Loose Ends: Mexico City 2018: Emergency Health

In winter 2018, I spent a month in Mexico City. My accommodations, originally a Friends (Quaker) guesthouse, gave its third floor over to some refugees from the second caravan coming north from Central America. 

One of the asylum-seekers became ill, and I wrote this:

So when you are vomiting blood and have no money, what do you do? 

In the case of one of my housemates, you go to a pharmacy for a consult - in some pharmacies free and in others, for a nominal fee (but even this is inaccessible if you have no money, so one of your housemates pays the consulting fee for you - about 35 pesos). 

The pharmacist takes your vitals (blood pressure, pulse, temperature, and throat check), but no blood, stool, or urine tests. 

The pharmacist takes a history from you, considers the possibilities, rules some out, and recommends an endoscopy. Which, of course, is outside your financial reach. 

The pharmacist suggests there is an irritation in your esophagus or at another milepost along the gastrointestinal boulevard, and to eat fruits and vegetables, and avoid spicy foods. If still producing blood in two days, do what you can to get that endoscopy. 

What could be the cause? 

The violent blows to your torso, delivered 10 days ago by fellow caravanners from a different country than  yours, who maybe took umbrage at your membership in the caravan's LGBTQI group? Or the cocaine you ingested yesterday evening, even though you've never had such a reaction before? Or stress? Or malnutrition? Or an ulcer? Or a pulmonary issue? Deadly? Or a passing health incident, self-repairing? 

Does an affliction care if you are kind and amiable, that you sometimes engage in risky behaviors, are poor, have left all that is familiar to you, and your access to food, shelter, and employment is insecure? No, it does not; it is impersonal. 

Maybe there's a biological tipping-point algorithm at play: stress+malnutrition+uncertainty+a beating+cocaine+compromised immune system from the cold virus that's been visiting the house = a crocodile crack on a corporeal byway = vomiting blood. 

A truism: Time will tell.   

The Meaning of Yellow Flowers

Yellow flowers and rain gutter near Campbell and Fort Lowell. Tucson, Arizona. May 2019.

Yesterday, as I lay on my airbed reading a young-adult science fiction novel, I was warm; the surface supporting my body, soft. If I had to go to the bathroom, the toilet and sink were literally around the corner of my bedroom. Hungry? Get up and walk a few steps to my refrigerator or pantry, in clean socks, on a clean floor.

In a parallel universe, in Mexico City, was a young guy who'd slept on the street last night. It dropped into the 30s. In the past 18 months, he'd survived:

• Journey in one of the caravans from Honduras to Mexico City
• Journey into the US, where he was detained in an "icebox" for some time
• Illness and despair when he returned to Mexico City
• Year, in all, in Mexico City, with food and shelter insecurities
• Isolation from family and friends back home, and the friends and short-term security he'd held while at Casa de los Amigos
• Faltering hope

Such long-term hardship - beginning before he embarked on a self-rescue mission, when he joined that caravan from Central America - has pushed his spirit into a crevasse, and this weekend, maybe he is on a bus to Chiapas, Mexico, headed back in the direction of Honduras.  Honduras. Whose nickname from the Reagan era was: USS Honduras. 

He told me: "I don't want to keep suffering."

Here's the thing. There will be suffering in Honduras, too. But maybe it will be closer to family and old friends, so perhaps a more familiar suffering, with people who love him?

I say this with a question mark because I really don't have a clue. I can have an intellectual grasp of his life in this moment, but not the gut understanding of one who has also lived through a war. Because a war, it is, for the usual things: power and greed, both in-country and from out-of-country, and where men, women, and children, individuals like my cheeky, charming young guy are just collateral damage.


Oh, right. The yellow flowers.

In the U.S., yellow flowers bespeak happiness and joy. In Central America, death and funerals.

Mexico City: The Caravan: The "Invaders"

Mexico City. A little girl's birthday cake. November 2018.

This is the birthday cake for one of the potential "invaders" of the United States.

A little girl who just turned eight.

Before the cutting of the cake, the birthday girl´s daddy gave thanks to God, while holding his daughter in an embrace, for all of the blessings he appreciated for his family and the people around him, and his faith in their future.

This is the same man who, out of the blue, crafted two paper flowers for me last week.

