I now find myself sitting in an airplane on my way to the United States. With my Danish passport, it’s so easy for me. It feels too easy when I think about what migrants go through to get to the same place.
I’m going to Arizona to experience the border between the United States and Mexico. I hope that I’ll be lucky enough to share in the company of people like those I met on the other border. This has been an important time for me, and I hope with this 102nd voice that I can pass on some of theknowledge that I gained.
Mia
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
Border 102: Casa de Migrantes, Ixtepec
Four days later we arrived at the Casa de Migrantes, situated outside the city along the railway. The albergue had just been created and was little more than a dirt field, the skeleton of a chapel, a shed full of food and blankets, and a place to sit in the shade. Father Alejandro greeted us. He was dressed in white from head to toe and carried a cross around his neck. Even though he didn’t look like it, he was seventy-two.
He invited us into the shade where a few other people were sitting. Two were a couple from Honduras. In the conversation between them, Father Alejandro, Father John, and some of the volunteers, I learned three important things about migration:
--Father John: It’s extremely difficult to get a work permit and only migrants with work permits, he said, pay taxes. Migrants will come through anyway, so if migrants came through on a work permit the state would get something out of it as well.
--Father Alejandro: Migrants stay longer and longer in the U.S. because it’s so hard to get there. When they finally arrive, they stay for longer and longer periods.
--The Honduran couple: “The United States is a good place to work, but we (migrants) don’t want to live there.”After two days in Ixtepec, a train arrived with hundreds of migrants. Some of them recognized us.
Ryan and I helped direct people to the Casa del Migrante, where they picked up food, water and medical supplies, and after three hours they jumped onto another train to continue on their travels.
This time Ryan and I heard the whistle in time to see the train take off with the migrants. As the train took off, we saw migrants running and jumping on the train, and people waiving from the top of the freight cars. It was a very special moment. Even though there is so much difficulty in the migrants’ journey, there was so much joy in their faces as they left.
When we came back to the Casa, I learned my last lesson along the Guatemala-Mexico border. There was a conversation between the volunteers and the migrants. One volunteer tried to explain how important it was for the immigrants to maintain their hygiene, take showers, wash their clothes and look proper. Then a tall gentleman from Nicaragua stood up and said that, for him, it was important to look like a migrant. When people see migrants dressed well, he said, they think to themselves that it’s not hard to be a migrant. It doesn’t look hard to be a migrant but it is hard, he said. “It’s not the hunger, the thirst, or the sickness. It’s that we have to leave our country and our families behind.”
He invited us into the shade where a few other people were sitting. Two were a couple from Honduras. In the conversation between them, Father Alejandro, Father John, and some of the volunteers, I learned three important things about migration:
--Father John: It’s extremely difficult to get a work permit and only migrants with work permits, he said, pay taxes. Migrants will come through anyway, so if migrants came through on a work permit the state would get something out of it as well.
--Father Alejandro: Migrants stay longer and longer in the U.S. because it’s so hard to get there. When they finally arrive, they stay for longer and longer periods.
--The Honduran couple: “The United States is a good place to work, but we (migrants) don’t want to live there.”After two days in Ixtepec, a train arrived with hundreds of migrants. Some of them recognized us.
Ryan and I helped direct people to the Casa del Migrante, where they picked up food, water and medical supplies, and after three hours they jumped onto another train to continue on their travels.
This time Ryan and I heard the whistle in time to see the train take off with the migrants. As the train took off, we saw migrants running and jumping on the train, and people waiving from the top of the freight cars. It was a very special moment. Even though there is so much difficulty in the migrants’ journey, there was so much joy in their faces as they left.
