Watch my movie!

Okay, I'm not very tech savvy, so you'll have to copy and paste the link to the left. But it's a real movie of Jason and I in New York! I am excited to make a Washington, DC movie next... hey, they can only get better right?

Reflections

It's hard to believe that just two weeks ago I was hiking migrant trails in the middle of the desert, lugging around gallons of water, and searching the ground intently for any sign of footprints... As removed as I am from that now, it still seems very close. I am continually reflecting back on moments, events, people, and places that stand out from the two weeks I spent down there. I don't think a day has gone by that I haven't thought about the man from Honduras who we helped at the aid station in Nogales my last day. He had walked for 15 days and the bottoms of his feet had become giant blisters that had burst and were in the process of peeling. He was just getting ready to start the journey across the U.S./Mexico border. For some reason, I always connect him with Dad in my mind... and it breaks my heart to think of someone I love so much forced into a situation like that. I also think a lot about Kevin, a 12-year-old street kid who was living at the aid station and who was definitely the most affectionate child of his age I've ever met. I wonder if he is still there and if not, who is looking out for him. I think about the time we were circled by a Border Patrol helicopter while hiking the trails, and how we laughed and hoped we were distracting them from the real migrants. It really concretized for me how arbitrary privilege is - that because I happened to have light skin and a U.S. passport I "belonged," and being in the desert wasn't a life and death matter for me. I remember the time we ran into a couple of Border Patrol trucks and the group of migrants they had just apprehended. They turned down our offer of food or water, ("They're in good shape," the agent told us) and even volunteered that they had "been catching a lot of 'em up here lately," (as if we were talking about some kind of animal).

These are just a very few of the memories that come to mind from my border experience... It was a very profound couple of weeks. I feel like it really reaffirmed and perhaps shaped in some ways the direction that I hope to go with my graduate work. We will see!

From My Basement Home

It is so wonderful to finally have a space to call my own and to come home to... I love my cozy little basement! It feels as if I have been scrubbing non-stop since I moved in, and it is starting to feel like I really live here. It is in the most convenient location ever - I can be in the heart of downtown in under 20 minutes, yet the neighborhood is very calm (and beautiful, lots of trees and well-kept gardens). I am also only 3 blocks from Friendship Heights, which is an extremely fancy shopping district (think Neiman Marcus and J. Crew).
Today I did lots of shopping - of the grocery and thrift store variety - as well as went to a Mass downtown at the Cathedral in memorial of the Peruvian earthquake victims. I love the Cathedral, St. Matthew's, and I think it is going to be my parish.
I am so excited to finally begin classes next week! I have already been asked if I was a freshman (by another student on campus, who looked horrified when I told her I was actually a grad student!)... My classes are 'Human Rights in Latin America,' 'Global Political Economy,' and 'The Americas in Comparative Perspective.' Don't they just sound captivating?
Well, I hope to have some pictures of my new habitation to post before long, but for now you will just have to imagine its coziness. You can picture me sitting here, all the way across the country, sipping chamomile tea from my new green thrift shop mug, listening to Bach cello suites and thinking of all of you...

I'm Here!!!

Yes, folks, here I am at last, in our nation's lovely capital - my home for the next two years... I am currently eating saltine crackers and sipping watered-down pink lemonade from the vending machine. This hostel is like 8 stories high and the only people I've heard speaking English so far have thick British or Scottish accents (Kate, think 'Monarch of the Glen'!). Very neat. I was so proud of myself that today I navigated the Metro (with transfers!) across town to this area called Colombia Heights where I am thinking about living. I also failed to find the Cathedral for 5:30 Mass, but we'll just focus on the postives :-)

From the Tucson Airport

*Note* While I wrote this entry at the Tucson Airport yesterday, I didn't have internet access, which is why I am just posting it now.

Well, it has been two weeks already, and the next leg of my journey is about to begin. I am at the Tucson Airport, trying not to think about how sick I feel (I woke up really nauseous, who knows why) and hoping I get an aisle seat on the plane so I don't have to keep climbing over my seatmates to get to the bathroom :-)
I spent the last couple of days at NMD's humanitarian aid station on the Mexico side of the border. It was a lot of waiting around, interspersed by periods of total chaos when buses of deportees were dropped of, needing food, water, medical attention and various other things. I don't know exactly how many people came through each day, but definitely in the hundreds.
It was a pretty emotionally intense experience. One of the things I did was complete human rights abuse documention for folks who had been through some very rough stuff. I also washed feet, handed out food and water, listened to people's stories, and even walked around a bit in Nogales, Mexico.
All in all, it has been an amazing couple of weeks. I have learned a great deal about the reality of the “Borderlands” as they call them and met some very good people. I really came to love the desert, something I never would have forseen happening. It is a beautiful, but deadly place, as the stories of so many people I met attest to. I am planning on posting more of these reflections and stories over the next few weeks...
Love you all!!!

From the Arivaca Library

A very quick greeting from the Arivaca Library, where we have stopped on our way to afternoon patrol. It is over 100 degrees and even the shade is stifling. I met my first migrant out here this week, Jesus, a 20-year-old father of three from Guanajuato, Mexico. He stayed in camp and rested a few days before continuing his journey northward. I also had my first encounter with border patrol agents the day before yesterday. It was not fun... but more about that later... Off to the trails :-)

From the Sonoran Desert

The road to and from camp.

Hello from Camp Arivaca, about 20 miles north of the border in the middle of the Sonoran desert. Actually, I am in Tucson today with Jason and his Dad, and will be heading back to the desert later on today. It has been lovely to have a day to eat ice cream, swim in a swimming pool, take a shower and sit on a real toilet...
All in all, it has been a fantastic week. I have yet to encounter a migrant while on patrol, but that's good because it means people are doing okay and we aren't having to help anyone in really bad shape. The desert is incredibly beautiful; I've never seen so much sky at once that I can remember. There are huge lightning storms almost every day, and since it is monsoon season, lots rain as well.
A typical day out here consists of getting up at 5:30, having breakfast and planning out the patrol routes for the morning, driving a few miles out to our trailhead (with everyone crammed in the back of 'the Roja,' the big red pick-up that is camp's main vehicle) and splitting into groups to walk the different migrant trails, equipped with food packs, medical packs, clean socks, and lots of water which we leave at points along the trails. We get back for lunch, rest a few hours during the hottest part of the day, and then do the same thing again in the afternoon, on different trails. Life in the camp is really fun, everyone pitches in with cleaning, cooking, etc. and there are always great conversations (or card games, as it may be!) going on. Tarantula hunts have been a popular evening pastime, though I have yet to see even one. Among the creatures I have been lucky enough to see are a Gila monster, two rattlesnakes (one huge one I nearly walked into and one baby), ENORMOUS jackrabbits, cottontails, tons of cows (they wander into camp), a scorpion, a dead horned toad, vultures, white-tailed deer, and lots of lizards.