Nogales, and the "Mishaps"

Alright, adults, I'm going to ask you NOT to stop reading when we get to the juicy stuff.

Today we went to Nogales, Mexico. And it was an experience, the kind of experience that we don't forget. For a couple of different reasons.

Nogales isn't just one city. "Nogales" WAS one city, devided almost down the middle by a road. Your boyfriend, job, siblings, and even your church may be on the other side of the road from where you live. That used to matter very little - people crossed the street all the time. Then Border Patrol turned into a massive, military movement. Those kinds of relationships stopped.

The Mexican and American sides of Nogales are separated by a fence more than 15 feet high. We were coming to visit the wall and the resistance art that local sculptors and photographers had hung on the wall. There were "milagros", or "miracles". Normally, when a Mexican family wants to send up a special prayer, they place a "milagros" on a cross. The ones on the wall were huge - metal images of skulls lying next to a cactus, buses filled with skeletons, and a sun that sprouted knives and swords instead of rays of light.

Then there was a large sculpture of bodies, dashing up and across a border on a stripe of fire. The bodies were all painted. The ones heading for the border held instruments and paintings - culture. The ones going across the border were being chased by a body painted with the face of the patron saint of "coyotes" (coyotes being the often abusive guides who lead immigrants across the border), who was carrying a club. The one just over the border had a skeleton painted inside it. The ones in America were painted in subdued colors, and were being chased by someone from border control, shouting at them in Latin. Whether that's an allusion to the Roman Empire ... that's up to anyone's interpretation.

Adults, here's the juicy bit.

It was 110 degrees stading in front of that wall, and I began to feel a little woozy. You know what's coming. Poor Maddie did a face plant - fainted completely away. But I don't want that to be the focus. I was okay. Perfectly fine, in fact.

I awoke to Caroline, tapping my knee and telling me to "get up". Dad, Lee, was next to me, splashing water on my face. The adults were all around me. Matt took my backpack and sat me up, offered me water.

I expected that. What I didn't expect was the people in Nogales to respond.

The instant I fell over a truck pulled up. Two men, I'm told, leaned out the window - horribley concerned. They asked to take me to the hospital. The adults declined politely, but the woman running to shop across the street had noticed me, and dashed over with rubbing alcohol for my face, ice for my neck, and a coke to replenish my blood sugar. The people in the shop ran back and forth from where I was sitting, talking me through standing and replenishing my energy - leading me back to the shade near their store.

A man in a car stopped in front of me and smiled, handing me a Gatorade. I struggled through my light-headedness to tell them "voy a nunca olvidarte". Something close to, "I will never forget you".

Sitting in the shade, after my head had cleared, it wasn't the fainting that scared me. It was the idea that, somewhere in the desert, someone else had fainted. And when they woke up, if they woke up, they wouldn't have a Caroline. Everyone needs a Caroline. Everyone.

Adults, family members, boyfriends. I ... didn't even last an hour.

That's why we're down here. That's what needs to change. No one should be in the desert, alone, frightened, and without a Caroline. They shouldn't have to die. They shouldn't be alone. They shouldn't even have to CROSS.

I'm sure that other people will cover the rest of our trip to Nogales. That certainly wasn't the only interesting thing that happened.

Thanks for reading all the way through. Thanks for reading at all.
-Maddie

P.S. I'm okay. Really. Alive and well. Bouncing off the walls, in fact (we just had rootbeer floats). All adults - stay calm. We're all okay.