“So what’s next, Leisha?”

Alright, time for the inevitable: face that question that’s been asked to me about a bajillion times in the past… well, entire year! (More, recently, however.)  “So what’s next, Leisha?”

End-of-year retreat for the Tucson/Borderlands site is the beginning of August, w/ the transition retreat for all national YAVs at Ghost Ranch the 17th-21st of August.

After, I plan to head back to the border, spend a tad bit of time there, and then pack up a backpack and head to Southern Mexico for a period of time.

Goal: Visit Cafe Justo community in Salvador Urbina, Chiapas. Cross into Guatemala, perhaps quick trip to Xela. Visit San Cristobol de las Casas. Oaxaca, Veracruz. Return to Guanajuato, visit my much-missed amigos there. On over to Tepic, Nayarit to visit the family of Vicki (her sister and nieces/nephews and one daughter). (NOTE: Order LIKELY not exact!) Back to the border…

And then what?

I’m looking at Youth Director positions within my Presbytery. Yes, this’d mean Leisha’s return to the Midwest, for longer than a month at a time (shocker, I know). We’ll see who’s willing to take me at this point in the fall. Let’s pray for the best.

Nothing’s set… but I’m seeing a path set before me now. Questions remain here on the border, much pertaining to my relationship w/ Jonatan. Pray for us, eh?

Oaxacan Tears

Written on

1 April 2008

I met Maria one night as I was entering into the Migrant Resource Center for my evening shift.  Sitting there on the bench inside the door, it was clear from Maria’s facial expression that she was in pain.  With a very swollen ankle and a leg full of thorns, Maria had made the journey from the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca to the US-Mexico border, alone.  Having been robbed of everything she had brought with her, and tortured by the dangers of the desert, Maria was unable to walk and without a place to stay.

As Maria was picked up to be taken to the hospital, she held tightly to my arm, limping and jumping as best she could on the way.  Each step toward the automobile became increasingly more painful for her, increasingly more slowly.  Mid-journey, Maria’s remaining energy turned into tears, tears of pain, tears of desperation.  “No puedo caminar,” Maria repeated, over and over. “No puedo.” I can’t walk. I can’t.

As I helped lift Maria into the truck, I stood there, not sure of what I could say or do at this point to make a difference for Maria.  Before parting, she took my hand and held it for a moment, tears still flowing.  After parting ways I walked back into the resource center, considering these tears that I’d seen pouring down Maria’s face.  It certainly wasn’t the first time I’d seen tears shed in this place; I recall a young child crying into the couch for his father from whom he’d been separated, a grown man sharing with tears in his eyes about his pregnant wife to whom he would be returning after leaving the resource center, and a young woman soaking many a Kleenex, fearful of being in a place she wasn’t familiar with, not knowing where she’d be going next. 

I urge each of us to stop, take a step back from the various politics of this failed nation-state called the borderlands, and consider those who are risking their lives in attempt to reunite with their families and secure work in order to provide for their families.  Consider Maria and her tears, and the many people who have shared her tears, traveling from place to place in search of the most basic of life’s needs.  May God bless each one of these travelers, and allow you and me the strength to reach out a hand to those in their time of pain and need, considering each one as our brother and sister, created in the image of Christ, in love, in peace. 

YAV Newsletter #6

Dear friends and family,

I remember Maria from Oaxaca, Maria unable to walk, Maria crying, Maria struggling to get into the Grupo Beta truck to go to the hospital here in Agua Prieta.  There wasn’t much I could do for Maria but accompany her to the truck, bearing most of her weight, holding her hand, and assuring I’d call to make sure she’d arrived to the women’s migrant shelter that night.  I wanted to make her tears stop, but of course I couldn’t.  Maria from Oaxaca was in her late 40s and alone, far from her family, far from being in any position to go anywhere let alone walk herself to the bathroom.  Remember Maria from Oaxaca? Please don’t forget her.

Hours and hours spent at the Migrant Resource Center means a lot of cleaning (the desert loves dust), and a lot of organizing (now all the shoes and socks have pairs, and the big bandages can be found in the big bandages compartment and iodine and alcohol swabs are separated on the medical table… and the gloves, too—volunteers, please use the gloves!). It also means a lot of sitting, a lot of reading, a lot of listening.  The other day I was sitting amongst a group of migrants from the Mexican states of Puebla and Veracruz.  I listened as a man from Puebla shared about the fields there, about the lack of work one can find in them, and about his need to simply place food on the table for his family.  While it’s possible for the one month in which one finds a yield and work from the fields, they find themselves wondering the rest of the eleven months.  This man knew the risk he was facing in his pursuit to feed his family. 

