The Honor and Joy of It All

 Try as I might, I don’t pay attention to directions if I am not driving. Well, Dre would add, that even sometimes when I am driving I sorta forget where I am headed.

So, I am not exactly sure of the turn-off we took after pausing at a memorial cross of Alvero, swinging by to check out a Humane Borders water tank, and making a brief pit stop at the Sasabe border crossing.

Peter, who was celebrating his two hundredth Samaritan water drop, and I were joined by three investigative reporters from El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala. They had been brought to the States by the University of Arizona to report on Central America: What does it mean to be a journalist today? They only had three days here, so in addition to filling up on Tucson’s Mexican food, “the most delicious food ever!” they requested a trip to the wall.

Oh beautiful, for spacious skies,

For amber waves of steel

Undulating beyond our eyes

last shards of hope do reel.

We had arrived. The stiff, course warriors cemented firmly in place along a bulldozed desert path. Trump budgeted $15,000,000,000 dollars, mostly from the military budget, to build 738 miles of wall, but Biden returned $2.2 billion of it, so then it was only about $12.8 billion, but now Biden has unleashed an impossible goal of repairing the ever-so-many-gaps in the wall, basically every section that crosses an arrollo, a dry desert streambed, or where a thirty dollar saw cuts through a post in twenty minutes. Thus, silent hunks of machinery glare down at us as we pause and gape wide-eyed and clenched hearted at the ripples of thirty-foot rusty beams. The human body is not built to withstand thirty-foot drops. The impact shatters bones and fractures spines. *

We drove slowly up and down the scraped dust. The desert mourns this slash across her being. Our crew ask to stop to photograph at a lonely sweater abandoned by the wall. Border Patrol makes migrants drop almost everything except their phone after they make their request for asylum and enter the vehicle for the detention center. One night last year I watched outside of Lukeville when BP also made a long line of boarding migrants toss their passport into a trash can, basically their most valuable possession, one that verifies their humanity.

Up and down. Up and down. Peter locked into four-wheel drive and the engine had to grind a bit. We passed a cattle ranch, nestled between two hills, cute, perhaps even charming in this prickly passage. “That’s one of the good ones,” he explained. She is pretty supportive of what we are doing and helps out when she can… and, we are there.”

Up one more hill and down and suddenly we were in the midst of a mishmash of dozens of improvised, wind-smashed tents a kitchen crafted with folding tables and stacks of supplies, and a glowing firepit with blanketed bodies huddled around.

It was also a mishmash of humans. Samaritans in their red shirts and name tags, a very tall dude stirring what appeared to be a pot of beans, folks hunched behind huge movie cameras gazing over the gathering, and the asylees themselves from Guiana, Cameroon, Mexico, Egypt and Ecuador. A pretty fancy mobile home looked to be providing wi-fi and I could hear happy voices connecting with long-separated family members, “I’m safe, I’m safe. Yeah, and they served us some food and I am safe.” Another guy had a small group of attentive listeners circled around as he explained never say that you are looking for work during the immigration interview, use the word fear instead, and yeah, you will have to get a lawyer for your asylum case. And yeah, after you are done with detention you will get dropped off at a “church” named Casa Alitas and you will be able to get a shower and they will explain to your family how to buy plane tickets.”

The Central Americans smiled broadly and began to wander, noticing, moving in, stepping back. In their element. There were stories to listen to.

I too, was in my element. After checking in with the tall guy, I started gathering, shaking, folding, storing blankets. At many levels this place did not seem very inviting, and I am the hospitality lady. Tent after tent had their ropes tugged on, crumpled chip bags and empty water bottles gathered, and random bits of plastic and old cardboard boxes arranged into a sort of flooring. Tidy is my thing.

I circulated, checking in with my guests, but also getting pulled into translation gigs and answering questions. “Ask Christy, she knows everything.” There were newspapers, newscasters and even a pen and ink artist trying the capture “the human experience.”

