Light in the Jungle

Tonight, back by popular demand (both of her readers requested more from her) I give you, my talented, sweet, free-loading, wife - Rebecca Eichler.

So working with refugees isn't all doom and gloom. Earlier this week we had some wonderful news. One of our clients was recognized as a refugee by the Ecuadorian government. This means that he and his family (wife and 3 children) can stay in Ecuador legally, work, own property and go to school. This was great news for them but also for Asylum Access because since the Ecuador office is relatively new (only started seeing clients in November 2007), this client was one of our first victories.

This was also a particularly compelling case. The client was a from a small town in Colombia. He was a popular and talented soccer player in his town, who worked as a type of social worker helping local kids overcome drug addiction and organizing youth sports. He has a gorgeous wife and three of the most well-behaved and beautiful children I have ever met. The kids went to the best school in town and they were living a solidly middle-class life. Last year he was approached by a local politician because of his popularity and invited to run for office on his ticket. One of the messages of the politician's campaign was anti-drug. My client accepted and began campaigning.

Now the thing is, in Colombia, being anti-drug means being anti-FARC. This is because the FARC, and the paramilitary groups, and probably even the government, fund a large part of their operations by trafficking in drugs. To come out openly in opposition to their livelihood pisses off a lot of people wielding machetes and guns, who are willing to use them.

Soon after the client began his political career, he also began to receive death threats. One night someone even threw a rock through a window in his house. He had to tell his three children, ages 9, 8, and 7, that it was some sort of accident. Of course he wanted to withdraw from the race, but it was past a deadline by which he could have withdrawn, so he was stuck in the race. He continued to get death threats until he lost the election.

Long story short, these threats culminated in a physical attack at the end of April and the first week of May his family packed up and came to Ecuador to seek refugee status. They've told the kids that they're on vacation while they're living in a homeless shelter here in Quito.

One day almost two weeks ago, on his way to our office for their first appointment to prepare for the interview to determine their refugee status, a car pulls up in front of the family and two men jump out and try to pull him into the car. The wife and kids start screaming and fortunately they were with another refugee family, also on their way to our office, and the father of that family manages to hold the man back and keep him out of the car. The erstwhile kidnappers rush off and both families run to our office.

We managed to get them both new accommodation in a "secret" location and because of the obvious lack of security to the family, we also got their refugee status hearings expedited. So last week they told their story to the government and on Tuesday they learned that they were official refugees. In the office we're all quite proud of this small victory.

On a related subject of small victories, after a week of school, Maya started speaking to me in Spanish today. In the shower tonight when the water was too hot, she asked for "agua fria" . Then as we were getting ready for bed, she continuously asked me "Que es esta?" her new favorite phrase. It means "What is this?" I think she must use it a lot at school.