Norberto is 26. He's from Oaxaca, in Southern Mexico, where his wife and 5 month old son are.
On Norberto's fifth day in the desert, he decided he couldn't continue. At a water station--the first they'd encountered their entire journey--he told his group to continue without him.
Norberto had tried crossing a month earlier, farther west, from Sonoita, Mexico, onto the Tohono O'odham Reservation, where he found no water for days. He was apprehended on his fifth day out and deported to Nogales.
He had clean water during this crossing, but his stomach was still upset. It was about 4 p.m. when I came across him, sitting on the side of the road near Grey Well in Chavez Siding, one hundred feet from where we met Hernan--suffering from heat exhaustion--the month before. He had put a white bag in the road, weighed down by rocks, and that was the first thing I saw and slowed for.
He ate fruit cups and granola bars and we talked, discussed where we were, different aspects of his health, the size of his group, what his options could be. Norberto was intending to walk to Phoenix. He didn't know it was 170 miles away. I told him I could call Border Patrol for him, and he thought about it for sometime.
Norberto has got four brothers. Three of them pick celery and romaine lettuce in Salinas, California. That was his destination. Another brother works in a restaurant in Hackensack, New Jersey. I told him I was from New Jersey, but my brother was in North Carolina. He said he has cousins in North Carolina and friends in South Carolina that pick tobacco. He said there's no work in Oaxaca, no money anywhere.
After some time he decided to go home, to have Border Patrol pick him up. He didn't want to cross again, but go home to Oaxaca.
We continued to talk while we waited, and waited, and waited for Border Patrol. We joked about how when you don't want Border Patrol around, there are too many of them, and when you want them, they never come.
He mentioned he had a friend in the group, Simone, who also fell behind earlier in the day, just after the water drop. He was younger, smaller than Norberto, wearing a white shirt, had a silver tooth, and Norberto had his backpack. Simone had cramps and was having trouble walking. The water drop he talked about was only 20 minutes from where we sat, so we at least had a starting point for a search.
It was nearly dark by this time. Two more calls and two transfers to Border Patrol didn't get them to us any quicker and Norberto just wanted to go. He wanted to drive with me. He said he would just get out of the car as soon as we saw Border Patrol, and stand and wait so I wouldn't get in trouble. If we got to the highway without seeing them, he would try to hitchhike. If he got a ride, great, if he didn't, well, he'd accept it. He made the plan seem so simple.
But now it was too dark to look for Simone.
Another call to the Nogales Station and finally a unit was on its way. They were still forty minutes out, and I told them we would meet them on the road. We started to drive and Norberto started feeling sick. Up and around the dirt roads, cresting out on hills with quick dips at the top that make your stomach jump. Coming around a sharp turn, just where another water drop is, our headlights cut across a person standing behind a mesquite tree, shielding their eyes. It was Simone, half an hour north from where Norberto stayed behind; he waited on the road after passing more water.
We told him we were going to meet Border Patrol. He said ok and got in the car. Then he got out and vomited. He had clean water his entire journey too. Said it was just his nerves. We sat on the road while he calmed down, ate applesauce and canned fruit, and drank Gatorade.
The first questions the agents, with M-16s strapped around their chests, asked were not if they were sick, or injured, but if they had papers to be there, and where the rest of their group was.
I shook hands with Norberto and Simone, and we told each other to take care before they were loaded into the back of the truck. It is possible that Norberto is still in jail now, and could be for weeks, having been deported once already.
In jail for weeks for trying to get to California to pick celery and lettuce.
Thursday, September 2, 2010
Sunday, August 15, 2010
Hernan
Hernan had been out for five days.
A member of a group of 60 people, he said that they had kept mostly to the mountains. When Hernan was left behind, or split from the group, or became lost, they were close--another day, maybe two, from a pickup, and he told us of numerous people in the group having bloody feet.
Hernan hadn't eaten in two days. By the time we came across him, lying on the side of the road, he hadn't gone to the bathroom in over 24 hours. He'd been vomiting, but had nothing left in his stomach.
It was just after dark, and he had a fire lit for himself, was laid out next to it, a warm gallon of water from a water drop and a makeshift walking stick next to him.
Muscle cramps are a significant sign of heat exhaustion, as well as hyponatremia--not enough salt in the system--and Hernan had cramps bad enough that it caused him pain just to sit up, let alone walk.
