We like drove right past my first view of a check-point ever, on Route 19, and I opened my mouth to ask, "Hey, is that a check point?" because I'm like, from Ohio, and I've only seen that stuff on the internet. And he doesn't quit talking at my interruption and gives me this look like, "What the heck do you THINK it is?" He probably wasn't even thinking this, but being in the car with two old hands at this trip made me feel a little bit like it was my first day as a Freshman in high school. He was probably too busy in his train of thought to realize it was such a new experience for me. It was kind of like that all the way to Nogales. Alma was in the back seat listening. I may need to correct the spelling on her name.
We stopped before reaching the border at a Dollar Tree to pick up supplies to donate. I was not sure what to buy. I hadn't brought food, and was not sure how long we'd be there By the time I chose food for myself, they were going through the check-out. They had cheap toothbrushes, toothpaste, and Alma threw in some sanitary napkins for the women. I made a personal vow to ship a whole box of sanitary napkins, since I did not buy anything to donate today. I assumed they would be putting whole tubes of toothpaste in personal bags of toiletries. I did not expect to find myself later squeezing toothpaste into individual miniature single-use cups with a bunch of honor students from a Flagstaff university.
As we drove past the bus station, Larry pointed out the bus, and the immigrants who had just been deported and dropped off fresh this morning. This is apparently a daily occurrence. He pointed out their clear plastic bags with their belongings inside, and stated that everyone in town would know from their bags that they were newly deported. They would likely be harassed by some people; and would be approached by "employees" of coyotes. Some of them looked a little bewildered; others looked frustrated; but they all looked tired, hungry, and at various stages of despondence. They stood out like a Freshman on a college campus, even to me, and it was my first time, ever in Mexico.
On the way to the Kino Border Initiative kitchen, known as El Comedor, we made another stop inside Mexico, at the border patrol shooting site of Jose Antonio Elena Rodriguez. He was 16, and in Mexico, walking down the street when our U.S. border patrol shot him through the fence, stating he was throwing rocks at them. Today I saw the spot with my own eyes. I stood in front of the bullet holes and faced the direction they came from. The gouges were clear. I took a picture of Larry and Alma standing in the same place. Larry was right. There was no way stones were any threat to the men on our side of the fence; and unlikely they could have reached a mark, even if they'd been thrown by the best football player. Witnesses state no stones were thrown though. This kid was murdered, plain and simple.
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| The direction they are facing. |
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| The closest possible point a stone could hit from the spot, and not the direction most of the bullet holes were clearly made from. The problem for our border patrol is, everyone in Nogales can come look at this site, and they do. Our border patrol allegedly has a video of the incident, but will not release it. |
A word now, about Alma. She brought cloth backpacks that she had made. They were pretty fabric, and had soft rope for the shoulder straps. There were Madonnas stitched onto the outside of each pack. She put toiletries wrapped in a cheap washcloth and towel, and a lightweight, fuzzy blanket rolled up, in each one. This was her solution for the plastic bags from our jail system for the immigrants' belongings. I think I will suggest it for a Grange sewing project. The nuns love them because it is such a small way to give newly deported immigrants a little dignity.
We went on to El Comedor ("the cafeteria"). We would not need to serve, because there were college students there today. For lack of something to do, I sat down with these young women, and began filling small cups with toothpaste. They told me their college majors. The one sitting next to me was in nursing, then economics, journalism, math, and Spanish. They said the course description for this class had not included a trip to Mexico. Several of them told about how they had discovered this after the course had started. They were laughing at each others' stories. Two of them had to obtain passports for the class. All of them were glad they came, and wanted to come back and do more. A couple of them had heard of Dayton, Ohio's initiative to become an immigrant-friendly city. We talked about the contrast. After working with these people, I can tell you the immigrants are not anything resembling the drug addicts I have cared for in Washington, PA, Wheeling, WV, Bridgeport, OH, or Columbus, OH. These are the kinds of people I'd like to be a nurse for. I don't know what planet our national news came from, and neither did these gals.
