My life on the streets and in gangs

Gustavo Cifuentes Castellanos (the MISH), APREDE

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My name is Gustavo Cifuentes Castellanos and, on the street, I was given the nickname of MISH (a synonym for cat). I wanted to tell my story from its end: I’m a teacher and coordinator of projects at APREDE, besides working as director of the program from the Ministry of Culture and Sports of the Guatemalan Government for social reinsertion. Before that I was doing a 30 years time in prison and it was where I had the chance to study and graduate as an elementary teacher. This is why I divide my life in two parts.

I’m going to tell you about my life on the street: I’m a Guatemalan military’s son and, during my childhood, my country was at civil war. The militaries had great power and a good economic condition, so I can’t say I came from a poor home and my mother had three university diplomas, so I can’t even say there was ignorance. Nonetheless, my father was constantly being transferred from one city to another, where he would find other women and when returning home he didn’t appreciate my mom. The problems and discussions became more frequent to the point they became physical fights, but even so, my dad was very loving and a good father; I suppose he wasn’t a good husband but he was for sure a good dad.

One day they talked about divorce and asked me who I wanted to live with; by then I was nine years old and facing such a question and dilemma I wanted to escape from the family problems. I searched for a bus and jumped into it without direction, just wanting to run away, the bus took me to the city of Guatemala. I’m originally from the municipality of Momostenango in the state of Totonicapán, west of Guatemala, five hours away from the capital city and by the time I got to the bus station I wanted to go back home, I realized I was lost and started walking towards nowhere until a group of street kids offered me help; they took my clothes away and I think this was the day I felt most afraid than ever before. Then, other kids came near me and I thought of them with much suspicion and fear, however, they gave me a pair of pants and offered me shoemaker’s glue so I wouldn’t be so cold, scared or even hungry. As I inhaled the glue, I felt as I lost reason and almost got hit by a car just because I felt like crossing a street, getting the neighbors’ attention, so they called the police. I was then taken to a mental house, where I had the opportunity to meet other kids, and some who lived on the streets, who invited me to run away from that place. Soon I was taught how to survive on the streets and how to get food and money to buy drugs. An important rule to survive on the streets was that, in order to get by, I needed to be always dirty, so to sell sadness and pity and meet my needs. This turned into a vicious cycle, while getting in and out of the mental house. This is when the scenery changes and I start entering the juvenile jails. Entering my teen years, when took place the beginning of my sexual attraction for the opposite sex, I realized that being dirty and using drugs was driving me away from the girls, I then started to meet another type of young people, who would always be tidy, well dressed in brand clothes, respected by the ordinary people and attractive to the girls at their own age. Moreover, I could notice there was tenderness and sympathy among them, making me think this was the life I wanted, so I looked for a way into one of the largest street gangs in Guatemala, the 18th Street. The initiation rituals were a challenge to my pride, since I was the youngest of the group, but I had the respect and by the age of sixteen I was the group’s chief. My life was always much connected to prisons and the previous time I stood in front of a judge, he read me my history and I realized I had been sent to prison 72 times, where I had already studied bakery, electricity, silkscreen, and many other courses; however, I had never thought of changing my life. I learned how to manipulate my story in order to present it in various ways of different social pictures at my service. Though, I had never stayed in jail for long (45 days), my longest period in jail was three months.

A few years later, I tried to steal a video camera from a person who was diabetic and he died from the shock of it; this was the last crime that took me to prison for a sentence of 30 years’ imprisonment. My life in jail was connected to my gang for a long time but I was slowly realizing that my group was distancing from me and the truth was that I was alone and that the gang’s motto that “we were united until death” was a lie. In the beginning, I had constant visits, almost every week, but after some time they became scarcer and only when a member of the gang arrived in jail I was the support reference but when they left, they wouldn’t remember to return as visitors. Again, I realized I was alone.

In prison, there weren’t many work opportunities and for not receiving any visitors I applied for the position of selling toilette paper to the wives who came in for private visits. As I noticed that these women usually came with their children one day I offered one of them to look after her son while she was intimately with her husband. She paid me $ 5.00 Quetzal (about US$0.60) in return and soon another lady came in and asked me if that was my son and, as I explained that I was being paid to take care of him she asked me to watch her children too, so it was and in about 15 days, I was asked to look after 500 children. I knew that there were two people inside the prison that used to work as clowns and I offered them the job to take care of these children with me, one day, an international agency took interest in my project and asked a lawyer to review my case.