And remember the migrant prayer vigil every Tuesday at 5:15 along Pan-American? Every Tuesday, rain or shine, whether there’s one person or fifty people, they say.  It’s true. The other day there were just three of us, and there happened to be three entire crates of migrant crosses.  Considering at first simply picking up and carrying just as many of the crosses as we could in our hands, one man made the suggestion we take them all—three crates, three people.  Which would, perhaps, complicate the process by not only carrying crosses but a heavy crate as well that will have to continuously be picked up and put down.  When we got to the end of the crosses and gathered in a three-person circle, we reflected on how easy it would have been to just pick up a few and move on with the vigil for the sake of our comfort, but there’s nothing comfortable about the desert, nor about innocent individuals and their family members dying there.  Nor can we so easily forget the many, many more that have passed on, an amount far beyond the crosses we have been able to make.  It’s certainly pause for thought about what it means to “bear the cross.”  On this occasion we had the opportunity to not only bear the cross, but bear the crate. And despite the over-100-degree weather, dryness of the air, and heaviness of the crates, we had no regrets.

While our presence on Pan-American on Tuesday evenings does not change things globally, it does create awareness, and far beyond awareness, it creates a presence of solidarity amongst the people of the border, and those who venture out on that often fatal journey.  In considering all that I’ve been involved in this year—protests, marches, direct aid, etc—I feel that the continuation of this event in particular is crucial to the people of the border, and events on the border.  As passersby walk along the sidewalk on Pan-American during the vigil we step aside, allowing them to pass, exchanging glances and often greetings. Cars drive by, heading south, honking in approval, giving thumbs up, often times joining us in our resounding and choral, “PRESENTE!” Perhaps others pass by and have an opposite reaction.  What might we be called? Hippies, communists, liberals, anti-Americans? People may put a title on us if they wish, but what is unknown by them is how different all of us really are, what exactly brings us to the border (and keeps us at the border), what walks of life we come from, and what, just WHAT, keeps us at that blessed vigil week after week.  The path of solidarity means enduring these names, these titles, these assumptions about political and religious views.  In one’s eyes I might be supporting and encouraging the undocumented entry of individuals into this country.  In another’s I am helping to give back a face and a name and a certain amount of dignity to those who lost their life in the most undignified of ways.  We are saying that they should not be forgotten, nor will they be.

Vacation Bible School was held at First Presbyterian Church of Douglas this past week, and yours truly was the arts & crafts teacher.  I agreed to teach under the condition that the activities were already planned out and the resources were already available. As universal law would have it, the day before VBS began, none of the supplies had arrived at the church, and so I immediately sat down to begin planning what I might have four groups of children do during the week, ranging in age from 3 years old to eighth graders.  Never considering myself particularly adept at planning from scratch great, crafty activities for children to do (I’ll give that award to my mom—unfortunately, I didn’t receive those genes), I have to admit that the week turned out pretty great, considering. 

My favorite activity had to do with the phrase for the day, “WE LOVE.”  Now the theme for the week was Rainforest Adventures, so there was already focus on animals of the forest, but there hadn’t yet been a focus on the rest of God’s good creation.  Seeing this as a sort of sign from God and great opportunity to not only make the children think but also gain great insight from each of them in return, I had the children create a large banner about ways to love God’s creation.  The youngest children (pre-school through 2^nd grade) made leaves for a tree that each had a way to love God’s creation on it (ranging from not fighting with one’s brother, to feeding the animals, to caring for those without homes), and signed the trunk of the tree as best as they could.  The rest of the banner had different little pieces of paper that the 3^rd through 8^th graders had each written and drawn out a way to love God’s creation (ranging from picking up litter even when it’s not ours, recycling, walking or biking instead of driving because of pollution, being kind to others, and turning out the lights when we’re not using them).  It was my favorite day as I got to introduce the project and let them take off with their ideas, and the end result was something I couldn’t wait to share with their parents at the end-of-week program AND the entire congregation on Sunday.  (Then, of course, take it home and hang it on my wall, it was just that cool. J) 

