Читать книгу Still Standing - Anaité Alvarado - Страница 10

Months of Turmoil

The three months that followed were a blur of emotions. I was trying to get my life back on track, but I was now unemployed, I did not know where my husband was, and I had to deal with my ongoing legal issues. Nothing brought me more joy and a sense of purpose than my children.

I woke up on Saturday, the first morning back after a night in jail, rested and eagerly awaiting my children’s arrival. My mother and I had decided to treat their two nights away at Tío Turi’s house as if it had been their idea. I’d worry later about any questions they might have about where I’d been. They came home delighted, as five-year-old children tend to do, and I couldn’t hug them enough.

Later that Saturday morning, I remembered Christie’s words from the night before, “The first thing you should do tomorrow is read our classmates’ chat. It will be food for your soul.” I grabbed my cell phone, turned it on, and went straight to the chat. Tears started rolling down my cheeks. I was so moved by all the messages of love and support. That’s how I learned that my longtime friends had not only been vigilant about my situation, but had even opened a bank account to raise funds in the event the judge required me to pay bail. They had also managed to have two bail bond companies ready so that I would not have to spend another night in jail.

—

A month went by and my home received visitors on a daily basis. My friends, family, and loved ones continued to make sure I was never alone. My therapist had once again diagnosed me with post-traumatic stress syndrome, which I had already suffered a year earlier when my husband told me of his financial troubles. I left my house only for the essentials or to meet in safe places with the people I loved. While at home, I was anxious and worried, thinking that “they” would come back to take me once again. My attorney insisted that this would not happen, but I didn’t feel reassured. If I had been taken once from the safety of my home to the carceleta, courtesy of a false statement against me and with no tangible proof to back it up, why would it not happen again? What was to stop them? I had seen with my own eyes at my hearing how the Mayora & Mayora attorneys representing Global Forest Partners had requested preventive detention, and my attorney had told me that after that judge recused herself from my case, they had gone to the new judge with the same request, which thankfully had been denied . . . for the time being. Only an idiot would not worry in my case.

Meanwhile, as the law firms of Mayora & Mayora and Frank Trujillo, who represented Olyslager, continued working together to make their false accusations stick in their evidence-less case against me, my original judge, the one who’d conducted my hearing on Friday, September 18, 2015, had been apprehended the following Monday, September 21, 2015, and taken into custody, charged with several crimes. I later saw an online video recorded during her preliminary hearing, when she said that judges are no longer able to judge justly in Guatemala, that they can no longer do their jobs and do what is best, since they are now coerced into doing what the public prosecutor’s office and the CICIG say must be done. She said that as long as CICIG is in Guatemala, all judges must say yes to the public prosecutor’s office and yes to CICIG in order to avoid finding themselves in the same predicament she was currently in: in custody.

I do not know if her statement was true, but I witnessed firsthand what unfounded accusations on paper can do in this country. All I know is that this judge allowed me due process, but she must have doubted the intentions of Mayora & Mayora, the public prosecutor, and her cousin Frank Trujillo’s law firm, because even though they were requesting my imprisonment, she refused, and instead sent me home to my children without having to pay bail.

As this court drama unfolded before my eyes, I had yet another battle to fight back at home: my children’s custody. Some ten days after having been advised while in the carceleta to transfer my children’s guardianship to my mother, in order to protect them from being taken by the state, my mother, my brother, my children, and I were summoned to a children’s court to explain to a judge that I, the mother of the children in question, had been released and was in full capacity to regain custody of my children. Under the guidance of our family attorney, we planned to request that the judge remove my mother as guardian and legally return my children to me. However, the process was not as simple as logic may imply, and so began my new nightmare. After hearing our statement, the judge decided that, aside from the fact that her own people did not make the required visits nor present the required reports to her, my children were now in the system and there was nothing she could do but follow protocol.

To determine if I, the mother, was the ideal person to care for Nina and Fabián, my mother and I were ordered to attend a twelve-meeting course called “Parenting School.” In addition, my mother, my children, and I would have to undergo psychological evaluations (state, not private), and receive psychological therapy until the state doctor determined that we were fine. This was ludicrous! I had freely taken an attorney’s advice thinking that this was the best course of action to protect my children, and once again I was verifying that the government and its intensions were the last thing anyone should allow into their private matters. Even though my children would live with me, my mother would continue being their legal guardian until we sorted all of this out. I was devastated. My family attorney urged me to focus on the positive and insisted that at least my children had not been physically taken away from me.

