November 2019
Tucson/Nogales: It’s the same border, but we are in a different world.
Darleen Guien and Deirdre Roney Humanitarian trip
Deirdre and I drove from Los Angeles to Tucson, Arizona in a car packed to the gills with Dollies and Teddies, blankets crocheted and knitted by Crafty Ladies of Carpinteria, knitted hats and scarves for children from Dorothy Miyake’s knitting group, brand new t-shirts and warm socks donated by groups in Carpinteria. We met up with a friend of a friend, Cindy Stewart, who works with NPR in New Hampshire and who wanted to join us in our humanitarian endeavors.
On our first day we met up with Angela Meixill , a volunteer with Kino Boarder Initiative, at 8 a.m. and went with her from Nogales, USA to Nogales, Mexico to serve breakfast in the Comedor (dining hall) at the Kino Border Initiative respite shelter. Their vision is to “help make humane, just, workable migration between the United States and Mexico.” Together with other volunteers, we served about 350 meals alongside some of the nuns and priests who founded the center. There were so many families with small children who were escaping violent countries and waiting for asylum hearings. They are not living in tent cities like in Matamoros, but crammed into cheap, tiny apartments. Their only meals (twice a day) are at the respite center. We left some Teddies with Sister Cecilia who promised to give them to children.
Afterwards, we toured Nogales with Angela who showed us the fence/wall that now divides the cities of Nogales, USA and Nogales, Mexico: two cities where people used to go over the border to work or go to school, visit family, share a common culture. A mural on the Mexican side portrays Jose Antonio Elena Rodriguez, a 16 year old boy shot ten times through the fence by Border Patrol for throwing rocks over the fence, which constituted a dangerous act that the agent erroneously said was perpetrated by “rock throwing drug smugglers”.
A different part of our endeavors centered around the desert near the border and witnessing the trial of Dr. Scott Warren, a 36 year old geography teacher and humanitarian with No More Deaths. Dr. Warren was being tried a second time (the jury in the first trial was deadlocked) and accused of two counts of felony harboring of “illegal aliens”. His crime: giving water, allowing two injured migrants to stay in a respite center called The Barn in Ajo Arizona, and pointing out a bomb site and an especially dangerous part of the desert that should be avoided. For this he was facing a ten-year sentence. We were in the courtroom for the opening arguments, and heard witness testimony on two other afternoons. We thought about leaving Teddies to give emotional comfort to the children at The Barn and wondered, “Would that be a crime?”
NOTE: On November 12, after two hours of deliberation, Dr. Warren was acquitted by the 12 member jury of all charges.
We spent six hours driving in the desert between the two countries with Doug Rouple, a volunteer with Humane Borders. This group sets out water barrels in various places in this exceedingly dangerous desert for the migrants who come across on foot, braving the heat, insects, snakes, lack of food and water to enter the U.S. They often set up water stations in places where human remains were found, a sure sign that the area serves as a passage. Another group, The Good Samaritans hike in the desert to search for people lost and in desperate need of assistance, or look for remains and work in conjunction with the Sheriff’s Department and the Medical Examiner to identify the bodies and give the families of these people who perished in the desert some closure.
We visited a respite center called La Posada/The Inn run by Gretchen Lopez (eight months pregnant and still working tirelessly). The center is located in the basement of The First United Methodist Church in Tucson. We brought the knitted hats, T-shirts and socks. We spoke with Doris who was a member of a neighboring church, but helps out at The Inn a few times a week. This respite shelter consists of a big room with Red Cross cots neatly lined up, blankets and soft pillows, a few tables for meals, a small table with crayons and coloring books, and a playroom for the children with a few toys. There were about 20 people there for 24/48 hours, waiting to take the bus to join family members living in the U.S. They were asylum seekers who came from Honduras, El Salvador, Mexico and Venezuela, all of whom were fleeing extreme poverty and violence in their homelands. They would join family in Florida, New Jersey, Texas, etc. while waiting for their asylum hearings. Many of them had traveled for weeks to arrive at the border. I spoke with Maria from Venezuela who had had three businesses and two houses in Venezuela but had lost everything and had to flee with her husband and two children. She spoke good English and kept saying that she was a hard worker and couldn’t understand why this was happening to her. Her country is in shambles, with no food, no jobs, and no future for anyone and unspeakable violence everywhere. Her little three year old boy, Eduardo, chose a beautiful blue knitted hat that matched his sweater.
We came back the following day, with Dollies and Teddies. We arrived just after dinner and helped serve ice cream to the parents and children and sat down with them to talk (with interpreters). Once more, they shared stories of fleeing their homelands, believing they had no other choice. The really little children didn’t quite understand why they were traveling, but the older ones knew enough to see the gravity of the situation.
We set out the Dollies and Teddies on a table and let the children chose one. A little four year old, wearing a knitted hat given by Dorothy’s group, chose a Teddie and hugged him close. A little girl chose one with bright purple hair that Deirdre had worked on, and said that she was going to sleep with her Dollie that night. In order to take a picture of the children I couldn’t show their faces for security reasons so they tied the Dollies and Teddies on their back, the way their mothers did in their countries and we took the picture from that angle. They were so sweet, dressed in donated clothes, bathed, fed and ready to get on the bus for a multi-day journey, hugging their Dollies and Teddies. It is an indescribable feeling to be able to give such joy to these children who have nothing left from their homelands and who are headed to live in cities they know nothing about where everyone speaks a language they don’t understand. But their parents have extraordinary resilience and hope for a better future.
Deirdre and I went to a nearby big box store and bought children’s clothes, underwear, socks and baby onesies. Deirdre generously footed 90% of the bill, and I added what I could. We brought all of these to The Inn, and were delighted to see the little girls running around in their brand new leggings and sweatshirts… holding their Dollies close to their hearts.
It is indeed a privilege to be Dollie Ambassadors, and also to be able to help in the tiniest way to make daily life a bit better for these people, who are only asking for asylum because if they stayed in their own countries they would probably be dead.
Submitted by Darleen Guien