"Victimhood is not my thing:" a life of resilience on the margins

Nahomy* grew up on the outskirts of El Progreso, Honduras. As the oldest daughter, she took on much of the care work of her three younger siblings. "Honestly, I spent most of my childhood on the streets, the neighbours used to give us food because my parents didn’t cook," she recalls. When she was eight, she and her siblings were taken to an orphanage. It was there that I first met Nahomy when she was thirteen.

El Progreso, a working-class city nestled between the Mico Quemado mountains and the Ulúa River, is a transit hub for those traveling between San Pedro Sula and the north coast. The city is marked by its history, including the 1954 banana workers strikes that laid the foundation for workers' rights in Honduras. Although Nahomy is too young to remember this, she has grown up resisting different, yet no less harsh, social structures.

Now twenty-three, Nahomy is still the same height she was at thirteen, with the same long black hair and dark eyes, but she now carries herself with a deep sense of maturity. She still remembers the day she was taken to the orphanage: “It was horrible,” she says. “Being there, not being able to see your mother, not being in your home, it was all a shock.” Though she felt confined, she acknowledges the benefits: for the first time, she had access to education, reaching eighth grade, and her siblings were provided for. However, the orphanage's methods were harsh. "Their form of punishment is something I don’t agree with… it was always yelling, hitting. They didn’t know how to talk to us."

At seventeen she was expelled from the orphanage for bad behaviour without so much as being able to say goodbye to her siblings. “It was like becoming a little girl again, right back where I started,” she says. She briefly stayed with her mother before moving in with her older brother, but soon fell pregnant to a young man her age, giving birth to her son at seventeen. Juggling motherhood and unstable employment cleaning houses and later in a shoe shop, Nahomy found it impossible to continue her education, especially with the additional challenges brought by the pandemic.

Today, Nahomy manages a small clothing store and rents a room nearby. Though she and her son’s father are no longer together, they share custody, and she now has a new partner. She speaks about her time in the orphanage with remarkable maturity: "I think life teaches you,” she reflects. “Life will always beat you up a bit... but you can’t let things get you down. You can’t think that you can’t do something, you have to keep going, forget, forgive, and keep fighting and working hard. Victimhood is not my thing.”

It is clear from Nahomy’s story that what it means to be vulnerable in El Progreso has little to do with individual character; Character is one thing Nahomy does not lack. Rather, like so many others, she pushes back against structural barriers on a daily basis with a source of determination that, while not unending, is deeply admirable for a young woman her age.

After a year together, Nahomy’s partner managed to get a visa to the United States. “It’s an opportunity for both of us,” she told me. “For a better future.” She sent me a selfie from the airport, with an emoji of two hearts: one full, one breaking.


*Pseudonym