When we came back to the Casa, I learned my last lesson along the Guatemala-Mexico border. There was a conversation between the volunteers and the migrants. One volunteer tried to explain how important it was for the immigrants to maintain their hygiene, take showers, wash their clothes and look proper. Then a tall gentleman from Nicaragua stood up and said that, for him, it was important to look like a migrant. When people see migrants dressed well, he said, they think to themselves that it’s not hard to be a migrant. It doesn’t look hard to be a migrant but it is hard, he said. “It’s not the hunger, the thirst, or the sickness. It’s that we have to leave our country and our families behind.”
Border 102: Casa de la Misericordia, Arriaga
After a five-hour bus ride from Tapachula, Lois, Ryan and I arrived in Arriaga. Juan, a young volunteer from Casa de la Misericordia, greeted us. Right away he took us to the railway in the center of the city, where we got the opportunity to meet with the migrants and talk with them about their journeys. The migrants had been waiting for a train that leaves every three days. For some it was their second or third attempt at reaching the States without luck. Others had been deported and separated from their families in the United States.
After some heavy conversation we turned to a light game of soccer. Players from Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and El Salvador all came together, with a spice of Danish and North American. For those two hours, I forgot what these people were going through. I heard that migrants are categorized as terrorists and criminals, but in these moments I realized that they were just people chasing a dream for a better life as they were chasing soccer balls. Now we were all just playing this game, fighting together to win.
I was the only woman there, but Juan told us that ten percent of the migrants passing through Arriaga are women—women who experience a lot of discrimination, women who are robbed, women who are raped. They go through such an inhuman travel to reach a human life, I thought to myself. The three of us left at the whistle of the train, a whistle that rang loudly to us because we knew what it meant to the migrants.
Later we were invited to speak with Father Heyman Vásquez. He started the albergue two and a half years ago. When the migrants come to the albergue, they often are very tired, hungry and sick because of the long walk from the border. They often spend two to three days at the albergue to recover before they seek the railway at the center of the city and wait for the next train to leave.
The Father has seen a lot of migrants and how they are treated. “Where are human rights?” he asked us. Migrants, he said, can’t really do anything about the corruption and violence of the police. “La situación de los inmigrantes es terrible.” He wishes that the government would spend more money on something to solve this problem, for example, by giving more money to the under-funded Grupo Beta.
From inside the office, we could hear the train give another long, loud whistle. We ran outside to say goodbye, but when we reached the railway the train had already passed and the migrants were on their way to their next stop: Ixtepec, Oaxaca.
After some heavy conversation we turned to a light game of soccer. Players from Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and El Salvador all came together, with a spice of Danish and North American. For those two hours, I forgot what these people were going through. I heard that migrants are categorized as terrorists and criminals, but in these moments I realized that they were just people chasing a dream for a better life as they were chasing soccer balls. Now we were all just playing this game, fighting together to win.
I was the only woman there, but Juan told us that ten percent of the migrants passing through Arriaga are women—women who experience a lot of discrimination, women who are robbed, women who are raped. They go through such an inhuman travel to reach a human life, I thought to myself. The three of us left at the whistle of the train, a whistle that rang loudly to us because we knew what it meant to the migrants.
Later we were invited to speak with Father Heyman Vásquez. He started the albergue two and a half years ago. When the migrants come to the albergue, they often are very tired, hungry and sick because of the long walk from the border. They often spend two to three days at the albergue to recover before they seek the railway at the center of the city and wait for the next train to leave.
The Father has seen a lot of migrants and how they are treated. “Where are human rights?” he asked us. Migrants, he said, can’t really do anything about the corruption and violence of the police. “La situación de los inmigrantes es terrible.” He wishes that the government would spend more money on something to solve this problem, for example, by giving more money to the under-funded Grupo Beta.
From inside the office, we could hear the train give another long, loud whistle. We ran outside to say goodbye, but when we reached the railway the train had already passed and the migrants were on their way to their next stop: Ixtepec, Oaxaca.
Border 102: Casa del Buen Pastor, Tapachula
Later in the afternoon we went to Casa del Buen Pastor, more commonly referred to as Casa de Doña Olga, a place for migrants who fought for a future that the trains took away.
