I’m joining the Samaritans again this morning to seek human beings lost or hurt in the desert. We will provide food, water, socks, a cell battery charger, and a totally essential “life straw” water filter so refugees can drink directly from ponds or puddles without fear of dying – at least from whatever is in that water.
We are a carload of four old white womyn – me being the youngest at almost 73, with a 76 year old, 79 year old almost 80, and an 82 year old!
Pretty amazing these womyn are all fit and able to traipse around the desert whenever we stop or to unlatch a cow fence and relock it!
And pretty amazing that this is the work these elder womyn are committed to doing with their time at this point in their lives.
The day is not too hot (for inside a vehicle) and beautiful with some gusts of winds.
We drive for several miles on paved roads heading to the desert lands where refugees are most likely to be in trouble and be spotted. Although we look hard out the windows, the terrain is so full of mountains and crevices, valleys and scrub brush – not to mention cows – that it feels impossible to spot anyone unless they make themselves known.
But how can they ever make themselves known, not knowing if we’re vigilantes or police, someone bent on harming them or someone determined to help?
As we leave the pavement, the ‘roads’, which is a very generous label, are dirt and not flat (another generous characteristic) which includes huge ruts, rocks and boulders. Plus they wind around and up and down, most likely first formed by animals and later expanded by humans.
I had thought we should have a pendant like a white flag sticking up from the roof, except white wouldn’t stand out in this place of light colors, white rocks and sand, browns and greens and blacks. It would have to be like neon red or orange.
I also thought maybe we should be playing music over a boom box, like Bella Ciao or Welcome to the United States.
My naivety or not seeing the entire picture is evident as I think about the brutal vigilantes waiting to capture a human being, itching to throw someone in jail at best. Or about las migras who also may or may not want to help.
The balance humanitarian workers have to embrace is really deep, always being directed by what is best for the migrant and for continuing their life-saving work.
Of course, this leads us into a discussion centering around the individual “good” border patrol agent and the “bad” border patrol agent. I’ve had these kind of discussions over the years: the “good” cop; the “good” marine, the “good” prison guard, etc.
I will continue this discussion in another blog because now what is super important is what is going on outside the vehicle and our conversations.
Our first stop involves another amazing elder white womon who is the caretaker at a ghost town not 3 miles from the border. She’s really a living miracle, having survived the Mormons, being married off at 11 to a 63 year old pervert, escaping at 15, being serially raped and drugged, and who knows whatelse.
I think someone she or someone should write her incredible story.
Now she’s spends her time providing humanitarian aid to refugees, dealing with border patrol, and dodging vigilante violence while welcoming tourists to the land.
She has written an interesting song called “Border Lines” – so she writes songs, sings, and plays the guitar as well. The song includes all the ways in which we draw border lines in life. Although most of our border lines don’t include armed men hunting down our ‘enemy’; and lots of borders are boundaries we need to be healthy and to pursue justice in this racist, sexist, fucked up capitalist society.
One of the stories this womon tells us about happened just the day before. A womon with a child came to this property, almost hysterical and reported she’d been stopped by four armed white men who claimed they were u.s. military, making her get out the car, show her id and papers.
She is a u.s. citizen – but a brown u.s. citizen. This incident was reported to the sheriff by the driver of our vehicle who promised he would look into it.
After forging streams, continuing to run over very rough terrain, we finally see the wall in the near distance. We also see spots where border patrol vehicles linger but no helicopter so the womyn are pretty sure they are just scouting and haven’t caught anyone.
We finally reach the wall and the incredibly steep road that runs on the u.s. side of the wall. There are over 17 (I think – could be more like 21 or 12 – the point is there are many gaps) gaps in the wall and we slow down and stop at each, calling out through the gap in Spanish in case there are people who need the backpacks we are carrying with survival items – at least the hope is that this mere smidgen of supplies will at least help people recover if not survive. There are still so many rugged desert miles between them and the next town of people who may or may not help them live for another day.
We don’t find anyone as we continue driving along the wall. This road is only a bit better than the roads we were on thru the mountains, the biggest advantage being there are no huge boulders or sudden curves that drop off into the wilderness.
At almost the very end of the road, we see tons of people huddled on either side, trying to find shade. The wall on one side provides a tiny bit of shade, and a tree on the other side provides more shade.
As we approach the people, we see there are mostly womyn and very small children standing around, hesitating, their faces hopeful yet cautious, again not knowing if we’re friend or foe.
We stop and get out, asking if they need water or food. They are relieved and begin walking over, accepting the individual bottles of water and bags of food we’re handing out.
These almost 50 people have made the trek up from Chiapas, which is the very last, most southern state in Mexico. Lots of the children are so small they're in arms or reaching high up to hold their mothers' hands. Really amazing they've made it this far
There is a man who stands out: first of all he’s tall, towering over most people, but he has what looks like an ironed, button-down blue shirt and pants, not jeans. Plus he’s older than everyone else and really older than any refugee I met – although my numbers are limited.
We hand out almost all the supplies: individual water bottles are gone so we put out six one gallon bottles spacing them strategically so folks can refill their small bottles.
We hand out all the packets of food except for a small bag. As soon as we finish, the border patrol drives up.
These are refugees who want to turn themselves in; refugees that have crossed over national borders to seek asylum; refugees that have stepped their foot on u.s. soil to attempt to break into our “legal” system. Because the migrants had asked us to, we tried to call bp but have no service. But someone else must have called because of how quickly they arrived after we got there.
They were efficiently lined up, waiting the bus that was to transport them to the processing center, hopefully to be processed and then sent on to the bus station or shelter, depending on where they are going – or whether they have somewhere to go.
So this was a great day! We were happy our timing was perfect and happy we were able to hand out supplies to people in need.
But above all, we were happy to be the ones welcoming these beautiful, hopeful, weary folks into this country.
The wall as we face forward - look how far out into the distance the wall goes
The wall as we look behind
The road abruptly ends here but they used all their advanced technology to blast thru the mountain blocking the path of the wall and ended up giving up. Of course Biden can always take up the beams...
This is a sample of the guts of the mountain they had to cut thru to build the wall
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