The
wheezing of the harmonica threads its way through the light mesh of my tent.
The rain fly is still damp from last night’s deluge. It will soon be dry
as the sun rises over the mountains a dozen miles from the Arizona/Sonora border
and heats the dusty earth into the 90s and 100s. The smell of cowboy coffee and
simmering onions wafts through the semi-permanent but precariously mended
structures of Byrd Camp: the half dozen campers with varying degrees of rust
and rot, the sturdy boxed and canned food shed, the open-sided cooking and
dishwashing tents, the canvas covered MASH-look-alike medical tent where nine
travelers sleep on cots and rest blistered feet, the dining and lounging area
with long picnic tables and benches and a couple of worn recliners neatly
littered with stacks of magazines. It is quiet save for the bird songs and the Spanish
and English intermingling in the still cool air. Soft laughing or dusty coughs
from the numerous fabric tents on the periphery of the camp punctuate the
sleepy murmuring. The vast stretches of hills and mountains around us are
radiant greens and deep reds in the early morning light, the occasional window
of a ranch house reflecting sharp white heat.
The
harmonica-playing volunteer has started our breakfast, started our day with
caffeine and protein, eggs scrambled into peppers, onions, beans, or any
leftovers from the vegetarian meal the night before. Scooped into tortillas and
washed down with ground-rich coffee, we will be ready to hike, navigate,
bushwhack as we drop off water jugs, food, and socks along the trails for as
long as daylight allows. We congregate around the propane burners and picnic
tables and talk about the day’s tasks ahead.
There
will be three patrols: The first will do “drops” spending much of the day in one of the burly trucks to
navigate through washes and up and down rain rutted hills. Gallon jugs of water
will be positioned at waypoints usually less than a half a mile from the road-
close enough for our convenience but far enough from the Border Patrol
accessible roads to provide a modicum of safety for travelers. Another team will
go on a moderate seven-mile hike to drop water and food at more remote
waypoints along a previously well-used migrant trail. The third team will be
hiking all day, probably ten or so miles with some “topographical features” (AKA mountains and canyons) primarily
looking for migrants that may have been left behind by their group due to
injury or sickness or speed. Water jugs will be left at points along the way if
supplies are low.
Each
patrol should have among its two to five people a Spanish speaker (not
necessarily fluent but with enough Spanish to communicate the basics) and someone
medically trained (a Wilderness First Responder or EMT-Basic is ideal but not
always available within the small volunteer pool, so we do what we can). The
rest of the group usually has at least a basic grasp of both Spanish and
elementary first aid. At first this lack of formal skills made me feel
unprepared; how could we help with such limited training? But we are not
Doctors Without Borders or the Red Cross. We are simply people wanting to help
other people in the middle of the desert. Whatever skills, passion, supplies we
can bring, it is more than if we weren’t here at all. At least this
is what I tell myself to keep from feeling utterly helpless out here.
There
will also be two or three people who will “hold down” Camp and tend to those in the medical tent who need
assistance. They will welcome any more travelers who may arrive during the day
that may be suffering from scorpion stings to severe dehydration to debilitating
blisters to exhaustion. If they have time and enough people, the home team will
also do any chores that the camp needs, like mending tent roofs after windy
monsoon storms or filling up water containers in the closest town of Arivaca or
cleaning out the solar powered fridge.
The
travelers in Camp will have a chance to rest and eat and drink before moving on
the following day (or take more than a couple of days if their health is
severely compromised). Moving on as quickly as possible is encouraged as,
though rare, Camp is not immune to raids by Border Patrol. The land is private
and technically off limits, but BP has come onto the property in the past
stating that they were following footprints of suspected undocumented persons. Laws
tend to be blurry out here. With helicopters and fighter jets screaming
overhead and the threat of BP surveillance and possible apprehension of persons
near the property, the Camp is constantly vacillating between feeling like a
war zone and an invisible bubble of safety.
We make
our peanut butter sandwiches and fill our canteens before loading up the four-wheel-drive
trucks with crates of gallon water jugs, Ziplocs full of high-carb food, bags
of dry socks and medical supplies, plus our backpacks for carrying it all.
Laminated topographical maps and portable GPSs, sunscreen and hats, granola
bars and water bottles get shoved into pockets and clipped to bags. Oil and
fuel levels, wiring, tires, duct-taped hoods are checked before we jump in the
cab or pile into the back of the trucks and head out. It is 8am and we will
meet back at camp by six or seven.