One of those four-wheeled motor scooters roared up with two riders. They always made me nervous, often driven by the camouflage shirt sorts with MAGA hats who angrily accuse us of child trafficking or destroying America. But somebody waved a friendly hello and I watched a woman dismount and limp over to a near chair. She plopped down, and received a water bottle and carne asada with a weary smile. The bottoms of her feet were one solid, centimeter deep blister. She propped them up on a crate of water bottles.

This is her story, shared with me later on by the Honduran as we bounced back down the road to Tucson: I am from Guatemala, and I had a small store that I ran from the front window of my home. Things are very difficult, and we always had just enough. One day, two men came up to the store and looked me in the eye and said, “We are going to start charging rent. Give us so much money on Saturday, or you will die.” I begged. I said I didn’t make that much money in a week. They did not flinch, “See you Saturday.” I didn’t know whether they were cartel or gangs. I saved everything I could, but it wasn’t enough.

On Saturday, they showed up. “This isn’t enough. But we are kind. We will give you one more chance. Next Saturday you must give us the full amount, or you will die.”

On Monday I went to the State Office and told them that I was in fear for my life. The man behind the desk had me fill out a form. I asked what they could do. He said, “Nothing.”

I signed my name. He said, “Well, we can drive a police car around your neighborhood a couple times a week, but nothing else. You should emigrate.”

So I did. I left everything. I packed a backpack and took a bus, and another bus, and another bus. And when the buses ran out, I started walking. I walked seven days. And it felt like I was walking in circles. Around and around, Where was the wall? I haven’t eaten or drunk anything for three days. But then suddenly the wall was there. And I walked through a big hole and there was this ranch with cows and horses. I went to the door and the lady who answered couldn’t speak Spanish but she gave me water and food and then motioned for me to come with her.

I said, “Where are we going?”

She answered, “Ayuda.”

And I got on her vehicle and she took me here.

So I kept serving beans and tortillas.

Then Peter came up to me. “I gotta make trips. There are a lot of folk up at the end of the wall, and it is too long of a walk, so I am going to transport for a while.”

Technically, Samaritans don’t transport. It’s illegal to carry migrants north. And you can get thrown in jail, which is not such a big deal, maybe, but They will also confiscate your vehicle, which isn’t ours to lose. So don’t transport. But times are tough. Border Patrol is understaffed and exhausted, thirsty, hungry and cold asylum seekers can wait three or four days in the rain and wind waiting for BP to pass by and pick them up. And our lawyer has dug down deep. Actually, ain’t no one gonna convict folks driving parallel to the wall, only if we turn North. So Peter headed up and down and up and down the wall. And came back with a truck load, two families: five tiny children, two teens and four adults, exhausted, thirsty, hungry and cold.

The big television camera pushed into the scene, rolling. We opened the back of the camper, and lifted out weary souls. Cups of water were handed out, and small paper plates of carne asada and bean tacos. The families were gently led to one of my “tents,” plastic and cardboard, but tidy. And the cameras rolled.

“Talk about what is happening. Talk.”

And as I spoke of the journey, the heaped-up stories I have gathered over the years and years of welcoming, all I could hear was the whispers in the tent, “We are safe, we are safe.”

I wept.

The honor and joy of being part of a safe, albeit damp cardboard and half a roll of toilet paper space.

The honor and joy of it all.

* KPBS news, San Diego

But wanting to justify himself, he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”

May the Lord silence all flattering lips
    and every boastful tongue—
those who say,
    “By our tongues we will prevail;
    our own lips will defend us—who is lord over us?”

 “Because the poor are plundered and the needy groan,
    I will now arise,” says the Lord.
    “I will protect them from those who malign them.” Psalm 12:3-5

My advent word for the day is journey.

Yesterday I took a journey.

Tom shook his head firmly. “Nope, those sandals aren’t good enough for what we are going to be doing today.”

I slid off my favorite Keens who had tromped all over the Zagros Mountains of Kurdish Iraq, the Apennines of Italy and Blackett’s Ridge of the Coronado National Forest, and wiggled into the hefty boots gifted to me by a fellow swimmer.