We left the courthouse flabbergasted by what had just happened. Our next hearing was scheduled for November 17, 2015. In the meantime, my mother and I were ordered to find a government-approved center for our therapy and to attend parenting classes, go to INACIF (the National Institute of Forensic Sciences) with the children for our psychological evaluations, and to the PNG (Procuraduría General de la Nación) for another evaluation. As if I didn’t already have enough on my plate! How do people who work manage to navigate these processes?

I called several state-approved centers and finally found a place quite far away from my home called CAIFGUA (Centro de Atención Integral Para el Fortalecimiento de las Familias Guatemaltecas). It was located just one block away from a designated red zone, areas known for having especially high crime rates, but it was the only place where my mother and I could attend parenting classes on Saturdays, and all of us together to therapy during the week.

Our first parenting class took place on Saturday, October 31, 2015. The subject was domestic violence and child abuse, irrelevant in our home, but interesting nonetheless. We had no option but to go through the motions, follow the judge’s orders, and hope that the issue would be resolved at our next hearing.

The following Tuesday, my mother, my children, and I were scheduled for another court-ordered psychological evaluation at INACIF. This doctor was the first one to ask me who was the person claiming I was an unfit parent. He insisted that someone must have declared that I wasn’t taking proper care of my children. I clarified my circumstances and explained the predicament I was in. He insisted there was no reason for me to be there, and after interviewing my children, he promised that we would have no trouble from him or his report to the judge.

The following Thursday, my mother, children, and I returned to CAIFGUA to begin our individual therapy sessions—forty minutes each. After the therapist concluded the private sessions with my children, he asked me to join in. He wanted the three of us to play a board game so he could see how we interacted. My children and I are so used to playing games together that we had a blast, and the doctor had to stop us. He said to me, “I am delighted by your relationship with your children. You cannot imagine how many five-year-olds get frustrated because they can’t play well.”

Before we left, he asked me how many sessions the judge had ordered, to which I responded that I was under the impression that as the therapist, he should decide that. I told him my next hearing was on November 17, so he graciously set our next appointment for November 19, reasoning that if our case was resolved during the hearing, there would be no need for us to attend this next appointment.

Meanwhile, on Tuesday, November 10, we drove to the Attorney General’s Office at 8 a.m. for the other psychological evaluations required by the judge. After more than an hour’s wait, the therapist came down to the waiting room to get us. I went up first. This was the second doctor to inform me that this entire situation with the custody of my children had been unnecessary from the start. The PGN does not remove children who have other family members willing and able to care for them, as in my case. However, since we had been ill-advised and my mother and brother had requested from the state that my children be protected legally, we were now in this insufferable system created to protect children from their parents . . . in this case, from me.

While my children had their sessions that day at the PGN, I decided to make an appointment with the social worker, as had been ordered by the court. This social worker, who was assigned by name, had failed to visit my home as the judge had ordered and I was not happy with her. As it turned out, she had tried to do her job, but had attempted to visit my brother’s home since that was the address originally entered in my case file. She showed me the paperwork and I realized that my address and my cell number were also incorrect.

“My hearing is scheduled for next week,” I said, “so I would appreciate it if you could visit us and report before then.”

“Let’s begin working on the socioeconomic study right now then,” she responded. “I will do my best to visit your home on Wednesday or Thursday, but please be patient with me because I do not have a car.”

Here was yet another good person filled with good intentions and ready to do her job, but drowning in a bureaucratic, inefficient, state system that lacks the resources and the tools to help people carry out their duties.

It was close to noon when my mother, my son, Fabián, and the therapist came down the stairs after their sessions had concluded. To my dismay, just as Fabián was placing his foot on the second-to-last step, he tripped on his rubber boots, hit his face against my mother’s knee, and fell to the floor. I ran to him, picked him up, made sure he was fine, and then immediately noticed his left eye was red. Our next hearing before the judge was in a week’s time, and by then it would surely be purple! Thank God it all happened in front of the therapist, the receptionist, and a waiting area full of patients. I told the receptionist I was worried about Fabian’s eye turning purple and the judge thinking it had been abuse. She suggested I take him next door to see the PGN doctor. He would give me a letter explaining what had happened. By now I knew that anything could and would be used against me. Before I left, I turned around and saw the people in the waiting area, all nodding their heads in unison. It was a comical reaction. We were all there because of a judge’s order; we understood one another.

