Not sure how to start this short story, but after too many of my friends telling me that I should share it I, decided to write it down and share it with you. It’s a bit long winded, but something had to be said so you understand the severity of what my mom and I were going through. Trying to keep this politically neutral, so please no political comments towards Mrs. Carter.
For all of this to make sense, and for you to understand, it is necessary to go back to how this all started.
My mom immigrated to the US in 1968, and my siblings and my dad moved here in 1971. I moved to the US (first time) shortly after and decided that the concrete jungle of Jersey City was not a place for me to live in, so I told my mom that I wanted to return to Nicaragua and live with my grandparents. Against my parent's desire, I went back to Nicaragua.
The political climate in Nicaragua was deteriorating by the minute, but as a teenager, I really didn’t care or paid much attention to the problem until it hit home. Not a good place for a teenager to be in, which by the way, the other side was looking for because we were considered prime suspects of the revolution.
There was a weeklong battle in the town where I was born (Chinandega), and it was chaotic, no front lines, and those against the government did not wear a uniform. No food, no water, no electricity, and the constant gun fire from both sides. Again, I didn’t quite care, as a teenager, you feel invisible. Nothing had affected us that much. Until the national guard came crashing through our front door, and I was dragged out of the comfort of my house. I was kicked, and hit with the buttstocks of M1 Garands, and stripped to see if I had any scrapes on my elbows and knees, which would have been a reason for the National Guardsmen to consider me an insurgent, and to shoot me on the spot. Later on, I learned that those signs were considered signs of crawling, and why would I have those marks if I wasn’t crawling to avoid getting shot. I learned of too many teenagers getting shot because they had fallen and scraped their knees.
Since I was clean, they used me, and every other teenager in the block as shields, we were used to clear barricades for the National Guard. Some barricades were booby trapped, and well, you can only imagine what happened where they were tripped. Talk about being scared out of my mind, you are in front, and these idiots are shooting over your head, and the other side is shooting at them, while we clear whatever was in front of them for the vehicles to drive through. I’ll have to say the divine intervention does work. I came out of that fiasco without a single scratch. I thought I would never see the next day.
Somehow, what happened that day, got to my mom’s ear, and now my mom is in some serious panic mode. She wanted me out of there that day, and it didn’t matter how. She even thought about getting me to Mexico and crossing the border with my green card. Unfortunately, due to the war, it had been more than a year since I had been in the US, and I had lost my status as a legal resident. So, in other words I was SOL.
Let’s move forward a couple of years. The Sandinistas take over, and they won the war. Well, this was not a good place for a loudmouth very opiniated teenager who survived the revolutionary war and now due to his social status was considered a danger to the revolution. This was the revolution for the poor, so if you were middle class, upper class, you were already labeled, unless you supported the revolution.
Up to this point I had been going to a Catholic school, which now had been turned into a public school thanks to the Sandinistas. Due to my opiniated attitude, and being too vocal, I was expelled from school, and deemed Persona non-grata to the school, and the town I lived in. It was a dangerous place to live in, you didn’t know who your friend was, and who was your enemy. Many times, I was jumped, and beaten up and luckily neighbors came out to my rescue. This time I was really scared that one day someone would pull a knife or a gun on me and it would be it for me. I didn’t go out much, and I didn’t dare go out at night.
My grandmother seeing what was happening, reached out to my mom and told her that she needed to figure out a way to get me out of there, or I would end up being killed, or go missing and never be found. The country was a mess, no laws, and if you were labeled by them, you basically had no rights. For once I was concerned about my life and feared that I would not see my parents again. This was real, and for once realize that this was no longer something to play with. I wanted to leave.
Final part to follow.
