I don’t say this. At least we are safer here. I fled the person who killed my brother. Simmering violence. A government whose response was to militarize the streets. Of course with US help. Of course they don’t talk about this on the news. I’m afraid of the conditions that create violence. I’m afraid of the police. I’m afraid of the army. I’m afraid of how I survive in a country where the official currency is the US dollar and farmers can barely afford the abono for the milpas but the rich hire private security firms. I’m afraid every moment of every day, thinking about my life here, thinking about my life if it’s not here, thinking about Ana, thinking about my people, my beautiful people, so many young people dying in the streets. Parents sending their children off into the unknown, thinking maybe they won’t make it to the United States but maybe they will. Maybe they will and if they stay here maybe they won’t. I know all this because the women who get letters or make calls ask about my town for me, women who have sisters or uncles or cousins from all over Sonsonate. Most of the women crossed not long ago. Border Patrol holding cells where they crank the AC, from the hielera to here. If they force me back, we will have to find a new place that is safer, Ana and I. But where, with what, how? I turn on the sticky, sweaty mattress to face the wall and think, What kind of fear is credible? There are so many kinds of fear. I don’t like that the rooms won’t lock.

Some mornings, I wake up really early. I wake up at six and head to the common room before anyone else gets there. I like to put in the National Geographic DVD another woman gave me. I’ve watched it so many times. It is in English but I can make out some of what the deep-voiced narrator says. I can enjoy the bursts of feather and branch and leaf and sky. I watch it all the way through until my favorite part. The camera zooms in and I see them: the hoatzin chicks.