Happy Birthday Mexico

It's a beautiful country that Mexico. Well worth celebrating. Last Saturday night the entire country gathered together and celebrated like it was 1810. Some things to be thankful for:



Family. And friends. And dogs.



Cowboys. Real, or, er, not so real.



Kids.



And laws that let you shoot off fireworks into large crowds of people. Miguel Hidalgo would be proud.


VIVA!!!

Rest in Peace, Juan Antonio Martinez

Another body has been found in Cochise County. Arizona is on pace this year to set a record for the highest number of deaths ever.

It's getting worse.

And it's part of the strategy.

The other day when I was at the Border Patrol station I had an agent tell me that their "job is to make them earn it." That is, the Border Patrol's job is to make crossing the border difficult. If you make it, then you have earned it. Unless you die.

Later, a different agent told me that allowing people to cross in town is too risky. "If someone hops the fence, they can be gone into a house or car in two or three minutes. In the desert we have a few days to catch them."

We give people jobs when they make it to our cities. We eat the food that they pick off of the tables that they clean. And we don't really stop them from coming, we just "make them earn it." It's like an abusive relationship. We break their ribs and then tell them that we'll love them forever.

Watch this. And then imagine what it would be like to sit with your cousin as she slowly dies in the heat. And then remember that the death of Felicitas wasn't senseless. It wasn't random. We planned for it to be this way.

I can't shake the feeling that on the border, death is the punchline to a very cruel joke.

The things I don't talk about.

Every time I go to the Border Patrol station in Douglas I hear or see something that makes me physically ill. I always forget that I will feel this way. I always feel this way.

I really like the way Bryce writes. I'm copying his style right now.

I am proud of every single one of my friends.

I attend a Catholic church. I don't believe that the bread is really Jesus' body, but I still love to kneel every Sunday.

I would rather be good than happy. But I'd rather be happy and good.

I go back and forth between being proud of my creativity and thinking I am not a very creative person.

I don't want to post this.

I'm going to post it anyway.

Sometimes I think that I am not very good at my job.

Sometimes I think that I am awesome at my job.

I never want to be defined by my job.

I'm going to be in Colorado in November. I am very excited.

Deanna is going to visit me. Sometimes when people say things to me I am glad that she doesn't know how to speak Spanish.

She reads this blog.

I really like to cook. I never knew that before this year.

I am very good friends with a man who works for Raytheon making missiles. I read two publications put out by Focus on the Family. I drink Coca-Cola when I am in Mexico. I don't like missiles, Dobson's theology, or corporate soda.

I was never taught to use grammar and that makes me self-conscious when I write.

I have never gotten in the habit of proof-reading my writing.

A lack of grammar skills and an aversion to proof-reading is not a promising combination.

I just got a phone call from a man who needs diapers and baby formula.

I don't give money out to people because I don't want them to use it for drugs.

I am going to the store right now to buy the diapers.

My phone number is changing. I'll call you when I know what it is.

It's Giuliani Time!

My new buddy Karen* (yes, the funny engineering video Karen) reminded me of my project to talk about each one of the oh-so-many 2008 candidates for POTUS. The problem with that little project, as I see it, is that so many of them are so obviously lackluster. I mean...Romney? Really? President? How am I supposed to write an entire post about that?

But I'd still like to finish it. So here is my post for "America's Mayor," Rudy Giuliani.

As a rule, trite poilitical attack names (Slick Willy, Shrub, Al Bore) are created simply because they are catchy. At times they have some sort of foundation in truth ("The Decider" comes to mind), but for the most part they are only useful for making someone look childish (although it's debatable whether the person using the name is, in fact, the childish one).

In the case of Rudy Giuliani, the label "President of 9/11" is not only catchy, but actually seems to be 100% accurate. Has anyone, any single person, actually heard him talk about something that wasn't A)Iraq, B)Iran, C)9/11, or D)Terrorism? I mean, really. I'm not saying that these aren't important issues (although I could make that argument). I'm saying that, outside of his argument that we are all going to die if we don't invade more countries(!), he really doesn't have anything going for him. And since I don't find that argument convincing...well, you get the picture.

