aqui hay amor

letter to my representative

2011-09-26T12:07:00.000-07:00

I just found this in some of my old files, it's a letter I wrote to my representative about immigration reform in June of 2009. Everything I wrote then is still true today two years later, so I thought I'd post it.

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This week some members of Congress are going to meet with President Obama to discuss reforming our immigration system. I think is a meeting that is long overdue, this is an incredibly important issue that has been pushed aside for years and it's time we address it as a nation.

The current system, as much our immigration laws as our trade policy that is creating legions of economic refugees, is broken and we need comprehensive reform to fix it.

Our trade policy, namely the implementation of NAFTA and pressuring Mexico to adopt other neoliberal trade policies, has caused migration from agricultural sectors of Mexico to the U.S. The elimination of tariffs on exports to Mexico meant that agribusiness can now dump their heavily subsidized corn Mexican markets at below the cost of production, essentially eliminating the competition and forcing Mexican corn farmers (who cannot compete with mechanized and subsidized corn production) to migrate to the cities and to the U.S.

The same year that NAFTA went into effect, the U.S. government tightened border security because we knew what the consequences would be. If we truly want to address immigration issues, we have to look at the root of the problem. People aren't coming to the U.S. because they want to, they come because they have to, they have no choice. It's time our government lives up to our democratic ideals and implement trade policies that protect small farmers and local economies, not giant agribusiness.

In addition to addressing the root causes of migration, we need to address immigration law in the country. The current laws we have that govern immigration into the U.S. are ridiculous. They do not reflect the realities or the history of this country. We rely on immigrant labor and our economy would completely collapse without it. We currently have no way for the labor that we rely on to enter this country legally. The worker visa programs are outdated and not comprehensive, and thus, ineffective.

There are also millions of people living here who are an integral part of our society and contribute to our cultural heritage who are undocumented. This is their home, but at any moment they could be deported to a country they have never known. We need laws to make it possible for people to regularize their status and not have to live in fear.

In addition, under our current law it is impossible for someone without means and a secure situation in their home country to come to the U.S., either for tourism or to work. Those economic refugees who come, come because they are desperate and will cross by any means necessary to provide for their families. There is literally no way for them to come legally to this country. We need to change that.

I love this country and I hope that my representatives will do everything in their power to ensure that we are living out the ideals that the U.S. was founded on. We are a country of immigrants and it's time we recognize that and move forward. Thank you.

mas fotos!

2011-07-28T16:14:00.000-07:00

OMG! It's a customs agency! I got a kick out of this sign, clearly OMG doesn't mean the same thing in Spanish

Pool party at summer camp! We inflated this pool at a tire place on the way to the summer camp that Nolo and a few of his friends run and then drove with it on top of the car, holding on to it with our arms through the windows. Thankfully we didn't have to go very far.

Just a nice view

The students attacked Nolo and dragged him into the pool, you can sort of see him in the middle there

Dusk on the plaza in front of the Cultural Center

fotos!

2011-07-27T23:20:00.001-07:00

The washing machine at HEPAC broke so we had to wash sheets the old-fashioned way. I pretended I was making wine

Nogales has some beautiful sunsets, I often catch them when I'm leaving my yoga class

Beautiful sunset numero dos

Nolo's street - Calle Mediterraneo - though the closest body of water would be the swimming pool at the city rec center

Jeannette's daughter Rebeka and I found the most adorable kitten at HEPAC and we played with it all morning. It really liked plain yogurt! Someone cruelly decided to take it home with them, so we snapped this photo before it was out of our lives forever.

This is what happens to the roads in Nogales when it rains - there's quite a few roads that are built in washes so all the water flows down from the hills and turns them into rivers. Exciting, and unfortunate to drive in

All the public buses in Nogales are old school buses from the U.S. I was in one the other day that still had the "How to keep your bus privileges" sticker on the front of it. Examples of what NOT to do: throw your gum on the floor, stand on the seats, yell loudly.

The view from Nolo's car. This is the neighborhood where his Dad lives and where Nolo grew up.

The view from HEPAC, BorderLinks' sister organization in Nogales, Sonora. It is located in a neighborhood called "Bella Vista" or "Beautiful view". Definitely true to its name.

Another example of the Nogales floods. The white car is crossing the wash, and we are about to - I was worried we might get carried away by the current. Yikes!

That's all for now, buenas noches!

truenos

2011-07-25T16:17:00.000-07:00

Hello again my adoring fans (all 3 of you? Not sure how many people read this). Nolo’s brother is watching a movie so we’ll see how well I manage to pay attention to typing and not get distracted. I keep craning my neck to see, and it’s in English so it’s harder to block out.

Let’s see, what’s new? Today I signed up for a month of yoga classes at this place called “Yoga Center” –It seems like in Nogales when you want to make something cool and attractive you name it something in English. The day I went to the first yoga class there I also stopped by a place called “Snap Gym” to see about their classes – they had “Body Pump,” “Body Core,” etc. It’s hard to tell sometimes whether they are using the English word because there is no Spanish version, or just because we’re on the border and everything is all mixed together. One of my friends and coworkers, Jeannette, says that the border is a third country. It’s not quite Mexico, and it’s not quite the U.S. On either side of the wall.

I just finished this novel called “Into the Beautiful North” (recommended to me by none other than the beautiful Nancy McKibben) about this group of girls from Sinaloa, Mexico who want to cross the border to recruit men to bring back to their hometown, which, because of out-migration to the U.S., consists almost entirely of elderly people, women, and children. I digress. The point is that the girls have a hard time understanding all the people they meet in Tijuana because border Spanish is so different from the way people talk in the interior. The funniest thing for me was that I understood every word. That’s what three years on the border will do to you – I just hope I don’t forget the real Spanish word for things like “lonche” and “troca” (lunch, and truck, just in case you couldn’t guess.)

I’ve been here for a week and a half already, the time is flying. I’ve been keeping busy, the days seem to pass although I don’t have as much to do as I usually do in Tucson. In the mornings I work, on the projects for HEPAC (I’ll post with more explanation soon) and also getting ready for a trip I have this weekend with an International Health class from the U of A, and my trip to Ohio at the end of August. In the afternoon we eat lunch at home. The menu varies but there’s always beans and tortillas – yum! In the evenings I take drop Nolo off at the Cultural Center for his Aerial Dance class that he teaches, and I go to yoga. Well I’ve only been three times, but I love it. It’s always hot here so I was joking with one of the other women in the class yesterday that it’s like that super trendy hot yoga, just cheaper because they don’t have to pay to heat the room.

It’s been raining a lot, it’s a relief to be out of Tucson because Tucson in July and August is kind of miserable. It’s been cloudy here, cool, last night there was a very loud thunderstorm that kept waking me up and making all the dogs in the neighborhood freak out. I’ve been kind of sick the last two days and I haven’t slept well, so I keep getting up in the night to get water or just sit on the couch and feel depressed about not being able to just fall asleep! So frustrating. On one of my trips downstairs I woke up Nolo’s brother and he asked me what the sound was outside. “Un trueno” (thunder) I said. “Un tren?” (train) he said. “Nooo, truen-o” – “Un tren!?” “TRUENO!” – He never understood what I was saying, I finally realized he wasn’t fully awake. But he said this morning that when he heard a loud crack of thunder after that and he thought “Oh yes, the train.”

(Can you say that? Crack of thunder?)

Well I’m off to bed, I have to work in the morning and I’m headed to Tucson tomorrow to get ready for the trip. I’m not thrilled to go stand in line and take the shuttle and all the crap that one has to do to cross the border and get to Tucson, but it’ll be nice to see everyone and I’m going salsa dancing tomorrow, woohoo!

Buenas noches!

semi-new furniture

2011-07-12T15:25:00.001-07:00

Today I saw a sign for a little store near Nolo's house that was called "Muebles seminuevos - La Frontera" - "BorderLands Semi-new Furniture." I stood for a second thinking about that sign. "Semi-new"? I was trying to remember if we have similar stores in the U.S., when I realized of course we do! We just call them something else. You might think of it as the glass half empty version - "Used Furniture."

Ha! Later that day I saw a sign for Semi-new cars as well. I can't believe I've never noticed that they use that term. As the daughter of an author (and, ahem, grammar stickler - what other kind of person would pull out the dictionary at dinner?) I always notice and find great amusement in poorly written signs, grammatically suspect announcements, awkward translations, etc. But after 3 years here on the border this is the first time I've seen "semi-new" - I think we could learn a little something from Mexico here, I mean doesn't it sound much more attractive to buy a "semi-new dress" or a "semi-new toaster"? Even a "semi-new toothbrush" or "semi-new underwear" doesn't sound half bad. Semi-new everything! Who wants new when you can have semi-new? Semi-new is the new black. I mean, the semi-new black.

Okay I'm done with my semi-new rant. Now that I've written "semi-new" eight thousand times it's starting to look very strange to me. Time to move on.

Nolo and the other members of their theater company, "La Pirinola" (The Spinning Top), are having a meeting at his house and so I've been listening to them in Spanish and trying to write in English. It is surprisingly not that difficult, but I wonder what is going on in my brain that I'm able to process two languages at the same time, and compartmentalize them so they don't get mixed up. I suppose it's like doing simultaneous interpretation, which is listening to the speaker, waiting a phrase, and then repeating it in the second language to the person you are interpreting for. When I first starting doing it it was exhausting and slightly terrifying, because the possibility for errors is high.

One of the first times that I did simultaneous interpretation from English to Spanish was for an event, and the speaker was talking about a passage in the Old Testament. It's already difficult to translate the bible, and this passage unfortunately spent a few verses talking about testicles. In the moment, the only translation of this particular word that came to my mind was "huevos," which is the Spanish equivalent of "nuts." Everyone liked that one, I'm sure. Since then I've had a lot more practice, and it doesn't scare me anymore. Now it's more like a challenge, and I enjoy it immensely. Woohoo bilingual-ism! (A symptom of being bilingual is that you forgot lots of words in your native language, and make up new ones.)

Well the chamacos are done with their meeting, so I'm going to go and hang out for a while. Tomorrow I head to Tucson for some meetings and to see the midnight show of Harry Potter!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I'm very, very excited. Yes, I'm a nerd. And yes, I will draw a lightening bolt on my forehead. And it will be amazing.

Buenas noches!

nogalitos, aqui estoy

2011-07-10T21:25:00.000-07:00

Thus begins my month long stint in Nogales, Sonora, MX. I drove down from Tucson yesterday with Katie, and she helped me carry my stuff across the border so she got to meet Nolo and his mom and have lunch with us. Maria (Nolo's mom) made us the very traditional Mexican lunch of spaghetti with tomato sauce, pinto beans, and pico de gallo salsa. Right before we sat down to eat she tried to send Nolo to buy corn tortillas to go with the meal, but we convinced her they weren't necessary. It's kind of hilarious to eat non-Mexican food in Mexico, it always has its own little twist. We didn't just eat spaghetti with marinera sauce, we had spaghetti a la mexicana, complete with corn and carrots and something that resembled green beans in the sauce, and salsa on the side. Katie, who lived in Nicaragua for two years in the Peace Corps, commented that it was just like something she would have eaten there. Though she said that one time she had spaghetti accompanied by bread AND tortillas. Not exactly a balanced meal.

When I was crossing the border yesterday with all my stuff, we passed the U.S. Customs agents who are there checking folks going into Mexico. Supposedly they are looking for guns and money - they often ask if I am traveling with more than $10,000 - of course I am! It's important to be prepared for anything. I always want to make some joke about that but I'm afraid they would accuse me of questioning their authority and put me in some windowless room for 20 minutes (that has happened to me). So I usually hold my tongue. But yesterday they just asked where I was going with all my stuff, and I told them I was going to be living in Nogales for a month - "Why on earth would you want to do that?" he replied. Apparently Nogales is not very popular among customs agents (or anyone really for that matter). Well I happen to actually like Nogales, and the people the live here, so here I am, hoping to help HEPAC with some development and fundraising work, and not be in a long distance relationship for the first time in two years. Today I hung some clothes up in the closet in Nolo's house, it'll be nice not to have to live out of a backpack or a suitcase like I usually do.

As soon as a I get a cable back that I left at Carrie's house, I'll be able to put photos up on this blog. That should be later this week - until then, you'll just have to enjoy the simple beauty of the black and white text and whatever default font I'm using. Isn't it breathtaking?

Didn't do anything particularly interesting today, just tried to relax. Nolo is super busy during the week with classes and this summer camp that he is running so we'll be taking it easy on the weekends. He wants to learn how to swim so I'm going to try to teach him a few things at the pool next week. I don't think I've ever been to a public pool in Mexico, so that will be an adventure. I'll let you know how it goes.

We did go to the grocery store this afternoon, to buy food for the rest of the week. Nolo and his mom don't eat very much meat, so that's been great for me. I'm not a vegetarian, but I only eat meat approximately once a month, so going from that to eating it every day would be an unpleasant change. We bought mostly fruits and veggies, I noticed (cause I'm a weirdo foodie and I always check these things) that a lot of the fruit (cantelope, apples, kiwis, etc.) comes from the U.S. Just another reminder that we live on the border. Someone told me (and I'm not certain this is true) that the produce that is brought up from Mexico to Nogales, AZ that isn't good enough for the U.S. market gets sent back and sold in the supermarkets in Nogales, Sonora. I'm so used to being here that I don't think about it all the time, but every once in a while I stop and compare the produce here with the produce in the food co-op, or Sunflower Market, and the difference is striking.