The migrants who come to Doña Olga’s have lost limbs or suffered severe injury while attempting the northward journey by train. There are approximately twenty checkpoints on the highway between Tapachula and Mexico City, so the railways have become a popular—although more dangerous—means for Central American migrants to avoid contact with authorities that might extort or deport them. Because of the exhausts of basic human needs—dehydration, hunger and a lack of sleep—and the malvados along the way—gangs, thieves and police—migrants often fall off or are thrown off the trains. Many become amputees, and there are no official services available to take care of them.
Casa del Buen Pastor began almost twenty years ago when Doña Olga recognized the need to take care of the amputees. Beautiful and graying, she started Casa del Buen Pastor after she herself survived a life-threatening sickness. It has never been easy and to this day she still has to fight for the survival of the albergue. Although some non-government organizations have helped considerably, in Doña Olga ’s words, both the government and local church has closed its eyes to the amputees. The International Red Cross doesn’t provide them with anything either. If the albergue wants to buy blood, it’s more expensive to buy from The International Red Cross than it is from the hospital.
The albergue, however, takes care of more than just their guests’ medical needs. Most of the migrants are farmers and are used to using their bodies as tools, tools that the train has taken away from them. Volunteers teach them technical and language skills so that they can develop new tools to make a living in the future.
“Mi elemento de vivir!”, Doña Olga told us. “Mis hermanos, mis gentes, mis familias….los migrantes!” ("My essense of life! My brothers and sisters, my people, my families... the migrants!"
The migrants who come to Doña Olga’s have lost limbs or suffered severe injury while attempting the northward journey by train. There are approximately twenty checkpoints on the highway between Tapachula and Mexico City, so the railways have become a popular—although more dangerous—means for Central American migrants to avoid contact with authorities that might extort or deport them. Because of the exhausts of basic human needs—dehydration, hunger and a lack of sleep—and the malvados along the way—gangs, thieves and police—migrants often fall off or are thrown off the trains. Many become amputees, and there are no official services available to take care of them.
Casa del Buen Pastor began almost twenty years ago when Doña Olga recognized the need to take care of the amputees. Beautiful and graying, she started Casa del Buen Pastor after she herself survived a life-threatening sickness. It has never been easy and to this day she still has to fight for the survival of the albergue. Although some non-government organizations have helped considerably, in Doña Olga ’s words, both the government and local church has closed its eyes to the amputees. The International Red Cross doesn’t provide them with anything either. If the albergue wants to buy blood, it’s more expensive to buy from The International Red Cross than it is from the hospital.
The albergue, however, takes care of more than just their guests’ medical needs. Most of the migrants are farmers and are used to using their bodies as tools, tools that the train has taken away from them. Volunteers teach them technical and language skills so that they can develop new tools to make a living in the future.
“Mi elemento de vivir!”, Doña Olga told us. “Mis hermanos, mis gentes, mis familias….los migrantes!” ("My essense of life! My brothers and sisters, my people, my families... the migrants!"
Border 102: Militares and Balseros, Ciudad Hidalgo and Tecún Uman
The next morning we grabbed a colectivo and went to Ciudad Hidalgo and Tecún Uman, two of the most visited cities on the Mexico-Guatemala border. There we saw the cat and mouse game in action. As people crossed the Suchiate River “illegally” on inflatable rafts, the Mexican military watched but didn’t do anything to stop them.
It’s a forbidden but obvious traffic. Well-dressed people board the balsas to get to work; others start their journey through Mexico; and behind it all there are armed militares there supervise the crossings, but at no point do they interfere. A few hundred meters from the official border checkpoint, it’s everyday life at the river.
For those making their way toward the United States, the next move is a three-hundred-kilometer walk across Chiapas to catch the trains in Arriaga. It hasn’t always been this way. In 2005, Hurricane Stan hit the coast of Chiapas and destroyed the railway from Tecún Uman to Arriaga. Some Central American migrants decide to take the trains in the north of the state, but for others the journey has become even more difficult.
