The terror

I can’t think of a more terrifying experience than crossing over a border into another country to be met by hostility, where I’ve never been before, where I don’t know where to go or maybe I have a name of a place where I think a friend might be, not knowing who to trust just to speak with let alone allow them to take me somewhere; or how to communicate and find safety; another country where not only most of the people don’t speak my language, but also most of those very same people don’t want me in their country and think they’re superior to me because I might come seeking the comforts they already possess; where I've left all my possessions behind and I'm carrying all I now possess on my back and in my pockets let alone after I've walked or bused or ferried almost 3000 miles.

I can see the terror on the faces of those dropped off on the Mexico side of the wall, maybe a highly-paid coyote vaguely gesturing them toward a crumbling dirt path, maybe telling them both sides of the canal are the u.s. so once they go around the steel girders of the sinister wall, they're on u.s. soil; or maybe not telling them, forcing them to run frantically to the faraway bridge over the canal onto that side of u.s. soil and the possibility of turning themselves into border patrol to seek asylum; their first sight of the u.s. side guarded by tons of coiled barbed wire with scattered bits of torn clothing marked with thin brown stains flapping intertwined among the shiny metal spikes; surrounded by no greenery but close and flat, arid, dusty fields as far as anyone can see and then far away mountains shrouded in hazy layers of maybe familiar grey smog.

And of course, the foreboding huge 30 foot tall wall laced in barbed-wire never disappearing from view until the land herself disappears.

And yet, as terrifying as crossing the border into an unknown land, these people are even more terrified to stay in their homeland.

Today, a young 15 year old girl, hovering on the edge of a group of refugees who most look like her, edged toward the three of us womyn who came with food and water and our tiny, conflicted welcome. Her small, thin frame was covered in layers of loose fitting jeans, a couple long-sleeved shirts and a knitted hat hiding her hair. Only her wrist hanging from one sleeve hints at her tiny frame. She squints directly into our eyes, calmly imploring us to tell her or maybe confirm what she's been told, what is going to happen now.

I am soooooo grateful I did not have to try to hurt her ears with my terrible Spanish, but the other womyn volunteers could talk fluently with her. After a few minutes of conversation and then us looking around for the rest of her family, she raises her head a little higher, keeping direct eye contact and tells each one of us she’s been traveling from Honduras all by herself.

We ask again, not sure we’re hearing correctly but yes, she has mostly walked to this border thru Guatemala, then Mexico and now Arizona. She thinks her mother is somewhere in Texas but doesn’t know where. Her mother has been gone almost 5 years now.

She cannot stay in Honduras. She comes from a family of generations of fisherman, making a living from the sea. Now there are no fish left or too few for her grandparents to support everyone. She cannot find a job even though she should be in her high school years.

And she fears violence and not just from gangs.

She thinks she knows someone in Los Angeles, she has their phone number, but they’ve only been here a little over a year and they do not have papers.

I try not to look horrified as border patrol finally shows up to pick up the first group of 15 refugees. He will ask for womyn and children.

The report I read about this morning burns through my brain as I feel panicked to help this fiercely courageous teenage girl. I can see the other two womyn feel the same. This past year 127,447 unaccompanied children crossed the border. 13,195 were sent to Florida. Florida of all fuckin places.

The report goes on further to accuse the federal government not just of inadequately caring for these children and youth, but of hiding the facts of how few are really taken care of, released to their families, even kept track of prior to leaving the detention system.

After she's already in border control custody, we realize we could have, should have taken at least her name and a phone number - not that she'll be able to keep her phone or the same number.

We've made a plan to find out numbers of child immigration lawyers in Phoenix and Tucson and to have that information accessible to unaccompanied minors coming here - both in our hands and where people can find it when we're not here.

There are no shelters here in Yuma so if refugees make it through detention - and that is a HUGE IF - they will be sent to a shelter in Phoenix or Tucson or one other place I'm forgetting now but for sure overcrowded and overburdened shelter.

Peru, Guatemala, Bangladesh, Colombia, Dominican Republic

On the u.s.ofa. dirt so far this morning

This is the ladder...

Part I: This is the ladder that Xan used to repaint the top line on the back of her truck!

Part II - and this is the new, updated, contemporary message for this journey across the country!