I arrived at the camp at Arivaca on Sunday evening, clean and fresh, and somewhat prepared for the heat after the weekend riding mountain bikes on the migrant trails. We ate dinner and discussed the plans for the following day. There was supposed to be 19 tons of bottled water delivered to the pedestrian port in Nogales Arizona/Sonora, very close to the office where it would be stored in Mexico. This was meant to be easier than driving it through in loads, as had been done last year.

The water never showed up, so 14 people went over to the Mariposa port to see the repatriated migrant station that NMD & the Sonoran Commision for Aid to Migrants share responsibility for. A border agent on the U.S. side stopped us all as we went to cross the road at the crosswalk on a busy industrial freeway. No, we couldn't go that way... we had to cross through the turnstile in the U.S. port structure. The Mexicans have no port structure of course, just a rickety gate that is never closed. Steve argued with the man that it was much safer to cross at the crosswalk. But the other was the official entry and we were advised to use it. Was he saying that we *must* walk through that way? Yes, he said, we were compelled to use the U.S. entrance. OK then, Steve started off towards the structure. No, he had to wait, the officer was not finished with us yet. We were basically under inspection. Basically? Yes, we were under inspection. Ok then, what do you want us to do? We could leave if we wanted to. I explained that we were with No More Deaths and going to the migrant repat station. He already knew. Ok then, can we go? Finally he led us back to the structure. We only stayed a short time and then headed back through. The same officer was there, but didn't see the fellow standing at the adjacent turnstile checking our I.D.s. I stopped on the other side and waited for the others. Suddenly, officer dickwad comes over. "You can't just walk through you know. You have to wait." Crikey, what now? Then I realized that he couldn't see. I said we had already been cleared and pointed. He conceded. I was tempted to say, "You know, I'm really sorry about your penis, but please don't waste our time."

We returned to camp and waited for the afternoon patrol. It is true that the heat in Arizona is dry, but at 110F (44C) it is still very dangerous. One volunteer from Minnesota was already vomiting on the first night, and both of them ended up leaving after 2 days. You can sit in the shade and drink cool water, but your skin is still hot. The sweat dries very quickly everywhere except where you are sitting or your beltline, or under your backpack if you are walking. Sometimes you don't even experience yourself sweating because it is dry before you are aware it is there. But you can never escape the heat out there. In the city you have AC or swamp coolers, but there is no electricity in camp. The best you can do is improvise by wetting down your shirt or spraying water on your skin. We sat around the table, talking and drinking copious amounts of electrolytes until 3 or 4, when the afternoon patrol goes out. (click on title for more)

We drove on terrible dirt roads in a 4WD truck out to a point indicated on the GPS. We grabbed our camelbacks, gallon jugs of water, and backpacks with food, small water bottles and medical kits and headed out on a trail. Nothing grows over about 6 or 7 feet tall. Whether you call it a tree or a shrub, it has only tiny leaves and casts very little shade. Most things have sharp spines that can draw blood if you merely brush past them. The ground is dusty rose-beige with fist sized rocks. Anything facing the sun is too hot to touch let alone sit on. Metal inflicts serious burns in seconds. We mapped a few GPS points and called out to the seemingly empty hillsides. "Hola companeros! Que no tengan miedo, somos de la iglesia. Tenemos agua y comida y atencion medical." Hello friends! Don't be afraid, we are from the church. We have water and food and medical aid. Ok, I'm an athiest, but I understand the logic that it helps them to believe that we are not border patrol. Evidence for that logic was given by a first hand source, however I don't dare tell the story here until such time as humanitarian aid can't be considered a crime in the U.S.

I took this picture on the 4th of July... the irony was too much.

Geoff's greeting to the migrants is in a conversational tone, as opposed to mine, which is more of a call out, as loud as I can manage without straining. He says things like, 'we're here to help you, nothing more, if you need help, shout out, you can trust us'. I think a combination of the two would be an ideal greeting. Cyril, the camp coordinator, is leaving for Vermont this week. We joked that he could go for hikes in the wilderness for a vacation. He would be waking up at 5 am and heading out amongst the pines, looking for Canadians in distress and shouting 'Bon jour mon ami!'.

I slept on a cot under a garage tent that was open on both ends. It creaked and rustled in the breeze. As I drifted off to sleep, I heard something rustling a little more intently not far from my head. I looked around the corner of the stack of cots to see the sillhouette of a coatimundi sticking his head into a plastic bin of backpacks filled with food for migrants.

In the morning, I awoke before sunrise. Xylem was making coffee in the trailer. I wandered down the path to the "bathroom", which is neither a room, nor a bath. It is a semi-secluded spot with tarps strung from the trees and about a dozen 5 gallon buckets, one of which has a snap-on toilet seat. There is also a bucket with toilet paper, baby wipes, and hand sanitizer. Another holds leaves and soil for sprinkling on the finished product. I walked back to the kitchen area and washed my hands out of a blue 'aquatainer'. The aquatainers are filled every other day up at one of the neighbors' well. There is also a freezer in a shed which is used to freeze bottles of water and keep in a large cooler with perishable foods.