Speaking of striking differences, I'm headed back to Tucson this Thursday for a meeting and to see the last Harry Potter (yay!) and I think I'm going to stop at the Farmer's Market and buy some tomatoes so Nolo and his mom can try them. I think they'll be very pleasantly surprised... Oh man I would eat like 3 lbs of homegrown tomatoes every day if I could. Oh maybe I'll make them BLTs... Delicious! I also brought some fresh ground peanut butter, mostly for myself because I can't live without peanut butter, and I think Nolo is officially addicted because he's been eating it by the spoonful all day.

Which reminds me, I could go for some peanut butter right now...

I promise I'm going to write more this month! I'll have all kinds of time.

Goodnight!

some random pictures that i forgot to publish like 3 months ago

2011-04-21T12:11:00.000-07:00

I love you, old cow skull! - in Alamos, Sonora visiting a budding organic farm

Our gracious hosts in Alamos (plus a cousin or two - actually only one I just counted) - John and Sandra and Joaquinito the bebe

At the office doing some calisthenics. We look comfortable but we're not! Thighs are burning...

The main plaza in Alamos, Sonora - one of the most beautiful towns I've seen in the state of Sonora - Margi, Nolo and I went for a Film Festival and to see John and Sandra's farm and it was an excellent adventure

P.S. These pictures are in no particular order, obviously...

visitors

2011-03-26T23:47:00.001-07:00

Maddy and Holly eating macedonias (ice cream thing explained in earlier blog)

Even though I told everyone not to come visit me in March because that's the busiest time of the year for BorderLinks, I had quite a few visitors this month. To be fair, Maddy and Holly came at the end of February, and I told them to come then anyway, but it still seemed like we were busy then too. I guess everyone wants to come to Arizona right now because the weather is near perfect. After living here for a couple of years I check the weather probably once every three months. You can pretty much count on the fact that it will be warm and sunny and dry. None of that 40 degrees one day 75 the next kind of midwest craziness. Although, poor Holly and Madeline came to visit in one of the rare freak cold spells, it was windy and cloudy and rainy. Still warm, by Ohio/Michigan standards, but I felt bad, like it was my fault the weather wasn't cooperating. All Holly wanted was to bask in the sun, and I couldn't even give her that. I'm a terrible host...

My backyard!

Back of the house

Front of the house!

ANYway, Holly and Madeline visited and it was a magical and joyous occasion, it was great fun to show them around Tucson (even though Holly has already been here, but I think she hung out in the ritzier parts of town) and take them to Mexico! Maddy arrived a day before Holly and I took her hiking and for some burritos at one of my favorite places to get Mexican food this side of the border. It's a curious thing about Mexican restaurants in Tucson. You would think that being so close it would be easy to get authentic Mexican food all over the place, but for some reason it still tastes really different. Something in the air maybe? The water? I don't know, but it's just not as good. Or at least it never tastes quite right. But Mexican Fo, as we call it because the "od" on the neon sign is burnt out, has amazing burritos made with tortillas the size of a bike tire. The secret is in the lard.

Holly and I being awkward in front of Sno Cones Sonora

The day Holly arrived I had a bunch of my salsa dancing friends over to dance and hang out and celebrate Cruz's birthday. It was fun to show off my moves and teach Holl and Maddy how to dance. My salsa friends are all really nice and welcoming so even if you've never danced a day in your life they are happy to show you a thing or two. I'm working on learning how to lead a little bit so I can teach my female friends how to dance. So far I know how to lead one turn and I have to count very carefully in order to execute it properly. Makes me feel for the guys who have to be the ones to decide what to do and when, it's probably a lot of pressure. But they can't complain, really, after all we are the ones who have to give birth. Maybe those two seem unrelated, but it makes sense to me.

ANYway, we danced, we laughed, we cried (that part might not be true), we had a great time. There's some videos, but I don't currently have access to them. I'll try to find it and post it. The next day we headed to Mexico! We stopped and did some hiking on the way there, I accidentally took them to a mountain that had snow on it and then felt bad because it was cold up there. We laughed a lot on the way up, I think the thin air was getting to us. Holly narrated our journey, making ominous comments like "the wind blew colder as they climbed. They had no idea what was waiting for them at the top..." - or "Madeline coughed, and it echoed in the canyon like the howl of a coyote" (I'm taking a lot of liberties with these because I can't remember exactly what she said, but it was hilarious. Mom would have been proud).

In Maddy's rental car about to embark on our journey

On the I-19 headed south to Mexico!

Old Baldy Trail seemed like the best option

We made it back!

We finally made it back down and headed to Nogales! This was the part I was most looking forward to, even though I go to Nogales all the time. Since so few of my friends and family have actually met Nolo, it's always exciting for me to have the chance to introduce him to the people I love. I was thinking today we've been together for 1.5 years and he's never met 90% of the people I care about. It's crazy! We picked him up from the cultural center and headed to his house where his mom had made us dinner. Tacos de tinga (tinga is a shredded chicken thing that's delicious) with homemade salsa and all the fixings. So tasty! His mom is the best, she's always so welcoming and she leaves sweet notes on the table for us in the morning when she leaves for work reminding us to eat and enjoy our day. After that Nolo and I took Maddy and Holly to Salon Regis, which is one of the oldest bars in Nogies (pet name for Nogales). Usually it's not that busy but for some reason it was packed, and mostly with men, and there was kareoke happening in one corner. We miraculously found a table and had fun people watching. Salon Regis attracts some interesting characters. My friend Ivan described it to me once, he said "You see all kinds of people there! Old, young, men, women, business people, drunks, students, prostitutes..." Not entirely accurate, but funny nonetheless. We drank Indio, my favorite Mexican beer that you can't find anywhere in the U.S., and watched the kareoke dude work the crowd. We saw some impressive mullets (popular in Mexico), drew some stares (one hippie Mexican dude + three attractive girls from the U.S. = not something very common in Nogales) and played a game Holly taught us called "circle square".

At Salon Regis drinking some Indio

I smell good

Los tres

Well it's getting late and I'm tired so I'll finish the rest later. Un abrazote fuerte para todos!

fun times in Mexico

2011-03-13T13:17:00.000-07:00

More Photos!

Nolo playing with some kids at the wedding - this little girl and her brother have been at a Quinciñera and a Christmas party that we've gone too and they remember us every time. Probably because we're the only adults ("adults" I should say...) that pay attention to them.

Gigantic Tortas! And fast food. And me, before my friend Amaranta's wedding

Me and Bodo (thats a nickname, don't worry) getting ready to walk down the aisle. My friend got married in a presbyterian church in Nogales, Mexico called Sol de Justicia (sun of justice). My job as a bridesmaid was to hand her the bible during the ceremony. And wear a pretty dress, that's pretty much all I did.

The hills and houses of Nogies. Dad expressed that it "looks like San Franscisco!" Nolo got a kick out of that.

A hill by my friend's house that I made Nolo climb with me once - people don't hike too much in Nogales, so I'm pretty sure he thought I was being weird

The view from Nolo's dad's house

On the way to the border from Mexico - You can either go downtown or into the U.S.

People out in the street for the Day of the Revolution Parade - If you look closely you can see firefighters doing acrobatics on their truck in the background. Pretty run of the mill for Mexican parades, apparently.

BorderLinks sister organization HEPAC represents at the parade

Giant pole of cotten candy? Delicious! Here they just call it "cotton" (algodón)

Mary Cruz and her granddaughter Sol Angel - Mary Cruz is on the HEPAC staff and is part of our binational team

We found a giant chess board at the Cultural Center - It's almost like wizards chess, only they don't knock you out when you lose.

titles are hard

2011-03-12T18:42:00.000-08:00

These photos are kind of old but I don't think anyone has seen them yet- Enjoy!

Sometimes the sunset looks like this

Anna during her visit in September and Nolo with the Falcon, the oldest and most awesome car ever - no radio, a/c, heater, power windows - but it does have amazing green and yellow velour seats

Macedonia - ice cream and shaved ice with mango, strawberries, peaches, and pineapple topped with sweetened condensed milk. A Tucson classic!

The view from Gate's Pass, one of my favorite places to go and watch the sunset

This baby cholla cactus is posing as a saguaro!

Inside the rainwater harvesting cistern before we installed it

Jumping for joy in Cascabel before the mesquite milling and mesquite pancake breakfast - yum!

Anna and I reunited in Tucson :)

I think for lent I'll try to write in this blog instead of wasting my time on facebook. I'm going to stop using it for a while, partly because it has become creepy, partly because mark zuckerburg is a jerk, and partly because I spend way too much time there doing nothing. 10 minutes looking at wedding photos from someone I haven't seen for 5 years? Why not? So, if you want to get in touch with me, try email or just call me. And I'll try to put photos here so people can see what I'm doing. Finn-a-blog and McKenya have inspired me to write more. I look forward to reading those posts every day, and I'd like everyone to have a better idea of what it is I spend my time doing out here, so I'll try my best.

It's been a busy weekend, my friend Lilli (who used to work with me at BorderLinks) was in town from North Carolina was in town so we went out dancing, spent the day in Nogies (Nogales, affectionately) had a brunch, and had a generally awesome time. She was my partner in crime when she lived here, we always went out dancing together and we always joked that we were basically the same person, since we had studied similar things, studied abroad in Mexico at the exact time, both love Spanish, etc. We drove down to Nogales for the day and spent some time at HEPAC (Hogar de Esperanza y Paz- Home of Hope and Peace) which is our sister organization in Mexico. While BorderLinks Tucson is home to the delegations, HEPAC is actually a community center in a neighborhood in Nogales. It's a wonderful place, they have adult education classes, a lunch program for local kids, a women's jewelry co-op, a playground, summer camps, etc. It's amazing what they can do with so little resources, and it's encouraging to see a place that is trying to provide opportunity and education for the community so that people don't have to migrate and can make it in their home country.

I spent a lot of time there a few summers ago, I initially went down to teach a computer and English class to one of my coworkers, Mary Cruz (dad, this is the woman's house that we visited in the neighborhood with dirt roads). It was part of my attempt to make more friends in Mexico and spend more time there, because even though we are a binational organization, the Tucson staff in general doesn't seem to go to Mexico unless it's for work. And since I love Mexico, and wanted to improve my Spanish and Mary Cruz wanted some help with computer and English, it worked out perfectly. I went down a few times for a week at a time, and when Mary Cruz asked me if I wanted to come down and help out with the summer camp that the Cultural Center was hosting at HEPAC, I was more than happy for another reason to stay in Nogales for a week. It was there that I actually met Nolo, who is a literature teacher at the Cultural Center. I didn't end up helping with his classes at any point (he didn't need any help :), I mostly sat in on the acrobatics and dance classes, trying not to get in they way.

Thinking back on it, I'm not sure that I was useful to any of the teachers, but it was nice of them to let me be there. I probably looked ridiculous in the folkloric dance class, this giant gringa in a big group of elementary and middle school Mexican students. Oh well.... It's healthy to make a fool of yourself every once in a while. Or often...

ANYway, at the end of the camp session, all of the teachers ended up going out to kareoke with us and that's when I actually got a chance to talk to Nolo. I don't remember what we talked about, but I was excited to meet someone my age in Nogales. Up until then, all my friends were about 15-20 years older than me. Which is fine, but I was curious about what 20-somethings do in that city. What I really remember about that night is someone sang the song "Matador", and Nolo's friend and coworker Martin (who is the acrobatics and juggling teacher - he taught me to walk on stilts! But that's another story...) and I acted out a bull and bullfighter routine. I was the bullfighter, I believe. Excellent times.

Bueno... This is probably a chronologically confusing post, maybe I should just stick with the last 7 months and go from there. I just feel like there's so much that I leave out when I talk to friends and family at home, and I wonder how much everyone knows.

In an hour or so I'm headed to a coworker's birthday party, she's going to be 25 like me. She and her housemate Ali are year-long volunteers at BorderLinks and they are wonderful. Ali has been my mentee for the Sustainable Food Program which I coordinate, so she helps cook and take care of the garden and do presentations and activities about food systems and migration. She's great, and it's been fun to mentor her, I hope I'm doing a good job. Being in a supervisory position, even though it's really informal, has definitely made me think differently about work dynamics. I do not envy the job of a director or CEO, managing the personalities of many different people and trying to get work done is probably exhausting. People are so complicated. And I think my office is relatively drama-free and I work with the nicest and most compassionate people ever, so I can only imagine what it's like elsewhere. Yikes... I may not make that much money, but I think I get paid back in other ways.

I should get ready. Right now all I want to do is curl up with Harry Potter y el caliz de fuego (Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire - I decided to read all the books again in Spanish) and drink tea. But the party calls. Adios!

Susy

it's been a long time coming

2011-03-12T13:38:00.001-08:00

(me and my roommates at our housewarming party)

I promised Grandmother that I would start writing in my blog again, so here I am, trying to keep that promise.