You could say that, even though he doesn't talk about it much, running New York shows his capability for the job. But New Yorkers don't seem to like him very much.

Actually, whether it's "America's Mayor" Rudy, or "President of 9/11" Rudy, this is really going to hurt his case. Not only do these New Yorkers not like him, they also think he did a really terrible job with 9/11. Ouch.

I think I'll leave it at that. Talking about what Giuliani would do to the Constitution is a sure way to find myself in a paranoid depression.

*Karen was kind enough to send me this not at all doctored picture. My shocked face represents my fear that Giuliani is about to lecture me on how afraid I should be that anyone else might win the election.

This one goes out to Erik and Kyle.

I can't embed this video, so just go check it out at the link. It'll make your day. Thanks to my new friend Karen for sending this to me.

Physics love.

Pride for the Alma Mater

Deanna, speaking to a friend of hers in Los Angeles:

Friend: "He went to Pomona? Oh, I know those kind of people."

Deanna: "What do you mean?"

Friend: "You know, the kind of people to pick up a book and walk into the mountains. They're deep."

Our fame grows.

p.s.- According to wikipedia, "alma mater" means "nourishing mother." Weird.

p.p.s- Alternate blog title: Overheard in Los Angeles.

How to tank an economy:

This week's lesson brought to you by the Department of Homeland Security and our beloved POTUS.

Is he trying to make his poll numbers worse, or just create chaos for millions of people? You be the judge. Thank God for the AFL-CIO.

Meanwhile, back in Zimbabwe, President Mugabe accepts the challenge from our own Mr. Bush and seeks to regain the title of "worst leader ever" for himself. It's a race to the bottom.

Devastating.

From the Tucson Citizen:

"Thursday, Border Patrol agents were told by an immigrant that he and his group of 12 wanted to surrender and that a woman in the group had died in the desert near Rio Rico. A 6-year-old girl flagged down an agent sent on the call and told him it was her mother who had died. The agent drove on, and the immigrant who had called 911 with the surrender request guided the agent to the woman's body.

The 6-year-old and a 17-year-old girl in the group were turned over to the Mexican Consulate in Nogales to be returned to relatives, and the adults were taken into custody, pending their return to Mexico."

Six years old.

Did you know that the EPA has 18,000 employees?

What is it that they do? And more importantly, why do we still have pollution? That's 360 people per state.

At any rate, the Gray Lady has once again shown why she is an invaluable national treasure.

The article drags a bit in places, but the subject matter is so important I just couldn't stop reading.

A taste:

"Only 1 percent of [China's] 560 million city dwellers breathe air considered safe by the European Union."

As always, there's a silver lining: "Much of the particulate pollution over Los Angeles originates in China."

Huh. And I thought it was the parking lot that they call the 405.

Meet Your Neighbors 2: Understanding in a Car Crash

A friend of mine asked that I follow-up my last "Meet Your Neighbors" post with a little bit of information on what happened with "Alberto" and his Mixtopek speaking friend.

Sadly, I have no idea what happened. Which is pretty common. Actually, it's the norm. Which is hard.

To avoid talking more about that, I'm going to change the subject. Stay with me.

Sometimes when I am speaking with someone in Spanish I get this sense that I must be understanding the story wrong, that my language skills just aren't cutting it and I need to ask more questions to figure out what is going on.

When I was talking to Alberto the other day I kept coming back to one thing that I thought just HAD to be a misunderstanding. Alberto had told me that his friend, a man in his late thirties or early forties, spoke some Spanish, but his son did not. "That can't be right," I thought. "If he can speak both Spanish and Mixtopek, his son should be able to as well."

And so I asked him about the situation again, trying to clear up what was, to me, a glaring inconsistency.

"No," he said. "That's right. He can speak Spanish but his son never learned how."
"Why not?" I asked.
"When my friend and I were kids, our parents had enough money to send us to school. By the time we had our own kids, everyone was worse off."

Oh God.

A third man sitting in a chair and listening to the conversation, a migrant himself, spoke up.

"The whole country is going backwards."

What do you say exactly?

Wow.

Art.

Meet Your Neighbors: I'm So Frustrated Edition

I'm annoyed.