Another great joy recently is that I was fortunate enough to receive a group of five teachers from the Denver public school districts at the Migrant Resource Center, to talk with them, answer their questions, and in turn ask them questions.  Such wonderful conversation came from the experience—and inspiration. I have felt God’s gentle (and sometimes not so gentle) push toward getting into the classroom for some time now during my YAV year, looking at vocation and how to utilize the time and space of one year that I’m giving myself before grad school.  Of course I say it’s just one year that I’ll be giving myself before entering—that’s the Leisha plan.  We’ll see what God says about that.  Hearing about what’s happening in various schools in Denver with immigrant populations and ways in which schools are doing all they can to offer authentic opportunities for learning, and seeing that the teachers are not only learning inside their classroom from their students, but also taking a trip across the US/Mexico border to see the reality of what their students have gone through, helped return a hope to me regarding public schools—and more specifically, teachers—in the United States.  If there were a way for me to bridge my passion for immigrant communities, the Spanish language, a calling toward justice and an even clearer calling toward education, I’d be there in a moment.  I’m sure there are ways—they just remain to be shown to be in this moment. God’s timing, I remind myself.  Whether I end up as a professor at a small university or as a teacher in some public school district somewhere in the United States, I know my gifts and passions will be used in whatever context and situation.  And when the timing is right, well, it’ll happen.

The days have gotten hotter and I’ve been forced to think about how to make it look like I didn’t pee my shirt and pants after my commute on bike from the apartment to the Migrant Resource Center and office (or anywhere else I head to between the hours of early morning to late night).  (It’s sweat. I swear it is.) It’s been about 100-degrees INSIDE the apartment where I live, and I’ve spent many a night laying in bed listening to the sound of my ceiling fan, wondering if it’s really doing anything besides making a bit of noise. But as long as I stay well hydrated—and anybody who knows me probably knows that I never go anywhere without a full Nalgene bottle—the heat doesn’t bother me so much.  Sure, it’s not “comfortable,” but neither has God called me to this place so I could “feel comfortable.”  I think about my half-summer in India a couple of years ago and how the heat manifested itself there, cross country practices in August back in high school, and church camp almost every summer of my life, and all the “uncomfortable” heat situations I’ve been in. Funny, those have been some of the best moments of my life! Bring on the heat!

This is when I stop to thank everyone once again for thoughts, prayers, and support in the various ways you’ve given it and I’ve received it.  While I share with you the experiences I’m having on the border, know that it’s only a very small sample of what has really happened in my life here this year.  There has been so much of everything—so much learning, so many relationships, so many hellos and goodbyes, so many challenges and ways that I have learned from both the positive and the negative. And believe me, there has been PLENTY of negative—I just tend to unload those thoughts on what I like to call “my select few.”  In many ways I feel like the year has just begun, and in others, that the time has come to venture on another journey—regardless of how grand, or not so grand, it may look like. While I still am in the process of discerning the “where” and “what” of the months to come after my YAV year ends, I can say that there is a reason why I haven’t had clear in mind the answers just yet.  The last five years that I’ve been away from home, I’ve had everything “planned out.”  Like the five-year plan of one’s life.  I suppose I could have gone into this year ready to write out that next five-year plan but I think each time I tried to do that, there was something telling me I should wait.  A lot has happened in this time, and in some ways I’ve come full circle from where I thought I’d be next year (likely somewhere in South America) to where I feel God has been calling me instead (somewhere like where I am right now, or perhaps back home for the first time in quite some time).  I’m not going to say I’m always in agreement with “God’s plan,”  but I think I’m arriving at the point of acceptance with whatever happens in the months to come. 

Que la paz de Dios sea con todos Uds.,

Leisha Reynolds

YAV Newsletter #5

 

Dear friends and family,

 

 

It’s hard to believe that springtime has arrived, let alone the end of April.  APRIL!? What!? Seriously… where did the past several months escape to? I feel like January arrived and then BAM!, time warp to a few months later. Much has gone on, and I would love to share with you some of the details.

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For those of you who have any invested interest in my personal life and are interested to know, I met someone special in January. His name is Jonatan, and he is from the Mexican state of Puebla. Perhaps this is an important detail to this month as I just returned from 10 days in Puebla, where I got to conocer a la madre (meet the mother). And the entire rest of the family, of course (and I’m talking about a huge extended family!). The familial aspect of the trip was quite fulfilling, as were the open air markets, the narrow streets, the fields of chiles and alfalfa, the homemade food, and about everything else I lived there.  I got to experience small town Puebla as well as Puebla, Puebla, a very colonial city known as a UNESCO World Heritage Site and the fourth-largest city in Mexico. (For those of you who know of my love for Guanajuato which is also a UNESCO World Heritage Site, take that and increase it greatly by miles and people). I also went to Cholula, home of the pyramid that’s a third of the size larger than the ones in Giza, Egypt, home of the Universidad de las Americas, and home of the cathedrals—originally, the plan was to build 365 of them (yep,  one for every day of the year!), although I think they only achieved 200-something cathedrals. It was a good try. J  As some of you may already know, I have felt a strong attachment to the interior of Mexico since my time studying abroad in Guanajuato in 2005, and although I had gotten to return to the interior twice since then, I still have carried this feeling of nostalgia around with me, wishing to be back there.  Puebla for me was both a new experience and a homecoming, both in the land and in the beautiful people there.  I was thankful both to experience life there (albeit  for a very short time) and especially to get to know Jonatan’s raices (roots).   Oh, how important are our raices!