I'm currently sitting at my desk at work, but don't worry I'm not working on a Saturday (although we do that quite frequently at BorderLinks). There's a guy who works with Latino youth in Indianapolis (maybe he knows Carrie!) in town and he sent me an email before he came because he wants to hear more about our Sustainable Futures Program that we have here. The work they do in Indy is all about empowering Latino youth and community organizing, and they also talk about food systems and eating local, so I think we'll have a lot to talk about. In the meantime, I'll try to give a brief update of my life in the past 7 months.

Life is good. I feel blessed to be alive, have a job I enjoy, a great community of friends in Tucson and Nogales, an amazing boyfriend, and a wonderful family. My only complaint is that I live so far from the family, but I guess that's my own fault.

Work has been busy the past two weeks, but somehow March seems more calm than in past years even though our staff is so small right now. This last group of students that I led on a delegation was great, they were enthusiastic and excited to be here, and they were allowed to cross into Mexico, which I appreciated.

I've been thinking a lot lately about perceptions of violence and danger or insecurity, because telling people I live on the border or that I go to Mexico a lot always raises some questions. I can understand why people think it's so dangerous, if all I knew of the border was what I saw on TV and in the newspapers I would be terrified. I never hear any good news about Mexico, it's always some shooting or another or some beheaded drug trafficker or another. It is gruesome what is happening among the drug cartels, but that doesn't define the entire country. People seem to forget that Mexico is a big place, with as much geographic and cultural diversity as the U.S. People hear news reports about a shooting in Ciudad Juarez and get nervous about coming to Nogales. That's like avoiding travel to Columbus because something bad happens in Chicago.

I don't want anyone to think I don't recognize or know about what is going on with the drug cartels, but I'm tired of all the fear mongering that goes on. I wonder if the people reporting on these places have ever even traveled there. My day to day experience in Nogales in the past 2.5 years in no way reflects what comes out in the news, so what do I believe? I have a general suspicion of mainstream media anyway, and it worries me that an entire nation of people is going to have this very narrow understanding of Mexico, and especially what is going on there right now.

It's all well and good to talk about stopping drug trafficking across the border, but why is the conversation always limited to talking about the Mexico side of things? Who consumes these drugs? Who pays for them? Who sells the weapons to the cartels? If the only efforts to solve this go into interdiction, we're fighting a losing battle. I went to a lecture at the University of Arizona recently and a guest professor from the Woodrow Wilson Center in DC said that drug prevention and rehabilitation programs in the U.S. are 7 times more effective at stemming the flow of drugs than interdiction efforts (trying to intervene with the cartels and confiscate the drugs themselves). Why isn't this kind of information in the mainstream media?

Anyway, I'll get off my soapbox now. I'm just tired of all the bad information that is out there, and the ineffective and costly efforts of politicians to fight this "war on drugs". I don't see any of them down here, on a BorderLinks trip, trying to figure out all the complexities and economic factors of the issue. If any of you know any politicians, send them our way! :)

Okay I promise the next post will be more about my day to day life. But I think about this stuff every day, so it's definitely a part of it.

Love to all!

Sus

food glorious food

2010-07-22T11:34:00.000-07:00

(Lilli and I at the wedding in Puebla)

yummmmm Merida. The weather since I arrived has been kind of crappy but the food and the company are amazing :) Carolina's family is spoiling me, I've been here less than 2 days and I've already had panuchos AND cochinita pibil. It is so wonderful to them, I can't believe it's been 3 years since I've been here. It seems like so much has changed and at the same time we're all the same. It's comforting, in a way.

So I haven't written in a while. For some reason I thought I would have lots of chances to write while traveling but it turns out my computer sessions have been few and far between. Which is good, really, because why spend time on the computer while I'm here? No good reason. Except that I do like to record my travels, and I like to share my experiences with others. Okay, two good reasons.

Let's see, where did I leave off? I can't even remember. I guess I wrote a week ago when I was sick and stuck in Karina's apartment. Holy crap, I only made it to the first Friday I was in D.F. I am so slow. I always say I'll summarize, but I never quite manage. Okay here goes another attempt:

In Mexico City we went to Frida's house, hung out in Coyoacan (where her Blue House is) ate lunch in a Mercado. They have this awesome thing called "comida corrida" where you pay a certain amount (usually incredibly cheap) and you get a three course meal, including drinks and desserts. We paid 45 pesos (less than 4 dollars) and got soup, rice, beans, enchiladas suizas, dessert, and agua de melon (cantelope juice). It was good we hadn't eaten all day because otherwise I never would have managed to finish it. But I did, and the dessert was gelatina (jello) which is Lilli's favorite. I've never met anyone who loved Jello so much. Actually I don't think I've ever met anyone who feels strongly one way or the other about Jello. Except Lilli, she loves it. It was really good, actually. Little squares in some kind of creamy something. Different colors too.

Oops. spent a paragraph talking about food. Okay that night we went with Karina and Uriel out to a bar called La Pata Negra which is where the cool kids hang out, apparently. They have live music and play cumbia, bachata, salsa, rock, un poco de todo. We got there a little too late to see the live music and actually I think they had moved on from the cumbia salsa vein into the super random mix which included a lot of songs in English, including one really stupid one that I thought was Hannah Montana, and it made me laugh to see a bunch of super stylish 20 somethings rocking out to a 13 year old. Turns out it was a song by Katy Perry, but it was still a dumb song. Anyway, we had a great time dancing with Karina and Uriel and the random dudes that came along and tried to put the moves on us. Karina and Uriel were joking afterwards that it was like watching baseball, because we were batting them away and they just kept coming. We weren't being mean, some of them were just arrogant and annoying. There's this very unfortunate and common misconception in Mexico that all women from the U.S. are like those you see on MTV's Spring Break. Yuck. Slutty, crazy, alcoholics who will take their shirts off at the slightest provocation. Thank you television...

Haha of course thats not really what people except from us, but I've encountered that stereotype more than once in my time here. I told one guy I was tired and that I wanted to go home and he said "just pretend you're in Cancun, then you'd be staying up late and partying every night!" - ummm.... I told him bluntly his assumptions offended me and I didn't want to talk to him anymore. Toma!

Anyway, aside from dudes with crazy expectations, we had fun. At the end of the night I ended up dancing with a decent seeming guy from Guadalajara, who was a baby (21!) but nice and a good dancer. We were tired of the rock and electronic so we just started dancing salsa to everything. I may or may not have seen him in La Casa de los Azulejos a few days later, it's hard to say. It was dark in the bar.

Saturday was the wedding! Mann and I had an adventure just getting out to the ex-hacienda, which was about 2 hours outside of D.F. and involved a bus and a cab. We almost invited the cab driver to the wedding, his name was Edgar and he was adorable. But we didn't, he probably had to work anyway. We got there about 2 hours early, we were the first people to arrive so we wandered the grounds and ate a torta we had bought in San Martin. The place was beautiful, they have a musuem and a lake and a castle and they set up for the reception under a huge tent. They were testing the music when we got there and the speakers were so loud you could hear the music everywhere. We were getting a tour of the museum and it was hard to understand the guide because the bass was rattling the windows. At some point we decided we should change, and the museum guide conspiratorially offered to let us use one of the hacienda bedrooms (part of the museum) to put our dresses on. He said we could just put a chair up against the door so that none of the tourists would go in. No big deal. We politely declined and decided to find a bathroom instead.

The wedding started about an hour and a half late, and then it rained for about 20 minutes during the ceremony so we had to move under the tent, but everything was beautiful. Leisha and Jonatan make a lovely couple and I wish them the best of luck. I'm lucky I was able to be there for their wedding, and binational weddings are especially cool. By the way, Leisha used to work on the border in Agua Prieta Sonora (across from Douglas Arizona) and she was a Young Adult Volunteer the same year as Lilli, which is how they know each other. I met Leisha once when I was on a delegation my senior year at DePaul, and Lilli invited me to the wedding because I was already going to be in Mexico City. It worked out well, no one else from the U.S. was there so it was nice to have my former Tucson partner-in-crime to have adventures with. Crazy things always happen to us when we're together, and this trip was no exception. The night started off pretty tame and then by the end we were drinking straight tequila with the groom's aunt and inviting the waiters to stay and dance. Which they did, and then later had to work 2 hours back to their pueblo. Oops. I was inclined to feel bad, but they didn't tell us they didn't have a ride back, so it's not our fault. I'm assuming they made it back okay.

That night we slept on couches in someone's house and woke up in the morning to go back to Mexico City. It was an excellent day and I'm so happy it worked out so I could go. I miss Lilli! I wish she still lived in Tucson, we always have such a good time together.

Oops I should go, I left Carolina at the salon getting her nails done for the wedding on Saturday, I have no idea how long that takes but I don't want them to wait for me. Oh I tried on my bridesmaids dress yesterday and it's beautiful! I can't wait to wear it.

Much love,
Sus

fotos

2010-07-14T22:04:00.000-07:00

yo no se manana

2010-07-14T09:45:00.000-07:00

I don't know what I'll be doing tomorrow, but I'm currently sitting in Karina's apartment trying to get over a slight stomach issue. I didn't sleep well last night, I had weird dreams and didn't actually fall asleep until around 5 am. I hardly ever get sick while traveling, but I think the combination of the drastic change in diet (I haven't eaten green vegetable (besides jalapenos - does that count?) since I got to Mexico) and lack of sleep finally caught up to me. I just ate some honey, which is supposed to be a natural antibiotic, and I feel like I'll be better soon.

So let's see, where was I? I think I had made it to my arrival in Mexico City. Our bus was delayed quite a bit because there was an accident on the highway, but we finally made it and Karina met me at the station at Tasqueña and we took the metro and metrobus to her apartment where she lives with her boyfriend, Uriel. While I was in Guadalajara and I told people I was going to Mexico city they all had some cautionary tales about the metro, the busses, the city in general. I had visions of trying to get onto the metro and getting my backpack stuck in the door, of getting carried away in the mass of people and stuck on the wrong train, etc. Turns out that aside from the normal inconveniences of carrying a giant backpack around in a big city, D.F. and public transportation here are awesome. They even have sections of the metro and of the metrobus (a bus that travels on the street but has it's own lane and stations like the metro. Very cool) for women only! I think mom sent me an article about that a year ago but I didn't know they had widely implemented it. I wasn't sure how I felt about the concept, but now having experienced it I think I'm in favor. You don't have to worry about any creepers bothering you, and as a foreigner I feel slightly less conspicuous in a train full of women.

The night I got in Karina took me to a taco place called El Califa which has amazing black beans and bistec tacos. A delicious first meal in Mexico City, especially considering the last thing I had eaten were some peanuts and that nasty bus sandwich.

The next morning (Friday) I braved public transit by myself and went to go pick up Lilli from the bus station. She had been traveling in Puebla and Tlaxcala with friends from when she studied abroad 4 years ago, and we made plans to meet up in D.F. and then head to her friend's wedding on Saturday. I made it to the station on time and planted myself in front of the small Subway restuarant (oh globalization) where Karina had met me the day before. I told Lilli to meet me there because it seemed like an obvious landmark and it had been easy to spot Karina, so we agreed to meet in front of the Subway at 10:30. Well 10:30 came and went, I was hungry so I bought myself a little empanada from the panaderia next to the store. I sat down next to a fellow traveller and watched a mexican horror movie for a while that was playing on a flat screen tv next to the panaderia. In the end everyone died in a fire, except for a little girl that escaped. Weird... At around 11:00 I started to worry, so I went to information to find out what line she was coming in on. The lady told me that busses from Tlaxcala don't go to the south station, they arrive at the north station, which was bad news because Lilli had said she was coming from Tlaxcala and that we would meet at Taxqueña. I told myself not to panic, Lilli is a smart person and she's travelled in Mexico before, but considering neither of us had a way to contact each other, I was concerned. Many phone calls later, to Karina and Lilli's friend in Tlaxcala, I figured out that she was actually coming from Puebla, and that the bus hadn't been delayed, so where on earth was she? The Estrella Roja guy made an announcement on the loud speaker, and I went out to call Karina again. Just as I was dialing Lilli walked up to me, por fin!

It turns out that when I told her to meet me in front of the subway she thought I meant the metro, so she had been standing in the metro entrance for an hour waiting for me. I guess I should have been more specific when I said subway, because really a subway restaurant is probably the last thing she expected to see in a bus station in Mexico City. Anyway we laughed for about 10 minutes, because she and I can never seem to do anything without some ridiculous wrench thrown into the whole plan.

Having finally found each other, we dropped her stuff off at Karina and Uriel's apartment and made our way in the rain to Frida Kahlo's blue house in Coyoacan. On our walk from the metro to the museum, we encountered a huge pile of mude on the sidewalk which completely blocked our path. Walking around it in the street wasn't an option either, because the gutters were flooded like six feet from the sidewalk. As we stood in the rain and contemplated what to do, an angel in a clear plastic poncho and knee high rubber boots appeared and put down some plastic bags over the mud mountain, gave me his hand, and helped me walk across the slippery pile. I almost fell and then when I made it across and watched Lilli struggle to do the same, we both almost died of laughter. It was a hilarious predicament and had it not been for the kid in the poncho, I don't know what we would have done. He laughed along with us, and we thanked him profusely as we walked away.

Seeing the blue house was incredible, they had a few rooms with works by Frida and Diego, and then the rest of the house had their books, paints, beds, cloths, photos, etc. on display.

