Monday, June 25, 2007

Bri's Week Two

Border Patrol, why don't you come to your senses? You been out building fences for so long now Oh, you're a hard one- I know that you think you got reasons. These things that are pleasin' you Can hurt our world somehow.

Ya- Desperado is a favorite sing-a-long at our camp. We enjoy making some variations.

This week me and Rachel went to the mobile camp to explore some new tails that haven't been in No More Deaths records yet. We found a huge dump site that must have had at least 400 backpacks. Migrants have to leave all their stuff behind before continuing their journey. When you come upon the site it's hard to not know there's a war going on. Every day I kind of feel more and more like I am in the middle of a war (but I do still feel very safe). When there's a physical wall and such rigid and harsh political boundaries and policies it's pretty understandable isn't it? Anyways on that note we had a couple encounters with border patrol this week that went smoothly and civil. I have heard many bad stories, but have yet to have a bad run in myself. They pulled us over the other night just for driving, because that can be suspicious. We've had some other conversations with agents and they seem like they're trying to be nice, good people, but are just brainwashed and stuck in some matrix that doesn't allow them to see the whole picture. When border patrol finds migrants they hold them until the Wackenhut Bus gets there, Wackenhut is a private company, not governmental. When we see migrants with BP it's okay that we go and ask them if we can give the migrants food and water, and check their health. We can ask Wackenhut too, but they have no policy about aid to the migrants. These guys are just like security guards- not border patrol, not police officials, but they still give themselves this macho authority that allows them to tell us we need to 'maintain a 50 foot perimeter in order to do their job effectively.' That is not their policy. It's hard not to explode, but exploding would just lead to something messier, it's better to take a deep breath, wave at the migrants and go away. The migrants will most likely be returned to Mexico, and start again, in ill health.

One day while we were on patrol we began to think of real practical solutions to the problem at the border. So if it were up to me, I would start by doing these things, keep in mind, there is no quick fix, it will take time and patience, like all good things: first I'd get rid of NAFTA, and other policies that hurt our neighbors. Then we'd need to come up with a practical path to citizenship for the immigrants who are here, and the ones who still may come in the future (those one's our economy and communities depend on and will continue to depend on). Then we're really going to have to legalize marijuana, for so many reasons. A big reason border patrol claims they're at the border is to stop drug runners. Make it legal and it can then be monitored rather than smuggled. Then most importantly: as much as I think it is not necessary, would would still have to have some sort of border patrol. But we could improve their training! They could learn how to read maps and use GPS. They could learn fundamental skills like the knowledge of where North South East and West are. They could have agents ride around with a partner for their own safety instead of being alone in their vehicles whenever anything comes up. They could put them through diversity trainings that would allow and encourage and humane treatment of people who still try to cross the border. They could make the training longer than two weeks.

It's still hot here, but the desert impresses me every day. I'm excited for the monsoon to come and the dirt to turn red!

Again, I hope everyone is well. Peace.

Rachel on Week Two

While we spent the first week hiking established trails and checking for migrants/leaving water, this past week brought some new adventures. Bri and I moved to what is called Mobile Camp with Gene, the guy whose house we stayed at last week. The three of us spent the week hiking areas that aren't well mapped, trying to establish the routes that migrants are taking North, determining which routes are most well-traveled and where migrants are most likely to need help. We put all the information into GPS units, then later export the waypoints we've made onto maps and connect the dots (side note: I'm getting a good handle on how to work with GPS gear, which will be a nice thing to have when I head to grad school in a few months). No More Deaths has a pretty extensive set of information that keeps growing, and that allows us to be more effective.
I've been trying to think of what I should write about this week (we are, at the moment, utilizing the computers of the U. of Arizona library), and I keep coming back to the dump sites. When migrants are led along the trails by their guides/coyotes (we're told the phrases have become interchangeable), they carry whatever they can cram into a backpack. At some point, once they've passed the border, they will meet up with a ride at a pick-up point. Before this pick-up point, however, there has to be a dump site. The dump site is where the guide tells them to get rid of their backpacks, the packs' contents, and anything that can identify them as being from Mexico/elsewhere. So places within a day's travel of pick-up sites end up covered in trash, clothing, packs, food, etc., because the migrants are forced to leave everything there.
We come along these sites especially when we're hiking new areas, and No More Deaths attempts to recycle things. We carry out the usable packs to be re-used in various needy areas, clothing that is still good is taken to shelters, etc., and plastic water jugs are washed out so they can be filled and put out on trails again (I should note that trash is broken down by the sun much more quickly than at home...not that it makes the total amount of trash everywhere fine and dandy, but it does break down faster here).
When we encounter these sites, we go through the bags and other items, in order to find what is useful, and it is strangely reminiscent of the service trip I went on in New Orleans. The difference is, in New Orleans we went through things in the ruined homes in order to set aside valuables for the families to keep, and here there is no hope of the items ever being returned to their owners. There is such a broad range of items that people deem necessary for the trip-- grammar school notebooks, lotions, cologne/perfume, cloves of garlic, names/addresses/phone numbers for contacts in the U.S., crosses and other religious objects (I found a picture of the Pope in one bag), and of course lots of canned food and salty things. Some things strike me as odd or silly (say, cologne?), but then I have to catch myself with that. If I were making this journey, what would I conclude was necessary to bring, and who am I to critique what someone else thinks is important? It's not my place, for sure.
There are also lots of shrines along the trails (Catholicism being a big deal here), and those are touching, to say the least. At Mobile Camp a migrant started a shrine before we got there, and it sits right next to the Prayer Flags that the Buddhist landowner (who is letting us use her land) put up...I like that juxtaposition.
I think I've reached my ending point for today, though all that I've written is entirely inadequate. I think about all the things I want to convey when I finally get here, and then it just becomes too much to pour out in any coherent form. The people we're meeting here, citizens and undocumented persons alike, are all amazing creatures. I think this summer is going to be on par with Ghana in terms of changing my person, and I'm excited for that.
Shalom.