Confusion, decreased consciousness and hallucinations are also symptoms of hyponatremia. But Hernan seemed lucid. He preferred to speak in English rather than Spanish and talked about his wife in Louisiana, and his three kids, in Mexico, in a small town on the border with Belize. But he also said he saw six bears in the mountains, and bears are rare, if not non-existent, in the area we were in.
The area is called Chavez Siding. We take that route for water drops and patrols once or twice a week, but other than these trips it is rare for a vehicle to pass through--maybe a rancher, maybe an occasional Border Patrol truck, but they are few.
We'd been taking that road from camp, out to the highway recently--an extra hour or so back to Tucson--because the road is infrequently traveled, yet cuts right through a major corridor for people moving north.
Hernan laid down next to a place called Grey Well--the only potable water source in the area--and the site of a wind mill and water tank.
There had been a medical evacuation from this spot during the summer of 2009, so we already knew the only location for cell reception was the top of the windmill.
While one stayed with Hernan, another of us climbed the windmill to call 911.
It took six or seven tries to communicate everything we needed, having to be transferred between Sheriff's departments on each call back after losing reception.
Our location was about 40 minutes by dirt road from Interstate 19. An ambulance wasn't going to reach us, so we told the Sheriff's Office we'd drive Hernan out to the road, where an ambulance would be waiting.
As we drove out Hernan kept falling asleep--decreased consciousness maybe, or just exhaustion. At one point, he asked us to pull apart his chap stick container and remove the small amount of money that was rolled inside; then he fell asleep again. A Border Patrol helicopter began circling half way to the highway, spotlighting us as we drove. The road wasn't smooth--winding up over Red Spring Pass, around Upper Puerto Tank, dips and turns, all dirt and rock--yet Hernan was hardly awake for most of it.
About five minutes before we got to the highway we were stopped by two Border Patrol agents who insisted Hernan move from the car to the back of their truck--the type styled upon dog catchers. They cited the air conditioning as being beneficial for him. But there's no A.C. in the back of those trucks, only hard bench seats and a small 10"x16" caged window, and the only connection to the main cab is an intercom. I told them he'd been vomiting, asking if we could just keep him in the car, as we were almost there. The said something about their policies, and said that they could let him vomit all they wanted to in the back of their truck--it was used to it.
Hernan spent three days in St. Mary's hospital in Tucson. Through the work of a volunteer who is also a nurse there, he was able to make a phone call home just before being deported.
It's terrible but not uncommon for groups to start out large and decrease in size the farther they move. People become sick, too tired, subject to heat exhaustion, hypothermia, knee or ankle injuries, terrible blisters, are the victims of robberies and beatings, are 'dusted' by Border Patrol helicopters intentionally trying to split and disorient groups, they might sleep too long and wake up alone, walk too slowly and gradually become so far behind they are lost, or fall victim to countless other factors that occur daily in the desert.
The term 'human-smuggling' is often used instead of migration--it lends a certain urgency for enforcement to the situation. Some believe that because people coming north use guides, or 'coyotes' it is smuggling.
Though the benefits and pitfalls of the 'guiding industry' in migration deserves its own post here, it should be noted that the necessity of a guide, or being a part of a group for days on end in the middle of the desert in order to get into this country is a result of U.S. border enforcement strategies, not a human smuggling racket.
Of course people are going to need to know where to go when they are forced into more and more remote areas of the desert and forced to walk days through rougher and rougher terrain. The number of deaths and medical evacuations would be significantly higher each month if every person who crossed was by themselves, just wandering aimlessly north from the border, thinking they'd know when they got somewhere.
As it is, as of the end of July, the number of recovered human remains in the Tucson sector was 214. A fraction of the actual deaths.
The next day, patrols went out from camp to Chavez, on the report of the group of 60. They found tracks, a water drop of 40 gallons completely used up, but at least in that one area, no one else left behind.
A member of a group of 60 people, he said that they had kept mostly to the mountains. When Hernan was left behind, or split from the group, or became lost, they were close--another day, maybe two, from a pickup, and he told us of numerous people in the group having bloody feet.
Hernan hadn't eaten in two days. By the time we came across him, lying on the side of the road, he hadn't gone to the bathroom in over 24 hours. He'd been vomiting, but had nothing left in his stomach.
It was just after dark, and he had a fire lit for himself, was laid out next to it, a warm gallon of water from a water drop and a makeshift walking stick next to him.
