China and the Darien Gap

This was the worst day weather-wise since I arrived. The wind was vicious and maybe let up for 20 minutes. Even when the sun was totally out, it was cold.

I made 60 quesadillas mostly cheese, chicken and rice and beans. It was challenging to heat them up because of the steady fine dust blown all over us and the fire - also the ash from the fire blew around. But people seemed to adjust, brushing off the ash and sand if it was too much.

Today was the first time I saw a family from China - a mother, father, and two small children. The father told me - on google translate, thank the goddesses for that - that they went from China to Hong Kong to Taiwan and then to Turkey - Istanbul. Then to Ecuador, to Columbia to Panama by way of the Darien Gap, which is one of the most dangerous terrians ever.

If you don't know about the Darien Gap, please google and find out. I wrote in any earlier blog how terrifying it must be to come into a country you've never been, don't the language, etc. But I didn't write about how dangerous it is to make this trip for most refugees - especially those that don't have the means or the opportunities to fly. Yet parents take their children on this dangerous trek, knowing that it is even more dangerous to stay in their own country.

And their children were 7 and 5 years old.

And then thru Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala before arriving in Mexico. And now here.

Just before the last of the 50 of so refugees are processed and put onto a bus and a couple of vans, a very, very pregnant womon comes running down the lane with a man - both from Haiti. Border patrol processes them last but does process them.

Again, Peru, Dominican Republic, and Ecuador are the majority of people with one family from Colombia and another from Bolivia.

And a wife and husband and two children from Congo. It's taken them 3 years to get here, having to spend a year in Brazil working to make more money for this leg of the trip. I don't say it but I think it - they will probably regret leaving Brazil