Monday, June 18, 2007

Brianna's Week One Reflection

Rachel pretty much covered it below, as to what our days are like and what has happened so far, so make sure you read her entry below. As you'll read read we did a lot in one week, but it still seemed to be relatively slow in terms of the number of people we encountered. This next week we'll be stationed at a mobile camp, exploring new trails traveled by migrants and probably running into a lot more people. I want to write about some of the thoughts and emotions that have arisen in me this last week.

No one would do this because they WANT to. It's horrible down here- at most we hike 8 miles a day and when I'm hot and sweaty and tired and all cut up from everything prickly- I remember, that I am not walking around in the desert because my life depends on it, I'm wearing hike tech hiking boots, not sandals, I'm drinking water (clean water, not cow tank water), eating granola bars, I have a place to sleep and a document that protects me from deportation, I have no children I'm trying to lead through these trails and keep healthy, I am not trying to climb these mountains pregnant, and I get to do it all during daylight. It's hard not to see the privilege involved in what we are doing, and see how unjustly the system works.

I feel safe. Coming down here I had so many fears- they ran in every direction. The desert is both beautiful and harsh. It takes lives and does not appear to be forgiving. At night is when I really begin to trust it, it cools down and the milky way comes into sight. We're usually woken up at some point in the night by the coyotes howling, but they wont hurt us. It's weird to understand what's all out there. People: Migrants, Border Patrol, Us, Ranchers, People sitting behind the computers only God knows where watching whatever the STI towers report back, Minute Men (usu sally not during these months). There are a lot of forces working against each other. The other day we must have set off a sensor and a Border Patrol Chopper came over the mountain, circled us twice and left. Other years, they have set up a 24 hour patrol station to monitor camp, no sign of that yet, but we'll see.

A desperate cry for freedom, what DOES this country really stand for? As you'll read in Rachel's reflection, we met a man name Carlos. He spent the night in our camp and yesterday we had to have him airlifted out. For all you who are into praying, do that for him. For all you who are into sending good energy, do that. And for all you who are into thinking really hard, do that. He left Nicaragua 14 days ago. His goal was to make money here so he could feed his 5 kids back at home. He's 42 years old. When he made it to the border the Mexican bandits took all his stuff. He fell behind and his group had to leave him. Our group found him, peeing blood, and drinking brown water. He was brought to our camp. He looked relatively healthy, and in good spirits. The next day his health went down (possible renal failure). He had to be airlifted right from our camp. So, this is his life, his family, his chance, and look what he was willing to go through. People die down here, and no one in there right mind would do it because they wanted to. If I were Carlos I would be so scared right now, we don't know what will happen after he's out of the hospital, it's possible he'll be on his way, it's also possible Border Patrol will pick up his bill and deport him. The system is so screwed up and needs to change because this isn't freedom. It's not freedom when goods can cross borders but people and labor cant. It's not freedom when towers and cameras and untrained border patrol monitor citizens for 24 hours a day. It's not freedom when the process to help someone in distress becomes a complicated drawn out process. It's not freedom when these things are happening to people in OUR name. It's not a country I want to live in, when people think they deserve it, 'because they should have came here legally.'

