La Caravana de Migrantes

I aspire to be one of the helpers Mr. Rogers’ mom told him to look for.  I’m not a firefighter, a paramedic, or a full-time helper, but I try to help when I can.  For the past few weeks we’ve been hearing talk of a caravan of migrants headed toward us, as they make their way toward the Mexico-US border.  We didn’t know when or where they would arrive, or what they would need, but I thought we’d have a little time to prepare.  It didn’t turn out that way.

One of my challenges is that I like to know exactly what the plan is, or to have enough information to make a plan.  When I heard that the caravan needed socks, socks, and more socks, my brain immediately started questioning the logistics.  What size socks?  What if everyone brings socks and there is no food or water?  What if we bring socks and people are wearing flip-flops?  Organizing is one of my strong suits, but it can also be my downfall.

Before I go any further, I want to address the elephant in the room – especially since there will likely be friends and family reading this who do not share my political views.  While I certainly have my opinions about politics and immigration, my involvement in the relief efforts is not a political statement.  I’m not going to argue or defend my position.  For me, this was a humanitarian effort, not unlike assisting any other group of displaced people in need.  Thousands of people were without the basic necessities, and I had the means to fill some of those needs.  If you want to talk politics, I’m happy to do that over a glass of wine.

Last week, I went to the screening of a documentary called The Only Home I Know, which profiles 6 “Dreamers” who are living in the US.  After the video was shown, our friend Rebecca – a US immigration attorney – was asked to answer questions for the group of maybe 150ish people.  As I watched her standing there, fielding questions about the current immigration situation and what the caravan would be facing at the border, I was touched by not only her expertise on the topic, but also the depth of her commitment to the people seeking asylum in the US.

I had taken Rebecca with me a few months ago when I met a young Honduran couple that was preparing to sleep on the street with their two adorable little girls.  I could understand what the family needed – blankets, hats, food, and a request from the girls – Barbies, but I knew that trying to convince them not to continue to the US border was beyond my current Spanish abilities.  Rebecca talked with them and confirmed the mother’s fears that children were being separated from their families at the border.  We gave them what we could, supplies and money for bus fare, as well as the address of the safe house in Celaya.  I hope they did not attempt to cross into the US, but we will never know.

So, back to last weekend.  On Saturday afternoon I saw a Facebook post from Rebecca telling friends in SMA that the time to help was at that moment – the caravan was streaming into a stadium in Queretaro – about an hour away from San Miguel de Allende.  Although my first instinct was to jump in, we were totally unprepared.  We had no supplies, and I was on my way to the campo to drop off kids that I would have to pick up again in a few hours.  After trading messages with our friend Trish, we decided to help at the caravan’s next stop, Irapuato.

Trish and her husband Dick are a force to be reckoned with.  They – like many, MANY members of the over-70 crowd here in San Miguel, work tirelessly to improve the lives of others.  Actually, I’m sure they’re exhausted, but they just keep moving forward.  They are role models for living life to the fullest, and using the available resources to make a difference.  I hope that when I’m retired and my kids no longer need me to check their homework and drive them to soccer practice, I’ll be able to do great work like Trish and Dick, and all of the amazing examples I see around me.

Here they are!

 

When Trish asked me to drive to Irapuato, I have to admit, I felt some trepidation.  In San Miguel we live in a bit of a bubble.  During daylight hours (and occasionally at night), I can expand that bubble to Queretaro, Celaya, and Dolores Hidalgo, but Irapuato isn’t really within my normal comfort zone.  But how could I complain about the dangers of driving an hour and a half into unknown territory, when the thousands of people in the caravan – men, women, children, babies – are braving untold dangers every single day as they trek thousands of miles to the north?  Plus, Trish and Dick were going!  If I’m going to grow up to be like them, it’s time to start working on it!

Enter my good friend CC, who immediately offered to go to Irapuato with me, while our friend Poppy cheered us on from her sickbed, despondent that she couldn’t come along.  Trish has raised thousands of dollars to help the caravan through a GoFundMe campaign, and between the money she set aside for me, and donations from Poppy and several other friends, CC and I had a budget of $1,500-$2,000 US to spend.  But what to spend it on?  We had some suggestions from people who had been to Queretaro to help the day before, including Rebecca, who was there with 3 other American lawyers offering advice to the caravan.  I had to silence the “what-ifs” (what if we bring the wrong stuff?), and forge ahead.

On Sunday morning, I picked CC up at 10 and we headed to the UU service to grab some donations from members who had pulled together clothes, shoes, and other supplies at a moment’s notice.  From there we filled the gas tank, stopped at the ATM to take out as much cash as it would give me (16,000 pesos), and headed to the tianguis – which is like a big flea market that sells everything from prepared food to new and used clothes to parakeets and electronics.  In less than an hour we had wheeled and dealed to purchase 72 pairs of socks, a giant pile of hats and scarves, 10 pairs of used sneakers, and 14 fleece jackets.