That day, after dropping my mom off at her house, I kept going over what the therapist had told me, how I had been ill-advised and how this whole situation with my children was completely unnecessary and could’ve been avoided. I had tried my best to remain positive and calm throughout all this upheaval, but that day my rage got the best of me. What I had been led to believe was the sound decision had turned out to be one of the worst decisions of my life, filling my days with pain and anguish and causing me to lose precious time with court-mandated therapy sessions that none of us needed. I was so frustrated and angry with myself for having allowed this into our lives that tears welled up in my eyes, and for the first time since this entire ordeal exploded with my husband more than a year earlier, I cried in front of my children.

As we drove home, they chatted away in the back seat, asking me questions that I could not answer because I was choked up inside. It was not until we got home and they got out of the car that they saw my red, swollen eyes. Immediately they sprang into action, hugging me and kissing me all over, just as I do with them when they are sad. Moved by their reaction, I took a deep breath and said, “Mami also gets sad sometimes and that’s OK. Soon I will be fine, because your kisses and hugs cure everything.”

The following day, Wednesday, November 11, at 2:30 p.m., we received a visit from the social worker at the PGN, who came to assess my children’s current living conditions at my home. “It is obvious that your children are very well taken care of in every sense,” she said before she left.

—

During those three months after my time in the holding cell, I found myself crying constantly, sometimes it seemed as if for days on end. My body, my mind, and my heart were spent. Not only was I dealing with an accusation of criminal association in a criminal case for embezzlement (fraud), and a family case at PGN in the hope of regaining custody of my children, I had also decided to file a lawsuit against the magazine Contrapoder, which had written articles about my husband and me, but most importantly, had published unblurred photos of my children’s faces, which they had taken from my Facebook page. This was unforgivable and as much as I did not want another legal battle, I could not let this go unpunished. My children had already been harmed, and I was now determined to try and make sure that this did not happen to anyone else.

So, there I was, suddenly facing the abrupt end of my marriage, an impending divorce, my unforeseen unemployment, unexpected legal proceedings, and the damage caused by tarnishing my good name and reputation in the public eye. I’m sure any single one of these situations would cause most people to temporarily crumble, yet somehow, I was still standing.

As much as my loved ones insisted that I should remain strong, that I could do it, that I had everything it takes to survive this enormous blow in my life, there were times when I couldn’t see it clearly and I just needed to vent and rest. Despite every word of wisdom and gesture of love and support, I felt no one truly understood me; I sometimes felt very alone.

—

November 17, 2015, finally arrived and I anxiously set out for my hearing before a family judge, hoping that we’d be able to resolve this issue once and for all. I was much calmer this time. I had wonderful people attesting to my ability as a mother and I had concluded that the worst thing that could happen had already happened. The situation could only remain the same or change for the better. We went through two hours of legal proceedings, testimonies, reports, and finally the judge decided to suspend my mother’s temporary guardianship and return it to me. The social worker would still visit us every two months for the next six months, my mother and I would continue with our designated parenting classes, and my children and I would continue our state therapy until the therapist deemed it no longer necessary.

I was hopeful that the state therapist who had told us on our first visit that we were fine would give us the all clear, and my children and I would be allowed to put this latest episode behind us. So, after our hearing, I eagerly called this therapist to tell him the news and to cancel our appointment, but I was informed that therapists cannot speak to their patients unless it is during scheduled appointments. Bureaucracy = ineptitude = inefficiency = no logic = lack of common sense . . . welcome to my new world.

—

November 27 rolled in and I turned forty-seven years old. I wasn’t planning on celebrating my birthday that year, so my mother invited her best friend, her friend’s daughter, my children, and me out for breakfast. Later, my friend Anabelle invited us to her yearly Friday Thanksgiving celebration and she had a surprise cake for me. Then, several friends insisted on coming over to my home to celebrate. So I went from not wanting to celebrate to rejoicing in the presence of my loved ones, regardless of the current circumstances.

On December 1, I went back to the courthouse for my pretrial hearing. I arrived with my mother—my father arrived later. I was quickly learning that my best plan was to have no expectations, so I entered the building at peace with whatever might transpire. When my attorney Miranda arrived, he was surprised to see that our counterparts were not there. Our name was called and we entered the courtroom. Miranda argued that since my accuser had already made a civil claim against my husband and his accountant before he included me in his second claim, this one criminal, this second process should be stopped until a decision had been made regarding the first. Because my first judge had recused herself, we were now beginning what would be a very long list of temporary judges serving on my case. This new judge required that my attorney’s petition be made in writing instead of verbally, which meant the actual hearing was postponed until December 14.

I went home that day and continued my life as I had done thus far. A couple of days later, I was on my way to meet several of my girlfriends for lunch to celebrate our birthdays, but was running late because my children had ballet practice that morning, so I told them to start without me. When I finally arrived, I bumped into one of my friends at the entrance. She was talking on her cell phone but quickly stopped and asked, “Have you seen our group chat?”

“No,” I replied. “Is our lunch canceled?”

“No,” she said, “but Olyslager is sitting at the table next to ours! We were wondering if you would rather change venues.”

Incredibly, I felt nothing but the arrival of an unexpected opportunity. If anyone should be uncomfortable and leave under these circumstances, it should be him, not me. I was not about to cower away from him. So, I entered the restaurant, walked right by him, and received a warm welcome by my dear friends. I sat in the chair they had saved for me, with my back to Olyslager and his two friends. My friends later told me that he seemed fidgety and uncomfortable, putting on his sunglasses and taking them off constantly. Several other people I knew left their tables to come say hello and give me a hug. Eventually, he left. A small yet priceless victory for me.

One of the most common questions I am asked regarding Olyslager’s accusations against me is, “What do the Mayora & Mayora law firm and the US timber investment company Global Forest Partners have to do with any of it?” My first judge, Jisela Reinoso Trujillo, the one who recused herself for being first cousin to Olyslager’s attorney, Frank Trujillo, expressed the exact same sentiment during my first hearing. It was explained to her that my husband had allegedly awarded Olyslager a farm belonging to GFP as a guarantee for the personal investment that Olyslager had extended him. Mayora & Mayora are GFP’s legal counsel, hired to protect their interests in Guatemala (GFP owns Forestal Ceibal and Forestal Chaklum, the entities said farms belong to). I can only imagine that somewhere along the line, Trujillo and Mayora & Mayora realized that if one party had the farm that the other party wanted returned, their best bet was to join forces instead of fight against each other. All Mayora & Mayora needed to get Olyslager on their side was for him to believe that a judge would never award him the farm, and that he would lose everything if he did not join them by giving his statement against me. But, after another judge declared that my husband did have the legal faculty to award those farms as a guarantee to Olyslager, he no longer needed GFP or this entire situation he had agreed to. Unfortunately, by then, he had already given a false statement to the authorities and could not get out of it so easily. This is what I believe happened behind the scenes before this case was brought before a judge.

In addition, Mayora & Mayora, as GFP’s legal counsel hired to protect their interests in Guatemala, were also most likely the party responsible for allowing my husband’s actions, leaving them in a very awkward and humiliating position. As much as I understood their predicament, in my eyes, they will never be able to justify how their actions against me and my family were appropriate. If Mayora & Mayora considered themselves victims once, I have been a victim twice; once from my husband’s alleged actions, and a second time from theirs. How a group of attorneys came up with such a legal strategy, I can almost understand, but how Olyslager, a businessman, husband, and father-to-be, ever agreed to give a false statement against a housewife and cause so much pain and suffering, I will never understand. There is no amount of anger, frustration, or revenge possible to ever justify that. His declaration against me says so much more about him than it ever said about me.

—

Time never stands still, and in the blink of an eye, Christmastime was upon us. My usual Christmas tradition had always involved waiting for the imported Canadian Christmas trees to arrive at the end of November, which meant my decorated tree would be up and ready before my birthday. However, this year was different. I did not have the money to spend on such an extravagance, and had no desire to bother with the purchase, transport, and care of a live tree. Suddenly, I realized that this gave me the freedom to set up our tree whenever I wished, and so, by early November, I dusted off our fake tree, and it was up and shining a light on our difficult circumstances in no time. Not only did we celebrate the longest Christmas season in my life to this day, but I also relished the tranquility of not having the money to buy Christmas gifts. It was fabulous and liberating. The season was solely focused on spending time with the ones we love, a life lesson for me and an invaluable way to teach my children that gifts are only one of many ways in which we can express love.

In the meantime, I realized that time goes on with or without me, that I cannot control everything, and that that’s OK. And so, when I heard that Miranda had requested our December 14 hearing be postponed because he had another hearing on that same date, I just took another breath, and wrote the new date in my calendar, a day that would seal my fate and change my life forever: January 5, 2016.