I had a stale croissant with my coffee. I slathered my vulnerable bits with sunscreen and filled my camelback. At about 6:30 a.m., we headed off in the red truck to the next trail. On the trails, we looked for fresh footprints and trash. The trash is mostly water bottles, electrolyte bottles, and RedBull cans. The coyotes give RedBull to the people lagging in the back. This may speed them up for an hour or so, but then I imagine they must crash hard from the caffeine, sugar and futher dehydration. Many are left behind by their group because they can't walk fast enough due to blisters and/or fatigue. We encountered a migrant limping alongside Arivaca Rd. on the way out to camp. He had been lost for 7 days. He was a fit young man, so he had survived, but he wanted us to call Border Patrol. He was giving up.

Even if you find a road to surrender yourself to the tender mercies of the two-week veterans of BP, they may not stop for you if they think you are beyond help... since you're not a threat, you are not worthy of their attention. If you can't find a road, you may try to find some shade, sit down and wait to die, as was Margarita when a NMD patrol found her. Elsewhere, in Ironwood, a woman who had been left behind was found dead. Even so, people were relieved that she was found before the coyotes and vultures got to her. A gruesome incident from the previous year is recounted often. A woman died in her son's arms. Her son made it home and sent his grandfather, the girl's father, to look for her body. When he found her, she had no face. He only identified her by a ring on her finger, which was found with her arm 50 yards away.

At times I could forget these haunting facts and enjoy a nice, stinkin' hot walk in nature. But around every corner was a reminder or 50 that I was far from alone out there. They estimate that about 1200 - 1500 people cross the border every day, and it takes 3-4 days to get to Tucson, so there could be as many as 6000 people in the desert on a busy night. It is eerie to be walking and know that when you shout out, there *are* people who can hear you, but choose not to respond. And yet, there is only the sound of the breeze if you are lucky enough to have one, military jets headed for Iraq, and the occasional cow, suffering in the heat, trying to find something edible amongst the cactus and thorns.

The migrants often fill their bottles with cattle water. The water sits in damm/ned pools called 'tanks' When the water dries up, they are muddy at the bottom and cows get stuck. They die there because it is impossible to bring a tractor into the rugged terrain. One can only hope that the farmer finds them and shoots them in the head so they die quickly. But they then rot there, and when the rains come, the pool fills up and covers the carcasses. Drinking this water causes vomiting and diarrhea.

By mid week the monsoons were giving us hints of what was to come. A couple of 5 minute storms instructed us in how to cover everything with tarps, and make sure our stuff was somewhere dry before we left on patrol. Then on the last patrol, it let loose. Three of us were walking on a trail that goes over the ridgetop of some low hills. We noticed thunder in the distance. We watched for lighting as we walked and counted the seconds between flash and rumble. 25... 19... 2. Geoff started running downhill and we both followed. Soon, fat drops of rain began to fall, faster and faster until we were all thoroughly soaked. The dust turned to mud. We walked along the wash in a downpour. It stopped for 10 minutes or so, but then opened up again. We made it back to camp and dried off, but the rain kept going, on and off, nearly all night. When the sun set, we could see all the lightning. There must have been thousands of flashes. 2 or 3 every second, some closer than others. The wind shook the tents and the garage tents creaked and groaned against their lashings. I stood under one of them and watched the show, imagining what it would be like to be out there with nothing to hide under. If Margarita had not been found, she would have been sitting on that hillside, with lightning striking all around, soaked to the bone, cold, shaking, miserable.

Margarita was lucky. We brought her back to the camp and called 911. BORSTAR, the search and rescue arm of BP came out and took her in his truck to the Arivaca Fire Dept. where an ambulance was waiting for her. They loaded her inside and hooked her up to the equipment and a bag of IV fluids. Kate and I spoke with the EMT's and tried to advocate for her that she needed to go to the hospital. He thought she was lying. He thought she looked too good to have been out in the desert for 10 days. She can rest in Mexico just as well as at St. Mary's in Tucson, he said. I told him that there was nowhere for her to rest there. He questioned how I knew this. I said that I worked at the port before. Then she can go home he said. But she's from Guerrero, a 20+ hour bus ride away. Where is that? he asked... Guerrero, the State of Guerrero... my voice was rising. Kate gestured for me to settle down. I listened for a moment longer and then went back to the truck to wait. I told Cyril that it looked like they were going to hand her over to BP to be deported. He said that it should be reported that they considered her condition serious enough to give her IV fluids but not enough to send her to hospital. He walked over to where Kate was standing in the back of the ambulance and I momentarily lost control and wept. All that work, and we had merely handed her over to the bigotted green uniform waiting to make her into a 3 time loser for the benefit of Wackenhut shareholders. I felt awful. Cyril came back and tried to explain that we had no choice, that we couldn't do that thing that we all wanted so badly to do. I nodded. I understood, but the tears still threatened. Cyril went back over to Kate and returned shortly. Good news, they were going to call the helicopter afterall. The relief was there, but I was exhausted and couldn't/shouldn't shout out with joy. Such a small victory in an ocean of misery. She would be safe for a little while longer, and maybe she would be allowed to go on her way after being treated, but maybe not.

I can't think of a good way to end this, because it just keeps going. I left Sunday morning and slept for 12 hours. But 10 more volunteers went out to camp and continue to search, assist, and be horrified at what they see.