Our next stop was the local grocery store – La Comer, where we bought 8 umbrella strollers, baby food and wipes, sanitary napkins, yoga mats, backpacks, medicine, all of the rain ponchos they had on the shelf, and a lot of small fleece blankets.  We knew that the weather forecast for the next few days called for temperatures in the 40’s (F).  Then it was off to Celaya, where we stopped at Home Depot for tarps and rope to make tents or to use instead of sleeping directly on the ground.  We grabbed dinner at Subway for the legal team, and made a final stop at Costco for protein bars, foil packets of tuna, pain reliever, and lollipops.  We hadn’t spent our entire budget, but we were running out of car space and it was now about 3 p.m. so we had to leave for Irapuato and save the rest of the money for the next wave of people.

 

Irapuato was about an hour’s drive from Celaya, and as we entered town we started to encounter people walking, asking the passing cars for food, water, and pesos.  We were blindly following a pin called “Rebecca’s Location,” where we found Rebecca and her team with her beloved 1985 VW Westfalia named Wesley, which had become a gathering spot and charging station (you can read about the past travels of Rebecca’s family and Wesley here).  We pulled into the dusty parking lot that was filled with vehicles and hundreds of Central Americans, as well as many of our SMA friends (you know who you are) attempting to distribute supplies in some sort of organized manner.  CC and I weren’t sure where to begin.

We were immediately approached by a few men who were desperate to know if we had shoes that would fit them.  I was struck by the migrants’ feet – a shocking number of people were wearing flip-flops, plastic slides, and in some cases – no shoes at all.  Some wore sneakers or other shoes, most of which had seen better days.  They were clearly not dressed like backpackers setting off on a journey covering thousands of miles and at least 3 countries.  Imagine that you woke up one morning, threw a few belongings into your kid’s school bag, grabbed whatever cash was in the house ($20?  $100?), and walked out the door carrying your baby in your arms.  Your husband has your 2-year-old on his shoulders.  You’re pregnant.  You don’t know where you’re headed or how you’ll get there, but you trust God to get you to your destination safely.  Traveling with others is safer than traveling alone, and safer than staying at home.  You’re willing to risk it all to make it to the US border and apply for asylum, for an opportunity to get a job – any job, and hope that your kids can go to school in relative safety.

CC and I grabbed some protein bars and tuna pouches from the car and walked around offering them to whoever was interested.  The tuna pouches were unfamiliar to them and there was a definite preference for sweets.  We got a little more comfortable and started to offer some of the larger things from the car.  A crowd quickly formed, and I jumped inside to hand things out, while CC held down the fort outside.  For the most part, people were patient and respectful, calling us “madre” (mother) or “tia” (aunt), and asking for specific things that they needed.  At one point a police officer came over to help get people to line up, but none of the police or soldiers interfered much with the goings-on.

One thing I noticed was that no one seemed to be hoarding food or supplies – they took what they needed at that moment.  They didn’t just take for the sake of taking – as far as I could tell, they weren’t grabbing things to trade or barter with.  Considering that none of them had any idea where their next meal would come from, I don’t know how they were able to keep their survival instincts in check and share the bounty.  It was a relief when we had given away most of the larger items and things calmed down a bit.  We were able to chat with some of the people hanging around the car, and with our friends who had also given away what they had.

I am a very emotional person – it’s a curse.  I empathically feel the emotions of people near me, and my desire to help means that it hurts when I can’t fulfill a need.  Looking back, I’m surprised that I didn’t cry all day.  The closest I came was when a few mothers asked if we had “carritos” (umbrella strollers) and I had to tell them that they were gone.  They were disappointed but resigned to the fact that they would have to carry their children again the next day.  If we had been there earlier I would have made a second run to buy more strollers, buckets of lip balm and cough drops, more tarps, more sneakers, underwear, and small boxes of milk and juice.  One little boy asked if we had any toys.  Oy – my heart.

CC and I finally headed back to San Miguel – about an hour and a half away.  We were exhausted and hungry, but it was impossible to complain in comparison to the thousands of people camped out for the night.  The next morning they would break camp at 5 a.m. and try to catch rides in the backs of trucks or on top of flatbeds loaded with cargo, and head to their next stop – Guadalajara.

This is my account of one day – a teeny drop in the bucket.  Here are a few links if you’d like to learn more about the migration from Central America:

• Is the migrant caravan an invasion?
• Migrant caravan moves to western Mexico city of Guadalajara
• The story behind the photo of the little girl crying in the migrant caravan
• In the migrant caravan, a teen traveling without his parents faces an agonizing choice
• Sin Nombre – There are some especially tough parts of this movie, but it’s worth watching.

Thank you to all who donated funds for us to shop with on Sunday.  I will let everyone know if/when there is another opportunity to help.  Whenever you can, whatever your cause, wherever you are, whoever your people are, be a helper.

More photos taken by Zélie Pollon: