En el camino de los pollos y los polleros.
After many a second class bus ride through Southern Mexico, I can tell you one thing. You never know who you'll sit next to.
It's a Sunday afternoon, and I am heading to Ixtepec, Oaxaca. The bus pulls out of the Tuxtla second class station, only a dozen of us aboard. It's a classically decrepit vehicle, painted a strange orange shade, windows half-shattered, a Virgen de Guadalupe tacked up above the steering wheel. You get what you pay for and today I have paid for the cheap bus to Oaxaca.
On the outskirts of the city a middle-aged guy sits down next to me. Being a gringa traveling alone does not mean I want to talk to you, guey. I can smell the alcohol on his breath. Mexico was just eliminated from the World Cup, that's some sort of excuse.
“Where are you from?” he asks, trying out his English. Then he surprises me. “I am from Honduras,” he says, pointing at his chest. He points at me and asks again, “Where are you from?”
My lofty, meandering thoughts on migration are pulled back down to Earth, to our bus rolling through the Chiapas countryside down the highway to Oaxaca.
He's from Tela, on the Atlantic coast and has lived for many years between the US and Mexico. He's just going as far as Cintalapa. He's not worried about Immigration on this route.
As the bus is pulling to a halt on the side of the road he leans over and, laughing, says, “I have to peepee”. He gets off and heads into the brush to pee. All of a sudden people are flowing onto the bus and down the aisle. They move quickly and silently. A woman sits next to me, disregarding my Honduran friend's bag slung over the seat, and her two kids plop down on her lap.
More of them file past, about a dozen in all. The rest are men of varying ages. The Honduran gets back on behind them and heads to the back, motioning he'll grab his bag when he gets off.
The engine rumbles and we're off, quickly turning onto the winding highway that will bring us across the Chiapas/Oaxaca border. The woman looks to be about 35 or 40, her kids, a boy and a girl, are probably seven or eight. They are lanky and solemn-faced like their mom. They steady themselves holding onto the seat ahead of them as the bus whips around curves. They don't say a word.
The gender ratio, the tense quietness of the group, the strange boarding point on the side of the highway. They're Central Americans, I am sure of it, heading north with their pollero. I've heard from migrants about polleros a million times, have surely met a few at the migrant shelter without realizing it. But never have a seen a group on the move. Never have a shared a bus with a pollero and his pollos.
Unconsciously, my body has seized up. My breathing is shallow, my mind is racing. I am so fucking nervous for them. Are we going to get pulled over? How far are they headed? Are this woman or her kids being abused or trafficked?
What the fuck do I do? I know the answer is nothing. The less attention I draw to them the better. Play dumb, I tell myself.
A guy, Salvadorian would be my guess, goes up to the front of the bus and hands the man who collects fares a roll of bills. He's young, maybe thirty, wearing a t-shirt from some road race in the US and jeans. He returns to the back of the bus. You're the pollero. Aside from the bus driver you're paying off whichever cartel has control here. That's how it works these days, no more somebody's cousin from your pueblo who takes you across the border. Seasoned guides who pay the mero meros to take people across their turf.
I want to confirm the thoughts racing through my head. “¿Van pa' arriba?” I ask. Are you headed up north? Hopefully asking using the phrasing migrants use will let her know I'm not about to snitch or anything.
“Con mucho cuidado.” Be very careful.
“Sí. Que Dios le bendiga usted.” We will. May God bless you.
I try and stare out the window and take in the countryside but my thoughts consume me whole. The pounding, incessant reality of forced migration from Central America, the separation of families across borders, the extortions and beatings the police mete out, the kidnappings and murders the gangs execute. These are the thoughts I can't keep quiet.
My reading selection for the bus ride, John Gibler's México Rebelde, isn't helping to calm my nerves.
“¿Puedan prácticas tan extendidas y perdurables considerarse irregularidades en el sistema? No. Son el sistema.” Could such pervasive and long-lasting practices be considered irregularities in the system? No, they are the system (p 78).
The rapes, the murders, the kidnappings, the deportations, the dead bodies in the Arizona desert. The dozen migrants getting on the bus on the side of the highway and the woman taking the seat next to me. The cash the pollero presses into the bus driver's hand hush-hush. This is not a aberration. This is the system. This is the grease that oils the United States economy and keeps millions of Mexicans and Central Americans floating just above water. This is the only option for Central Americans who have to flee violence or insurmountable poverty.
We're in Cintalapa. The Honduran gets off. A guy gets on selling taquitos and another selling candies and nuts. Making his way back to the door, the candy and nut guy comes back to our seats and says to the kids, “Agarran lo que quieran.” Take whichever you want. He gives a sideways glance back down the aisle, which says silently, “This one's on the pollero.”
The boy chooses some multi-colored, sugar-coated gummies and the girl picks peanuts covered in a sticky sugar coating.
Right, left, conservative, liberal, Mexican, American, everyone is flipping out about child migrants these days. Well here they are folks. Two doe-eyed kids, discreetly eating gummies as we glide down the highway.
I scribble out a note to the woman. She's asked me where I'm from and vice versa. They're from El Salvador. I don't want the pollero to notice us talking. I just say that if anything happens, there are migrant shelters in the next two cities ahead. I hand it to her and she nods, repeating, “Que Dios le bendiga.”
The highway narrows as we head into the mountains. The views are gorgeous, steep hills carpeted in deep green foliage. We climb upward. The bus strains.
I am glued to the window. Eventually a sign over the road announces, “Bienvenidos a Oaxaca”. The road starts to head downhill, the hills lessen in their severity. We're headed toward the Isthmo, where the land flattens out to meet the ocean.
The pollero comes down the aisle and indicates they're going to get off. They all line up in the aisle. Mostly men in their 20s or 30s, a few look older. A backpack and nada más.We pass a white pick-up parked on the side of the road. An arm waves us ahead out the window. About a hundred meters ahead the drivers pulls over. There's nothing in sight but forest and the washed-out bank of a stream.
They file off as quietly as they arrived. The pollero hustles them and they start running down the shoulder of the highway back the way we came. The pollero hangs by the door of the bus until they're all off. He makes a phone call motion toward the bus driver, waves him off and turns to run behind his pollos.
Two or three kilometers down the road we pass through the first town on the Oaxaca side. Activity seems to inch along in the late afternoon haze, and taxi drivers wait for passengers, but no one gets on or off the bus. We pass a federal police outpost, with four big trucks parked outside, is a little ways down the road. Driving out of town another kilometer or two down the road, the green and red logo of Immigration hovers into view. INM. The bus breaks to a halt. A woman boards in the Immigration uniform, the white polo and beige pants. She's slender and wears make-up.
She makes her way down the aisle, the bus, nearly empty, has already discharged its most valuable cargo. She arrives at my seat and looks me over.
“¿De donde es usted?” Where are you from?
“¿Me puede mostrar su pasaporte?”
I take out my passport. My presence, my very existence, is legitimized.
The Mexican guy across the aisle turns towards me and smiles. His long glance speaks volumes. He's in on the joke. We all are. I put my passport away, ready for the next time I need it.
They'll be well on their way by now. If the right pockets have been lined, they'll make it to the border in a few days. This is not an aberration. This is the system.
