“Afghanistan is a country where it is no longer safe to live. In my country I was a civil engineer, I worked and had my own company, but with the arrival of the Taliban I had to leave everything, I left a good life. I traveled to Brazil and my life is now safe. The Taliban kill and torture—they don't listen to women's rights or human rights. They stopped schools and universities; my daughters stopped studying. It is something that the media also censors, hiding this reality. I am going to the United States because I have family there, but it really is a difficult situation for us.”
Angélica: Crossing dangerous rivers with children
“We left Venezuela for the obvious reasons. I worked there as a nursing assistant, but the salary was no longer guaranteed. I have relatives in the United States who are nurses, and they told me that I can do better there.
When we got to the Darién, we really did not imagine that crossing the jungle was going to be so difficult. I am traveling with my husband and my two daughters, an eight-year-old and six-year-old. In one section we had to cross the river alone, we did not believe that the current would be so strong, and it began to drag me and one of my daughters. We saw the need to drop our backpacks to be able to hold onto my daughter—it was a terrible scare.
When we arrived in Nicaragua, we thought that we had already passed the nightmare of crossing rivers, however we had to cross another one again and my daughter was really affected, she does not want to know more about rivers. We managed to get through and now we hope to continue advancing. We received medication to relieve the flu that my daughter caught.”