Okay hate to end this abruptly but I need to leave the apartment for the first time today and go make some phone calls. Thanks for reading!

p.s.

2010-07-12T22:12:00.000-07:00

alegria means ¨happiness¨, and it's also the name of a sweet that they sell everywhere around here. it is made of amaranth and i think honey, and sometimes it has nuts and different things in it. today there was a girl on the metro selling "alegria con nuez" - happiness with nuts.

alegria con nuez

2010-07-12T19:50:00.000-07:00

Hello from Mexico City! Otherwise known as el D.F. (distrito federal), or just Mexico to those who live here. I've been on the road since last Monday and it's been quite an adventure thus far. Traveling alone is a new experience, and I don't think I like it too much but luckily I haven't had to be alone that often since I left.

So what have I been doing? Let's see if I can remember. I left the U.S. last Monday and stayed the night in Nogales, Sonora. I only got about 3 hours of sleep because I had to wake up at 3 am and catch a bus to Hermosillo. Hermosillo is the capital of Sonora and the biggest city in the state, so it has a decent sized airport. I got there a few hours early so I sat in the waiting area for a while. Apparently in Mexico they don't open the airline counter (booth? check in area? I don't know what it's called in English) until an hour before the flight, so then everyone lines up and waits for someone to come by. It's funny to backpack around Mexico because it seems like only foreigners and hippies (from any country) travel with a pack. Everyone else uses normal suitcases. So forget trying to fit in if you happen to be carrying a giant backpack. I prefer it because it's easier to move around, but it throws a wrench in my quest to look like a national. So do my blue eyes and light colored skin and hair... It's a futile effort.

From Hermosillo I got on a flight to Guadalajara, which is in the state of Jalisco. Also home of the town of Tequila - yum! I flew on a relatively new airline called Vivaaerobus and they do a southwest type of boarding where you get a group depending on when you check in. I don't think folks in Mexico are familiar with that concept though, when the woman made the announcement it was a mad rush, and no one knew exactly where one line started and the other ended. We figured it out eventually, and no one got trampeled or anything.

I've written three paragraphs and I haven't even left Sonora yet! I am not concise, I know this. Okay so Guadalajara. I got there in the afternoon and took a few busses to meet up with Julia, my friend Sergio's sister. I never met her, and I actually don't know Sergio all that well, so I was kind of nervous about the whole plan. What if we didn't get along? What if she's crazy? What if she feels obligated to host me and is annoyed? I'm good at finding things to worry about, and then go ahead and do whatever I'm planning anyway. I met Sergio when I was co-leading the BorderLinks trip to Copper Canyon. He works for an organization called SINE. They are a group of Raramuri and mestizos who do grassroots organizing and education with the Raramuri people (group of indigenous peoples in Chihuahua). Anyway while we were in Creel we met with them as a group and then Fernanda and I hung out with Sergio and the other guys that work for SINE a few times. Sergio and I have kept in touch since the trip in March and when I told him I was going through Guadalajara he told me I could stay with his sister. It's a very exciting story, I know. But it was funny to explain to people when I was there how I knew her, because I didn't really.

The great thing is that she turned out to be great, and a wonderful host. When I finally found her in Guadalajara (it involved a lot of calls from pay phones and asking passersby) we hung out for a while in the little store she was watching for her friend, which sells jewelry and clothes, a lot of it made by indigenous communities or by local folks. I bought some awesome earrings (of course) that are real, dried flowers that have been laminated in clear plastic. Earrings are my vice, I can't help it. But I always try to buy local :)

That evening Julia and her friend who they call "Colchon" (mattress) gave me a walking tour of el centro. Guadalajara is a beautiful city and until a few days ago was the biggest city in Mexico that I had ever been to. They have a lively cultural scene, a lot of bikers, museums, live music, etc. Later Julia and I had a couple of beers at a gay bar called "Queer Nation", haha. Apparently Guadalajara has one of the biggest gay populations in all of Mexico. Who knew? Anyway it's nice to hear that gay culture is more accepted now, at least in some places. Later we went to a party that her friend Jackie was throwing to celebrate her graduation from fashion design school. We didn't know too many people but after a few beers we were all great friends. There was a guy there, Pepe, who played the keyboard really well so we had a 2-hour sing-along of mexican hits from then and now. I knew quite a few of them, mostly thanks to Cruz, jeje. Viva Juan Gabriel! We ended up staying the night at Jackie´s house because it was too late to go home, so I woke up the next morning in my same cloths, next to Julia and another of Jackie's friends. It took me a second to remember where I was, traveling is disorienting.

The rest of the day was spent seeing the sights. Julia's dad lives in Zopopan, which was it's own town before Guadalajara got big and swallowed it up. They still have their own cathedral and plaza, it's a cute place. I also went to the cultural center and saw some amazing murals. Mexico is full of incredible, vibrant murals. They are always some in government buildings too, which is an interesting contrast to most of the government buildings I've been in in the U.S. That night we walked around to some of the other neighborhoods, got a beer, I subsequently spilled it on my purse but luckily most of it was absorbed by the sock that I had been keeping my camera in. The camera was not in the sock at the time. My friend Jess from Tucson lent me an old digital camera that she had and so I've been using it for the trip. I have an ipod and a digital camera. I guess I've finally entered the 21st century... I didn't bring the ipod though, I didn't want anything to distract me from my immediate and amazing surroundings. I want to take it all in as much as possible. Be where you are, I always tell Holly. so I'm trying to follow my own advice. Which is why I haven't written before now - the days have been so full!

I left pretty early on Thursday morning for D.F. There was some confusion about what bus to take and when and where it left from and all that, but I finally got on one. I accidently bought a seat on the luxury bus, which I did once before and although it's comfortable, I felt lame because it's so fancy. They give you a little sandwich in a bag (not delicious - white bread with ham and american cheese and mayo - they also give you a little packet of jalapenos (only in mexico!) but mine fell on the floor and I didn't find it until after I ate my sandwich. Too bad, because it would have improved the taste markedly.) You also get a beverage of your choice, and the seats are huge and cushy and recline really far back. They have headphones for every seat, and you can listen to the radio or watch a movie. The pattern on Mexican bus lines is to play random B movies from the U.S. that no one has every heard of, and are usually violent or involve lots of explosions. Actually I guess they do that in the U.S. too, one time I took the Megabus to Chicago overnight from Columbus and I had to ask the bus driver at 2 am to turn off the movie about gang wars in New York. He seemed surprised and said "No, I think people are watching it" to which all the other passengers responded "no we aren't, turn it off please!"

We ended up arriving two hours late to Mexico City, but I was entertained most of the ride by the 5 year old kid and his grandma sitting next to me. They were headed to Acapulco after a few weeks of traveling and the kid, Sebastian was hilarious. He taught me some games, we ripped his bus ticket into a hundred little pieces (that was part of the game), we arm wrestled, thumb wrestled, played with my camera, and I talked to his grandma, Lucy, who was super nice. She took down my email and phone number and invited me to visit them in Acapulco. Everyone always says "Alli tienes tu casa" (you can stay at my house) when you ask them where they live, but usually it's just to be polite. I think she might have actually meant it. It was worth having paid the extra for the luxury line to meet them.

So I've been in el D.F. since Thursday, although Lilli and I went to a little town in Puebla (only 1.5 hours) for a wedding on Saturday, but I'll have to write about that later. I'm going to the anthropology museum tomorrow with my friend Lisa from DePaul (she was on my borderlinks trip 3 years ago and now she lives here) and maybe this Australian guy I met today on the roof of the cathedral. Oh traveling... It's world famous and according to Karina (my friend from DePaul who I'm staying with) you can take a whole day to see everything. I'm looking forward to it, especially because I'll have company! Today I wandered around the Historic Downtown of Mexico City and it was awesome but I would so much rather share these experiences with someone. The older I get the more I realize that I'm not good at being alone. Going half a day without talking exhausts me. Weird huh? Being around people gives me energy. Well not just around people, I think I have to be talking to them. Otherwise I'd be totally fine alone in Mexico City, there are SO MANY PEOPLE here. It's incredible to witness and be a part of it all.

Okay I'm out. Much love!

Un abrazo
Sus

p.s. the digital camera doesn't have a cable so i can't upload any fotos yet. hopefully soon!

el camino se hace al andar

2010-06-23T12:01:00.000-07:00

Above: Me and some fellow volunteers at the Thursday Food Bank Farmer's Market - yummy veggies!

Every time I write I feel compelled to make a comment about how it's been a long time since I wrote last. But why state the obvious?

June is coming to a close. It's been a great month, namely because I got to spend a week with the fam in Ohio for Holly's graduation and Carrie's baby shower. I saw Carrie and Kevin (or Cevin) in Phoenix on Sunday and we realized the next time I see them they'll be parents! Little Finn will have found his way out into the world and he'll be a real, breathing little being. He is going to be so spoiled, the baby shower was evidence of that. Not necessarily in the amount of gifts but the enthusiasm expressed over said gifts. I've never heard a group of women say "awww" so many times in my life, and with such conviction. But really, can anyone see a pair of hand knit baby booties and not react that way? It's involuntary, really. Even just the word "booties". Aww....

Holly's graduation party was a smashing success, except that I left my boot (bootie?) stein at home. It was sweet to see all the people who love Holly gathered in one place. She's an amazing woman, I'm lucky to have her as a sister. We've had our differences over the years, but they aren't so important anymore. She'll be an amazing nurse ("because she's bossy" according to mom. I probably wasn't supposed to repeat that. Oh well!)

So Arizona... What can you say about Arizona right now? SB1070 has launched this state into the national spotlight, and pinche Jan Brewer is getting more attention than she deserves. I'm so tired of these racist, ignorant, hateful politicians making asinine decisions in the name of "border security". It really is idiotic. Normally I try to put myself in others shoes, try to understand where they are coming from, remember that we're all human beings and that people do stupid things when they are scared, etc. But people like Jan Brewer and Russell Pearce and Joe Arpaio are seriously demented, I don't know what's wrong with them. Of course they are still human beings, but they obviously choose to ignore that immigrants are human beings, that people of color are human beings. Go ahead Pearce, and defend your stupid law. It's not racist, you say? Oh because cops aren't allowed to use race as a factor. Oh really... And cops never racially profile, because it's against the law. I suppose you've never experienced racial profiling, so it probably doesn't exist. Oh wait. YOU'RE WHITE. And incredibly privileged. But I'm sure that has nothing to do with it.

The good thing is that folks are acting. People are up in arms, and aren't about to quietly let their rights be violated. Wherever you are, please do something, anything, to fight against this law and laws like it. I heard they are trying to pass one in Ohio? I recently read this quote and it is all too relevant to what is happening now. We have to pay attention to this stuff, before it goes too far.

"THEY CAME FIRST for the Communists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist.

THEN THEY CAME for the trade unionists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist.

THEN THEY CAME for the Jews,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew.

THEN THEY CAME for me
and by that time no one was left to speak up."

-Pastor Martin Niemoller, January 6 1946

First they went after the undocumented folks, and no one seemed to care. Now they are going after Latinos in general, and people are still complacent. I read yesterday Pearce is introducing a new bill that would require a child born in the U.S. to have at least one citizen parent in order to be a citizen. Now they are going after children born in this country. This is scary stuff.

So please, do something. Anything. Talk to your neighbors, family, friends, convince them that this is a bad idea. Let's think about the kind of country we want the U.S. to be, and fight for that. This is not my vision, por eso sigo en la lucha.

Okay that's all for now. Love to all!

un abrazote,
Susanna

Para Nolo

2009-12-22T20:04:00.000-08:00

Como estoy muy lejos del suroeste, quiero compartir un poco de mi vida aqui en Ohio y como la paso con mi familia. Ojala te gusten las fotos :)

Aqui esta el carro de mi familia con el pino de navidad amarrado arriba. Siempre hemos ido a un puesto cerca de la casa donde se vende pinos ya cortados pero esta vez fuimos a un terreno que tiene el companero de mi papa y cortamos nuestro propio pino. Se supone que eso es lo que se hacia en los tiempos antiguos pero ahora es poco comun. Me gusto porque prefiero tener un pino local que uno que traen de Oregon o otro estado bastante lejos. Ademas, huele muy rico!

Aqui ves como se ve despues de una nieve ligera. No nevo mucho, pero suficiente para que vea bonito. La casa al fondo es la casa del compa de mi papa. Detras de la casa es una perra/loba que se llama "Balto" - nos dijeron que es 95% lobo y despues de verla lo creo. No saque una foto pero es impresionante la loba, y gracias a dios no tan brava - hasta que me dio un beso (en el cachete, no enfrente de la boca, no se atrevio ;)

Despues de seis meses siempre es un gusto ver a mi perra que ha sido parte de mi familia desde que tenia 11 anios. Se llama "Julie" y tiene 13 anios pero todavia es como una perrita (puppy), tiene mucha energia y se pone muy emocionada cuando entro la casa. Nunca en su vida habia visto un caballo y se quedo viendolos por mucho tiempo, hasta que le dieron miedo y se fue corriendo. Oye y fijate como esta el cielo, tan oscuro y solo eran las 2 de la tarde! Desde que llegue no he visto el sol, se esconde detras de las nubes y no sale todo el dia.