On a December 24th I had prepared dinner to share with my fellows and, to my surprise, one of the guards told me the jail director wanted to speak to me, arriving then the director announced that an order of liberty had arrived and that I needed to leave right away; I asked him to stay in one more night but he refused saying that it was a felony to disobey a judge’s order. I begged him not to throw me out, since, after 7 years I didn’t know anyone on the streets and had no place to go.

Again I felt just as scared as in the first time I faced the streets, as my luggage was left on the sidewalk I was told that all the people he knew in prison would do anything to be free again and I was the only one who was given this opportunity and I wasn’t being grateful for it. He then told me that people like me always came back to jail and also notified me that my liberty was to serve the community. This day I walked without direction and was also very scared. While in jail, I had the chance to meet the college graduated Emilio Goubaud, who helps people in gangs and always talked of changes of attitude what for me wasn’t convenient that my group would approach him, because they were seen as cowards and I, specially, couldn’t talk to him because it would be a sign of debility. Sometimes I found the things he said interesting, but I always walked away from it but this day, however, as I walked out of jail, it was to my surprise that he caught up with me on the way and invited me to spend Christmas at his house. It was a shock when I noticed there was a seat on his table for me, as well as a gift and a hug, as if I was part of this beautiful family that had no suspicion, but affection towards me. I had never imagined how good it was to spend a family night, and Emilio Goubaud taught me then that there were other ways to live, that love can’t be compared to violence, that what was stolen doesn’t belong to us and that the gang isn’t the only family reference there is.

I considered these to be one of my best moments and that it would, as all that is good, come to an early end, but this wasn’t the case in the next day. Maria, Emilio’s wife, made chilaquilas and told me they were for me but the truth was that I didn’t feel I was worth so much. Right on my first day of work I went to the fire department and I had a very hard time again as they looked at me as if I were a strange animal and they gave me a special plate because they feared they would catch some disease they thought I had from my time in prison so the first opportunity I was sent to another job to work as a gardener in a park for three months. Soon, there was the opportunity to work as a janitor in one of the juvenile prisons I had stayed in many times and it was good because as I got there, many of the youngsters doing time were from the 18th Street gang and had already heard of me. Some stories they heard weren’t accurate but I never corrected them because I saw they looked up to me. One day I felt the need to talk to them about the life they were leading and some employees of the place realized many of those youth could identify to me and to what I was saying so I was offered to work as a Physical Education instructor, a nice name for the job of physically punishing the misbehaved. I felt, however, that this was a good opportunity to be useful and helpful. They soon realized that, for being in prison so many times, I knew a lot about laws and proposed that I worked as an attorney, advising and accompanying legal strategies of defense. This lasted six years. One day the director went on vacations and I got the position as interim director, when I talked to the youngsters I told them I had done time there one day and was now running the place. Soon Emilio founded the Association for the prevention of crime and offered me a job as an educator, another great experience. The street gangs evolved more and more and became increasingly attractive and many of my students died while trying to change their lives. I had the opportunity to work with youth not only from the 18th Street but also with youngsters from the Mara Salva Trucha, in collaboration with employees of APREDE. We created methodologies that responded to the need of these young people in gangs.

One day, I was working with the police in a community and youngsters of the 18th Street killed one of my few childhood friends that was then Emilio’s assistant; so we thought of the possibility of working in safe spaces. These experiences have given me great lessons and now I am a person who enjoys having a beautiful family, I got my mother back and have a wife and three lovely daughters, who fill me with satisfaction as I see their signs of unity, sympathy, intelligence, school excellence and their care and concern for the indigents and street children.

Every day I work in what I like the most and know that what I tell you can help convey a message of hope to people with problems and afraid to take this step of hope, I wish to help them to cross this bridge that divides right from wrong and to ask God every day for the opportunity to help without doing harm to anyone.

The MISH

Translation: Gabriela Dutra. Revision: Bruno Lobo Motta. This article has respected the form of expression of the story’s young protagonist.

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