Being away from the border was good for me in several ways, even beyond freeing myself momentarily from the stress that comes with direct humanitarian aid which deems itself necessary in seemingly every moment here.  While for the past several years I have felt a particular calling to Mexico, my follow-through in expressing verbally this calling has been weak. No es nada que se puede expresar con palabras; se siente. (It’s not something one can express with words; it’s felt.) While I am not one of the people (like many I know) who argue that the Mexico found along the border “isn’t really Mexico,” I am one who sides that it’s far from being anything like the Mexico one finds further into the interior.  One will find vast differences in language, an upsetting difference in food availability as well as freshness (with fruits, vegetables, and cheese, mostly), a difference in work trends, economic mannerisms, and how community manifests itself within and throughout.  Now I’m not the one who praises Mexico for its beautiful beaches and because one can buy things at cheaper prices than in the USA.  I can appreciate these qualities, but I don’t choose to base my love for Mexico on either of them, or take advantage of Mexico for them, either.  Nor would I call myself a “Mexican spring breaker,” unless my service trip experience to Ciudad Juarez to work with the border ministry there counts as spring breaking-it-up in Mexico (it was in Mexico, you’re right, yet very far from a beach, and very intentionally so). I prefer to tread lightly throughout Mexico as its daughter who never was but has always wanted to be, supporting local economy and the Mexican people itself, appreciating a culture that is different than the one in which I grew up, getting to know a people that is very different from my own  yet at the same time, very similar.  I prefer to shop for my fruit at the local open-air market as needed, to make my own agua de sandía (watermelon water) after cutting the sandía myself, to walk from point A to point B or to join those around me on the many options available for public transportation.  I prefer the conversations with the locals, invitations to eat in the houses of families, the sound of norteña/mariachi/bachata/ cumbia/reggaeton/what have you at full volume, raging from the truck that drives by me.  The sight of families sharing time together in parques and plazas, and the huge mass of children in uniforms leaving school to head home to eat la comida.  While I am pointing out what I see as positive qualities about Mexico, be assured that my eyes are open to qualities that are not so positive. I am not blind to corruption, injustice, sexism, and other various troubles that the country struggles with. Yet I recognize these as points that affect not only Mexico, but its Latin American neighbors, as well as multiple other places in the world.  Like any country, there is good and bad.  One learns to appreciate most aspects, and deal with the rest. I am currently enjoying reading and being inspired by Mexican author Octavio Paz’s book, El Laberinto de la Soledad, in which Paz works to intellectually interpret el mexicano in all his history and individuality at the time of mid-last century.   Mexico has me, but I remain unable to describe just why, exactly, beyond this.  Ask me about Mexico again after I finish this book, and then once more after I start grad school.  Maybe I’ll be able to share with you more, then. In the meantime, es algo que siento. 

Meanwhile, back on the border, the meetings with the Mexican Consulate and various organizations involving migrant-related NGOs and the State of Sonora continue.  We are working to develop a system of abuse documentation that can be utilized throughout all of the organizations that are involved in the treatment of migrants along the border in Sonora. The meetings are long and I often wonder what my real role is in the midst of them as I will only be in this position until August, but I listen, take notes, and listen just the same.  A significant part of me would love to continue in work like this, with people who are very dedicated to what they do, but the greatest part of me knows that humanitarian aid is not something I could do for much longer.  It’s not so much about burnout as it is knowing that it’s not “the answer.”  It’s a crucial part of the puzzle, there’s no doubt about it, but in my mind it’s not creating the change that is sustainable and necessary for the well-being of the thousands of undocumented men, women and children who are crossing in the desert and losing their lives or their family members’ lives daily.  Unfortunately, politics is the outlet that has the power to change everything, but let’s be realistic, right? We all know that politics don’t change “just like that.”  Neither do certain attitudes of the people; racism remains, prejudice remains, the collectivist sense of power and control remains. As I’ve rolled through this in my head over and over this year it often makes me want to give up: what ARE the answers, then? Direct humanitarian aid and assistance is good, and I applaud all those who dedicate their lives to it, but it’s not “it.” Political reform could be it, but great change only happens over a long period of time, and right now we are seeing that now is not the time for that change.  If this year has done anything for me, it’s done a great job at smacking a good portion of my idealist side right out of me and replacing it with some unfortunately realistic mindsets.  It’s not that I don’t maintain any idealistic ideology anymore; it’s just that I have learned that we have got to be real. And we have got to work together.

