classes, and Juana, too, but she suffered from headaches and her ears hurt and she could no longer continue doing so.