Go

"Desert sky
Dream beneath a desert sky
The rivers run but soon run dry
We need new dreams tonight"
 - In God's Country, by U2



It was a tiny strip of land between the highway and the access road, yet it was the temporary home for about eighty people.


For many months, if not a couple of years or more now, refugees from Venezuela have been pouring into Ecuador. The country has been facing serious unrest from a corrupt government. The people are starving and the president has done nothing, despite the many protests. A young girl I met described a recent time when she went to visit the country, since she still has a few family members who live there.

"I saw this woman, and she was pregnant but was so skinny, I'd never seen anyone that bony and pregnant. I was eating an ice cream cone and she was staring at me, so I asked if she would like it and she just took it. She didn't even say thank you or anything, just wolfed it down. People were begging on the streets. They all looked so desperate."


More and more Venezuelans have entered through Ecuador's open borders, searching for work and a break from the violence. Those who are able to find jobs, while many others work selling fruit or other items on the street to cars at stop lights, make jewelry or other hand-made items to sell, or, if they can find nothing else, hold up signs and ask bluntly for help. Growing up in Austin, I'd see sign-holders on street corners all the time, while here it's more uncommon. If people can work, if they can sell anything at all under the baking sun, they will.


I ate lunch at Casa Gabriel on Sunday with the boys and Phil. At the end of the meal, Phil looked around the table and said he'd heard that many Venezuelan refugees were camped near a certain bus terminal with no resources to go anywhere else. He asked what everyone thought of the idea of making sandwiches to hand out to the people there, instead of playing soccer that afternoon?
"Vamos!" the boys responded immediately.

We made thirty sandwiches and bought another thirty from a man who was selling them outside the church but hadn't had good luck that day. As we neared the bus terminal, I saw the populated island of land near the highway and breathed, "Is that it?"

Plastic tarps were strung between trees as temporary tents. People slept on the ground and stood around in groups. We parked and brought out a box of sandwiches and a jug of juice. We passed out the sandwiches until the box was empty, with most people calmly walking forward to receive the food, and only a couple trying to get more. We were told of a second camp but were unable to find it, so we handed out sandwiches to people walking up and down between cars at stoplights selling things for a dollar a piece. Most of them were Venezuelans.

Many Venezuelans I've spoken to deeply desire to return to their home. They are unused to a new culture, unused to sticking out and just want to be in the place they were born. Yet as long as violence and starvation continue, they must make their way as best they can in a new country. They want to go home, but first, there must be a significant change.


I am thankful for Ecuador's welcoming borders. I pray for the people sleeping under tarps in the middle of the highway, pray for peace to come to Venezuela, and pray for hearts which are ready to serve with love, like the boys of Casa Gabriel who say: "Vamos". ("Let's go.")