It’s incredible, the trends that we see here at the Migrant Resource Center. For instance, on any given day, I could probably take the amount of migrants we served in the center and then take a guess as to which states in Mexico they came from, and be in the ballpark of being right.  It’s always a given that we will receive people daily from Oaxaca, Chiapas, Guerrero, and Veracruz, as these starts are among the poorest of Mexico.  Increasing in numbers are those from Puebla, a detail I remained conscious of as I marveled at the beauty of the many fields and land in Puebla during my time there; while appeasing to the eyes, those fields simply do not yield enough for its people to remain on the land.  Selling dried chiles and beans at the local markets might win a person enough money for a few meals in a given week, but certainly not enough to cover expenses such as a home, an automobile (which I saw very few of—there is a lot of reason behind people using public transportation, or bicycles, or even cheaper yet, their own two feet), an education.  Statistics show that the main source of income in Mexico, next to the oil industry,  is money sent from those who migrated and found work in the United States.  The unfortunate truth is that, without those who have migrated north—whether that means the Mexican side or the United States side—and those who send money home to family members, progress is unable to happen in these parts of Mexico.  Driving through Jonatan’s small hometown outside of Puebla, Puebla, I noticed that essentially all of the trees on the side of the small, two-lane highway were being cut down.  Upon asking Jonatan why it seemed that literally every tree in the town was now fallen to the ground, he responded very solemnly, “la pobreza” (poverty). People will do whatever they can do to survive, whether that means destroying a significant part of the ecosystem, or risking one’s life in the desert.  Perhaps this piece could be kept in mind by those of us who have never in our lives had to worry about food being put on the table, about the car being filled with gas, about there being enough money to pay the mortgage, lights, water, phone, and medical bills.  

I recently met a young woman who was working on a photography project pertaining to the issue of immigration and those involved on both sides of the border.  When I asked her what her purpose was in creating this project, she responded, “To capture the humanity of each person involved.”  Humanity—that of: the people in the villages from where migrants are fleeing;  those who serve as guides or coyotes for those without proper documentation to cross into the USA;  those who actually cross the US/Mexico line without documentation;  those who work for the US federal government in agencies such as ICE and Border Patrol; those who are deported and repatriated back into Mexico.  It exists in each and every person involved. Yet how easy is it to forget the humanity within, and only see a face, or an action?

As I look at the calendar I see that there are limited months left in my year of mission service as a Young Adult Volunteer, something that I wasn’t quite prepared to admit until now.  I think of each of you who have worked to support me by means of prayer, thoughts, cards, emails, phone calls, and financial donations, and how thankful I am for each method of showing me you care about me and about the work I am involved in here on the border.  If you wish to continue supporting me by any of these means, I thank you.  Know that even just a prayer makes a difference for me and my life here.  Prayers for a movement toward the end of violence and injustice here on the border, for those who dedicate their lives to service on the border and in the Church, and for my personally, as I discern “what’s next” in this journey of life, however so temporary it may be—each of these would be appreciated by me, and by those with whom I share my time here. 

Gracias por todo, y que la paz de Dios sea con todos Uds.,

Leisha Reynolds

 

YAV Newsletter #4

Dear friends and family,

It has changed from winter to springtime here in the borderlands.  Yes, believe it or not—it was a cold winter! Perhaps not the negative amount of degrees like folks have seen back home, but 20 and 30 degrees can feel like a negative temperature when heating systems lack at home and at work, and dishes are often washed in cold water.  Nevertheless, the sunshine has started showing its face again and allowing the land, and therefore people, to be heated by it more and more.  I hear that the borderlands here in Arizona/Northern Mexico experience a couple of months of “tolerable” weather before things “really” heat up.   

Something that I have noticed about this change in weather is that it has brought a feeling completely different from the one I have always been used to in the Midwest.  The turn toward springtime there, to me, always meant new life—colorful flowers, blooms on trees, green grass.  Here, however, springtime manifests itself a bit differently for those who are conscious of the bitter realities of what’s happening in the borderlands.  By the end of February, we at the Migrant Resource Center had heard word of four migrant deaths in the desert that had already happened.  As February ended and March got under way we were seeing an ugly trend of almost all migrants entering into the MRC without having been given anything to eat or drink by the US Border Patrol Detention Center during their time in detention.  The law says that at 6 hours of being detained an individual must be given an entire meal and drink—not just crackers or cookies.  What we’ve found is that people are being detained between 10 hours and 2 days without being given anything—at all—and for those who get the courage up enough to ask for food or something to drink during their stay there, they are knocked down either by words or by force.  None of these situations are acceptable.  While I understood that the borderlands see its bout of injustice before I came here, never had I imagined being so involved in the ongoing documentation of very straight-forward human rights abuses of so many people.  And never had I hoped that the vast majority of these abuses would be carried out by those who are employed, trained, paid, and supported by the United States Government itself.  And it’s not only undocumented migrants who are victims of these various types of abuses.  Victims include travelers with legal documentation and even those who were born and have lived in the United States their whole lives.  Fear and indifference are common trends here in this area.  From my observations thus far, fear and indifference lead to violence, and violence leads to death,   especially when this violence is systematic.