So Mexico is a big country. A diverse country. This can be a problem as we tend to think of everyone who isn't American as pretty much being exactly the same.

Canadians? They say "eh" and have milk in a bag. I don't know, whatever Five Iron Frenzy said.

Australians? Pick from one of three funny stereotypes: The surfer guy, the outback guy, or...no, that's about it. The cute accent guy? I'm beat.

Iranians? Either ruthlessly oppressing people, or being ruthlessly oppressed. Pick your poison.

Obviously we don't all think this way, or at least not all of the time. But for the most part we do generalize people into categories and then we make assumptions about people, countries, ourselves, etc., all based on those categories.

Back to today.

Today I was at the Migrant Resource Center (something that I haven't gotten to do a lot of in the past two months or so...desk jockey/tour guide woot!). But I was there today, and I met a man who we'll call Alberto. Alberto was traveling with some friends and family from Mexico when they were arrested by the Border Patrol. Pretty typical.

But that's where the problems start. The reality (which became a problem) is that not everyone in Mexico speaks Spanish. There are, literally, hundreds of indigenous languages. And unfortunately for a guy from a small village, he's on his way back to...wait for it...El Salvador.

So what happened? Well, being that the Border Patrol agents couldn't speak his language, and he couldn't speak either Spanish or English, they assumed that he was from Central America. So they started asking him questions about that. And, being confused, he just sort of made some responses that they took to be agreement. When his dad figured out what was going on (his dad speaks a limited amount of Spanish), he tried to convince them that his son was in fact from Mexico. But that didn't work out so well because he was not carrying any identification with him.

So as of right now he's on his way to Tucson where he will be kept until they send him to El Salvador...for the first time ever...where they won't be able to understand him either.

I'm not saying that the Border Patrol is responsible for speaking every language in the known world. But this is the type of stuff that happens when you try to combine a major humanitarian crisis with a bureaucratic system.

I called the Mexican consulate but haven't heard back. I hope for his sake that they can prove he's a Mexican.

"We got older, but we're still young"

So I'm back from Portland. Which was...well, I'll just say it was. Fun. Difficult. Interesting. And now I'm back.

I have had much less time this summer to blog, to reflect about my work/life/community here, and to read what other people are saying. I really miss all of that. I'm going to try and make it a part of my weekly life again in the coming months, but we'll see how that goes.

For today, I just wanted to say hello, say that I'm doing just fine in this new job of mine, and say that I think you're all swell people. More on that one later.

Perhaps one anecdote before I go. (This one's for Bryce)

When I was in the Sacramento airport (for many hours) I saw a man wearing a shirt that said "estar guars." In English that means nothing. In Spanish that means "to be guars," which is also nothing.

BUT

If you take a stereotypically Spanish accent and apply it to the words "Star Wars", then "estar guars" would be exactly what you would get. I don't know if anyone else in the airport thought it was funny, but I'm still laughing two weeks later.

You make me want to be a better man.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY WESLEY BENGT WICKLUND


Here are some thoughts I wanted to share with you on this momentous occasion:

1. You've been around through a lot of stuff. I remember being in elementary school with you, hanging out, moving on to middle school, and then being really excited when you finally got there two years later. Mission trips. Praise band. Leadership teams. Mexican champagne. I love that our history goes deep. I love that our future is going to be even deeper.

2. Because I can look back for years and years, far past a decade of friendship, I have no problem saying that you have always been a really, really good guy. More than uncommonly legit. And you've become a really, really good man. One of the best I've ever met. You've always tried to do the right thing, and when you've failed, as we all do, you've tried even harder. The title says it all.

3. You are damn passionate. I've seen you get in fist fights, yelling fights, and soccer fights (the dirtiest fights of all). I can't say I've always thought it was a good idea for you to be fighting, but I've always loved and admired that spirit. You have convictions, and a belief that there are things in life worth fighting for. And there are.

4. You don't love the law for the law's sake. You want all the freedom that Jesus can give you. Let's get after it.

5. JBBP baby.

You are my brother. I love you.

