High School BorderLinks - Day 2

Tucson (the blazing)
Tuesday June 27 - by Taylor Rothrock

To begin our amazing adventure we were provided with supertastic leaders. Mike works with the Tuscon Borderlinks and Luz Elena works with the Nogales Borderlinks. This was their last trip together and we couldn't have asked for more.




You wouldn't think that at 6:00 am the temperature outside could possibly be 85 degrees Fahrenheit, but oh indeed it can. After filling our eager stomachs with bagels, fruit and cereal all eight of us traveled about 10 minutes to meet with Rick Ufford-Chase to discuss Border History. Rick founded Borderlinks, which informs people about the lives of migrants and about the border itself. Throughout his time he has come face-to-face with many of the border's extreme issues. He gave us further economic background about the hardships of providing a sustainable life for migrants.
Since we had been given an elaborate 60 min. education we then returned back to the Borderlinks facility to discover the mysteries behind sustainability's impact on migration. This information session was given by our bueno cook, Sarah. One intriguing fact that she shared with us was - The average American meal travels 2,000 miles from farm to table. We went into further discussion of standard farming practices and food networks.
After we did all these fun meeting sessions we watched a movie, "Crossing Arizona". Not only did this movie wake us up from our flight lag but it also shared many stories of various people. This movie shared the stories of Chris Simcox, Mike Wilson, and migrants. It was obvious that we all agreed that the MinuteMen leader, Chris Simcox, was clearly belligerent, ignorant, self righteous, and not very well educated. Since this movie truly aroused many opinions and feelings about immigration we spent about 30 min. spilling all our thoughts.
After our "free time" which was definitely not any activity outdoors we traveled about 10 min. to the Humane Borders offices. This organization provides 86 water stations along the border (U.S. side) with sporadic volunteers of 8500 plus. Human Borders was founded in 2000 by Robin Hoover. To put this brave task into perspective, these people spend their time, money, and energy to bring these unknown immigrants water, food, and medical assistance. It costs $100 a day to take the water out to the desert. While on duty these volunteers pick up trash, which consist of mostly empty water bottles and personal belongings left behind. Many migrants are forced to leave behind personal possessions in the desert due to limited space on their pick-up rides into the states.
After this eye-opening information was shared with us we continued to break into in depth conversations. Each of us felt as though we were about to embark on something great, greater than we even knew, but we were ready. Here we go.

For those of you who thought we wouldn't go out and adventure.....well:
After dinner we walked into town to The GRILL, a local diner. We each splurged on a giant milkshake. Although we all thought the milkshakes were amazing we each had some level of difficulty walking back to the Borderlinks house.

Tomorrow we will travel into Mexico. Eleven people died last week while trying to cross the border.


This is only a taste of what was yet to come.