Sorry it's taken me forever to write this post, I've had some busy days. Well, they've been tiring more than busy...On friday we did a "Via Crucis", of which I'll tell you more in a moment ("en un rato", in Spanish :D), and since then both the things to do and the tiredness just kept accumulating. I'm still going to the comedor everyday, sunday was my only day off and I basically spent it all in bed. I really wanted to start my research plan, but I just needed to rest! Aside from the work at the comedor, I've tried to step up the translation of the main booklet of the organization (not sure I already told you about this), as my supervisor is going to LA in two days and I was hoping for him to have quite a bit translated before that. I'm actually still at the end of chapter 3 (out of 6!) but he said it doesn't really matter. Then, yesterday, one of our colleagues left to go back to Germany, so we had some celebration. I only actually went to two dinners (yes, there was more!), but I guess I'm getting old and I need to go to bed early nowadays...How sad...!
Well, let me tell you about the Via Crucis. So interesting! For those of you who don't know what it is: you can google it! :P No, well, in simple words it's supposed to be sort of a remembrance of the difficult walk that Jesus had before dying, bearing his cross. I'm not sure ours can actually be called a Via Crucis as, in the end, we didn't have prayers or anything like that. Certainly we didn't have a cross! It was, however, organised by two religious people, two Jesuits who also volunteer at the comedor. They had this amazing idea of going to the place where migrants get off the train here in Guadalajara, and walking back from there to the comedor, to see what they go through in this city, before arriving to us. As you can imagine, they do not go through a pleasant journey. It's 3/3.5 hours long, under the Mexican sun (and they generally get off at around 10am, so they walk under the midday sun!) and the landscape is not the best.
Half of the walk is on the train tracks, easy to follow. We saw three dead animals, and some pieces of clothing. In general, I had this huge sense of desolation along the way and I know that, if I were in their shoes, it would be so easy for me to just become prey of the saddest thoughts. One of my colleagues also noted that there is a long part where the sides of the "camino" are really high, it's like being in a small valley. As far as security is concerned, it's not a very safe place. It's very easy to be bottled up, stuck between possible aggressors. Considering the vulnerable situation of migrants, it's indeed very dangerous! Then, when approaching the station and its private territory, you have to leave the train tracks and walk on the street. You don't wanna lose the tracks (Guadalajara is a big city and the vast majority of migrants wouldn't know where to go), so you walk on the street next to them, which is a relatively busy one. Trust me, it never seems to end! The main thing that all of us noticed was that we found the walk very hard, but migrants are in much harder conditions than us. They haven't slept on a proper bed for weeks, they have been on a train for days, who knows when the last time they ate was, some of them don't have a backpack, or a hat, and so many don't have enough water. We all had the privilege to sleep on our own bed the night before, to eat a nice breakfast, to be able to carry how much water (and gatorade) we needed in our convenient bags...and we were even reminded by the supervisor of the comedor to bring sunscreen! Well, don't wanna bore you with the details, but the experience made me think a lot. I'm glad I did it :) I'll leave some pictures for you at the end of the post.
A few days ago, also, we had an "operativo". There's another spanish word for you! I learnt it the first day I did interviews, and I'm still not sure I actually know the meaning...Basically, it should be when the police arrives and asks for your documents. They might also check if you have drugs and things like that. Sometimes it happens to migrants on the train: the federal police (or the municipal) might stop the train, or simply wait for it to stop, and make the migrants get down so that they can check them out. Obviously, it's particularly bad when it's the migration police, cause then they can deport you (I might have already written this, only migration police can deport you, although not all migrants are aware of it). Back to us: the other day these 4 or 5 police vans arrived in the street where the comedor is (you might remember some homeless people live there) and they made everyone face the wall with their hands up. Well, I don't remember them asking people to do it, but most of them ended up in that position. Once the police checked their documents (if they had them!), and the police dog hadn't detected any drug, they were good to go. It was a bit scary in a way. I knew I was "safe", and actually police generally does make me feel safe (especially in the city centre of Mexico City!), but I don't know...at a certain point, I even thought "oh god, I don't have a passport on me!". Silly, I know, especially cause there was no migration police. And cause they didn't even enter the comedor. But that's what happened to me in that moment XD I guess I was a bit too influenced by all the testimonies I heard in interviews...
As far as this last point is concerned, I specifically asked my supervisor, who happened to be there too, about that: the police doesn't come in, because the government acknowledges the good work that organizations like FM4 are doing. Obviously, though, they might catch migrants who have just got out of the comedor. My supervisor actually told me that this was happening a while back, when some migration police officers were always around the corner from our street. FM4 spoke with the council, however, and they stopped. I don't think they get operativos from migration police that often nowadays.
As promised, I'm leaving you with some pictures ;)
This is the train, famously called "la bestia" (="the beast")
The other main place for migrants here in Guadalajara, next to where they get off
This is one of the homeless people who live near the comedor. He is a migrant too and lived in LA for 12 years before being deported
El camino
Kate
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