Let Me Light Up the Sky

A little update about what's happening down in these parts:

I was gone last week in Hermosillo, the capital of Sonora, with Tucson's very own Northminster Presbyterian Church. It was the classic high school summer mission trip: construction, vacation Bible school, and pranks. I was a little bit worried about this trip as I have more than a few reservations about teaching high school students that a week of pouring cement is what the Gospel is supposed to look like. Not surprisingly, I was wrong and God is good. The kids were great. The church that we are helping to start in Hermosillo is great. The leaders were great. And I just loved it.

The rains have come and I am unbelievably excited. Everything is green. Monsoons are beautiful to watch.

This week I am saying goodbye to our summer intern and new friend Caroline, my roommate and partner in crime Meghan, and my "boss" (he hates that word) Mark and his family. Tomorrow Mark will be gone and I'll enter a new time of service here. I'd be lying if I said that I wasn't anxious. But I'm excited as well.


Next week I'll be in Portland with my sister, my brother, my mom, my dad, and my Steve. I'm looking forward to that. Oregon here I come.

It doesn't get any better than Colorado in the summer.

It really doesn't. A few of my favorite things:


The mountains. Oh the glory that the Lord has made.



Backpacking. And stupid pictures.


Horsehawks (it's gone now, but it was glorious while it lasted).

Puppies

Chris. So classic.

Big B and Baby. So proud.

Family.

The dart game. A new favorite.

Mountain lakes and no shoes.

The foam party. It's the place to see and be seen in AP.

Disc golf.

Summer. YEAH!

Manfection. I suppose this blog was never G Rated. Now it's definitely not. But Travis in a bra was too good not to share.

That's a lot of man. Carried by some great men. I love you guys.

We Walk For Life

The first thing I have to say about the migrant trail is this: I had no idea what I was getting myself into. Every day that I was out in the desert a body was recovered somewhere in Arizona. Every hour, whether laughing, or sleeping, or eating Thai food (yes, Thai food) was spent in the physical and spiritual presence of people crossing, something that has come to mean so many different things to me throughout the past year. In many ways it means suffering. But it also means hope.

The view from the end. Looking back towards Mexico you can see mountain ranges on either side of the valley floor. When we started our journey those ridges were at least two days beyond our first camp. 80 miles really is a long way to walk in only a few days.

Alejandro Rangel Luna. My companion for the week. I started out in Sasabe with him strapped to the outside of my bag, but as time went on I found myself needing him closer at hand. It was very difficult to part with him. At times his presence felt like a burden. On several occasions asking for his forgiveness gave me peace.

The beauty of the natural world continues to capture me. Midway through the week I realized that death was out of place in the desert. The loss of life that was occurring all around me became a tangible symbol that, as much as we love the garden, we are living in the time after the fall. I spent many hours thinking about what it means to have grace in the desert.

I have talked fairly openly about militarization and the border this year, but it wasn't until the migrant trail that I would finally feel able to call southern Arizona a police state. Military convoys passed us every day. In the picture above there are four young men wearing flack jackets and battle helmets. Yes, helmets. We were chased by a helicopter in the dark and at one point circled by ATV's at night while we tried to sleep. We passed by the new camera towers erected by the Boeing Corp. They are inland from the border by many miles. The high powered cameras can swivel 360 degrees. The price of freedom indeed.

Standing on the side of the road as the Border Patrol arrested a family. I had very mixed feelings about our role there. I believe that observing the Border Patrol is a good way to ensure that the rights of the people being arrested are not being violated. But what about when it turns the people themselves into a spectacle?

A road spike that we found while walking down the highway. Border Patrol will get into high speed pursuits with vehicles. As a way to lessen injury to bystanders they will lay spike strips down on the highway. Sometimes the vehicle fleeing is packed with drugs. On many other occasions it is packed with people. I don't need to tell you what happens when an SUV filled beyond capacity hits a spike strip and rolls over at 80 mph.

Everything about this picture amazes me. The clouds opening up. E's beard. That weird glint on his glasses. By far the best thing about the trail was all of the unbelievable people that I met.

On the road again.

