At the Comedor
We stepped hesitantly across the dusty street, warming already at 7:30 in the morning. Bypassing the line on the side of the road, we climbed a few steps into shady coolness provided by a tarp awning. Our guide said hello to the whirlwind of a woman behind a makeshift counter who was frying eggs, warming tortillas, cooking beans. Men and women shuffled slowly through the assembly line of breakfast, offering quiet thanks and moving purposefully to find a seat at one of the tables or couches randomly placed under the tent of the comedor, an oasis of compassion in the border town of Nogales, Mexico.
The hum of conversation flowed around us as we stood, out of place persons among persons without a place. Desiring to hear their stories, Gene LeFebvre and I moved into a circle of couches to introduce ourselves and learn about the paths that brought these hungry folk to the Catholic Church – run comedor, penniless and rejected, but not without hope. We had just come from the actual border station on the Mexican side of the wall, walking easily from our van across the border and south a few blocks to the eating spot; a straightforward journey for us but a militarized Grand Canyon for our fellow diners.
As I perched on the arm of a couch where three slender individuals sat, they hastily moved over to make room for me and one, a handsome young man, hospitably waved me into a seat. Via a jumbled Spanglish greeting we learned that his name was Roberto, his young wife, Julia. Their seatmate was an acquaintance of the Nogales sidewalk, where they had slept the past few nights.
I reassured the three of them of our intent. “We are from a church, an iglesia, in Colorado, and we came to Nogales to meet people and learn your stories.”
“Did you walk here from Colorado?” asked Roberto in broken English.
“No, no,” I said. “We took an airplane to Tucson and drove down across the border. Did you walk here yourself?”
“We walked part of the way,” he said. “We walked across the desert at night but la migra found us and bused us back yesterday. They took our money and our backpacks so we are here in Nogales with nothing,” and he shrugged his shoulders.
Roberto told me that six weeks ago he would have smelled the aroma of tortillas over Julia’s mother’s fire in the family home in Chihuahua, Mexico. I asked how they came to the Comedor.
Julia just shook her head, momentarily closing her eyes. Her eyelids may have registered stern faces of the Border Patrol agents who had found her and Roberto huddled under the shade of prickly mesquite trees in the border country not ten miles from where we now sat. Roberto and Julia had stumbled on blistered feet to the bus and suffered a day and night in the crowded detention center before the Border Patrol dropped them off – without their savings or possessions - just across the border.
Roberto continued their short history, of how work was impossible to find in their village in Chihuahua. He had tried every day for six months to find work without success. Julia worked whenever she could, cleaning houses for $7 a day, but a week’s worth of work (each day for 12 hours) only brought in enough money to pay for milk and diapers for their little boy. He suffered from a lack of additional food and adequate shelter; future school attendance seemed impossible. As with many poor countries, Mexican school is not subsidized by the state and each student must pay for a uniform and for books and other supplies. Roberto and Julia felt they had no choice but to leave their families to find work in the States.
“Do you have children?” concluded Roberto, looking at me.
“Yes, we have three. One, our youngest son, was adopted from Guatemala.”
“If you would like another,” he said in Spanish, “he could adopt my wife. She looks young enough to be his daughter,” and he gestured at Gene, who smiled good-naturedly but looked to me for a translation.
After a quick laugh he replied, “I may be old enough, but I would have a lot of explaining to do.”
“She is 19,” said Roberto. “I am 21 and our boy is 2 years old.”
It hurt to even imagine leaving such a young child. “Where is your son?” I asked.
“He is with my parents.” Julia’s voice was quiet. “I want my son to go to school when he is five. We will need money for books and a uniform. He must go or he will have this same life.” Her hand gestured widely, capturing the comedor, its guests, and their exhaustion.
“My only dream is for my son.” She looked down. “Right now they do not even know if we are alive. We cannot call them without money for a phone card.”
I translated with difficulty and our small group sat quiet, helpless to change her situation. Roberto put a dusty arm around her shoulders. The interview seemed over; we had nothing to offer them but our heartfelt sympathy and a list of places where they might find help in Nogales – agencies that might donate a phone card, Grupo Beta offices that may be able to provide transportation for part of the way back to their home. We had no way of knowing if they would attempt the desert crossing again, or what decision they might come to in this hostile no-man’s land so far away from their home, so far away from their dream.
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