Something else I want to add is that we have been surrounded by great people so far- everyone really, that we've come into contact with...

hope everyone is well, please think about these things.

Sunday, June 17, 2007

Reflection on the first week-- Rachel

Ola! Somos voluntarios de la iglesia-- tenemos agua y comida!
My apologies if the spelling is incorrect there, but regardless if you sound it out, you get what we have been hearing for a lot of this past week (english: Hello! We're volunteers of the church-- we brought water and food!)
It's hard to know where I should begin to reflect on this past week and all that we have done and learned. As I type now, Bri, another volunteer Brittany and I are at the house of one of the founders of No More Deaths, who is letting us stay at his house for a night to rejuvenate. Tomorrow we will go to Nogales for a dedication ceremony for an aid center there, and then return to our desert camping.
To give you a general idea, our days are spent as follows:
After sleeping outside under the stars (desert nights are made of everything amazing and wonderful) we wake at 5 a.m. Either Cyril (the camp leader for the past week) or I make the coffee (those who drink it make it), we all fill up on cereal and other things, and we (anywhere from 4-8 people) head out to do morning patrol. This consists of hiking along migrant trails around Arivaca, AZ, with a pack of food and water. We hike anywhere from 2-4.5 miles at a time, and we hike during the day because the migrants who are in distress will be out during the day (most move at night). We leave gallons of water on the trail, and if we run into any migrants we give food or water or medical aid as necessary. Let me reiterate that this is all done with a policy of transparency, meaning the Border Patrol knows exactly what it is we do, and it's legal. After monring patrol we take a break, eat lunch, retrieve water and ice from neighbors who let us use their resources, and prepare to head out for afternoon patrol at 3 p.m., which is the same routine as the morning. Finish up the evening with dinner, conversation, and sometimes a little singing with guitars, and you have our day.
Those are the dry details, but they don't even hint at how impacting this place and work is...the natural landscape alone is enough to make me want to reflect and write for days on end, but once you add in the human component, I can hardly comprehend it all. The trails we hike are constantly reminding us of the people who move through here-- water bottles, shoes, food wrappers, clothing, backpacks, and other random personal items sit as reminders that every night people use these trails to make their way towards a better life for them and their families.
We have come across a few migrants thus far, each impacting in their own way. The first group was around 12-15 people in size, and we surprised them at the beginning of our patrol. They must have assumed we were Border Patrol (BP), and they took off running. We all felt so badly that they spent the energy to run away from us, when that's the last thing we want to make them do. The second was a group of three migrants who were in the back of a BP truck, and we saw them as we were driving away from what you could call a trailhead. We stopped and asked the BP agents if we could give the people in the back some food and water, and after some hesitation they allowed it (when they're deported to Mexico, most migrants are basically dumped in the desert with no food or water, so getting them these essentials before they're deported is important). Wackenhut, the private company that takes over migrants after BP, is not so kind in letting us give food and water.
The third migrant I'll talk about has impacted all of us the most, I believe. On Saturday night's patrol (while Bri and I were at a different camp, soon to return to Arivaca camp), one of the groups came across a man who had been sitting on the trail for two days, had been drinking water from a cattle tank for four days, and was in a bad state. He was disoriented, and so our camp offered him food, water, and rest for the night. The next morning (this morning), two of us stayed back at camp with him while the others went out on patrol. He was friendly, and despite our language barrier (my Spanish=horrible), we managed to get a game of double solitaire going! After continued medical evaluation, however, it became clear that he was not improving, and it actually looked like renal failure might be occurring. After lots of deliberation an ambulance was called, and they then decided that it was necessary to helicopter him to Tucson, over an hour's (bumpy) drive away. This man came all the way from Nicaragua to find work to support his wife and five children, and he ended up in a helicopter to Tucson for some serious medical care, which will likely end in him being deported back to Central America. No one felt good about making the decision to send him to the hospital, since it's almost ensuring that he will be caught and sent back, but with such serious problems with his kidneys, no other option seemed even close to appropriate. As we watched them load him into the helicopter today, he waved to us from the stretcher, which is a good example of the pleasant personality he had; even though he was in excrutiating pain, he tried to remain happy and calm. And now he's off in a strange sterile building surrounded by people speaking a language he doesn't understand, worried about what his release will mean...
We are all still trying to process this and what it means-- to have such a warm face to attach to this issue of "border security" as it is so often dubbed, as if it's as simple as just keeping out some obvious hazards. Carlos is not a hazard, he is a man trying to feed his family, and even when his body begged him to stop he wanted to go on. How do you fault a man like that, how do you label him illegal and toss him back into a desert?
And that's that.