Like many migrants who crossed from Venezuela to Colombia through the Paraguachón pass, Evelyn Cruz slept on the street when she arrived in Maicao, in La Guajira, six years ago.
“At first it hit me hard,” concedes this 38-year-old from Caracas, who was widowed when she arrived and buried her husband on this side of the border as best she could.
In Caracas "I couldn't take it anymore," she says without bitterness.
“Little by little I stopped with recycling, I paid rent, but they told me about La Pista and I came here.
I made my ranchito and I was buying sheet by sheet ”, she recounts from her home, dotted with all kinds of reused objects, in one of the largest informal settlements in Latin America.
Little by little, five of her seven children and her little granddaughter also landed.
"I got ahead, with the help they have given us, not everything has been sadness," she says optimistically.
"I don't see coming back.
My children already have everything here.”
The sun is inclement.
A child flies a pink kite that is lost to view in that glowing circle.
Although the vulnerability of the nearly 13,000 people who live on what was the runway of the old airport is obvious, they take great pains to display their resilience.
It is no longer as dangerous a place as the reputation that precedes it, they say.
Each ranch, many raised only with sheets of cardboard or zinc, has a number and belongs to one of its 12 blocks.
And each block has a leader and a "branch" that serves as a community room.
The water – of dubious quality – is bought from delivery men who bring it in wheelbarrows pulled by donkeys, the
aguaeburro.
Unlike other settlements on private land, La Pista was a lot abandoned decades ago by the Mayor's Office.
Its inhabitants are Venezuelan migrants, Colombian returnees and Wayuu indigenous people, a binational people.
A child in the community of La Pista, in Maicao. Santiago Mesa
“I feel good here in Colombia, I have more support for the children's education,” says Lexida Larreal, a 41-year-old Venezuelan Wayuu mother of six who arrived three years ago from Zulia state.
"The card they gave us changed our lives," he explains, referring to the Temporary Protection Statute for Venezuelan Migrants, in operation since 2021. The community leaders, gathered in the branch, agree in appreciating this milestone that, now, they allows you to receive medical care.
Like Evelyn and Lexida, almost three million Venezuelans have settled in Colombia in recent years, driven by the political, social and economic crisis in the neighboring country.
Many have traversed the páramos and mountains, often on foot, but those who have crossed Paraguachón face inhospitable desert conditions.
In that narrow and chaotic space, tractor-trailers, motorcycle taxis and wheelbarrow drivers converge, living with money changers, red wine or empanada vendors.
There are also many trails, or informal steps, under the control of criminal groups.
45% of the Venezuelans who entered Colombia through Paraguachón in 2022 continued towards Bogotá, while 40% went to other cities in the region, especially Barranquilla, the great city of the Caribbean, and Maicao.
Lexida Larreal, 41 years old, inhabitant of La Pista. Santiago Mesa
"We have detected that departures continue to be very high from Venezuela to Colombia, and vulnerable populations continue to appear, especially women, heads of household, with around three or four children, who decide to leave to find a response to their needs," he explains. Alejandra Castellanos, the head of the Maicao office of UNHCR, the UN refugee agency.
The two countries share more than 2,200 kilometers of porous border, which at this point is completely diluted.
180,000 Venezuelans already live in La Guajira, 80,000 of them in this border municipality.
The 'Norwegian houses'
To get to Maicao, you have to turn your back on the sea and travel the 78 kilometers that separate it from Riohacha, the departmental capital.
Another 12 kilometers further on is Paraguachón – and a couple of hours later, Maracaibo, one of the cities hardest hit by the Venezuelan crisis.
The highway, in a straight line, crosses the peninsula, the northernmost piece of Colombia in South America, and cuts through a dry landscape, with trupillo trees and cardones –a kind of cactus– on both sides of the road.
La Guajira, where water is scarce and poverty abounds, is the department with the highest level of unsatisfied basic needs –despite receiving millions in royalties for oil and coal–.
At one point, entire families were sleeping in the streets and parks of Maicao.
Faced with the crisis, in 2019 UNHCR built the first Comprehensive Care Center (CAI) for Venezuelan migrants, Colombian returnees and Wayuu indigenous people who needed food and shelter – in addition to offering other services such as health, education and legal assistance.
With a pandemic involved, the small citadel served more than 10,000 people in three years, but in mid-2022 the humanitarian response changed to focus on integrating this population into the host communities.
El Pueblito Wayuu is a school that received the containers that were formerly part of the Comprehensive Care Center on the outskirts of Maicao.Santiago Mesa
The CAI reached more than 200 refugee housing units (RHUs).
Half of this infrastructure remains installed to respond to an eventual emergency, but another hundred units have been moved to benefit refugee, migrant and displaced families.
Six of these RHU now serve as the brand new classrooms of the Pueblito Wayuu school, one of the 12 institutions in rural areas of Maicao that used to teach outdoors until they received these structures.
Ender Fernández, a 33-year-old Venezuelan Wayuu dedicated to the bakery, father of four of the students, calls them "the Norwegian houses."
With his hands, he helped install them in the school, after having inhabited one for more than a month during his time at the CAI.
"I decided to migrate for the children's education, everything was very unstable," he says.
“We already have another face.
It has rained and we didn't get wet”, celebrates Érika Enríquez, a primary school teacher, moments after finishing the math class for around twenty fifth grade children.
Another of the houses is located at the headquarters of
Un corazón sin fronteras
, of the Marist community, whose patio overlooks La Pista.
Kenia Navas, herself a Venezuelan migrant, has been directing the project for four years that serves children with school reinforcements, artistic and cultural activities.
More than 3,000 families have been registered.
"La Pista has many mourners," she explains, referring to the presence of NGOs and UN agencies, more than 30 cooperation organizations.
It is an impressive settlement because, in addition to its size, the misery is very notorious, she points out.
“There is no potable water, they do not have any type of service, electricity is stolen, when it rains the sewage overflows… there are endless situations.
She is angry for the children, who are the ones who suffer the most ”.
Boys and girls from the Wayuu community and also migrants, in a classroom in the Pueblito Wayuu, in the rural area of Maicao.Santiago Mesa
Maicao knows about migrations.
It has received different waves of Lebanese, Syrians and Palestinians, as witnessed by one of the largest mosques in Latin America, with a 31-meter-tall minaret topped by a copper crescent.
The mosque was inaugurated in 1997, and the marble for the floors and bathrooms was brought from Venezuela.
The building is a testimony of the good times, when Maicao was a free port famous for its trade.
The mayor, Mohamad Dasuki, of Arab descent, has pledged not to get the inhabitants of La Pista out the hard way.
But his term ends with this election year.
In the region there are more than fifty informal settlements, and all of them are torn, like La Pista, between the expectation that they will be legalized and the fear of an unexpected eviction.
Subscribe here
to the EL PAÍS newsletter on Colombia and receive all the latest information on the country.