Otra de la "Julieta" - a veces le hablo en espanol pero no me contesta. Hubiera empezado cuando estaba mas chiquita, ya esta muy vieja para aprender otro idioma. Pero me encanta como se ve el campo con la nieve. Cuando estas en la ciudad la nieva se vuelve sucia por los carros y todo se ve feo sin el sol pero en el campo sigue siendo bonito.

Este nino travieso es el hijo adoptivo del compa de mi papa y su esposa. Se llama "Layton" y como no tiene hermanos se divertio mucho conmigo y con mis hermanas. Agarro la camera digital y no la quiso soltar, saco como 15 fotos asi con su lengua para afuera. La pasamos bien jugando, ya sabes que me puedo entretener un buen rato con los ninos porque pues soy una nina por dentro.

Aqui estan mis hermanas menores (Holly y Rose a la izquierda) y mis primas a la derecha en el departamento de mi abuela. Despues de ir por el pino fuimos a visitarla porque vive cerca al compa de mi papa. Es la mama de mi mama y tiene tres hijas y un solo hijo, y casi todos sus nietos son mujeres. Mis dos hermanos son sus unicos nietos asi que a diferencia de tu familia el sexo feminino domina. Viva las mujeres!

Mi hermano Justin (menor, pero no chiquito ;) y yo con el pino de navidad ya con todos los adornos y foquitos puestos. Esta mucho mas grande que los pinos que hemos tenido los anios pasados, ojala quepamos todos el 25. No se nota mucho en esta foto pero nuestros pinos siempre tienen un monton de adornos, mas que cualquier otro que he visto. Mis papas viajaron mucho cuando estaban mas jovenes y siempre compraron adornos de los paises que visitaban. Me gusta ayudar a poner los adornos porque casi todos tienen una historia.

Ella es mi mama en el comedor, bordando una toalla para regalar a mi hermana. Paso casi todo el dia bordando, mientras cortaban mi cabello, mientras cocinaba la cena, mentras veiamos una pelicula... Es muy creativa y sabe hacer muchas manualidades, ademas es muy buena cocinera. El comedor ha cambiado mucho desde que era nina, antes nada mas teniamos una mesita redonda pero despues de que nacieron los demas hijos ya no cabiamos y ahora tenemos una mesa muy grande donde caben todos y las visitas (y todo el trabajo de mi mama)

Una vista mas cerquita de la Julieta. Que bonita verdad? Salimos a caminar todos los dias por 40 minutos, ojala baje un poco de peso porque se ha puesto gordita en su vejez

Mi hermanito enfrente de la casa donde naci y donde han vivido mis papas desde entonces. Cuando estabamos todos alli casi no habia ni un rinconcito para un momento de soledad, por eso creo que me gusta estar siempre con mucha gente. la ventana a la izquierda en el primer piso fue mia por mucho tiempo, ahora sirve como almacen. Cuando era nina nos subiamos el arbol que ves enfrente y nos tiramos con un paraguas en la mano porque queriamos volar. No funcionaba...

whew

2009-05-15T16:38:00.000-07:00

I can't believe I haven't written since January. I can't believe it's May. I can't believe I've been here for 8 months already. I can't believe we planted garlic and it grew! I can't believe I eat 2 grapefruits a day. And they're local. I can't believe I just squirted grapefruit juice all over my face/desk. Time to focus.

So, I'm the worst blogger ever, sorry to those who might have checked this in vain for months hoping that I might write again. I think I have a pretty good excuse, considering the madness that my life was the past few months. To avoid long-windedness, I will attempt to summarize the past 3.5 months asi:

February

-Went to Phoenix to visit Carrie and Kev for what I thought was the last time. We had a great time as usual and I yelled at them for leaving me in the southwest. This is the second time they've left after I move to be closer to them. Coincidence? I'm starting to wonder.

-My friend Maggie from Chicago came to visit. We had many adventures, including hiking and NOT getting eaten by mountain lions (no small feat, if you pay much attention to the bright orange sheet they hand you upon entering Sabino Canyon Park). It was grand, and super nice to of Maggie to come visit. You're wonderful!

-I had to attend this training to become certified in "Food Sanitation" for Pima County. Doesn't that sound terrifying? Why would you want to sanitize food? I imagine soaking a block of cheese in bleach. Gross. Anyway most of the 3 hour class involved talking about what temperatures were required to properly cook meat, which is useful for me since BorderLinks is a vegetarian kitchen.

-I led a delegation of students from Portland State University. They were taking a class called "Sustainable Futures" or "Pollution knows no borders" or something along those lines. We talked a lot about migration and food systems and sustainability, which is exactly what I'm interested in so it was a great trip to lead. We went out to a ranch that is right on the border and spoke with a rancher named Duncan Blair, who has an impressive philosophy and an even more impressive mustache. He raises grass-fed cattle and sounded a lot like Michael Pollan when he talked about getting back to sun agriculture. He also deals with drug traffickers coming through his property, so he has an interesting perspective. He taught Nick and I a new word the first time we met him - "pistofado", as in "Estoy pistofado" - it's Spanglish, of course, and comes from the word "pissed off" - read it slowly and see if you can figure it out. Awesome!

-Right after my PSU trip I went to Chihuahua with Johanna for Elias's graduation from architecture school. We took the night bus and watched terrible movies dubbed in Spanish. It was an excellent visit, it was wonderful to see Elias and his family and friends again, they welcomed us with open arms. We stayed up until at least 3 am every night drinking Indio (best beer ever!) and chatting and sometimes dancing.

Thus ends February.

March

-Steph came to visit (friend from Chicago, not cousin) at the beginning of March and we also managed to not get eaten by mountain lions and have an excellent time all around. It was so nice to see a familiar face, it made me miss Chicago and appreciate Tucson all at once. I love you Steph!

-So I'm crazy, and apparently have boundless amounts of energy, so between my PSU trip and my visit to Chihuahua I agreed to step in and lead the Vassar trip that started on March 8th. The original leader got sick and they needed a replacement, so I said sure what the heck, why not? Vassar, however, was no ordinary trip. It was 2 weeks, 3 vans, 30 students, 2 professors, and 4 BorderLinks trip leaders (2 U.S. 2 Mexico). Holy crap. But it all turned out well in the end,
Noel, Ceci, Jorge and I led the trip and although sometimes we got sick of traveling in such a large entourage, it was a rewarding experience.

There were crazy times, like when Noel and Jorge and I couldn't find bread in the creepy, empty grocery store. "el super de terror", Jorge said. There was no bread! At all! And then we went to Oxxo (Mexican version of 7-11) and there wasn't any there either. It was bizarre, and we were exhausted, so it made us laugh for 15 minutes.

-What else... OH so approximately 4 days after Vassar left we found out that 4 of us in the education department were getting laid off. Oh joy! We knew that we were having financial troubles, because things had been precarious since I started in September, but none of us expected that. We had like 11 trip cancellations because of reports of drug violence on the border, and that loss of income hit us hard. It was an unpleasant (to say the least) experience and I will be happy if I never have to repeart it. We were all stunned and sad at the prospect of splitting up our team, which was really strong, especially because of what we went through back in October. For about a week I was struggling to accept what had happened and to figure out what I was going to do next, it was a strange week. Then Nick proposed that I stay on instead of him, then we talked to Delle about it and they discovered this thing called the shared work program, where instead of laying someone off, you have two employees reduce their pay significantly and they can collect some unemployment benefits. So thats where we stand now, Nick and I are both still working, and things might be changing again, but I'll keep you updated.

Well I've gotta go to a goodbye happy hour for Sash face. Everyone is leaving! Gah. But I promise I'll write again soon, sooner than in three months.

Un abrazote,
Sus

desert happenings

2009-01-25T21:19:00.000-08:00

(look! it's a carrot from our garden at work! things are actually growing, it's extremely exciting)

helloooooo, la la la (seinfeld? yes). hope you all are well, my lovely readers. if i have any left that is, i think my month long break might have discouraged some people from ever actually reading this. oh well, i'll get better i swear! maybe i won't, actually. And I'll try to use capitals for you mom, I know it's annoying when I don't. It's just the irreverence of my generation, we have no respect for grammar.

Today we lovely, although it didn't start out that way. Well let me rephrase, it started out very nicely because Carrie was here and we laid around and chatted in the morning and ate a leisurely breakfast of scones and soup (not together, of course). But after she left I was feeling out of sorts for reasons unknown. Sometimes I get into mini funks and I can't figure out what the problem is, especially considering things are going very well out here. I was having some serious missing Chicago moments this weekend, which hadn't really happened up until now. I was longing for something familiar, to be with people who have known me for more than five months. I love the people I know here, but it's just different. I wanted to hop on over to the Mexican place under the el tracks and get a veggie torta with Maddy, Kara and Molly while rehashing the events of the previous, obviously ridiculous night.

But anyway, I guess I left Chicago so thats not going to happen. I know that if I was still there I would be wondering what could have been if I had left, such is life. I made the right decision, but I still miss what I had there, and the wonderful people I knew. I also had a revelation today about why I've been in a funk lately. I realized that I miss VIA and reflecting at DePaul. I think my culture shock leaving that community was not as great as it could have been, considering the job I have now and the people I'm surrounded with, but I haven't spent much time doing things for myself lately, and I need to. I love being around people so much that I don't take advantage of the down time. Instead I'm always thinking of what I'll do next, who I'll see next. I need to chill out and take things slowly, be patient with life and not expect everything to happen right away. I'm always struggling to be content with what I have and not dwell on what I don't, and I'm getting better but it's a slow process.

Time for bed, no more computer. Much love, thanks for being in my life.

stuff

2009-01-13T21:06:00.000-08:00

So it's been a really long time since I've written here, and I apologize but the past month has been pretty craze, as Borat would say. I had my DePaul trip for the first two weeks of December, then Christmas/New Years celebrations, then a marathon crazy week of cooking at BLX. I also moved into the house next door so now I live with Kelly and Jeff which is lovely, and I made soup yesterday. I think that about summarizes the important things I've done.

The DePaul trip was fantabulous, I got to hang out with a group of pretty sweet individuals for ten days and they seemed to like me, despite the fact that I ran them ragged. Not intentionally, but about halfway through the trip I realized how much we were doing every day and that it was a lot. They were troopers though, and we had a great time together. It was almost eerie to lead the trip a year after I had been on it myself, but I think it helped because I could really relate to the emotional and mental struggles that they were going through.

There were definitely challenges, but overall I think (I hope) everyone had a powerful experience and that it will change their life in some way, however small it may be. Nick did a presentation about sustainable food systems and how that connects to migration and my group actually got really into it, which was encouraging. He and I are both really passionate about the subject, but sometimes I wonder if we're getting through to people and helping them make connections between our consumption and the state of the world. Thats why it's nice when people actually have a lot of questions and want to know more, because it means they are actually considering what you are saying. It's also strange to be the resident expert on something, although I am not an expert on the subject by any means. They ask questions and I can answer them, it's amazing! What a novel idea.

So after Nick's presentation I was a bit intimidated. He's really good at explaining things and sounding really confident about what he's saying and I'm not, or at least I wasn't because I hadn't spoken to many (any? I don't remember) groups about the Sustainable Food Program. I gave my first presentation to Lilli's group right before Christmas and it went well although I spoke way too fast and didn't have any visuals or anything. We'd like to eventually have more popular education activities, something really engaging and interactive, but for now I'm aiming to just be able to explain in a coherent manner what our program is and why we have it. So that was my trial run, and I was a bit nervous but it was satisfying to speak about something that I'm passionate about.

Since then I've done two more and I think they've gotten better each time. I spoke with a group from South Dakota and before they came I did some research about their town and put together a list of farmer's markets and other resources specific to their area, which I think they liked having. It was neat to have an idea of what kind of community they are coming from, and give them some options for exploring sustainable food when they get back. The most recent presentation I did was for a group from Boston College, and that went really, surprisingly well. It was Nick's group so he was in the back able to remember things when I got stuck, and I definitely called on him a few times, but it was great. The students were interested and engaged and they wanted to see the garden and smell the rosemary and look at the books I set out. They asked me how I learned to cook, a question I wasn't sure how to answer, and if I was a vegetarian, and other interesting things. After the presentation I felt empowered, like I actually knew something and that I could be a resource for other people. Woohoo! Plus Nick told me that on the evaluations they all rated my presentation as "extremely important" to the trip overall. Success! We've still got a long way to go with the program and there are a million things we want to do, but how cool is that? I was excited.

In other news, non-work news I guess, things are pretty wonderful and I feel lucky to be here right now, with a job that I love, living in a dynamic and active community, surrounded by people who care about important issues and advocate for social justice. Of course I miss my family and my friends, far away in Chicago and Ohio, but this definitely feels right for me right now. Like I said, I just moved into the South House at Gecko Haven, so still part of the community but I have a bigger room and a bit more private space. I liked living in the Big House a lot, but I didn't feel like it was my space at all, mostly because people have been living here for years and everything was already pretty much decorated and set the way it was. In the South House Kelly and I can arrange things the way we like and put things on the walls, plus I feel more comfortable having people over and playing music kind of loud. It's a nice arrangement, and I'm even paying less for rent. Amazing! I'll take picture sometime and put some up. The only downside is that my room is pretty freezing, but it's kind of like being back in my Newport apartment in the winter so it's comforting, in a nostalgic sort of way.