During a post-Semana Santa (Holy Week) reflection with Frontera de Cristo we looked at the resurrection of Jesus and Jesus’ words to those who were witnesses to this miraculous event: “No tengan miedo.”  (“Do not fear.”)  Various verses repeated these words or phrases: don’t fear, be not afraid, have no fear.  In light of my reflection on the borderlands (as well as the rest of the USA) being a culture of fear, I observed that God knew what the people needed to hear then—and knows what we need to hear, here, now– and it’s written so many times in the Bible because God knew it was the message that we needed to hear.   Do not fear! Do not be afraid!

I have had the opportunity to see many of my loved ones recently.  At the end of February I took a trip to my alma mater, Buena Vista University in Storm Lake, Iowa.  The purpose of the trip was to educate about the realities of the borderlands and try my hand at recruitment for the Young Adult Volunteer program.  My time was full of conversation, philosophy teas, presenting in open forums and classes, and sharing meals with friends and professors.  I was blessed fully by all those who took care of me during this time.  During Holy Week, my parents came down to Douglas and Agua Prieta to visit me for a few days.  It was a short span of time, but just enough for them to see the places I’m involved in and the people with whom I am involved.   I felt like I was on cloud nine, standing in-between them, singing “Let Us Break Bread Together” in Spanish during the Maundy Thursday communion service at Lirio de los Valles Presbyterian Church in Agua Prieta.  It truly was a joy to share with them the many aspects of the borderlands that have had me so tied and involved this year, knowing that it’s so different, me telling them about my experience here, and their seeing it with their own eyes. 

As time moves on and I, in some ways, feel like I’m just settling in here, I want to thank you once more for continued prayers, thoughts, and support.  Without these very important pieces, I would not be here, and I would not be experiencing both the very difficult challenges and the sheer hope and joy of living on the US-Mexico border.

Que la paz de Dios sea con todos Uds.,Leisha Jo Reynolds

YAVs on bikes and trikes

The following was written for Southside Presbyterian Church’s monthly newsletter this month. Enjoy!

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Have you noticed more people carrying helmets and water bottles into worship during the last few months?  As you may know, in previous years the YAVs have shared house cars for transportation.  This year, the YAVs are living without a house car, using only bikes, buses, and the goodwill of others to get around.  As we discerned where to volunteer this year, we all considered this new characteristic of the Tucson site and decided to rise to the challenge.  We are grateful that the program provided us with brand new bicycles to equip us in this adventure.

 

We represent a wide range of skill and confidence levels, but share a commitment to this intentional new lifestyle.  For some of us, biking was already a part of routine, while others had not ridden since childhood.  One YAV never fully learned how to ride and has been riding a tricycle around town, which takes a lot of determination and strength.  While biking is easier for some and harder for others, we all benefit from the added physical activity to our routine.  There will still be days when the last thing we want to do is get on a bike, but we generally enjoy moving our legs and getting our blood pumping.

 

Our commutes to work vary in length and landscape.  Riding on University Blvd, 29^th Street, the Santa Cruz bike path, and residential roads create different experiences.  Some ride one mile to work, while others ride ten miles each way.  It’s interesting to notice that sometimes biking takes about the same time or less than driving, especially during rush hour.  Even when it takes longer, the difference is often only ten or fifteen minutes.  Our YAV in Agua Prieta has found that riding a bike to cross the border is faster than both driving and walking.

 

At the same time, biking helps us to slow down and appreciate and think.  We appreciate time and how long it takes to get somewhere without a car.  We appreciate the energy it takes for transportation as we burn calories rather than oil.  We appreciate the breeze and sunshine on our skin and the view of mountains and stars.  Along with appreciation comes awareness.  We can tell you when the sun will rise and set, how fast the wind is blowing today, what the chance of precipitation is, and what the temperature changes were all day.  We notice slight inclines in the road and take advantage of each descent.  We are even aware of a change in attitude.  When driving we are more prone to irritation and frustration with other drivers, but while biking we enjoy seeing lots of bikers.