It’s a forbidden but obvious traffic. Well-dressed people board the balsas to get to work; others start their journey through Mexico; and behind it all there are armed militares there supervise the crossings, but at no point do they interfere. A few hundred meters from the official border checkpoint, it’s everyday life at the river.
For those making their way toward the United States, the next move is a three-hundred-kilometer walk across Chiapas to catch the trains in Arriaga. It hasn’t always been this way. In 2005, Hurricane Stan hit the coast of Chiapas and destroyed the railway from Tecún Uman to Arriaga. Some Central American migrants decide to take the trains in the north of the state, but for others the journey has become even more difficult.
Border 102: Albergue Belén, Tapachula
If there’s a lack of information about people trying to come from Central America to the United States, there are teachers in this world trying to inform us. Father Flor María is one of them. He is a Scalabrini Brother with a long flowing robe and an even longer flowing beard. With his hands up in the air and a cross around his neck, he is the eccentric director of Albergue Belén in Tapachula.
Fr. Flor María said that the Albergue was a springboard for the migrants to continue their travel and an umbrella to protect them. They provide migrants with food and a roof over their heads for three days as they go into Mexico, the hardest country for Central Americans to pass before going into the United States.
The father had a lot of stories to tell us about migrants, some who reached the United States and others who had to try over and over again. He’s seen it all. He talked about the corruption in Mexico—a corruption so bad that he considered Mexico a “cemetery without crosses”. He said that it was a cat-and-mouse game for the police and migrants: the cats get fat and the mice keep on running.
Even though this world of migrants had so much bad in it, Fr. Flor María still believed in the Zapatistas. He thought of the group of indigenous rebels as the “revolution of tomorrow”.
Fr. Flor María said that the Albergue was a springboard for the migrants to continue their travel and an umbrella to protect them. They provide migrants with food and a roof over their heads for three days as they go into Mexico, the hardest country for Central Americans to pass before going into the United States.
The father had a lot of stories to tell us about migrants, some who reached the United States and others who had to try over and over again. He’s seen it all. He talked about the corruption in Mexico—a corruption so bad that he considered Mexico a “cemetery without crosses”. He said that it was a cat-and-mouse game for the police and migrants: the cats get fat and the mice keep on running.
Even though this world of migrants had so much bad in it, Fr. Flor María still believed in the Zapatistas. He thought of the group of indigenous rebels as the “revolution of tomorrow”.
Border 102: Grupo Beta, Tapachula
We met with Francisco Aceves Verdugo, the director of Grupo Beta in Tapachula. With a thin mustache and his hair slicked back, he told us that Grupo Beta is a branch of the Mexican immigration services. The government started a pilot program in 1990 in Tijuana and moved southward to Tapachula in 1996. They did it to provide migrants with basic human rights protections at both the American and Guatemalan borders —first aid, legal representation, etc.
In the beginning Grupo Beta agents carried weapons and were authorized to arrest traffickers. But there was an inherent conflict between guns and the job of working with migrants. If a criminal comes to a doctor with a wound, it’s not the doctor’s job to judge the crime. It’s her or his job to treat the wound. Grupo Beta is a doctor disposed to a national illness of migration. For the coyotes and drug runners there is always the military, but for migrants there is now Grupo Beta. It can be corrupt, but it is one of the few resources available to migrants.
In the beginning Grupo Beta agents carried weapons and were authorized to arrest traffickers. But there was an inherent conflict between guns and the job of working with migrants. If a criminal comes to a doctor with a wound, it’s not the doctor’s job to judge the crime. It’s her or his job to treat the wound. Grupo Beta is a doctor disposed to a national illness of migration. For the coyotes and drug runners there is always the military, but for migrants there is now Grupo Beta. It can be corrupt, but it is one of the few resources available to migrants.