I should probably go, my eyes are getting tired and squinty and I have to get up for work tomorrow. Love to all, miss your faces!

Un abrazo,

Sus

El Tour de Tucson

2008-11-27T23:19:00.000-08:00

The pictures tell it all, plus I am too tired to actually write about it. It was great fun and Lilli and I made some sweet t-shirts for Team BorderLinks. Bicycle love!

And we're off!

"La mejor cara," as MaryCruz said

Team BorderLinks, looking very attractive as usual

Lilli sharing her power gummies with me - I'm pretty excited

Celebrating at Barrio afterwards - 35 miles and we barely even broke a sweat

Team BLX 2008!

there's something wrong with this picture

2008-11-17T21:26:00.000-08:00

Just got back from listening to Dahr Jamil speak at the U of A about the war in Iraq and I feel compelled to write. He was an unembedded journalist (aka not accompanied by the U.S. military at all times) in Iraq and he's written several books about his experience. He was in Chicago last fall and I wanted to see him speak because I was taking a class about media and international politics but I couldn't make it, so I'm glad I got another chance.

He was an eloquent and engaging speaker, incredibly knowledgable about the Iraq invasion and occupation and the history of the area. He pointed out that the mainstream media tends to downplay or completely leave out context when they talk about the occupation and it makes a huge difference to how people understand and view what is happening there. He said that a lot of people ask him after his lectures what steps we should take to stop the atrocities that are happening there, what our response should be. He said he didn't necessarily have the answer, but emphasized how important it is to get involved in some way and to be responsible and active citizens.

Dahr Jamil read a statement from an Iraq veteren who was ashamed at the apathy of the American people, who have not held our administration accountable for their actions in this war. The veteren said that as members of the military they are trained not to question their superiors, including the President, so that it is up to us to make sure that the government does not abuse the troops. We are supposed to hold our elected officials responsible and ensure that they are doing their jobs, so that soldiers can be confidant that the orders they are following are legitimate and reflect the desires of the people, not just the whims of politicians. It was a soboring admonishion, but it's something that we all need to hear. The veteren wrote that "the most unpatriotic thing you can do is to not be critical of the government."

I get frusterated with pro-war arguments that tend to blindly side with the government and the military and don't go deeper into the root causes and motivations for war. It is dangerous to believe all this stuff about "spreading democracy" and "liberating the Iraqi people" and other justifications for this occupation and ignore the economic and political issues that drive it. If we do that it becomes too easy to swallow the rhetoric and believe the information that we get from the media, which has been filtered and censored by the same military they are supposedly "objectively" reporting about. It's scary how misinformed we are, and how we often don't realize it until it's too late. "Weapons of Mass Destruction" for example... Apparently Judith Miller now works for Fox News, maybe the New York Times didn't want her after she lied a bunch. Anyway...

Economically speaking, the occupation of Iraq is a HUGE money maker for companies like Halliburton, which has made billions of dollars since the war started. I sort of vaguely knew that Dick Cheney was connected to Halliburton before this talk, but I didn't realize how intimate his ties were. Apparently he stepped down from his position as president or vice-president (I can't remember) of Halliburton just days before he became Vice-President elect of the U.S., with a huge severance package and plenty of friends left in the company I'm sure. It's so shady how that all plays out. Cheny has a vested interest in Halliburton, Cheney becomes VP, Cheney strongly advocates for going to war in Iraq, we go to war in Iraq, Halliburton wins contracts with the U.S. government to do everything from build military bases to provide food for the soldiers, Halliburton makes billions of dollars. It's terrifying to me how much money people are making off of war and destruction. An estimated 1.2 million people in Iraq have died as a direct result of the war, greedy people are making millions, and we call that democracy? We call that freedom? Something is severely wrong with this system. Halliburton also has contracts with DHS to build more detention centers to hold undocumented immigrants, which is just great. They must feel really good about themselves, making money off of misery, inequality, and racism. Congratulations on your success. (Please excuse the sarcasm, but it's hard to believe that people can think that that's okay. I'd prefer to chalk it up to ignorance than evil, but sometimes I wonder...)

Something else Jamil talked about was the mistreatment of female soldiers within the U.S. military. According to the Dept. of Veterens Affairs, 1 out of every 3 women in the U.S. military is sexually assaulted or raped. They also say that 80% of female soldiers who are sexually assaulted or raped don't report it, which is alarming. I would never think of joining the military, but that alone would be enough to deter me. The Dept. of Veterens affairs also reports that 1/3 of soldiers of the 1 million soldiers being cycled through Iraq have Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, that 1/5 have traumatic brain injury, and that 1/5 suffer from severe depression. 1000 veterens a month attempt suicide, every day 18 actually committ suicide, and 1 out of 4 homeless people are veterens. There is something terribly wrong going on, if this is how we are "supporting" our troops. I know people who have been to Iraq, I have a family member who has been to Iraq, it pains me to think what they must be going through and how little support they get from anyone.

It's hard to know what to do, except to keep sharing information like this and hope that we can change something for the better. The more I learn the more I want to get involved in everything, every campaign, every protest. But there's only so much time in the day, and I have to trust that there are other people out there fighting for justice in all corners of the world. I'll do what I can, I hope I'm making some kind of positive change. It's hard to know sometimes, especially when things seem to be getting worse everyday. I have to remind myself that change comes slowly, and that maybe I won't even see it in my lifetime. Pues, hay que seguir adelante, y dormir de vez en cuando. Have a good night!

love,
Sus

p.s. www.dahrjamailiraq.com in case anyone is interested

mesquite flour pancakes

2008-11-10T19:12:00.000-08:00

It's been a while since I've written because it has been busy 'round here these days. Work is great, I love my coworkers more every day and it's so nice to look forward to going to the office in the morning. Our little gardens are starting to look like more than patches of dirt, and the herbs have finally sprouted after a long and nerve-wracking period of nothing. I'm making mental notes on what not to do next time and learning a lot about gardening in the desert.

It's exciting to work on something and then get real, tangible results a few weeks later. Nick and I were talking about how when you are planting seeds it seems like a joke that they might actually turn into something edible in a few months. It doesn't seem possible that these tiny little seeds will grow into lettuce and radishes and chard, but somehow the miracle happens and little green shoots appear in the dirt and I rejoice. I probably won't ever be able to fully believe that the seeds I plant will actually bear fruit (or vegetables, literally). Maybe if I keep doing this and eventually do become a farmer I'll have to learn to count on the fact that the transformation happens, but until then I will marvel at it every time.

In other news... but what's more important than food news? I was thinning some of the seedlings today and I pulled up what I thought was just some kind of green or other (I'll be honest, I forgot what I planted there). To my surprise it was a wee radish, and possibly the cutest thing I had ever seen. I proudly carried it around the office and showed it to all my coworkers, who were just as enthusiastic as I was. They might have been humoring me, but I appreciated it nonetheless. I put it on my desk and admired it for a while, then I ate it, leaves and all. It was the very first, very tiny harvest.

The onions are not doing so well, it's possible they have failed entirely to come up. As I have never tried to grow onions before I'm not sure what the seedlings look like, which turns out to be a problem. While I was on my Phillips trip some bermuda grass started to creep into the bed and I can't be sure if there are any onions intermingled among the weeds. I'm ready to give up on them and plant something else, but I'm going to look carefully tomorrow and make up my mind then. Nick isn't around so I don't have a second opinion, and I tried doing a google image search of "walla walla onion seedlings" but nothing useful came up. That attempt seems silly in hindsight... I wish my grandmother were here because she would definitely know.

I hope this isn't incredibly boring. I forget that some people don't share my enthusiasm for plant life. But one more thing before I move on - we have a fig tree at BorderLinks! I picked one just this morning and ate it fresh, they are weird on the inside and also delicious. The birds get to a lot of them before we do, but just the idea of having a fig tree is novel and exciting. Pomegranate trees abound here as well, and people have random citrus trees in their backyards which boggles my midwestern mind.

On the trip leading side of my job, things are busy and a little precarious right now but good. We are still working on fundraising and trying to get all the letters out and hoping that our efforts are not in vain. I don't want to think about what might happen if we don't raise as much as we projected. I'm confidant that we will figure something out, but I enjoy my job very much and I think it is incredibly important work so I'd like to keep going. Wish us luck! We've also been dealing with some increased violence in Nogales, Sonora that is making groups a little bit nervous. There have been conflicts among the police and drug traffickers in the city where we do the majority of our delegations and so we've had to figure out how to keep our participants safe, assess the actual danger of the situation as opposed to how it is portrayed in the news and by the State Department, and be honest with our groups about what is happening. None of us feel unsafe in Nogales, but we can't pretend that it's not happening because we have a responsibility to our participants to be honest about potential risk. We've always been very mindful about security and have taken all the necessary precautions. I don't think we've ever had any problems on the Mexico or Tucson side of the border, thank God (except the occasional case of mild food poisoning - we gringos have weak stomachs, what can I say?) but I know that everyone on staff is especially cognizant these days of safety issues. I think it will be okay, and it makes me think a lot about the stressful and unstable environments that so many people around the world have to live in. Violence and instability become a part of your daily life, but no one should have to get used to that. Anyway...

This past weekend was wonderful, and I'm starting to feel like I have a definite community here in Tucson. I hung out with Johanna (who works for No More Deaths), her friend Chelsea from out of town and Sasha (my coworker Nick's new roommate) all weekend, it was lovely. Friday night we went salsa dancing at El Parador where I took Carrie and her friend Emily a few weekends ago. I am always impressed with people who will just go for the first time because I remember how incredibly intimidated I felt the first times I went in Mexico. When someone would ask me to dance I felt this kind of dread in the pit of my stomach and suddenly turned into a giant, uncoordinated blob. So I'm surprised when people actually want to come, and I admire their courage. I hope they had fun, I think they did. There was a live band anyway and it's always nice to watch the couples who dance well together. I danced a lot and I think I like salsa more every time I do it. It's funny to think about how shy I used to be about dancing and how much that has changed. Whee dancing! I felt kind of bad because I wore my hair in a ponytail and I think I kept whipping guys in the face with it when they spun me. Oops.

Saturday morning we went to the Mesquite Milling and Pancake Breakfast at the community garden in my neighborhood (Dunbar/Spring). I had been hearing about it for a while and Sasha's friend was going so we walked over from my house after dragging ourselves out of bed (Sasha slept over because clearly a 10 minute bike ride at midnight is a terrible idea) and it was worth it. People all over Tucson collect mesquite pods, dry them, and then bring them to these community milling events to make mesquite flour. I had never tried it before but it was delicious! Unfortunately I was too dazed and new when I first got here to collect any pods myself, but they were selling mesquite flour pancakes with prickly pear syrup and I savored the local goodness. There's a strong local food movement here and it's nice to be able to taste all the desert foods. There was a live bluegrass band playing (they played "Oh Susanna" while I was eating my pancake - excellent!) and kids running around and the sun was shining, it was a great way to start the morning.

After that the five of us went hiking to Wasson Peak for Chelsea's birthday, another amazing adventure. It was long but the view from the top was gorgeous and Johanna surprised us by carrying a bottle of red wine all the way up to toast for Chelsea's birthday. Sitting up there with a 360 degree view of the valleys and the mountains surrounding us, eating a sandwich and enjoying good company... It was a moment of sheer happiness. We had a feast and ended up singing our way down the mountain, any and all songs that occurred to us. We even saw some sweet petroglyphs made by indigenous peoples in 700 AD. It's so nice to be able to climb and be outside and not hear the sound of traffic and sirens and drunk Cubs fans. I miss Chicago terribly and I miss all my friends but this is a lovely change of pace.

Last night was the All Souls Procession which was absolutely amazing but I think I'll save the description for another time. I'll just say that it involved thousands of people in costume, people on stilts, fire dancers, two cranes (the metal kind that hoist things into the air) and a giant paper urn that was set on fire at one point. Oh and lots of dancing and drumming. Crazy! But for now I'm going to read. Matthew, one of my housemates, lent me this book by this local foods activist from Tucson and I'm itching to start it, so there I go.

Much love, goodnight!

Sus

they do have pumpkins here

2008-10-29T23:27:00.000-07:00

I was greatly relieved to learn that you can grow pumpkins in Arizona, because as badly as I wanted to carve one I didn't think it would be right for me to buy one imported from some far away state. Lilli, Katie and Sara hosted a pumpkin-carving party yesterday which was great fun and enhanced with delicious snacks. Sweet potato and ginger cupcakes, pumpkin ale, some unidentified chocolate bar thing, etcetera. Yummy! I couldn't think of what to carve for a long time but there was a prickly pear cactus in their backyard so I started there. Apparently the thing on the left is a Century Plant, which I learned after I carved it. I just remembered seeing it when I rode my bike out to Gates Pass on Monday.

Life is grand out here in the desert. I'm getting used to the landscape but it still surprises me every time I look up and see mountains. I finally got to go to Mount Lemmon on Sunday with Nathan and it was incredible. I've always liked hiking but I don't think I've ever actually climbed around on a mountain that big before. I took some pictures, we'll see if they turn out. Either way, it's sweet because it's so close to Tucson! As you drive up you can see the landscape change dramatically. It goes from desert at the bottom with huge saguaros everywhere to pine forest at the top. We passed a sign for a lake somewhere but apparently it was closed. Next time...