We stacked the back of the red SUV with gallon jugs of water and squeezed in the first aid kit and a few blankets, just in case. I was the only newbie and I settled into the backseat to listen to stories. The back seat of Joe the truck.

The very night that New Times published an article detailing Joe Arpaio’s “breathtaking abuse of the constitution” he sent his deputies to handcuff and arrest the two reporters for violating “Grand Jury secrecy.” They filed a lawsuit about wrongful arrest, Maricopa County Board of Supervisors unanimously approved a $3.75 million-dollar settlement against Arpaio; the reporters are using the money to “help those who fight the good fight against government actors who attack the most vulnerable among us,” including the Samaritans, who received funds for a truck as well as maintenance and fuel for a year. Hence the name of the truck, Joe. 

We bounced along past the border crossing at Sasaabe, past lots and lots of green and white border patrol trucks, past army jeeps full of grey camouflaged soldiers and past equally camouflaged hunters, here for the last two weeks of deer hunting season. Samaritans always wave and smile and chat with everyone along the way. Pretty much everyone else waves back. Our truck is clearly labeled “Los Samaritanos” and the folks I am traveling with have made this journey many times.

We checked out the new barbed wire spirals festooning The Wall. We have heard that the national guard folks are not too happy about spending their holidays in the one-grocery store town of faded crumpled adobe and tattered trailer parks. But at least it is beautiful. The desert is vibrant with pools of rainwater reflecting the mostly white-just-edged-in-grey clouds blowing across a very bright blue sky. The morning mist which had been resting in hollows had lifted, and the brisk air felt ever so joyful.

The plan was to take water to the very-well-used drop at the base of Cerro del Fresnal, the mountain east of Sasabe whose peak is in Mexico and across whose shoulder the border runs.

Then we'd check on a second nearby and less-well-used drop. From there we'd walk along the border fence towards Sasabe, to identify any additional crossing points and trails in this area -- where Sam folk haven't done comprehensive exploration and trail mapping. The primary reason for the exploration was John Fife saying at last week's meeting that if people from the caravans work their way east from Tijuana, they could cross at any point where they find it easy to cross and that we should have a strong presence along the border. Things are not going well in Tijuana.

We also carried big garbage bags to haul out trash, mostly empty jugs left behind: the clear ones from previous Samaritans, and the black gallon jugs from Mexico, black so they don’t reflect night spotlights.  Everything is inspected pretty carefully, checking dates and condition of the plastic. Some of the jugs had obviously been left in the last day or two. There were odd bits of sausage wrappings and empty tuna cans, and a couple of blankets that we hauled out as well, to wash and replenish the shed at BorderLinks.

It was very good to be wearing the big boots once I got used clumping rather than scrambling up the pointy black rocks. I was pretty good at missing the myriad cow pies which decorated the light trail, but the gathered cholla buds made my feet and legs look like a baubled tree.

We ate lunch on a hill overlooking the rolling plains and I heard the history of the Samaritans and Humane Borders and No More Deaths from Michael, who was there from the very beginning. Brian was the map guy, and knew every cranny of these hills, while Lisette knew everything about everything happening in Tucson and lives just down the street from me. She went to UHS with Dre, of course.

But as we made our way along the arrow-straight barbed wire fence, it was clear that we were not going to find many new migrant paths under the eagle-eyed surveillance tower and the blasting rifle shots echoing in all directions. We decided to visit two more frequented drops, one of which had been attacked by some thirsty beasts; most likely ravens had shredded through the plastic without tipping them over.

And that was it. Home again, home again, through Arivipa, smiling our way through a couple more road blocks.

Is it worth it, these almost daily drives by Samaritans? I thought about it as I just about dozed off in the back seat of Joe. I got stuck on the commandment to “Love your neighbor as yourself.” The Tijuana thing isn’t doing it. We have a stinking lousy border policy. There is absolutely nothing biblical about it, Old or New Testament. And then there is that verse about a cup of water.

That pretty much does it for me.

Wrong turns are inevitable.

Yet every turn of such a journey opens up new horizons.

Yep.