The Desert

TRIP TO THE BORDER

BorderLinks Delegation:   Tucson to Nogales and Back

Participants:  Steve Goering, Susan Ortman Goering, John Schneider,  Anne-Marie Patrie

March 11-14, 2013

The Second Day                                                                                                      By: Steve

The Desert Walk: A Time for Prayerful Reflection                                         Sent: Mar 27, 2013

The morning came early on the second day. We hustled from our overnight quarters and joined our group for breakfast.  Conversations began early with scripture and meditation.  Tito, one of our two leaders who lives in Nogales and Nick from St. Cloud read scripture from Isaiah that spoke to desert images. The images of dryness, of the desolate and that of water.  These were hints of our experience of the morning –the Desert Walk. 

We loaded into the 15 person van and headed south towards the border; however the Desert Walk was much closer to Tucson than anticipated.  Somehow, I expected the walk to be in a completely isolated, desolate region.  Yes, it was desert, but we could see nearby houses, exactly as some migrants experience it.  There was an amazing variety of cacti; one was fluffy looking (the jumping cholla) with brutal stickers that would go right through a normal non-leather walking shoe.  We needed combs to pull them out. Make no mistake; this was true desert. Brutal in summer and winter. In summer, the ground surface temperatures can rise to 165 °F. In winter, temperatures drop well below freezing.  As migrants traverse these paths, they have no cover, often bad shoes, limited water and food.  They are driven by hope. So they continue to try. We have no way really to imagine their decision.  We are privileged; we literally cannot walk in their shoes and their experience. Leaving all behind.  Everything. And still deciding to go.

Ed Lord of the Green Valley Samaritans led our desert walk.  The Green Valley Samaritans are people of faith and/or conscience who believe that providing aid to people in desert distress is witness to the fundamental value of human life. They drive the desert, leaving water and picking up migrants who have been left to die by their coyotes. They serve the belief that there should be no more desert deaths. Deaths do happen here.  Our friends living in Tucson noted that 30-40 deaths per year still occur on the large Tohono O’dham Indian Reservation west of Tucson.  That number is multiplied many times over the long border regions.  Several thousand have died over the years.

The actual desert walk terrain was harsh as is presented in the attached pictures. It was probably about 85 °F that day; it felt hot but was 30 degrees cooler than on summer days. We were advised to be sure to take adequate water. Migrants, walking 40 miles in this terrain try to carry a minimum of 2 gallons of water, but they often run out.  We walked about 1 ½ miles on this Tuesday morning.  We wondered how far one could walk in a normal day given that the border is a good 40 miles from Tucson or alternately I-10.  We guessed that even if one could average 15 miles per day in a straight line, one here would only manage northern progress of 5-10 miles per day.
Mountain paths are worse.  That means that migrants are likely 5-7 days in the desert and with great uncertainty at the end of their path.  Later in the trip, John realized that a large copper mine with multiple fences was just north of where we walked. Migrants on this path would surely be caught, or at least have to detour many miles with Tucson practically within sight. 

And then we came to the places where bodies have been found – all within sight of nearby houses.  But migrants are afraid to go to these houses for help.  They just agree to die.  A sprained ankle, a failed shoe (often a cheap China variety), dehydration, lack of food – all can mean death. We stood at the crosses inscribed with names or alternately “Presente.”  We prayed – the Lord’s Prayer brought a sense of the sacred to our experience.  At another site, different prayers.

I thought back to our own forbearers who made the trip from the Ukraine to Kansas in the mid-1870s. What brought them?  Faith?  Dreams of a better life? All mixed together. Then, however, our country welcomed them, rather than deporting them. Or, at least the Santa Fe Railroad welcomed them. (Our forbearers experienced greater discrimination later during the wars – when they were tarred and feathered and had KKK crosses in their front yards because they would not buy war bonds and spoke a different language.)  People always seem to fear those who are different  --different customs, different language. These people now are migrating for many of the same reasons: to be with family, to support family when children are hungry; to simply survive; to experience personal safety.  The Bible says “welcome the strangers,” and yet we seem to have such difficulty doing that.  I wonder sometimes how God must look at all this and in God’s knowing way  -- must wonder?  Right now, our own country’s laws don’t even allow us to ‘welcome the stranger,” and in some cases make it illegal to do so.

The places where bodies had been found held a reverent presence. A sense of God being there. Just being there. There were their old back packs, water bottles,  shoes – the things of life. Katrina, our daughter, said that one time they had found baby shoes.  I suppose babies have died too. There are other brutal aspects of a trip north, but here –it is the desert. I wondered as they died, if they felt God with them at all.  Later in Nogales, we prayed with a young man in Sonora.  We prayed that each day as he tried to cross that he would feel God’s presence with him.  We have faith that God is here, somehow, in someway.  It caused me to ponder.  I still do.

©  Steve Goering, March 27, 2012