Muscle cramps are a significant sign of heat exhaustion, as well as hyponatremia--not enough salt in the system--and Hernan had cramps bad enough that it caused him pain just to sit up, let alone walk.
Confusion, decreased consciousness and hallucinations are also symptoms of hyponatremia. But Hernan seemed lucid. He preferred to speak in English rather than Spanish and talked about his wife in Louisiana, and his three kids, in Mexico, in a small town on the border with Belize. But he also said he saw six bears in the mountains, and bears are rare, if not non-existent, in the area we were in.
The area is called Chavez Siding. We take that route for water drops and patrols once or twice a week, but other than these trips it is rare for a vehicle to pass through--maybe a rancher, maybe an occasional Border Patrol truck, but they are few.
We'd been taking that road from camp, out to the highway recently--an extra hour or so back to Tucson--because the road is infrequently traveled, yet cuts right through a major corridor for people moving north.
Hernan laid down next to a place called Grey Well--the only potable water source in the area--and the site of a wind mill and water tank.
There had been a medical evacuation from this spot during the summer of 2009, so we already knew the only location for cell reception was the top of the windmill.
While one stayed with Hernan, another of us climbed the windmill to call 911.
It took six or seven tries to communicate everything we needed, having to be transferred between Sheriff's departments on each call back after losing reception.
Our location was about 40 minutes by dirt road from Interstate 19. An ambulance wasn't going to reach us, so we told the Sheriff's Office we'd drive Hernan out to the road, where an ambulance would be waiting.
As we drove out Hernan kept falling asleep--decreased consciousness maybe, or just exhaustion. At one point, he asked us to pull apart his chap stick container and remove the small amount of money that was rolled inside; then he fell asleep again. A Border Patrol helicopter began circling half way to the highway, spotlighting us as we drove. The road wasn't smooth--winding up over Red Spring Pass, around Upper Puerto Tank, dips and turns, all dirt and rock--yet Hernan was hardly awake for most of it.
About five minutes before we got to the highway we were stopped by two Border Patrol agents who insisted Hernan move from the car to the back of their truck--the type styled upon dog catchers. They cited the air conditioning as being beneficial for him. But there's no A.C. in the back of those trucks, only hard bench seats and a small 10"x16" caged window, and the only connection to the main cab is an intercom. I told them he'd been vomiting, asking if we could just keep him in the car, as we were almost there. The said something about their policies, and said that they could let him vomit all they wanted to in the back of their truck--it was used to it.
Hernan spent three days in St. Mary's hospital in Tucson. Through the work of a volunteer who is also a nurse there, he was able to make a phone call home just before being deported.
It's terrible but not uncommon for groups to start out large and decrease in size the farther they move. People become sick, too tired, subject to heat exhaustion, hypothermia, knee or ankle injuries, terrible blisters, are the victims of robberies and beatings, are 'dusted' by Border Patrol helicopters intentionally trying to split and disorient groups, they might sleep too long and wake up alone, walk too slowly and gradually become so far behind they are lost, or fall victim to countless other factors that occur daily in the desert.
The term 'human-smuggling' is often used instead of migration--it lends a certain urgency for enforcement to the situation. Some believe that because people coming north use guides, or 'coyotes' it is smuggling.
Though the benefits and pitfalls of the 'guiding industry' in migration deserves its own post here, it should be noted that the necessity of a guide, or being a part of a group for days on end in the middle of the desert in order to get into this country is a result of U.S. border enforcement strategies, not a human smuggling racket.
Of course people are going to need to know where to go when they are forced into more and more remote areas of the desert and forced to walk days through rougher and rougher terrain. The number of deaths and medical evacuations would be significantly higher each month if every person who crossed was by themselves, just wandering aimlessly north from the border, thinking they'd know when they got somewhere.
As it is, as of the end of July, the number of recovered human remains in the Tucson sector was 214. A fraction of the actual deaths.
The next day, patrols went out from camp to Chavez, on the report of the group of 60. They found tracks, a water drop of 40 gallons completely used up, but at least in that one area, no one else left behind.
Thursday, June 3, 2010
Robbed
There was a steady breeze at camp last Saturday, no clouds, only sun, raising temperatures up towards 95 degrees.
In the early afternoon a group of six men walked in. They had been in the desert for eight or nine days and were now on their way south. They had turned around the day before, thinking they couldn't make it.
Two days before they arrived in camp they had been robbed by bandits, south, in the mountains. Some members of the groups still had a few possessions on them, but most were without their bags, without any water or food for two days.