The little girl´s mommy is who runs through reading and math exercises with her daughter and son ... because ... being a refugee means no school. ...

Yeah, so these are the "invaders."

Mexico City: The Caravan: A Homey Dish

Mexico City - Atol de elote. December 2018.

Last night, one of my Salvadoran housemates introduced me to atol de elote.

"Linda" was rather nonplussed by the rave reactions from me and a Mexican housemate, as to her, this is an ordinary budget dish.

White corn (elote), cream, and cinnamon are the predominant flavors.

Its warm, sweet, thick creaminess soothes your heart and belly like a bowl of oatmeal or cream of wheat made for you by your grandmother.

Although atol de elote may be mundane to Linda, there are others who quite disagree:

Saveur: Guatemalan Sweet Corn and Milk Drink
Global Table Adventure: Creamy Sweet Corn Drink
196 Flavors: Atol de Elote

Mexico City - Atol de elote. December 2018.

Mexico City: The Caravan: The Roses Left Behind

El Paso Municipal Rose Garden. May 2017.

One day, "Lina," a young married woman with two children, showed me photos of the rose bushes from her garden back home in El Salvador.

The photos are all that she has now of her garden.

El Paso Municipal Rose Garden. May 2017.

Lina showed me her roses while we stood in the communal kitchen of the guesthouse - the guesthouse where I had a tiny, but private room, and where her family of four slept on mats on the floor, next to strangers, in the meeting room above us.

Lina used to have her own kitchen, her own sala. She had the garden. She and her husband and their two children used to sleep in beds. Their own beds. Her children went to school.

Regardless of your view about human migration - documented or undocumented - let's always remember this: No one casually leaves behind everything of comfort they knew before. No one casually pulls their children from school. No one casually enters into a journey of thousands of miles into an uncertain future, but with known dangers to themselves and their children. No one casually gives up control over their own home domain to enter into a temporary shelter to sleep on the floor with strangers.

No one casually abandons the roses they tended in their personal gardens of Eden.

What reality would be so dire that Lina and her husband would take their two young children, abandon their home, school, neighborhood, and close family, and flee into the unknown? To be imprisoned, en famille, in a Mexican jail before finding release into a Mexican shelter?

Death. Specific, detailed, written death threats against Lina's husband for something he saw.

El Paso Municipal Rose Garden. May 2017.

Mexico City: New Housemates and the Saturday Market

Corn at the Saturday market. Mexico City. November 2018.

Last night, new refugees arrived, this time from the second caravan. They were a group of LGBTQ folk from Honduras, including one group member´s younger sister.

One of the young Salvadoran men from the earlier group of refugees has been looking assiduously - so far to no avail - for an affordable place to live, as his shelter time at the guesthouse is to end in the next 24 hours. There´s not only the tangible anxiety involved in the search -- money + safety + suitability + location to potential employment -- there´s the anxiety of leaving the intangible comfort-warmth-camaraderie of the guesthouse.

Today I went to the nearby Saturday market, where I bought fresh cheese made with peppers, a kilo of carrots, a jicama, some fresh basil, a tomato, and a bag of fresh rolls.

The cheese is less salty than what I bought last Saturday, and a bit creamier.

I subsequently learned that what I thought was the minty-version of basil was really yerba buena - more minty than anything else.

Mexico City: Communal Dinner

Fresh-gathered fruit for the communal dinner. Mexico City. November 2018.

Every Sunday evening there is a communal dinner at the guesthouse.

Last Sunday, a man of faith named John - bilingual Spanish and English - took the lead on the dinner. The centerpiece of the meal was spaghetti. Everyone brought something.

Rasha, of Oman, and I walked up to the corner rotisserie and bought two chickens, which she augmented with several containers of rice and a chipotle-based BBQ sauce.

Others brought couscous, chicken curry, pizza, mole, bread, refried beans, doughnuts, papaya, and freshly-picked local fruits, the name of which I forget.

People at dinner included tourist-guests like me; people of the caravan from Honduras, El Salvador, and Nicaragua; guesthouse volunteers, and other folks connected to the guesthouse in some way.

The men from the caravan set up the tables and laid out plates, cups, and cutlery.

Before sitting, we made a circle around the two tables and introduced ourselves: our names and places of origin.

You can guess what I am going to say, right?