I led my first real delegation last week which was exciting and a little scary. My group was from Phillips Theological Seminary in Tulsa, Oklahoma and a lot of them were pastors. It was intimidating at first because they were all older than me and I've only ever led groups of college students, but then I remembered that just because you are married with kids doesn't mean you've seen or understood the reality of the border. I remembered how overwhelming it all was for me on my delegation and I think at that moment when you encounter something you've never imagined, it doesn't matter how old you are or what kind of experience you've had in other fields. The emotions and the struggles are the same.

It was strange to be back in the places I visited in December but in a totally different role. I was so focused on logistics and making sure nothing chaotic happened that I almost forgot about my initial reactions to what I saw on my delegation. I knew what to expect at CCAMYN (the migrant shelter in Altar, Sonora) and so when my participants were overwhelmed and saddened and moved by the visit it took me a second to remember why. All this reality feels like too much to deal with when you are hit with it all at once. I remember feeling like my head was going to explode with information while my heart was breaking. It's a different but rewarding feeling to accompany people in that struggle and to watch what they do with each experience. I was relieved to be done with the trip because it's tiring work, but it's so worth it.

Well I best get to bed, we have a binational team leader meeting tomorrow in Nogales, Mexico so we have to leave bright and early, and I have to get there in time to water the garden. We have lettuce babies! I had to thin them today though which is always sad. They try so hard to grow and then you rip them right out of the ground. Well I'm sure they understand it's for the good of the community.

Buenas!

Operation Streamline

2008-10-25T15:00:00.000-07:00

¡Presente!
In November
In the small military town
of Columbus, Georgia
protesters sing the word
a slow, mournful cry
of remembrance.

¡Presente!
In October
and every day of the year
in a sterile court room
shielded from the hot Arizona sun
migrants offer the word
quickly translated to English
and wait.

Justice for all
All 70, all at once.
Justice in the form of
handcuffs
clanging as they approach the microphone.
A minimum sentence
"180 days", "90 days", "time served"

An endless line
of tired faces
and chests bearing
logos of American clothes
made in China
"Hollister, Laguna Beach."
Far away
from this hard bench
and legal farce
Far away
from family and friends
new compas
quickly lost in the shuffle

The judge mumbles his lines
he knows them well
the lawyers too.
The show is well rehearsed
and always ends
the same way.
¡Culpable!

food

2008-10-12T22:09:00.000-07:00

The past week of my life has mostly revolved around food (in case you couldn't tell from my last entry). I also had a trip, but that felt more like a brief interlude from food. The good news is that I love food. I love eating food and talking about food and making food, so it's not a problem. I just typed the word "food" way too many times for one paragraph. ANYway clearly I"m distracted, this entry will be low on substance and high in ridiculousness.

Tonight I hosted George (or Jorge for you Spanish speakers) at mi casa and it was lovely having everyone over. Gecko Haven is starting to feel more like home, and it is really nice to have people around all the time. I am such a... people monger? No that doesn't make any sense at all. I'm a being around people monger. I just like the word monger (I warned you about the ridiculousness).

Anyway, George (for those unenlightened folks) is a weekly dinner thing that we started a few weeks ago. The origin of the name is currently a mystery, but Lilli and Nick and Sara got everyone together. Every Sunday night we take turns cooking dinner and have some time to wind down before the week starts. Instead of doing a potluck we just have one person cook for everyone and it works out well because then you only have to worry about preparing food once every two months or so. It's been wildly successful so far, due to the fact that people in Jorge are awesome and also tend to cook delicious foodstuffs. I made East African Groundnut soup and cornbread from the Moosewood Daily Special cookbook and they turned out well. The cornbread reminded me a lot of the kind that Grandmother makes because it wasn't too sweet and I cooked it in a cast iron skillet. It wasn't as good as hers of course, but it was only my first try so I think I have an excuse. She makes real southern cornbread and it is the best I've ever had.

Soo now I should go to sleep. And I will. Buenas! (nachos)

Susanna

it gives me so much flojera...

2008-10-09T22:08:00.000-07:00

It's great working with a bunch of gringos who speak Spanish because you can mix the two languages in ridiculous ways and no one even bats an eye.

In other news, I am tired. This has been a busy week and I am wiped out. Which makes me wonder why I am sitting here on the computer instead of going to bed, but life is full of mysteries that will never be solved so I won't spend any more time thinking about it.

Good things about this week: I planted some more of the garden, annnd even more exciting is that the lettuce sprouted! There are little tiny baby lettuces in our first bed and they are adorable. I kind of feel like these plants are my children, so I really hope they do well or I will have failed as a parent. Or I can just blame Nick, especially because he has been absent in the first week of their lives. For shame...

I planted some cilantro which I am inordinately excited about. I have a profound love for that delicious plant that not even I understand. It must be that the smell makes me think of Mexico, and some taquitos from the street with a little bit of limon and chile. Tasty morsels...

I am not currently hungry, however, mostly because I spent a good four hours today cooking. Well if you count the dinner I made for myself, five. I had to cook meals for the Huntsville group that will be back in Tucson tomorrow, but I have a trip with the U of A Immigration Law class so I had to make everything ahead of time. I hope the food does okay reheated, I know the soup will be fine but I'm a little concerned about the couscous. I am more than a little concerned about the hummus, not that it will be reheated but that it is subpar. The food processor is broken so I had to do like four chickpeas at a time in the blender. A laborious and frusterating process, I assure you. There is more than one rogue whole chickpea in that hummus, but short of crushing them in between my fingers there was nothing I could do.

I have learned quite a bit about shopping and cooking for large groups of people in the past week, mainly that it requires a lot of time and energy but that it can be fun. I enjoyed spending time in the kitchen today, listening to NPR and chopping vegetables. I was visited frequently by my coworkers, who took the time to exclaim over the tantilizing odor (okay I may be flattering myself with that one) or to offer to help cook. I assumed before I came here that BorderLinks employees must be pretty stellar, but they have definitely surpassed my expectations (maybe some of you are reading this - I'm not just saying it, it's true!) A kinder and more thoughtful group of people you'd be hardpressed to find. For some reason that word reminds me of olive oil, and speaking of which I bought a gallon of olive oil today for the kitchen. A gallon! I've never bought that much olive oil at once, it was exciting.

So one of my goals for the Sustainable Food Program is to get as much food as possible from the Farmer's Markets and the Food Bank, and avoid big grocery stores alltogether. Obviously that's not entirely feasible, but I did pretty well this week. I have a serious aversion to conventional supermarkets now, the neon lights make me squint and the produce section is terrifying. Where did all this stuff come from? Pineapples in Arizona? Baby spinach in October? I just read somewhere (a reputable source I assure you) that on average, organic produce actually travels further to reach your plate than conventionally grown fruits and veg. Awesome. Will we ever get it right? I don't expect everyone to quit their jobs and become farmers, but maybe we could see through the marketing gimmicks and start eating real, local food again.

I just finished Michael Pollan's In Defense of Food and he gives some tips on how to figure out what you should eat. Number one rule: Don't eat it unless your great-grandmother would recognize it as food. Go-gurt, for example. What is that? Or you could try a delicious grapple (thats a grape flavored apple). I wish I could've been at the marketing meeting for that innovative fruit. "Well yeah it looks just like an apple, but it's coated in grape flavoring! Grapples are the new plaid." I think that is one novelty food that people were wise enough to avoid, so maybe there's hope.

I think I'm going to bring this rant to an end, I have to get up at 6 am tomorrow for our U of A trip. It's going to be a huge group (40!) and involves a caravan of 4 vehicles, one of which will be driven by me here and in Mexico. I think the phrase "trial by fire" is appropriate here. Wish me luck!

Susanna

the short life of jose antonio gutierrez

2008-09-29T21:43:00.001-07:00

Ben, Lilli, Sara and I went to see a documentary that the U of A was showing for their Hispanic Heritage Month tonight. It was about the first member of the U.S. military that died in the Iraq war, a man named Jose Antonio Gutierrez who was a Legal Permanent Resident (aka he had a green card) of the U.S., originally from Guatemala. The U.S. government granted him posthumous citizenship and the purple heart for his service, and gave his sister and his brother-in-law a visa to come to the U.S. His nephew, who he never met, was born here.

The documentary was well-made and heart wrenching. It's just one migrant story of millions, which is part of what makes it so powerful. They told Jose Antonio's story by following the journey of other migrants who are even now trying to make the incredibly dangerous trek to the U.S.-Mexico border. Jose Antonio actually tried twice to cross into the U.S. before he was successful, but he knew enough to tell the Border Patrol that he was from Mexico so they wouldn't deport him back to Guatemala. A lot of undocumented immigrants from Central America do that when they are detained, because they've already given up everything to get to this point and they want to try again until they are lucky and make it through. Often they pay the price with their lives.

I think it's easy to listen to the talk about immigrants and "illegal aliens" and the "immigration problem" and forget completely that they are human beings. Some come with bad intentions, of course, but the majority risk life and limb to make it here for the same reason: to help their families. I feel like I've said it so many times that it sounds cliche, but it's true and everything I learn and every conversation I have with a migrant reinforces it.

They had a lot of footage in the documentary of migrants catching the train from the very southern part of Mexico all the way up to the border, which is a common and free but extremely dangerous way to travel. There are hundreds of people who die or are seriously injured from falling off while the train is moving, or not quite making it when they are trying to jump on. They spent some time in a home for train victims, I wondered if some of them weren't able to travel back home after being injured, so many were in wheelchairs because they had lost limbs.

The footage of the migrants jumping on the train really got to me, so many of them were young men and it made me think of my family and how scary it would be to know that your brother or your dad was taking these kinds of risks, not knowing how long the journey might take or if they'll even arrive. There was one woman who left her kids with her parents so that she could make some money to send back to her family. She talked about how sad she felt when her daughters wanted something for Christmas and she couldn't get it for them. It's such a simple thing but it's a feeling so many people have, no?

I imagine that some people would say I'm being sappy and that it's not that simple, but if we're always looking at the big picture we'll forget what it means to be human and to feel compassion. Something is broken with this system that we have set up and I think everyone can admit to that. The analysis gets off track when we start blaming everything on the migrants. We've always been taught to put ourselves in other people's shoes right, to try to understand them? I think that needs to happen a lot more in this country, it is just so fundamentally wrong to place all the blame on the victims of a broken and corrupt system. Maybe if they stayed in their countries there would be more people to help fix what is broken there, but can you really ask a poor and desperate person to do that?

I just couldn't get Justin's face out of my head when I was watching the film. And dad's. What if they left and had to make that journey? What if one of them fell of the train and lost an arm? It seems outrageous because I know that they'll never be in that situation, but that fear is the same fear that women my age are feeling right now all over Latin America. I think of the coworkers I've had who left their families and haven't seen them for years. There are millions of stories and they need to be told because this "left wing media" doesn't do them justice. I don't pretend to know which "side" the media is on, but they tend to miss stuff like this. Reality, I mean.

Anyway, I'm tired and the film is weighing pretty heavy on my mind so I think I need sleep. I'm grateful that I know where all the members of my family are, and that I have a place to sleep and food in the fridge and a bike and a job. I take it for granted every day.

un abrazo fuerte
sus

si te vas

2008-09-27T14:23:00.000-07:00

Hello all! Sorry it's been so long since I wrote last, things have been busy around here for good and bad reasons. Good reasons include but are not limited to: spending more time with my lovely coworkers (outside office hourse), riding my bike, cooking, receiving lots of letters and taking time to respond to them, digging around in the dirt at BorderLinks, going to Mexico for a retreat, and reading some good books. Really the only bad reason for my busyness is that BorderLinks is suffering from some pretty severe financial issues (read: there is no money) so we've been spending the last week and a half trying to come up with a plan to save money without laying someone off.

We had a meeting last week with the staff to hear a report from the board meeting, and they handed us a sheet of paper with their decisions. Among the list was their decision to ask the education department (my department) to make a $10,000 cut by the end of December, with a minimum of one staff lay off. Yikes! We were all pretty shocked, especially because everyone feels really good about the current team and we definitely don't want to lose anyone. After a stunned silence, Noel spoke up and pointed out that laying someone off would seriously damage the morale of our team for one, and wouldn't even save that much money considering our meager salaries. He said we'd rather come up with something as a team, maybe consider cutting all of our salaries for three months instead of letting one person bear the entire burden. I really appreciated the team solidarity, especially because I've only been working here for a few weeks. I feel lucky to be working with this group of dedicated, passionate, intelligent, and (equally as important) fun people. I hope they enjoy me as much as I enjoy them!

Anyway, to make a long story short we came up with a plan that involves all of the trip leaders taking a 25% pay cut and committing to raising a minimum amount of money. We proposed it to the board and they approved it wholeheartedly, some of the members even got a little bit choked up and said they were extremely impressed with the sacrifices we were willing to make. It's going to be a little rough squeaking by for the next three months, but they gave us a verbal commitment that we'd be back to full salary by January, so lets hope all goes well and the economy doesn't get worse. All the board members are kind people with good hearts and they are having to make some tough decisions right now so I don't envy them their position. BorderLinks is a good organization and so I have faith that all will turn out well somehow. I think I inherited this eternal optimism from dad, but it comes in handy at times like these.

