A “black sheep” in Ecuador navigates a the landscape of working as a migrant.
David is a 33-year-old man from Venezuela who has spent five years in Ecuador with his wife, who also lives in Quito. David left Venezuela because there were, in his words, no opportunities, no medicine, no food, and the value of money had plummeted to be worth next to nothing. I met him in Parque La Carolina, where he was enjoying a Sunday afternoon of rest and leisure with an ever-growing group of close friends from his home country. This is his story.
In Venezuela, I was a business administrator of two businesses. However, even with this professional job, I was not making enough after the crisis to live comfortably. So, I decided to begin driving taxis and busses. In this work, I could make up to 1,200 bolivares daily — this was, you know, much more than minimum wage, which was only 100 bolivares or so. I was also making much more than when I worked in the business administrator job, though that job was a lot more comfortable and obviously much safer. Driving taxis was a huge risk. I heard reports of taxi drivers getting mugged and killed so that others could steal their taxi cars. Eventually, I decided to begin driving the public bus instead, for my own safety. The work was more demanding, but I made about the same amount of money and had a more public role, so I felt safer. I was only robbed at gunpoint once as a bus driver. He took what I had in my pockets, which was not much.
I decided to come to Quito because I had family here. My mother is Ecuadorian, so I am lucky — I had citizenship. My Ecuadorian family helped me get to Quito and paid for my plane ticket, which was so generous. But they have mostly passed on now, and I am here mostly alone with my wife.
Upon arriving, I only had $500 in my pocket! It was not enough — everywhere, I saw Venezuelans ending up on the street, especially because obtaining legal identification is difficult. Having family and citizenship helped me start out on my feet, even though I still do not have official paperwork, despite my dual nationality. This makes finding work difficult sometimes.
When I finally got to Quito, I made a living as a todero. What is a todero? Someone who does absolutely everything. I made $130 per month at the start, living with my family for three months before they helped me to find my own apartment in the south of the city, where it is far from jobs and work, but cheaper to live. I worked as an assistant at a mechanical workshop to start and was being paid below minimum wage, which is $380. Far below. It was dangerous work and I put in many hours. I got sick at this time, but fortunately, I had a passport, so I went to the state medic [public hospital] to get some treatment and I was fine. It was lucky that I could show my Venezuelan passport. Many Venezuelans now are not able to get one at all.
After a few months – I don’t recall how many – I got a new job working as a waiter at a restaurant. The restaurant finally paid me the minimum wage of $380, which allowed me to independizar — to become independent. The apartment that my family helped me to find only cost $80 per month, so I could save $100 per month and send $100 back to Venezuela for the first time since arriving. In the first six months, my wife and I also received a small stipend of $25 monthly from ACNUR [UNHCR], though that only lasted for six months.
I will also tell you, before I talk about my next job, how I sent money to Venezuela. You know that the currency, the bolivar, is always devaluing and there is a lot of inflation. Nothing is worth anything in Venezuela. So, to send remittances, I contact a few friends that I have in Colombia because you can’t just send money across the Venezuelan border, as it will be seized or lose all of its value. There is also a mafia on the border that robs, takes, and robs again, often with violence, so it is too dangerous to bring money. It could be a death sentence.
Instead, I wire my friend $20–$30 with Western [Union] to do me a favor. Then, my friend takes his profit and uses the rest of the money to buy as much as possible in Colombia. The friend mostly buys things that are in short supply in Venezuela — flour, bread, oil, sugar, spaghetti, clothes, medicine. Then, he takes the goods, pays a bribe to the border guards, and carries the goods to people I tell him to in Venezuela. One does not have to declare such goods on the Venezuelan side — only on the Colombian side — so it is safer this way.
I worked in that job as a waiter, coordinating payments to Venezuela in this way, for a few months. Then, a friend helped me find a job as a security guard because he knew someone who knew someone else — that is how it goes here. That job paid $500 per month, so I was able to begin saving even more, at least $200 per month. I also continued sending $100 to Venezuela monthly but didn’t send more just because I was making more. I was good at being a guard and had the skill and patience for it. One year after beginning the job, my manager offered me a promotion. It was a great promotion — I began making $620 per month. With this money I could finally send more money to Venezuela, though not much, so I began sending $180 to $200. I used the rest of the money and some savings for basic supplies and bills and to help my wife — who only had her visa and no formal paperwork — to obtain papers. This is a very costly and long procedure, so I had to stop saving for a while to pay for it. You see, the paperwork process costs about $400. The Venezuelan Embassy helps a bit with documentation, but to get papers, you have to go through a long process with Ecuadorian authorities.
This is also when I started to give back a bit. The Catholic Church and local nuns have been helpful in providing immediate relief and support to Venezuelans in Quito, especially as the situation in my country gets worse and people come with less than before. But, the Church does not provide this help without expecting something in return. When I arrived, I saw the Church distributing mattresses, offering a place to sleep for a few nights, and providing some food for those who needed it. But when you get to a point where you have more stability, the Church tells you to pay it forward. This is my duty, and now that I can, I lend a hand.
As for life in Quito, I feel like a black sheep here sometimes. Everything about me says, no screams, ‘Venezuelan,’ from my stature and way of carrying myself to my accent. I stand out no matter how I look, how I speak, and where I go. It can lead to discrimination. As a Venezuelan, you have to work more to get paid less, and you have to accept this out of necessity. What else can you do? I am making my life here in Quito and I’m finally on my feet, but a bit of me is always still in Venezuela. In Venezuela, I still have two cars. I have a house. They are probably gone, who knows. I thought about selling them before moving to Quito, but in the end, did not. A part of me is always home. Perhaps one day I can return for them.