I have
picked the water dropping patrol. I am in a group of four. To pass the half
hour it will take to get to the first drop waypoint we brush up on our
Spanish with flashcards that C. brought along. “Meatballs!” I shout when O. reads off “Albondigas.” My Spanish speaking skills are pretty dire when it comes
to anything but food, but put me in a market in Central America and I can ask
for just about any fruit or veggie I need or order off a menu with relative
confidence. Which doesn’t really help me help anyone
in the middle of the Sonoran desert, but luckily there are several competent
Spanish speakers in the truck. What do I have to offer? Remnants of knowledge
from my EMT training ten years ago and a strong back to haul multiple gallons
of water miles on end. And a bag of cashews. And a loud laugh.
We reach
our first waypoint and tumble out of the cab, stretching our legs and arms
after the bumpy 30-minute ride. I’m still sore from yesterday’s eight-mile hike over steep, overgrown terrain, but I know
walking the trails will loosen me up. We fan out and find the trail relatively
easily then load up packs and empty hands with our supplies. The GPS says the
waypoint is only .2 miles away so we take much heavier loads than we would if
we were hiking all day. Down a mesquite-covered hill and into a dry stony creek-bed,
then up through smatterings of cholla cactus and over rusty red earth.
We find
the waypoint: a crate of untouched water jugs surrounded by a dozen empties.
They’ve been used! A five-gallon
bucket sits overturned and bare inside. It is bittersweet to find a site like
this. It is encouraging that the supplies are being found, hopefully by
travelers. It is encouraging that the jugs are intact and haven’t been slashed. (By Border Patrol. Or ranchers. Although the
former is more likely as they have been caught on tape destroying water jugs.)
It is encouraging that the food and socks in the bucket have been taken. Yet it
is accompanied by the discouraging feeling that somehow we are not doing
enough. What if there were 16 people in a group and only three packets of food?
Did they get enough water? How long would the water they could carry last
anyway? How is it possible that there are people in the desert desperate enough
to make this journey with so little and that they are forced to travel through
a place so remote and treacherous that they have to rely on fucking Nature
Valley granola bars positioned in the middle of the fucking desert by a bunch
of punk/anarchist/hippie/activist good Samaritans? And why do we need to be
labeled as such “on the fringe of society” individuals for wanting to make a fucking difference?
(Sigh.
Breath. Continue.)
We write “Agua Pura” (pure water), “Buena Suerte!” (good luck), “Hasta un mundo
sin fronteras” (until a world without
borders), and draw hearts and smiley faces on the jugs. I rarely draw hearts on
anything in earnest these days, but out here the sentimentality of such a
symbol rings more genuine than anywhere else.
We record
what we found and what we are leaving and head back to the truck to find the
other eleven drops. Some sites are as easy to find, some take us twenty minutes
to locate with the GPS leading the charge. Some are well used, some untouched. There
is one remote site that is totally empty except for one blue plastic shred from
a water bottle cap. How long ago was the last volunteer group here to drop? The
record says a month ago but wouldn’t there still be remnants if
that was the case? Were the jugs and bucket taken by BP? Or were the supplies
well used? Has anyone come by who needed water and couldn’t find any?
We’ll never know. That is the reality out here. As much as we
can speculate each step of the way, we won’t know the story attached to
each hand that lifted a water jug to their lips. We won’t know who or how many passed this spot this week, month,
year, or even an hour before. On these trails, people don’t want to be found. Oftentimes the only trace of humanity
is an oxidized can or blown out sneaker rotting next to the packed earth of the
trail.
We eat
our sandwiches under the sparsely leafed trees next to the road. Once the
calories and hydration are absorbed we speak of lives at home (waiting tables,
going to classes, surfing) that seem irrelevant out here among the thousands of
miles of trails. We laugh at bad jokes (What does the hippie say when you try
to kick him out of your house? Namaste.) and puzzle over drawn out riddles and relate
traveling stories as we finish the rest of the drops, the sun sinking down to
touch the jagged edge of the Baboquivaris.
