The Extra Mile Adventure

After crossing the border of Mexico and Arizona the night before and gorging ourselves on fresh American pizza we parked Patricia in a residential neighborhood and went right to sleep. The next morning we awoke to the sounds of Ry Ry bumping loud dance music and dancing around the bus in an effort to coax us to rise with a smile. We did and quickly divided up into our teams to start the day. We had an excellent meal together once again and then it was time to meet the people of the new group that we would be working with on the Arizona border: No More Deaths.
We all piled in Patricia to putter over to the headquarters, where we were all briefed on what was going on in the desert out in Tucson. The USA has adopted a policy of deterrence in dealing with its borders. The government put up agents every 100 feet in San Diego and El Paso (the two urban border areas) so that people crossing into the United States would be forced into the desert areas of Arizona. They new that people couldn’t survive crossing in the desert and thought that enough people would die to deter others from crossing the border. Since this policy has been in effect thousands of people have crossed and died but few have been “deterred”.
No more deaths is a group with a permanent 24-hour station in the desert during the summer started in 2004 and have continued to expand their presence in the desert, every summer since. Recently they have had a lot of volunteers during college spring break as conscientious co-eds come to their camp to help people rather than spend a week in Cancun with alcohol poisoning. No More Deaths camp out in the desert and walk the trails that the migrants use to cross into America, looking for sick or injured people whose lives may be in danger. They also have numerous food and water drops to leave on the trails for thirsty or hungry migrants to come across in their daily treks.
As we were briefed on the history of No More deaths they also told us the legalities of the organization. . In 2005 two volunteers found some migrants in dire need of help. So they took them to the hospital and were charged with three felonies each. In order for us to be safe we would only provide food, water, and information. These are what lawyers have deemed legally safe actions. We were also told not to engage with border patrol as the officers may not be able to take frustrations out on us, but they could take it out on a helpless migrant. We were also told that no one has to do anything, we will not be forced to do anything we did not want to.
After the debriefing we had some delicious soup made by a delightful woman named Louis who was a part of the organization. Then, after a brief grocery stop, we were on our way out to the desert to try to save some lives. It took a few hours to arrive at our destination and when we finally coaxed Patricia along the last bumpy dirt road we arrived at our campsite, and split up to pitch our tents. The cooking crew cooked a delicious peanut stir-fry and then we all gathered round the fire to tell our stories to the four No More Deaths members at the camp. Steve a knowledgeable firecracker of a man led the meeting and we all sipped jalapeño cocoa and somehow got to know each other on an even deeper level than we already had. After two months we were still learning about each other. Finally we all said good night and crept off to our tents in the freezing cold desert night.
Steve woke us up at seven in the morning to another delicious breakfast, which we gobbled down and then participated in a brief lesson on how to use a GPS device. Then it was time to hit the trails so we loaded up a hundred gallons of water and a huge bin of food and all piled into three different vehicles. We were all wondering if we would be able to help someone today.
“It’s not everyday you see a migrant, especially at this time of year.” Steve informed us. “Its so much colder in the winter that not as many get into trouble from the heat, and if they don’t want you to see them, you won’t”
No sooner than five minutes after saying this, the car ahead of us stopped and I peered out from the back of the pickup truck to see a young Migrant on the side of the road, waving us down. He was sick and throwing up. Ulises approached him and spoke to him in Spanish. He had been wandering in the desert for the last six days after his Coyote (the man he paid to lead him through the desert safely) robbed him of his food, water and cash and left him to die. He had a water bottle full of yellow water in it that he had gotten from a cow trough out in the desert somewhere. Steve emptied it out and gave him a Gatorade to replace his electrolytes and nourish him. He drank it down in seconds and drank another half of another one. We gave him clothes and food and water and told him to rest and we would return to check on him.
Then we hit the trails. We followed our GPS to different drop points and left gallons of water at each spot along the trails. We would often find fresh footprints and empty gallons of water that had been gratefully depleted. Sometime, Steve told us, you would find notes on the empty gallons, like “Thank you, you have been sent from God”. Our last drop of the day was a big one, 50 gallons of water and multiple backpacks full of food. When we arrived we found a woman’s sweatshirt in a tree and Steve told us that when someone finds female underwear in a tree it often times means a woman was raped in that spot usually by her coyote. Walking back from the drop point Steve took us to a grave sight for a young El Salvadorian girl who had died in the desert a year before. They found her with a broken leg, lying with her feet in a small pool. Her younger brother had been with her and was forced to leave her with the group or face the same fate as she did by staying behind. He had made it and his parents called authorities for a search of the desert but it was not in time. We all stood in silence and paid our respects.
It was almost sundown once again so we headed back to camp for another delicious dinner. Then we said goodbye to Steve, who was leaving in the morning and hit the hay, exhausted and cold.