Of the six, one man, Joseph, had been beaten by the group of bandits. He had a golf ball sized welt on his forehead, pale purple, and a bruised rib, tender to the touch. He claimed to have no trouble breathing, so we wrapped it together, iced his head and he took some pain medication. He repeatedly made hand gestures that he had been beaten with the butt of a gun.
The morning before, Friday, a man stumbled into camp just after sunrise. He had been shot in the foot two days before while being robbed and now had his t-shirt wrapped around the wound, soaked in blood. After having the wound cleaned and wrapped the man was evacuated in an ambulance to Tucson.
It isn't only the environment that people must face to come here. It is not uncommon to hear stories and signs of groups being robbed on their way north, of women being raped, of complete lawlessness, despite increasing numbers of Border Patrol agents, mobile surveillance units, sheriffs operating under the authority of the federally funded Operation Stone Garden--giving them immigration enforcement powers (even before SB1070 was on the Senate floor)--and soon, another shot by the National Guard.
Conditions don't relent: temperatures will be above one-hundred degrees for much of this week. The number of recovered human remains in the Tucson sector is up 18% from this time last year--from 92 bodies in 2009 to 108 so far this year, and this is only the beginning of the summer crossing season.
In the early afternoon a group of six men walked in. They had been in the desert for eight or nine days and were now on their way south. They had turned around the day before, thinking they couldn't make it.
Two days before they arrived in camp they had been robbed by bandits, south, in the mountains. Some members of the groups still had a few possessions on them, but most were without their bags, without any water or food for two days.
Of the six, one man, Joseph, had been beaten by the group of bandits. He had a golf ball sized welt on his forehead, pale purple, and a bruised rib, tender to the touch. He claimed to have no trouble breathing, so we wrapped it together, iced his head and he took some pain medication. He repeatedly made hand gestures that he had been beaten with the butt of a gun.
The morning before, Friday, a man stumbled into camp just after sunrise. He had been shot in the foot two days before while being robbed and now had his t-shirt wrapped around the wound, soaked in blood. After having the wound cleaned and wrapped the man was evacuated in an ambulance to Tucson.
It isn't only the environment that people must face to come here. It is not uncommon to hear stories and signs of groups being robbed on their way north, of women being raped, of complete lawlessness, despite increasing numbers of Border Patrol agents, mobile surveillance units, sheriffs operating under the authority of the federally funded Operation Stone Garden--giving them immigration enforcement powers (even before SB1070 was on the Senate floor)--and soon, another shot by the National Guard.
Conditions don't relent: temperatures will be above one-hundred degrees for much of this week. The number of recovered human remains in the Tucson sector is up 18% from this time last year--from 92 bodies in 2009 to 108 so far this year, and this is only the beginning of the summer crossing season.
Flight
On a flight from Phoenix to Philadelphia recently I sat next to a woman who had just come through the desert. She took interest in the Spanish phrases I was studying—‘when was the last time you vomited’, ‘is there anything that makes the pain better’, etc—and after I explained the type of work I was studying for, told me that she was a migrant. She showed me the scratches on her arms and the abrasions on her face from the brush in the desert. She said she had blisters. She agreed that the desert was a dangerous place.
She had an arm band on, neon yellow, with her name printed in pencil around it, and was seated with a man (white) that didn’t say, literally, more than two words the entire flight.
Across the aisle was her daughter, by the window. She looked no older than six. The woman told me she had come through the desert as well. With her daughter was a woman (also white). They didn’t seem to speak either.
I didn’t understand the situation—how, having just come through the desert days before, these two were on an airplane to the East Coast. I asked the woman if she was going to live in Philadelphia. She shook her head and replied with a word I didn’t understand.
I didn’t want to get into the details of her desert time, nor, because of my lack of Spanish, could I get into the details of how she was on a plane, or what the situation was with her daughter, and the couple accompanying them.
We sat mostly in silence, she correcting my verb tenses every now and then, in between glances across the aisle to her daughter who sat with a hoodie, backwards over her head. The woman said her head hurt too much to try learning a little English.
During landing, the girl made funny faces across the aisle at us, seeming to enjoy the situation.
At the gate, the man handed the woman a plastic bag containing her belongings from the overhead compartment and the four of them were of the first off the plane. I thought I had missed something in the system that made it so easy for this woman and her daughter to make it to Philadelphia after just coming through the desert.