 

Biking is practical for us in many ways.  We don’t worry about car insurance, money for gas, maintenance bills, or inspections.  It is part of our attempt to live environmentally friendly by reducing pollution and reliance on oil.  Tucson is known nationally for being bike-friendly: miles of bike paths, major road bike lanes, free bike safety classes, a large biking community, and the BICAS co-op make biking accessible and fun.  We are glad to join the many students, families, workers, and even Southside members who bike around Tucson.

 

If nothing else, bicycling (and tricycling) has given us stories to tell.  Racing pickup trucks, getting stuck in trolley tracks, struggling up “A” mountain, falling, carting 100 lbs. of food from the Food Bank, being chased by stray dogs, and even learning to ride a bicycle have contributed to the richness of our experience this year.  In meeting our personal challenges, we have found perseverance and strength individually and as a community.

I am

going home.

 That’s what I’m doing.

And it feels good to say it. Better yet, it feels good to think it. I am going home.

It’s not that I haven’t been a gusto on the border. Don’t get me wrong. I love the border. But what I love more is being in a place where people care for me, people know who I am, people respect me as the human being I am, working for the cause that I am. Where hospitality is practiced.

I imagine waking up to Mom’s beautiful piano playing on Sunday morning. Maybe even helping out with the cooking this year. Sitting down on a couch and sharing exciting events from months passed. Exchanging hugs and kisses. Sitting around the living room w/ only Christmas lights on, watching a movie all together. Tranquility.

Of course not all will be hunky dory like what I imagine. But what I do know is that I will feel accepted. I will feel loved. I will feel cared for. And above all (recall Maslow’s hierarchy of needs?), I will feel safe.

Forgive me for not having tracked down my thoughts well enough these first 4 months of YAVdom. So many times I wanted to sit down and share. But so many times, I didn’t. And so it went, on and on, no sitting, no sharing. And you know, once you’ve made a habit out of something…

It’s been like a roller coaster ride for me. My experience so far, I mean. A quick tour through a binational girl’s life, or at least 4 months of it. Biking, learning to cook, unsuccessfully warding off the cold, crossing items over the border both ways (all legal so far, I promise), conviviendo binationally, feeling like an aunt and a big sister and a parent at times, interrogations by customs and immigrations officers, confronting injustice. Finding joy in the little things like riding a bike through a park on a chilly, sunny late afternoon; discovering the depths of sadness in other occasions. Being denied hospitality, trying to extend my own hospitality, perhaps failing from time to time, other times, perhaps achieving.

I’ve wondered what good I’m really doing on the border. What am I really doing here? Simply putting a bandaid on this much bigger issue of injustice. So many people and organizations work hard to put on bandaids… why should I join that bandwagon, too? Somewhere in my reflection about the events of these past 4 months I try to imagine that my experience isn’t so much about “placing bandaids” as it is creating relationships binationally. If you ask me about my experience so far, I can almost promise you I’ll talk about relationships.

I just can’t justify being a north american young person living in Mexico and focusing on work, work, work. I don’t consider myself lazy, not really. Work’s fine. But being “US-side coordinator” of a Migrant Resource Center isn’t a title I go waving around. I don’t love authority. I particularly don’t love titles. And it’s not that responsibility is a bad thing, but some of it that I’m entitled to within my “job description” isn’t particularly life-giving to me at this point and time.

Life-giving. Joy-giving. Consolation. Words we, as a YAV family, have been constructing this year together. What gives me life? Relationships give me life.

So where to go from here? All I can say is that I’m really thankful this leg of the year is over. I’m not necessarily thankful for all the needless, useless crap that I’d say was involved in these past 4 months– even aside from typical “border stuff”– but I’m thankful to be able to walk away from it all and know that when I come back, things will be a bit different. I’ve been counting down the days for them to be different, you know? And while I can’t say how that “different” is going to look, I can say that it’s going to be good. I’m going to make it good.

So much more to say. But there’s always more to say. And I can never sit long enough to say it. Maybe if you came with me on a bike commute one day and recorded the thoughts that fly through my mind as the pedals go round and round. Or maybe on a drive from Douglas to Tucson, through the mountains, perhaps at sundown. Maybe.

For now, anyway… I am going home.

I’ll see you there, right?

Migrant Resource Center & Me

YAV Newsletter #2

Dear friends and family,

There’s something about laughter that makes me think that, without it, the world might not be able to continue on. In a place that could be, and often is, considered the site of small-scale warfare including arms, vigilance, and blatant denial of basic human rights, it seems that laughter might not be the most appropriate, or most possible, option on a day-to-day basis. Yes, there are days without laughter. There are days with a lot of trauma and emotional drainage, when I wonder if my emotions will be able to remain intact for the entirety of a year. But there are also days with laughter, and a lot of it.

