Young father, son find assistance as they make way through unfamiliar country

Noel Diaz, 24, and his 4-year-old son Lisandro crossed the Rio Grande from Reynosa the afternoon of Jan. 14 with a small group of people on an inflatable raft. He said they all walked slowly on a dirt road near Hidalgo until U.S. Border Patrol stopped them.

"We knew they were going to find us, so we just kept walking until they did," Noel said. "We knew they would take us to la hielera (the icehouse, a term used to refer to the migrant processing center), we knew it was going to be cold, but I didn't know it was going to be like that. I figured, 'It's the U.S. They are the richest country in the world. How bad could it be?'"

He said after they were instructed to take off their shoe laces and place their belonging in clear plastic bags. They were put in a van and driven to a large metal building where groups of migrants were divided by chain-link fence. He said his section was all men and women with young children, and they were packed so tight that there was barely room to sit on the floor.

He said it was nearly impossible to tell what time of the day it was because the fluorescent lights overhead were never turned off, and that everyone around him seemed to be sick or getting sick.

"I was healthy the entire way, even though I didn't eat or sleep much. But when I got there I got this cold and I started getting a fever," Noel said. "I covered my son with the two thin metallic blankets they gave us and luckily he didn't get sick."

After four days of eating stale bread sandwiches with nothing but a thin sliver of lunch meat between them, he was called up for final processing. They logged his destination and future court date, and after getting his bus ride paid for by his family in Virginia, they were released by Immigration and Customs Enforcement the morning of Jan. 16 in downtown McAllen.

This is where volunteers from the Humanitarian Respite Center at Sacred Heart guided them to the church parish hall where they were provided a warm shower for the first time in their three-week and more than 1,500-mile trip across Mexico, and fed a hot meal. The staff also helped rearrange their bus trip, which was originally for Jan. 18, and found him one for that same night.

Noel tied his son's shoe laces and wrapped a knit orange scarf around his neck as they lined up near the parish hall doors. A total of 22 migrants left the center that night. The men and their children walked the two blocks from the church to the bus station while the women and their children rode in a large passenger van.

Noel and his son stood quietly listening to the instructions from volunteer Josefina Rios before they boarded the first of six buses on their 44-hour trip. "What are you going to do if you are not sure what your stop is?" Rios asked in Spanish. "Go to the ticket booth and ask. Don't be too confident, and be cautious when you arrive to the station. Make sure you ask the people that work at the station for help."

The bus arrived about 15 minutes late and took off about 8:30 p.m. It was destined to Houston but made a quick stop in Corpus Christi about 11 p.m. where two men in their late 20s wearing black hoodies, black jeans, and worn hiking boots, jumped on board.

They both sat in the back of the dark bus. While the rest of the passengers were lulled to sleep by the sounds of the bus barreling through the night, one of them began to talk on his cellphone.

" I don't know, they want me to go to Houston, but I should be back Friday," the man said loudly in Spanish. "If you want, I can take her all the way. We could go through the desert, whatever you want, but I'll take her all the way to your door. Don't worry, you know how I work, she'll be safe with me."

The man spoke mostly in slang calling the girl "huerca" and referring to money as "pisto" when he negotiated a price to smuggle someone into the United States, not caring who was listening.

As the bus reached Houston shortly after 3 a.m., the same man's phone began to ring as he snored loudly at the back of the bus. The phone rang for at least 15 minutes, but no one dared to disturb the man except the bus driver.

" Answer the phone," said the driver over the intercom. "Or turn it off. What are you doing back there?" The man seemed to wake briefly turning off his ringer, but in a few minutes his phone continued vibrating loudly.

The bus arrived to Houston about 3:30 a.m. and the driver told everyone to get off in both English and Spanish. As soon as Noel and the rest of the migrants exited, bus station attendants helped them find their next gate, and in broken Spanish told them to wait inside until their bus arrived.

Ms. Smith, who preferred we do not use her first name, said they are now used to the constant flow of migrants who show up with their yellow envelopes. "We try our best to help them out. I mean they are customers just like everybody else. Some of them even speak good English," said the middle-aged African American woman with a big friendly smile.

Most of the signs for the bathrooms, restaurant and even some of the vending machines at the bus station were in English and in Spanish and many of the staff working from Houston to Virginia seemed to have a basic understanding of Spanish.

Noel said he was surprised to see so many African-American people once we left the Texas border, but was happy to see the bus drivers and staff trying their best to communicate with him any way they could.

" I was nervous after leaving McAllen, because I didn't know how people were going to treat us," Noel said. "But it's been good. I still get nervous every time the bus stops, but I know to ask and make sure it's not my stop."

At each station most of the migrants gravitated toward each other, watching each other's children as they used the restroom or sitting together to eat or wait for the next bus. But at every stop the group grew smaller as some reunited with loved ones or took different routes. Noel and his son were the only two going to Washington D.C., but a man from Guatemala and his 14-year-old daughter that also boarded in McAllen were headed to North Carolina.

The man who had lived in the United States before spoke some English and helped Noel and his son navigate most of the trip. After Noel and Lisandro's sack lunch was gone, the man and his daughter shared the food and bottled water they bought.

On the bus they also shared their experience at the hielera and compared stories about their trek through Mexico. After traveling through more than a dozen cities across six states and changing buses five times, the man and his daughter stayed behind in Charlotte, North Carolina. At that point Noel and Lisandro had spent 33 hours on the road and had 11 more to go.

Alone and with his last $20, Noel began to worry. They hadn't eaten a proper meal in more than 24 hours and it was only a matter of time before Lisandro began feeling hungry. He bought some snacks at a gas station in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, but when they reached the Richmond, Virginia, bus station about 1:40 p.m., Lisandro began pulling at his father's shirttail asking for food.

" I'll buy you something, but we need to share it, ok?" Noel told his son who looked up at him with a smile. "We can eat a big dinner once we get home. We are almost there."

At a small diner in the back of the bus station, Noel took out a thinly rolled bill from his pocket and paid for a $12 dollar chicken strip meal with fries and a drink. They ate quietly as CNN broadcast former President Barack Obama's final news conference on a small TV hanging from a corner of the diner.

As the news conference continued playing in the background, Noel and his son boarded their sixth and final bus about 3 p.m. It was only two-and-a-half hours until they reached Washington, D.C. and Lisandro leaned on the window's emergency exit bar as if it were a window sill with both his arms crossed staring out at the wooded landscape.

Every time he saw something interesting, like a bridge or a large building, he would point and ask his father if that was Washington. His father would laugh and tell him, "No, but we are almost there." After about an hour, Lisandro pulled the orange beanie that matched the knit orange scarf he got at Sacred Heart over his eyes and went to sleep leaning on his father's arm.

Noel woke just as the Pentagon appeared through the trees, but unaware they had arrived, he didn't wake his son. First he looked out the window, rubbing his eyes until he noticed the Washington Monument in the distance and then tugged at Lisandro's shirt. "Wake up. We are here," he said. Lisandro looked out into the bright afternoon sky and saw the glistening water of the Potomac River.

At the station, they rushed to gather their few belongings and were some of the first passengers off the bus. They looked around for a few seconds looking for Noel's brother who was also searching through the crowd.

The two brothers found each other and hugged for the first time in five years as Lisandro, who had never met his uncle, stared up at them.

The boy watched patiently until the two let go, then stepped forward and reached out to shake his uncle's hand. His uncle laughed and shook the boy's hand before squatting down to speak to his nephew eye to eye. After posing for a quick picture they waved goodbye and disappeared into the bustle of Union Station.

khernandez@themonitor.com