I hadn’t missed anything though. As I came into the terminal, the man and woman accompanying the mother and daughter were shaking hands with an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent; and they all moved down through the terminal and into a side room. I overheard briefly the agent refer to the mother and daughter as numbers, as in ‘are these the 7904?’.
It is easy to focus solely on the work in the desert, or the work in Nogales, Sonora, because there is so much to be done. But the immigration system is vast. It’s not just people coming through the desert, or being detained for days and dropped at the border with no resources. It is a national issue, it’s people working in every state, being arrested in raids, taken from their homes and schools and separated from their families. There is a large ICE detention center in Elizabeth, New Jersey, and dozens of others throughout the country.
There are more and more people showing up in Nogales, Sonora after having lived in the U.S. for years—often being pulled over for minor traffic violations, or stopped for other minor things, and being deported, being separated from children and spouses, jobs, homes, everything in their lives.
Arizona passed a law last month, SB1070, that has gotten a lot of national attention. Despite the majority of that attention being condemnation, it still stands to go into affect later this summer and will likely increase these types of separations and deportations dramatically. This law, and others surrounding it deserve their own post here, but all are examples of a focus that is misplaced, that doesn't take up the reasons for immigration, and alienates, rather than works with the large population it is attempting to address.
There is no telling what happened to this woman and her daughter--if they are still together, why they were brought to the Northeast, if they were deported, or if they will try to cross again. It's difficult to imagine too, what situation these two were coming from, dire enough for this woman to risk her daughter for days in the desert
Friday, April 2, 2010
Red Bull
Red Bull cans litter trails used by people moving north.
Folks move constantly out in the desert--during the day and through the night--walking for miles and miles, elevation changing in feet by the hundreds in relatively short distances, temperatures fluctuating sometimes in excess of fifty degrees between day and night, with periods of rest most likely short and far between.
With little food, and little sleep, keeping energy up must be a primary issue of concern. There is no respite for folks who are slower than the rest of the group. In many instances, if a person is too slow, they are left behind, alone.
Being left alone can be deadly. Without a guide many people are lost, and can wander for days without seeing a house or a frequently traveled road, or another person. Even if they manage to stay on trails, avoid being robbed, avoid dehydration, exposure or injury, they still have no recourse for reaching their destination. Most people don't know where they are going--told by their guide they are only a day or two from their destination--they often ask how far L.A. is, or Phoenix, or state their intention to walk to Tucson, without knowing it is sixty miles north.
With a guide, a group will often walk to a prearranged pick-up point, far enough north to avoid checkpoints on local roads or the interstate. From there, groups are taken to wait, or are held, in safe-houses in area cities, such as Tucson, until a van going east, or west or north, to L.A., or New York, or Wisconsin or North Carolina is ready to go.
Being left behind by a group leaves people without options, without any knowledge of where they are, where they can go, or how to contact someone if they even make it out of the remote desert.
So keeping up is essential, and many folks drink Red Bull while crossing--either by choice or after being given it by their guide to help them keep up.
This presents problems. Red Bull is straight caffeine and sugar. It gives a very significant boost in energy and is followed by a very significant drop in energy when the effects wear off. It also increases heart rate to abnormally high levels. During periods of physical strain--such as walking for days in the mountains of southern Arizona--a person's heart rate is already raised. Combined with the effects of Red Bull, a person could easily show signs and symptoms of hypertension--chest pain, shortness of breath, even disorientation.
Red Bull, as all caffeine, is a significant diuretic too--causing increased urine output. In these circumstances when water intake is already minimal, these drinks compound the chances of serious dehydration.
Aside from the negative side effects, the intended effect of Red Bull--a boost in energy--is also dangerous. Folks are already moving at fast speeds when they cross through--moved along quickly by their guides, from a distance, a group of people might look like they are jogging together. Having the energy to move faster than one should, or is comfortable moving, is dangerous, as the ground gives easily on steep inclines of loose rock and sand--another source of sprained ankles, twisted knees and other debilitating injuries that leave folks stranded, alone.
There is never a balance for people moving north, nor ever a chance for a balance. It is a constant struggle with, among other elements, time, weather, orientation, ground conditions, piercing vegetation, poisonous animals, border enforcement agents, guides, hunger, thirst, dehydration, exposure, hypothermia, darkness, the sun.
Folks move constantly out in the desert--during the day and through the night--walking for miles and miles, elevation changing in feet by the hundreds in relatively short distances, temperatures fluctuating sometimes in excess of fifty degrees between day and night, with periods of rest most likely short and far between.