Peppers, okra, and onions that some of us helped
harvest the day before from the Arivaca Community Garden simmer in a huge pot
in the Camp kitchen tent. Moths swarm around kerosene lanterns and volunteers
sit talking with travelers at the long wooden tables. B. is practicing her
Spanish with the flashcards now and asks P. to help her pronounce nouns
(granjero = farmer) and eerily relevant verbs in the infinitive (viajar = to
travel). We anxiously glance over towards a circle of chairs where several
volunteers and a couple of travelers perch. One man is leaning back, leg
propped up, a blanket covering his muscular arms. He was supposed to leave with
the group of five men heading out after dinner, but he won’t be going anywhere
tonight. Earlier that afternoon D. was finding a place to piss on the periphery
of camp, as we all do (there is a bucket with a seat over it for taking a shit-
the buckets fill up quickly with twenty people in camp and even more quickly if
we all pee into it too, so it is encouraged to #1 elsewhere). He made his way into
the shrubs and bushes of appropriately named “Rattlesnake Ridge,” just a
hundred yards from my tent, where he met a rattler shin to fangs. Contact.
D., a firefighter and paramedic at home, had
traveled for two months from Central America to reach the border. He saw a
friend shot and killed by the Cartel. He saw another man cut in half by a train.
He had crossed the border and walked for days to make it to Camp. And at the “safe-haven”
of Camp, perhaps only days from “making it,” he was bitten by a rattlesnake. He
immediately refused evacuation to a hospital for the anti-venom that could save
his life. After discussing the options, the more experienced volunteers made a
deal with him: they circled the bite marks with a sharpie. D. agreed that if
swelling increased and other signs of envenomation presented themselves, the
volunteers could take him to a hospital where he would most likely be
apprehended, processed, possibly incarcerated, and inevitably deported after
his life is saved. But until then he would wait to see if his bite got worse. Volunteers
set up a schedule to take his vitals every hour during the evening and night. Everyone
is tense.
The realities of the desert come rushing in. That
could have been any of us but it happened to be a man who cannot simply call
911 and have an ambulance meet up with the truck in Arivaca without severe
life-changing consequences. This man is literally risking his life today on the
chance that he can keep walking (and that with no guarantee of safe passage) tomorrow.
The privilege we volunteers have is painfully
clear.
We inhale our veggies and tortillas, beans and
salad after our long days on the trail or caretaking at Camp. Everyone is tired
but hyperaware of all that is happening. On other nights we have sat in a
circle and shared thoughts and feelings about the events of the day. Sometimes
it involves laughing, sometimes crying. It is a safe(r) space for all of the
swirling emotions that accumulate like tangled brush in the washes during the
desert floods. On other nights we have sat around the campfire and sung songs
in Spanish and English, “Jolene” or “Como Quisiera” rising with the smoke from
burning cardboard boxes and mesquite branches. On other nights, when the Camp
has not been filled with travelers, we have ambled back into our tents without
the fragility of life weighing so palpably on our psyches.
After dinner the group of five travelers sling on
their tiny backpacks filled with granola bars, tortillas, cans of beans. I hear
that M. had a full bottle of cologne in his pack and smile with the thought of
the “necessities” that make us human. He hugs me in a cloud of spice and pine
and wishes me “Buena suerte!” His high pitched laughter had filled the camp for
two days and even those folks that were initially put off by his energy and
compulsive smile were charmed by the end of his stay. He and I had attempted
conversation over the picnic tables over many meals but our lack of language
skills reduced us to laughter most of the time. Connection. His spirit buoyed the
volunteers and the rest of the group of travelers (strangers before the
journey), even if they playfully called him loco. I wish him “Buena suerte” back
and he continues his rounds, thanking every volunteer in Camp. The other men do
the same with hugs, handshakes, and kind words. We stand in the pooling light
of the kitchen tent as they walk into the darkness of the brush-lined trail to
the north. It is surreal to watch them disappear into the night. Would they
make it? They swore that they would stick together, that they wouldn’t leave
anyone behind. But what if they were “dusted” and scattered by a Border Patrol
helicopter? What if someone was injured or stung by a deadly scorpion or bitten
by another rattler? Would they still stay together? How long would the rest of
their journey be? Days? Weeks? Would we ever know if any of them would make it?
We stare at the spot where they disappear through the brush until the yawns
begin to leap frog through our dusty and tangle-haired group.
Our day is over. I climb into my sleeping bag and
dream of cactus, of water jugs, of freedom. I want to wake up to a day where
this sort of work isn’t necessary, where this sort of privilege is irrelevant,
where there is not fear and pain and desperation with every blistered step.
I may be naïve, overly optimistic, foolish. But
at least I (we) am doing something out here in the beautiful, tragic, life-giving
and life-taking desert where the invisible wander, work, and dream every day.
