Our busy day in Nogales.
Today we met with an interesting array of people. First we met with Alberto Morackis who is an artist who makes murals and sculptures on the border wall in Nogales. Alberto had a gentle and thickly bearded face (which stood out, because we have seen very few men with full beards) and he is of Greek heritage. His art, which he has put up with the cooperation of the city of Nogales, Sonora, and with funding from an arts organization in Arizona, depicts the perils of crossing the desert. After our session with Roberto, we got some time in Nogales to shop and eat lunch. It was very “interesting”. The shopkeepers were very involved in our shopping experience and would do anything to get us to make a purchase. Shots of tequila, drugs, and women were offered just with the purchase of an item. It was hilarious. There were also little children trying to vendor small goodies on the street. At first when we started walking around Nogales I felt a little nervous because I had never seen shop keepers offer just about anything to get you to make a purchase, but after a few minutes I relaxed and found it even slightly amusing, the things we got offered. I (Hannah) felt really sad when ever I saw these little children selling things. These were children ranging from about four and up, having to sell things on street corners to try and make money for their families. Life shouldn’t have to be like that. After that, we met with Teresa Leal at the border wall to put up new crosses with the names of those who died attempting to cross the desert in the U.S. Teresa was quite the character, sporting bright red lipstick and wearing a super psychedelic tie-dye T-shirt under a dress coat. Her dedication to human rights and activism toward border issues was off the charts. It was quite an experience. I was very moved by the sheer amount of people who have died looking for a better life in the United States. Many of us were climbing on the wall attaching crosses high up on the “ramparts” in a sense, with many locales looking curiously at us. It was hard for me (Hannah) at first to grasp that each of the crosses represented a person when we were just looking at the wall. Once I started to help re-write the names of people who had died (there was some old cross there on which them names were very fades) though, I started to think about how each of these people was a mother, father, brother, sister, cousin or what ever member of a family. They each had a life, maybe a job, education or house. These were people just trying to make a better life for themselves and there family, and then here they are being represented by a cross because they died in our country or trying to get to our country. To me it just doesn’t seem right that these people should have to choose between staying at home and watching their family starve or most likely dying trying to cross the desert. The whole experience for me was very intense. (Dan) I felt the same way as Hannah, but there were also people on the list that were “unknowns” who were unidentified people who died attempting to cross the desert. This really made me think of how terrible it would be to die and have no one know that you died… dying nameless… Once we were out of crosses, we paid our respects and went to the vans. With Teresa guiding us, we took a tour of Nogales and saw many disturbing things and many more impoverished areas were revealed to us. Teresa is very passionate about helping other people. I was just amazed by how she puts so much effort and time into everything she does to try and make the lives of others better when she has so little herself. She just seems so grateful to be alive and be able to help people. She wants to make the border issues known to everyone. By putting up crosses on the wall, not only is it representing the individual people who have died crossing, its showing people how many people have died, and that’s not even everyone. Also with the tour, she wanted to make it known how some of these people have to live. They live in small shacks that are falling apart, some of them out of toxic materials, because they are not able to afford better housing. Seeing these things on the tour made me (Hannah) really grateful for all the things I have at home and with me. Seeing some of these houses and other places though also made me feel almost ashamed. I own so many things and I always have enough to eat and a warm place to stay and here are these people that have next to nothing. We have more belongings with us on this trip than some people own all together. The tour made me really begin to think about how things came about this way, how we as Americans have so much, and these people here in parts of Mexico have so little. Finally the tour ended and the final stage of the day came. We prepared ourselves for a night of home stays in a colonia—a squatter settlement of cinder block homes in various stages of completion built on dusty hillsides.. I (Hannah) was kind of nervous at first because my Spanish isn’t that great. That nervous feeling left me right away. Our host mother was so kind to us and she was patient as we tried to talk to her and understand her. All the host families were so kind to be willing to share what little they have with us. The house I stayed in was tiny with two rooms. To us it looked like a little shack maybe, but once you were inside it was cozy and filled with love and happiness, and it didn’t matter what it looked like. There was a little girl of about two, Maria Jose, who lived there and she just laughed and played the whole time we were there. Here eyes were shining the whole time. There were groups of 3-5 in each house and we all ate marvelous food and got warm beds. It was enlightening to stay in one of these poor areas of town, but it wasn’t bad at all really. The houses were very pleasant and the people were amazing. The food was great and we all slept well. Overall it was a very busy day, but I learned a lot and I imagine my peers did as well. Dan & Hannah A.
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