Giving some context to the situation, at this point I’d just like to sing the praises of the amazing folks I have the opportunity to work with at the Migrant Resource Center (MRC). I now have a Mexican counterpart, a young man from Michoacan, named Beto Ramos. As co-coordinators of the MRC, we have spent the past month and a half evaluating and envisioning the current and future role of the MRC in Agua Prieta and its relationship with various other organizations in both Agua Prieta and Douglas, as well as how we (both he and I, and the other volunteers, as well) can work together as an equipo (team). The concept of equipo is so important for the work that’s being done here on the border. As “coordinator” or “encargada,” I understand that it’s not about privilege above others, but rather, shared responsibility with those around me. Without the help of Beto, and each and every one of the MRC volunteers and donors, nothing would be able to happen at the center. There would be no food or water to offer to migrants who come in to rest, no clean socks to put on tired, wet, and blistery feet, no help for wrapping a hurt ankle or getting thorns out of a hand, no log sheets to document how resources are being used, no working schedule, or perhaps the doors would never be open to those who so badly need them to be open. The list could go on.

Laughter comes in various forms at the MRC. As serious as Beto can be about work (and as much as he makes me feel like I should be working 25 hours a day instead of 24!), he can just as equally exhibit his humorous side. His friend who came along to Agua Prieta with him to work at the CAME (Centro de Attention para Migrantes Exodus), Andres Lopez, from the state of Puebla, is equally, if not more so, hilarious. I need not enter more than one foot into the MRC just to be greeted by some sort of Andres-inspired, “Ay! Que milagro! Ella vive!” (Oh, what a miracle! She lives!) followed by some sort of dropping to the knees with hands laced together as if thanking God for my presence. Or how about exchanges of English “lessons” for Spanish “lessons” where I have written something in English (like “I want to be just like you when I grow up”—which is funny really only because he’s 33, and I’m 22, and somehow, Andres not being an English speaker, he catches on) and I have him read it to me with his best possible diction, and in return, he draws a pretty picture for me with a random word in Spanish beside it—then makes fun of me for being the Spanish teacher, who doesn’t know this word, or that word. They love to speculate about what my last name might someday be—Lopez? Ramos? Or how about both? Oh yes, it’s in these moments that we share together in laughter and in good will that we know working together as an equipo is not only possible, it’s also a pleasure.

I’ve struggled with what to share with my great network of supporters about this past month and a half, as all the thoughts that bounce around in my head on a day-to-day basis continue bouncing and often don’t allow me to grasp them long enough to formalize them as thoughts on a word processing document. Laughter seemed to be a common trend in my life, regardless of the constant struggles and frustrations I have felt with various aspects of living and working here. The sun continues shining in Douglas and Agua Prieta, and as the sun sets over the mountains all around me, a cold chill draws near. I’m becoming a pro at layering clothing, sometimes even rocking a stocking cap beneath my bike helmet for those really chilly mornings and nights. I’ve been slowly making my way from book to book on my never-ending “books to read” list, and spending more and more time with a small family who moved to Douglas just before me, with similar intentions of being involved with border justice issues, also seeking a community in which to be involved. I’ve been receiving lessons in cooking from the volunteers I’ve been blessed to spend time with, which I’m sure will incite more than a few “oh, thank God!”s from family members back home. I’ve just begun to normalize a personal schedule of my own that allows for both work, rest, AND play, all three of which hold increasing importance for me as a human being, not just a human doing. As summer seemed to skip straight to almost the beginning of December I find myself wondering where the time has gone. I continue to send out my never-ending thank you’s to those who have committed to keeping me in their thoughts and prayers. My prayers and thoughts return to each of you, in grace, in love, in peace…

Que la paz de Dios sea con todos Uds,
Leisha Reynolds

To find out more about my year you can explore my blog at http://leishajo.wordpress.com.
If you would like to financially support me over this year you can send a tax deductible check to:

St. Mark’s Presbyterian Church
Attn: Linda Marshall
3809 East Third Street
Tucson AZ 85716
Checks can be made out to St Mark’s Presbyterian Church with “YAV” and my name written in the memo line.

If you or someone you know might be interested in doing a Young Adult Volunteer Year you can find out more by replying to my email or by checking out the program online at (http://www.pcusa.org/msr/youngadult.htm) Also, please feel free to pass this newsletter on to anyone that you think would enjoy hearing stories about my experience here on the US/Mexico border.

Charge to Migrants