An elderly man was sitting on the steps outside El Comedor with one bruised foot out of his leather boot, and the right foot still shod. Christa, an EMT who volunteers now and then, and came along with the students this time, was looking at it. I had been summoned to confer, since I was a nurse. I stated that I was not licensed to work as a nurse in Mexico, and was told I would not have to; that there was nothing a licensed medical person was required to do that we would be doing. I held this man's left foot in my hands and inspected it. His shins were scratched like mine were after walking through a mile of brambles back in Ohio, but he also had large red welts all over his ankles and shins, where I was told he had hit rocks while walking. The sole of his foot was a dull, ruddy red, and there was a large blue blister on his inner big toe. I knew the ruddy color would deepen into a dark bruise. It hurt him to walk. The younger men stood around us watching. I held his other boot as he pulled his foot out of it, and I removed his sock for him. He said, "gracias," and I could tell he meant it. I said, "de nada." We resolved that the best treatment was to simply stay off of his feet. Christa rubbed lotion on both feet gently.
Meanwhile he ate some refried beans. He was afraid to try the ham and cheese sandwich he was given and gave it to a young man eying it. The immigrants had not been fed while being detained, and he had not had food in the desert either, for at least three days, and maybe five. He said that eating made him feel like his throat was closing up. Although the picture below is empty of people, in the morning, it was a busy place. The man was sitting on the steps just beyond the tree. This tent-like structure was built into the edge of a cut-out hillside. Just inside the canvases are metal tables, a small kitchen, a water tank with potable water, and bathrooms with flushing toilets.
Another man had a clearly sprained ankle. It was swollen and discolored on all sides. Christa took a break from wrapping it to get tape out of her bag to secure the wrap, and he was up, limping on it, walking, because someone had offered him a cell phone to use. She waited, then rewrapped it. Communicating was far more important than a swollen ankle.
The crowd dispersed slowly, and the people cleaned up the kitchen for the morning.
We went to Grupos Beda, the Mexican Border Patrol, next. Unlike the U.S. border patrol, Mexico helps migrants rather than detaining them. They rescue people. They provide a place to stay for three nights; water, and showers. We handed out gum and cookies. I got the cookies, and learned, and used the word, "galleta," today. The men were brushing their teeth with the cups we had made earlier, and their new toothbrushes, near a spigot. Their expressions were no longer despondent. In fact, the men brushing their teeth were filling their mouths with foam and smiling at each other. The man whose feet were bruised was lying in the shade, on the concrete. Men walked around with rolls of blankets tied with shoestrings, and shoestrings hung over their shoulders. After dispersing the goodies, we moved on.
Larry then took us to visit the cemetery. All Souls Day celebration decorations were still up, so Nogales was colorful. We saw Jose's grave, and Larry sang a lovely song there.
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| The grave faces downhill; looking towards Nogales |
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| I enjoyed looking at the different graves, with gifts to the dead of their favorite things. This one had a beer, a bottle of perfume, and a Coca Cola. |
We came back through the border crossing into the United States without a hitch. Larry and Alma were concerned that she would be questioned, but she was not, either at the border or at the check point we had passed on the way down. In the car on the way back, they both told me stories of immigrants they had helped, and what had become of some of them. I had met some of them in person. The individual stories are numerous - uncountable. They are heart-wrenching. The man whose feet we had cared for was from close to the Guatemala border. Volunteers for No More Deaths go out looking for people who are reported by immigrants coming into these places as being left out in the desert, and they more often than not find them dead, if they find them at all. The Sonoran desert is vast. It is likely that most of the people who have died were never found. 154 documented deaths in fiscal year 2012-2013 is an arbitrary number. Those are the deaths where we can hold a bone up and say, "I found someone!" What if for every one of those, there were two we did not find? Each day of this trip, that number comes to mean less and less to me. How our policies and our actions affect good, hard-working human beings, is what counts.
I keep hearing the words throughout my life, "Humanitarian aid is not illegal." Larry said it again today, like a loud echo from Viet Nam, Serbia, Somolia, Palestine, and now the American desert. No matter what anyone thinks should or should not be done to solve the immigration issue, causing people to die, by whatever means, is wrong. Always.
And humanitarian aid is not illegal. No human being is illegal.
1 comment:
Excellent narrative. Thanks!r
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