With little food, and little sleep, keeping energy up must be a primary issue of concern. There is no respite for folks who are slower than the rest of the group. In many instances, if a person is too slow, they are left behind, alone.
Being left alone can be deadly. Without a guide many people are lost, and can wander for days without seeing a house or a frequently traveled road, or another person. Even if they manage to stay on trails, avoid being robbed, avoid dehydration, exposure or injury, they still have no recourse for reaching their destination. Most people don't know where they are going--told by their guide they are only a day or two from their destination--they often ask how far L.A. is, or Phoenix, or state their intention to walk to Tucson, without knowing it is sixty miles north.
With a guide, a group will often walk to a prearranged pick-up point, far enough north to avoid checkpoints on local roads or the interstate. From there, groups are taken to wait, or are held, in safe-houses in area cities, such as Tucson, until a van going east, or west or north, to L.A., or New York, or Wisconsin or North Carolina is ready to go.
Being left behind by a group leaves people without options, without any knowledge of where they are, where they can go, or how to contact someone if they even make it out of the remote desert.
So keeping up is essential, and many folks drink Red Bull while crossing--either by choice or after being given it by their guide to help them keep up.
This presents problems. Red Bull is straight caffeine and sugar. It gives a very significant boost in energy and is followed by a very significant drop in energy when the effects wear off. It also increases heart rate to abnormally high levels. During periods of physical strain--such as walking for days in the mountains of southern Arizona--a person's heart rate is already raised. Combined with the effects of Red Bull, a person could easily show signs and symptoms of hypertension--chest pain, shortness of breath, even disorientation.
Red Bull, as all caffeine, is a significant diuretic too--causing increased urine output. In these circumstances when water intake is already minimal, these drinks compound the chances of serious dehydration.
Aside from the negative side effects, the intended effect of Red Bull--a boost in energy--is also dangerous. Folks are already moving at fast speeds when they cross through--moved along quickly by their guides, from a distance, a group of people might look like they are jogging together. Having the energy to move faster than one should, or is comfortable moving, is dangerous, as the ground gives easily on steep inclines of loose rock and sand--another source of sprained ankles, twisted knees and other debilitating injuries that leave folks stranded, alone.
There is never a balance for people moving north, nor ever a chance for a balance. It is a constant struggle with, among other elements, time, weather, orientation, ground conditions, piercing vegetation, poisonous animals, border enforcement agents, guides, hunger, thirst, dehydration, exposure, hypothermia, darkness, the sun.
Saturday, March 20, 2010
Conditions
It froze every night last week. Our camp was on top of a hill in an area called Chavez Siding--about 15 miles north of the border. Each morning a thick frost covered the camp, and an even thicker layer iced the trails. There was hail the first day of the week, and intense winds.
For us, the weather was inconvenient, something to huddle inside a tent or inside a truck from. Folks crossing don't have tents, they don't have cars waiting for them when the weather turns bad or full propane tanks to make hot drinks.
We found a fire ring in the middle of a trail on Wednesday. Brushing away the ashes, the coals were still warm underneath from the night before. It is rare to see such disregard inconspicuousness. In the darkness of the desert, a fire can be seen by helicopters from tens of miles away, and there are many helicopters.
A few volunteers came across a man a few weeks ago, during a period of similar conditions, whose core body temperature was 95 degrees--hypothermic. He was eventually evacuated. It frosted the night after this man left the desert, a frost that would have been sure to kill him.
Conditions are never ideal for crossing.
The cold is misleading. It makes one think that much water isn't necessary, and dehydration sets in slowly and persists, with headaches and dizziness to start.
The rain is misleading too--one would think that there would be much more fresh water along trails, in canyons and through washes. But in the past weeks, I have witnessed and heard stories of more people vomiting from contaminated water than in the past several months. There is little, if any, naturally occurring, uncontaminated water out there.
It is difficult to understand, and even more difficult to convey the problems people face in crossing. Thinking of all the negative conditions and the harshness of the terrain it is still hard to believe that anyone makes it. Trails don't zig-zag up mountains in switchback, they go straight up and down--to decrease time at more visible elevations, and to increase speed.
