19
Golfito, 2003.
Alejandra Bonilla was sitting on the wide, flat stairway in front of the church. Rudd Baldwin, sitting next to her, was still rubbing his fingers over her tattooed shoulder. Gently she removed his hand. Sitting next to each other, holding hands, she said: “They made us eat something”.
“Who? Who did?” Rudd asked.
“The coyotes. They gave us something to eat and made us inhale something that put us to sleep. When I woke up I had this tattoo.” She rubbed her own hand over the tattoo on her shoulder. With a trembling voice she continued: “It means… I belonged to them. I was theirs. A piece of merchandise. That was all I was to them.”
Baldwin started to understand. “So… the coyotes are human traffickers?”
“Yes. Smugglers. I was lucky though.”
“Lucky? You were abducted!”