We were just a gathering of people from different parts of the world, some fleeing violence or poverty (or both), and some of us assured in our security of physical safety and food and shelter.

No Wall. No fear. No ugly talk.

Mexico City: I Am a Lunch Guest

Salvadoran chicken soup. Mexico City. November 2018.

On Sunday, I entered the sala to discover the Salvadoran men just sitting down to a lunch of Salvadoran chicken soup. 

Jose invited me to join the group, to sit down in front of a full bowl of savory soup: chicken, planked potatoes, cilantro, a vegetable unknown to me, a pretty broth. 

Someone placed a warm stack of fresh tortillas on the table. 

One of the group led everyone in a pre-meal prayer of gratitude. 

The Salvadoran men are refugee members of the first caravan. The guesthouse has opened its doors to these men, although the only space they can offer is the floor of the upstairs meeting room, where the men sleep on mats. 

Salvadoran chicken soup. Mexico City. November 2018.

Mexico City: Sharing Salt

Communal salt. Mexico City. November 2018.

I brought my ancient Tupperware salt shaker with me.

While I reside at the guesthouse, it is in the communal kitchen for all to use. We are the guests from the refugee caravan, casual visitors from the U.S. (like me), legal advocates from the U.S., guesthouse volunteers, visitors from other parts of Mexico.

When I leave here, I will take my salt shaker with me.

Each time I use it, wherever I am, I will think of all the warm hands that enfolded it, from Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Mexico, the U.S. 

I will wrap one of my hands around the shaker, lift it up, pour the salt onto my food, and think of the warmth.

This thought makes me happy.

Mexico City: The Caravan: A Gathering of L'Eagles

A gathering of "l'eagles" in Mexico City. November 2018.

When I came to Mexico City, I didn't anticipate any intersection with the US morality test that is the Central American caravan.

Upon my arrival at the guesthouse, however, I discovered a lucky few caravan members had been given refuge here.

And then I encountered two women at my guesthouse: Rasha, a woman from Oman; and Katharine Gordon, an attorney with immigration expertise, affiliated with Al Otro Lado.

Rasha, the effusive, sparkly Omani; and Katharine, a mid-westerner; talked about going to Jesus Martinez Stadium the next day, where Katharine and other attorneys could deliver general information about seeking asylum in Mexico and the U.S.

Rasha has experience with giving succor to Syrian refugees who landed on the Greek island of Lesbos. I call her a "woman who loves." She reminds me of another woman who loves.

I asked if I could follow Katharine also, despite the fact I brought absolutely nothing to the table except my eyes and ears as a witness to a diaspora in action from Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Guatemala.

Katharine generously agreed to let me tag along.

We agreed to meet at 8:00 the next morning, at which point we'd head to the stadium.

But the next morning, things had changed. Katharine learned that many of the refugees had left the stadium to begin the next leg of their journey to Tijuana, where they believed they would be met with a more law-abiding US border process (i.e. accepting asylum seekers in accordance with existing American law) than other port entries. In addition, even though Tijuana is father away from Mexico City than other ports of entry, it is a safer route than the more direct ones, which suffer under the weight of  violent cartels.

A gathering of "l'eagles" in Mexico City. November 2018.

A gathering of US immigration attorneys who have flown to Mexico City laid a new plan for the morning: Get together for a brief training meeting at the Holiday Inn Express about a mile from the stadium. Katharine wondered if Rasha and I were still interested in going. We were and we did.

A woman named Gretchen Kuhner, who is the executive director of IMUMI (Institute for Women in Migration), shared some information about how Mexican law touches on asylum for humanitarian reasons.

Also present at the meeting was a team of US attorneys from CHIRLA (Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights), in Mexico to offer realistic, general immigration information to the caravan refugees so they could make informed decisions about what to do, such as stay in Mexico or proceed to the US.

Katharine Gordon was present for Al Otro Lado.

A gathering of "l'eagles" in Mexico City. November 2018.

Atenas Burrolas, a human rights and immigration attorney in North Carolina, was on board. As was a New Orleans attorney, Graham Prichard.

With all of the bad press that attorneys get for their avarice and cynicism, I was mighty blown away by the attorneys at this meeting, leaving their homes to share knowledge and expertise with people in flight from their own homes.

A gathering of "l'eagles" in Mexico City. November 2018.