The darkness changes everything. Many believe most folks walk only at night. I think most folks walk constantly, through the day and through the night. Without a moon it is impossible to see the trails, well defined as they may be. It is impossible to see low lying, thorny branches or loose rocks in the trail, or yucca branches or barbed wire, lying like trip lines across paths. It is impossible to know who or what is around the next boulder or over the next pass. At mountain saddles, intermittent house lights scatter along the horizon or in distant valleys, but are miles away, with no trails leading to them, and a glow from the lights of Tucson light up the sky to the north.
When considering all the elements that people work against in crossing, I'm reminded of a conversation a volunteer had with a woman who had become injured in the desert. The volunteer was apologetically talking about the difficulties the woman had faced, the conditions we make people face to work here. The woman replied that the journey was nothing. That sitting down at the dinner table with her three children and explaining that they didn't have enough food for dinner that night was something immeasurably worse than anything the desert could present.
For us, the weather was inconvenient, something to huddle inside a tent or inside a truck from. Folks crossing don't have tents, they don't have cars waiting for them when the weather turns bad or full propane tanks to make hot drinks.
We found a fire ring in the middle of a trail on Wednesday. Brushing away the ashes, the coals were still warm underneath from the night before. It is rare to see such disregard inconspicuousness. In the darkness of the desert, a fire can be seen by helicopters from tens of miles away, and there are many helicopters.
A few volunteers came across a man a few weeks ago, during a period of similar conditions, whose core body temperature was 95 degrees--hypothermic. He was eventually evacuated. It frosted the night after this man left the desert, a frost that would have been sure to kill him.
Conditions are never ideal for crossing.
The cold is misleading. It makes one think that much water isn't necessary, and dehydration sets in slowly and persists, with headaches and dizziness to start.
The rain is misleading too--one would think that there would be much more fresh water along trails, in canyons and through washes. But in the past weeks, I have witnessed and heard stories of more people vomiting from contaminated water than in the past several months. There is little, if any, naturally occurring, uncontaminated water out there.
It is difficult to understand, and even more difficult to convey the problems people face in crossing. Thinking of all the negative conditions and the harshness of the terrain it is still hard to believe that anyone makes it. Trails don't zig-zag up mountains in switchback, they go straight up and down--to decrease time at more visible elevations, and to increase speed.
The darkness changes everything. Many believe most folks walk only at night. I think most folks walk constantly, through the day and through the night. Without a moon it is impossible to see the trails, well defined as they may be. It is impossible to see low lying, thorny branches or loose rocks in the trail, or yucca branches or barbed wire, lying like trip lines across paths. It is impossible to know who or what is around the next boulder or over the next pass. At mountain saddles, intermittent house lights scatter along the horizon or in distant valleys, but are miles away, with no trails leading to them, and a glow from the lights of Tucson light up the sky to the north.
When considering all the elements that people work against in crossing, I'm reminded of a conversation a volunteer had with a woman who had become injured in the desert. The volunteer was apologetically talking about the difficulties the woman had faced, the conditions we make people face to work here. The woman replied that the journey was nothing. That sitting down at the dinner table with her three children and explaining that they didn't have enough food for dinner that night was something immeasurably worse than anything the desert could present.
Thursday, February 4, 2010
Rain
It's been raining in the desert.
The washes have filled and the canyons have been rushing with water, overflowing out onto roads, making slight dips impassable.
Loose terrain has been washed away leaving bare rock and steeper inclines along trails.
A storm last week released between four and five inches of rain in the desert around Arivaca.
With this rain comes a new greening of the landscape. Tinajas--deep water holes made in smoothed rock that can hold hundreds, or thousands of gallons of water--have been refreshed.
Palo Verde trees have greened slightly, as have Mesquites and Acacias--obscuring their piercing thorns.
The rain seems a blessing, both for local desert dwellers in an unusually dry year, and for people crossing from Mexico when 10 months of the year they are beaten down and killed by the perils of dehydration and exposure. But the rain brings its own troubles.
This recent rain has been accompanied by a full moon, which provides enough extra illumination at night to increase the number of people crossing.
But many trails follow canyons or washes. These routes are natural corridors through the rough terrain of the desert, and allow for passage with limited elevation change. They also help folks to remain inconspicuous.
In rain storms, like the one last week, these canyons and washes fill with little notice, often after the rain has already stopped. Canyon floods can be especially violent, due to the limited space for the water to flow. With this limited space there is also limited opportunity to escape the flow. Trees are washed out, entire boulders moved.
When the washes fill and the trails are flooded, folks move up the sides of the hills, where trails don't exist, where the piercing vegetation thrives and where the terrain is looser. Debilitating ankle injuries are always likely to increase in times of rain.
