The other face of Venezuelan migration in Ecuador: the labor force that makes its way in commerce, distribution of products and professional field

Unemployment, high rents and food prices, and the risk of being robbed are circumstances that affect a large majority of the population, even more so if people are strangers to the context in which the events take place, such as migrant citizens.

There are recent episodes that have exposed people in this condition of mobility, such as the young food delivery man who was murdered for stealing his motorcycle, in the Flor de Bastión sector, in the northwest of Guayaquil, on January 20. “Where will I be, my God,” said the foreigner in a video that was uploaded to a social network moments before the misfortune.

Despite their adversities, more than 400,000 Venezuelan citizens who are in Ecuador -according to a count carried out by the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) in mid-2021- are trying to rebuild their lives after hundreds of hours of walking between their country and their new home, hunger and cold, bus trips and worries about their family that they left behind in their homeland.

Antonio Garcia also works as delivery (delivery boy) and earn the basic salary. He left the state of Carabobo, Venezuela, for Quito, at the end of 2019. Christmas and the end of the year were hard dates for the 40-year-old man, having his family more than 2,300 kilometers away.

“I have been working for a delivery company for a while. The money I have earned helped me to bring my children. I met them again after almost a year and a half of being separated”, says Antonio.

The decision to leave his country was imminent due to the difficult economic situation that worsened over time. Two years later, he says, his life improved as much as possible, although now he is stressed by other problems typical of Ecuador, such as insecurity, or those derived from the pandemic.

“I worked as a sales consultant, but the pandemic caused me to be laid off. Then I went out to sell lemons, avocados and oranges on the street for about three months (…). Until now I have been well received here in Ecuador”, comments the foreign citizen.

Venezuelan migration, an issue that needs action from the countries of the region

Instead, Yuleidys Aular, 36, arrived in Guayaquil in the midst of a pandemic, on July 26, 2020. She remembers that she began to make a living selling empanadas and arepas, in the morning, which left her up to $ 18 daily; and in the afternoon, as a pusher in a restaurant, where she was paid $5 for a few hours.

“With that I completed to bring my brother,” says Yuleidys. He was doing well, but the economic situation worsened in Ecuador. Sales dropped and that led her to look for other opportunities. In 2021 vacancies were announced in EL UNIVERSO to sell their copies. She applied.

After a trial period, Yuleidys took the job.

“Thanks to this work I have fixed my little house little by little in Falcón state, I put windows on it, it turned out beautiful. I managed to travel to Venezuela and come back”, highlights the woman.

Its point of sale is at an intersection in central Urdesa, but it goes through several streets to sell the largest number of newspapers. In that job, she says, she has met people who respect her and others who have wanted to surpass themselves.

“There are men who greatly mistake our kindness. But I have told them that if I were another type of woman I would not be working here, I have come across some of those, but in general my clients are respectful,” says the woman, who lives in Sauces.

“What Colombia is not going to do is recognize an opprobrious, corrupt, drug-trafficking dictatorship,” says Iván Duque on the Senate initiative to seek diplomatic and commercial rapprochement

Antonio and Yuleidys miss their land, its beaches, the warmth of home. Evis Chourio also misses that almost fraternal warmth that he found every Saturday when he visited the Río Chico market, in Miranda. In that Venezuelan state, Evis coordinated a postgraduate course.

“So I had to go through the state of Miranda and when I finished my day I would go to the town, I would go to the market – where they already knew me – and ask me for my lebranche, which is a type of fish that is ordered to be grilled or fried. I miss that, that hits me a lot. Without a doubt, I also miss my family,” says the Foreign Language and Literature teacher, who currently lives with his daughter in Quito.

This 66-year-old man arrived in the capital approximately six years ago, when the migratory flow was not yet so strong. He came on vacation. However, an acquaintance proposed a position in a foundation.

“I said to myself: ‘I’ll work for a month, I’ll earn $500 and I’ll leave, to continue at my university (where I used to work)’, but afterwards the environment was conducive, the treatment and everything. And so I decided to stay until December. I stayed until July (in that place),” recalls Evis. In December 2016, he went to Venezuela to finish his retirement at the university where he worked and returned.

He currently works as a teacher in a private school in Quito. There he feels comfortable and free to practice his profession that he loves so much.

“Someone called me to prepare some college students for the Senescyt test. Then I applied to a school called the United States of America, which is in Monteserrín. There they did the interview and a demonstrative class. There I have been a teacher of the children of diplomats and military attaches,” says Evis, who recommends that his compatriots enter the country legally, that is, with a visa, if possible, to speed up their adaptation in Ecuador.

The citizens consulted agreed that their lives will continue to be written in this country unless there is a political and economic change in their homeland, that change that ensures free and peaceful development for them and theirs. (I)