If anything, the whole situation has brought us closer as a team and we've been evaluating our program in a serious way to figure out what our priorities are, so some good has definitely come from it. We'll see what happens in the next few months, I'll keep you updated.

Aside from the financial crisis, everything is going really well. I have my moments where I kind of wonder how I ended up out here and seriously miss my friends in Chicago, but all in all I can't complain. My living situation is pretty wacky right now and I'm not sure I'll keep living here long-term, but we'll see. It's not that I don't like it, it just doesn't quite feel like home. The house does have a ton of good resources and it's a good way to save money, but it would be nice to get an apartment with Kelly and have my own space. My room feels cozy at least, thanks to mom for sending me all that stuff I left behind!

As far as work goes, I have been working on planning the next big trip I will be leading with Anthony, one of the Young Adult Volunteers this year. We are leading a group from Phillips Theological Seminary from Tulsa Oklahoma, it should be a great trip. They are mostly adults which will be a little different, but I was just thinking about the group I had at Overlook Farm once of senior citizens and how one of our participants had to jump a fence to go collect sap for maple syrup. She was such a sport, but next time I think they'll make sure they know the age of the group before we plan all those activities.

Nick and I have been planning and preparing the garden, we are hoping to plant this week. It's really strange to be able to plant anything in October, but thats the nature of living out in the West. We are going to plant lettuce, spinach, onions, garlic, carrots, and some herbs. We also moved the compost into the shade and finally decided on a system. We're going to go to a local brewery next week and ask them if we could have their spent grain to put on the pile, apparently it's really good for compost. I'm learning a lot about gardening in the desert, especially because the Community Food Bank has gardening workshops a couple times a month that are free! Nick and I went to one about soil yesterday which turned out to be pretty hilarious. The guy giving it was a retired soil scientist and he was seriously passionate about soil. He even made a distinction between soil and dirt, apparently he is offended when people confuse the two. Nick and I were sitting in between a group of Spanish speaking ladies with their translator, who tended to veer off the subject of soil and ended up telling stories about fruit trees and garden pests, and two women who chatted continuously about the benefits of calcium supplements and made a serious effort to connect our discussion with theirs. It was a bit distracting, but educational nonetheless.

Well I've gotta go get my laundry, more to come!

Un abrazo
Sus

compost

2008-09-14T20:04:00.000-07:00

Has it really been less than a week since I got to Tucson? This time seven days ago I was sitting at dinner with Carrie and Kevin in Phoenix, wondering what everything would look like and who I would meet. It's funny how fast you can get used to something, because my house and my job already feel pretty comfortable. I keep expecting to be really homesick, but it hasn't hit me yet. I miss everyone in Chicago terribly, but everything is so new here I haven't had time to be sad.

The end of last week was great, I got a bike which I am thrilled about. I bought it off Craigslist and I have a sneaking suspicion that I've been had, but not in a big way. I probably should have tried to talk the woman down a bit on price, but I was so excited to get my hands on a roadbike that I forgot about all the things I should have checked and asked about. It's nothing major, I just think she overcharged me a bit. The wheels should be nicer for the price, and... well I guess thats kind of it. It's a lot lighter than Queso, and a little smaller. Plus the gears shift, which is important because Tucson is considerably hillier than Chicago. Granted, ANYthing is hillier than Chicago, which is one of the reasons I didn't bring Queso here. We would have had a little trouble going up. I bought a heavy duty lock and some little lights for the front and back, so I"m mostly set. Come to think of it, all this bike talk is probably really boring. If I had visual aids it might be more captivating, but I don't so you'll have to suffer through. Most importantly, I have a way to get around quickly, and it's a pretty reliable contraption.

On Friday we went to a press conference for this organization called No More Deaths. They do humanitarian work in the desert on the border and they are sending some representatives to Washington, D.C. to speak with Congress about human rights abuse of undocumented immigrants at the hands of the Border Patrol. BorderLinks has a pretty strong connection with the organization, mostly because we take groups there to talk to them about their work. A few years ago (one year? I'm not sure) some of their members were arrested for giving water to migrants in the desert, and there was a big campaign in Tucson to have them acquitted. You still see signs on houses everywhere in the city that say "Humanitarian aid is never a crime". It's a cool organization and the press conference was well organized. They had some people give testimonies about what they've seen at the aid station that they set up in Mexico just across the border to give water, food, and first aid to migrants who have just been deported. They've seen some pretty flagrant violations of human rights and heard many stories from people who were mistreated by the Border Patrol. Currently there is no one to hold Border Patrol accountable for their actions (and migrants are usually afraid to speak out) so they are going to Congress to ask for action. I hope it goes well.

The disappointing thing about the press conference is that actual members of the press were few. We all went to represent BorderLinks and afterwards we were wondering where was the left-wing press we hear so much about? After watching all the election coverage and hearing the republicans complain about the liberal and left-wing media, it was ironic that there was only like one reporter at this event. I personally don't believe that media as a whole is liberal at all, but it's a common argument. I think if you ask anyone who dedicates their lives to supposedly "left-wing" and "liberal" causes, you'll find that they have an extremely difficult time getting news coverage. I read a book in one of my International Studies classes at DePaul about the history and structure of the media in the U.S., and the author talked about how people who say that the media has a liberal bias usually point to the statistic that the majority of journalists vote democrat. What no one talks about though, is who OWNS the media, and who the editors are and who are the people who actually make the decision about what to publish. Most of the media in the U.S. is owned by a few huge companies, and it follows that the owners of these companies don't want to publish or air stories about super-controversial issues because they'll lose money from advertising. I could go on, but I'll save the rest for another day.

Friday night was fun, I went out with some of my coworkers and we had a lovely time. They are all excellent people and I know that I will enjoy working with them. We have an education department staff retreat next week that I'm super excited about. We are going to Nogales to do workshops and such with the Mexico staff. Some of us are even going to drive down early to see some of the Mexican Independence Day celebrations, I can't wait!

Saturday morning Nick (my co-Sustainable Food Program organizer) and I went to a gardening workshop that was really cool and informative. Neither of us know that much about gardening in the desert (who knew that was even possible? I didn't) so it will be a learning process. We learned how to make a good compost pile, what makes good soil, how to identify and troubleshoot common problems, and Nick and I attempted to feed a giant and possibly poisonous grasshopper to the chickens. Of course we didn't think at the time that it might be poisonous, that would be cruel. But mom pointed out that brightly colored bugs are often poisonous, so perhaps thats why the chickens avoided it. We thought they were just scared... Next time I'll give them more credit.

The rest of the weekend has been relaxing and lovely. The weather is always gorgeous and so I've spent as much time as possible outside. Today I rode five miles to Trader Joe's during midday, which wasn't the most brilliant idea I've ever had but it turned out okay. I was just a bit warm by the time I got there... And of course I bought the heaviest things in the store, olive oil and cans of beans, and had to carry them in my backpack. Next time it's all tea and lettuce, I've learned my lesson.

Well I'm going to go read and then get some rest. This is going to be a busy week!

Con carino,
Sus

more of the beginning

2008-09-10T23:04:00.001-07:00

I am exhausted, but I will use my last ounce of strength to write about the past two days because if I don't do it now I never will. This website has a nifty feature where it automatically saves what you've written every minute or so. Amazing! I remember a few times in Mexico when I wrote for half an hour and then right when I was about to post something, it would disappear. It was awful. Or relatively awful, rather. Things could have been much worse.

Today when I was waiting for my coworker to pick me up to go play ultimate frisbee I looked down at my leg and I had 6 mosquitoes on one calf. 6! Apparently it's mosquito season, which comes along with monsoon season, thus dispelling two misconceptions I had about Tucson: 1) that it never rains and 2) that there are no mosquitoes. Ah well, supposedly they'll go away soon and then I can sit outside my house without fear of being attacked. The good thing is that unlike the monster midwest mosquitos, their bites don't stay for very long. I probably had 15 on each leg by the time Amara came by to get me, but they were gone an hour later.

So, what have I been doing in the great state of Arizona for the past four days? Well... I arrived in Phoenix on Sunday and Carrie so kindly picked me up from the airport. We bummed around on Sunday, drank apricot ale (delicious, as it turns out) by the pool and ate tomatoes. Mostly we just ate a lot that day, but eating is much more pleasant when you do it with family members you don't see very often. Monday I continued to lay around in the pool and read an entire book straight through. I also got an angry sunburn, which is my own fault because I forgot how strong the sun is here (don't worry mom I had sunscreen on my face, it was mostly my pale stomach that turned red).

Monday night Carrie and Kev drove me to Tucson where we unloaded my stuff at my new home, a housing co-op in the Dunbar Springs neighborhood called (this is not a joke) "Gecko Haven." The story goes that when they named it they were making fun of the gated communities in the area with names like "Sunset Haven", etc. The people here are very kind and good to the environment. The gray water from the shower and various sinks goes out to water the plants in the yard, the showers are solar powered, everyone always turns the lights off when they leave the room, etc. I live in the big house with four other people, and there is the south house with three people and house where the owners and founders of the co-op live with their 10-year old son Dylan. I've had the chance to get to know my housemates a little bit so far, hoping to make some dinners with them at some point or go hiking.

Work is GREAT! I really love being at BorderLinks and everyone is warm and welcoming. I haven't started doing any actual work yet, it's been mostly orientation and such. Getting to know the city, going over logistics, filling out forms, all very exciting tasks. We did have our driving test (part of the job is being able to drive 15-passenger vans, thank you DCSA!) this morning and ended up at a bakery for donuts. I got one called "Mango Delight" which was a little heavy on the mango but still delightful.

Today we also went to the Tucson courthouse to be present for the processing of the people who are detained under Operation Streamline, a new initiative (in Arizona at least) to give mandatory detention sentances to any person who crosses the border without documents. The general policy before January of this year was to hold people for a few hours and then return them to their home countries. The new one is to charge everyone they apprehend and give them jail time, regardless of the situation. Walking into the courtroom was quite a shock because I didn't expect quite so many people to be processed at the same time (I hate that term too, "process", as if they were some kind of meat). There were 62 migrants in the courtroom, only 7 of which were women, all in handcuffs and chains around their feet, looking disheveled and anxious, some terrified, some just resigned. They all had headphones so that they could hear the interpreter, but they weren't able to take them on and off or adjust them because they couldn't move their arms.

The judge began by reading them their rights, and the entire group of 62 responded at once, a resounding "Si!" to the questions full of jargon from an unfamiliar legal system that sometime I didn't even understand. After the group questions (during which the detainees were given the chance to "Stand if you wish to have an individual trial." Of course no one did, they were basically doing what they were told), 8 people at a time came to the stand with their attorneys and the judge went down the line. You could tell he has repeated these questions and statements over and over, sometimes he talked so fast I had no idea what he was saying until about the fourth time he repeated it. Then came the plea, and if you answered correctly (guilty) he moved on. If you answered incorrectly (not guilty), the attorney and the judge explained things to you until you answered right. Then when everyone had answered correctly, they filed out of the courtroom with the marshall and the next 8 came to the stand.

It was all very eerie, and I felt bad for everyone involved. The detainees because they were being treated like hardened criminals for having broken an administrative law, the lawyers because it was more like reading from a script than practicing law, and the judge because even he didn't have room to make any real decisions. There was nothing very human about the whole ordeal, which lasted approximately two hours.

Perhaps harsher sentencing for people who cross undocumented is a deterrent, but after doing research this summer about private detention centers, I think there is a little more to this "Operation Streamline" than just deterrence. Private prison contractors are paid by the U.S. goverment for every head that they have in their detention centers, so the more detainees, the better. Strangely enough, those same private contractors are the same ones who are lobbying the U.S. government for harsher sentencing. Longer jail time means more money for private companies, which is, in the most uneloquent of terms, pretty messed up.

Well it's VERY late now and I'm exhausted. More to come soon!

Love love,
Sus

The beginning...

2008-09-10T18:26:00.000-07:00

I only have like three minutes to write, but I thought I'd get this thing started. I once had an online journal (I still hate the word "blog") but I have since forgotten my information and can no longer access it. But it seems fitting to create a new one, since I feel like this is a whole new chapter in my life.

So here I am, sitting in my new living space, having just finished my second day at my new job, about to go play ultimate frisbee with some new acquaintances, drinking out of my new waterbottle, in sight of my new room... Everything is new, I guess is the point I'm trying to get across. Even though I sort of did this four years ago when I decided to move to Chicago where I didn't know anyone, this feels different. This change required more initiative, and getting to know Tucson will not be a consequence of going to school here. I live near the University of Arizona, which seems like a nice place, but college is soo beyond me... Just kidding! I feel like I'm still a child. I feel like I'm too young to actually do anything useful. I think I'll always feel that way, at least a little bit. No matter how old I get, I feel just the same age as I always was. Maybe that doesn't make sense.

I'm going to write more about my job and what I've actually been doing since I arrived on Sunday, but for now I have to go put on my shoes and hope it doesn't rain so I can play frisbee. Whee!

Un abrazo,
Sus