The most common negative effect of rain for people crossing is blisters. Walking for most of each day and each night, often in newer shoes bought for the journey, blisters are commonplace. When combined with wet socks, and sopping shoes, they are inevitable. They form, most often along the balls of the feet and the back of the heel, break open and form again, encouraged by the constant friction in the shoe and the abundant amount of moisture. These open sores easily become infected, or turn bloody, or are compounded by sand and small pebbles entering the affected area.
In the desert the formation of a blister can mean death. It can mean falling behind in your group, it can mean increased time in crossing with the same limited resources, combined with wet clothes in February, it can mean hypothermia.
To compliment the debilitating effects of this storm, a thick layer of frost formed each night last week, with temperatures reaching the mid-twenties and snow falling on areas just south of Arivaca. It is a mystery how the desert is survivable at all in those conditions.
This time of year, the gallon jugs of water left along trails from Mexico by humanitarian groups are in less demand than the pop-top cans of food, blankets and small bottles of Gatorade, a comment on the need for energy in keeping warm in the desert.
Reports came back recently too, from the border aid station in Nogales, Mexico where 4 bus loads of people being deported were dropped in a single morning. Lines for medical care, primarily blister and cold treatment, were out the doors of the building, many commenting in abuse documentation sessions of a lack of heat, adequate food or places to lie down while in detention for numerous days in a row.
An interesting irony to the rain is that most Border Patrol checkpoints close in inclement weather. They let Mother Nature take over.
The washes have filled and the canyons have been rushing with water, overflowing out onto roads, making slight dips impassable.
Loose terrain has been washed away leaving bare rock and steeper inclines along trails.
A storm last week released between four and five inches of rain in the desert around Arivaca.
With this rain comes a new greening of the landscape. Tinajas--deep water holes made in smoothed rock that can hold hundreds, or thousands of gallons of water--have been refreshed.
Palo Verde trees have greened slightly, as have Mesquites and Acacias--obscuring their piercing thorns.
The rain seems a blessing, both for local desert dwellers in an unusually dry year, and for people crossing from Mexico when 10 months of the year they are beaten down and killed by the perils of dehydration and exposure. But the rain brings its own troubles.
This recent rain has been accompanied by a full moon, which provides enough extra illumination at night to increase the number of people crossing.
But many trails follow canyons or washes. These routes are natural corridors through the rough terrain of the desert, and allow for passage with limited elevation change. They also help folks to remain inconspicuous.
In rain storms, like the one last week, these canyons and washes fill with little notice, often after the rain has already stopped. Canyon floods can be especially violent, due to the limited space for the water to flow. With this limited space there is also limited opportunity to escape the flow. Trees are washed out, entire boulders moved.
When the washes fill and the trails are flooded, folks move up the sides of the hills, where trails don't exist, where the piercing vegetation thrives and where the terrain is looser. Debilitating ankle injuries are always likely to increase in times of rain.
The most common negative effect of rain for people crossing is blisters. Walking for most of each day and each night, often in newer shoes bought for the journey, blisters are commonplace. When combined with wet socks, and sopping shoes, they are inevitable. They form, most often along the balls of the feet and the back of the heel, break open and form again, encouraged by the constant friction in the shoe and the abundant amount of moisture. These open sores easily become infected, or turn bloody, or are compounded by sand and small pebbles entering the affected area.
In the desert the formation of a blister can mean death. It can mean falling behind in your group, it can mean increased time in crossing with the same limited resources, combined with wet clothes in February, it can mean hypothermia.
To compliment the debilitating effects of this storm, a thick layer of frost formed each night last week, with temperatures reaching the mid-twenties and snow falling on areas just south of Arivaca. It is a mystery how the desert is survivable at all in those conditions.
This time of year, the gallon jugs of water left along trails from Mexico by humanitarian groups are in less demand than the pop-top cans of food, blankets and small bottles of Gatorade, a comment on the need for energy in keeping warm in the desert.
Reports came back recently too, from the border aid station in Nogales, Mexico where 4 bus loads of people being deported were dropped in a single morning. Lines for medical care, primarily blister and cold treatment, were out the doors of the building, many commenting in abuse documentation sessions of a lack of heat, adequate food or places to lie down while in detention for numerous days in a row.
An interesting irony to the rain is that most Border Patrol checkpoints close in inclement weather. They let Mother Nature take over.
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