Border 102: an introduction
Border 102
I’m sitting in a cab. I don’t know exactly where I’m going. I’m with Lois, Jody and, of course, Ryan, and we are on our way to Grupo Beta. Lois is with the Samaritans; Jody is with No More Deaths; Ryan does what Ryan does; and I have no clue what Grupo Beta actually is. All I know is that I am with these three people from Arizona and they all have a vision of creating a more human border. I am here to learn from them and with them.
I started my travel three months ago, and I was going to this faraway place of Central America. The bible of my trip was a Lonely Planet. I had nothing planned. I wanted to see the culture and know the reality of this subcontinent, but with the Lonely Planet in my backpack it became a tour of ruins, beaches and hostels.
After five weeks of backpacking in Mexico, I arrived in Guatemala and left my Lonely Planet behind. That was when I met Ryan. He introduced me to another world of migrants, Zapatistas and NAFTA, and his bicycling “Border 101” project that somehow connected them all together.
What is the border?, I thought to myself. What is migration? I am Danish. Migration is not an issue for Danish people like it is for those in this side of the world, especially in Arizona. People migrate to Europe from Africa, but Denmark is too far and too small for many to notice. Migrants often go to Spain and France.
But here I am sitting in this cab, heading off to my first lesson on the Mexico- Guatemala border.
I’m sitting in a cab. I don’t know exactly where I’m going. I’m with Lois, Jody and, of course, Ryan, and we are on our way to Grupo Beta. Lois is with the Samaritans; Jody is with No More Deaths; Ryan does what Ryan does; and I have no clue what Grupo Beta actually is. All I know is that I am with these three people from Arizona and they all have a vision of creating a more human border. I am here to learn from them and with them.
I started my travel three months ago, and I was going to this faraway place of Central America. The bible of my trip was a Lonely Planet. I had nothing planned. I wanted to see the culture and know the reality of this subcontinent, but with the Lonely Planet in my backpack it became a tour of ruins, beaches and hostels.
After five weeks of backpacking in Mexico, I arrived in Guatemala and left my Lonely Planet behind. That was when I met Ryan. He introduced me to another world of migrants, Zapatistas and NAFTA, and his bicycling “Border 101” project that somehow connected them all together.
What is the border?, I thought to myself. What is migration? I am Danish. Migration is not an issue for Danish people like it is for those in this side of the world, especially in Arizona. People migrate to Europe from Africa, but Denmark is too far and too small for many to notice. Migrants often go to Spain and France.
But here I am sitting in this cab, heading off to my first lesson on the Mexico- Guatemala border.
Monday, August 13, 2007
Border 102: Experiential Midwifery
While it's true that absence makes the heart grow fonder, we may also assume that, to all things, there is a statute of limitations. An absence too long felt is but a memory, and memories too often fade away. So I write in the hopes that we arrive at either a fondness or an exception--that you, dear reader, will rejoice in the rebirth of the Border 101 site or at least be willing to shake the dust off these brilliant blogs.
Did you miss me?
Truth be told, much of the work has been done for me with the following posts. Consider me a widwife with these words. I offered an experience and Mia Pallisgaard Hansen, Border 101 intern (also known as Border 102), put down the stories. Mia and I traveled together along the Mexico-Guatemala border in March '07. Grupo Beta, revolutionary priests, the "visualy selective" Mexican military, raft-riding migrants, the amputees at Dona Olga's, the train hoppers: you'll find them all here. Enjoy.
Did you miss me?
Truth be told, much of the work has been done for me with the following posts. Consider me a widwife with these words. I offered an experience and Mia Pallisgaard Hansen, Border 101 intern (also known as Border 102), put down the stories. Mia and I traveled together along the Mexico-Guatemala border in March '07. Grupo Beta, revolutionary priests, the "visualy selective" Mexican military, raft-riding migrants, the amputees at Dona Olga's, the train hoppers: you'll find them all here. Enjoy.
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