"I let you down, forgive me. I'm a puppy for your love. Forgive me, yeah."*

Well, that just about says it. I'm sorry. I'm writing this several weeks (one month even?) after I promised a post on my migrant trail experience. I think we all know how that turned out.

So once again, I'm sorry. And I think I owe you an explanation as well.

Since I last saw all of you on the internets I have been waging a massive campaign to enjoy life in the summer. The score so far is Aaron: 1 Boredom: 0.

I spent a solid two weeks in Colorado, marrying Bryce off to the lovely Mrs. Kate Perica, climbing mountains, eating Mexican food (not sick of it yet!), and staying up until all hours of the morning (the main culprits for that being Guitar Hero:II and Erik Haagenson).

And now I'm back in the saddle at F de Cristo in good old DouglaPrieta, Sonorizona.

For the record, blogger has a great deal of explaining to do as well. I tried to post about a) the migrant trail, b) why I hadn't posted about the migrant trail, or c) my mohawk (pictures coming soon) several times, but each time it was freaking out and wouldn't let me. Don't worry we've reconciled.

One final thought before I go. Today is the first day that I have sat down to read my blog roll in about a month. In the physical presence of one another, our little bloggermunity has done almost no posting. I think that's great.

*The title comes from the one and only Dave Matthews. Dave Matthews+Colorado+Summer= Love

Feminism: Helping me to procrastinate talking about my 80 miles in the desert.

Thanks feminism!

This is yet one more fantastic present brought to you by the one and only Andrew Sullivan. I love him more and more all the time. Except for when I disagree with him completely.

It's not the shortest article ever written, but I highly recommend it if you have a few minutes to spare. Come on, you know you do. The article is a reflection piece written by Megan Stack, a writer and bureau chief for the Los Angeles Times, looking back on her time spent in Saudi Arabia and her place there as a woman.

What first caught my attention to the piece was the combination of feminism and Andrew's criticism of Starbucks:

"The multinational company acquiesces in and enforces the oppression and segregation of women."

And it is more than a valid point. Would you still shop at a company that served African Americans in the back? What about a company that wouldn't let Jews in the front door? Of course not. The greatest argument for the existence of feminism is the fact that my friends who work at Starbucks will not immediately quit their jobs, and many of you reading will still go and buy a latte there. Of course the issue is not that simple, but stop and let this sink in: we will still go to Starbucks, a company that won't serve half of the population in the same way as the other half. They still do business, and make a profit, in Saudi Arabia. The parallels to Jim Crow, apartheid, and Nazi Germany are more than uncomfortably close. It is both tremendously sad and unbelievably revolting.

And clearly my pleasure at seeing a little Starbucks bashing was anything but secret.

There is a question I must ask myself in this as well. I don't shop at Starbucks or drink their coffee, but am I blameless? If I have chided Starbucks as a company who will gladly look the other way in the face of sexism, is Just Coffee, my coffee company of choice, able to withstand the same scrutiny? Sadly, I believe that the answer is a very complicated "sort of."

Just Coffee, in all honesty, is a company of men. It is not a company of all male employees, but it is a company of all male owners. Why is that? Well, it really boils down to gender roles in Chiapas. Men are the coffee farmers, simple as that. This is not true in all parts of the world (where women farmers greatly outnumber men), but it is true in Chiapas. Women help at times, but are more likely to be found preparing food, caring for children, or working around the house. So even though these women benefit from the higher price and health benefits that come from Just Coffee, they don't really have a voice at the table in terms of voting. They don't really come to the meetings of the directors. That's not to say that they don't have a "presence" (any married person will tell you that's simply not possible), but that's sort of the same argument that is used in the article to say that women don't need to be able to vote in state elections. Not very comforting, I know.

Does this mean that I don't support Just Coffee? Well, no, not at all. I still love the people, the company, the coffee, and the model. Reality, as always, is more complicated than theory. The business of living in Chiapas requires more intentional effort than it does here. More time cooking and cleaning and all of that good stuff. Life is a partnership, and the contributions of women are tremendously important. And in the face of migration, gender lines become more than a little bit blurred. Once again, this is clearly not a simple issue. Ask any feminist about the tension between cultural sensitivity and women's rights and you'll see the blood start to quicken in their veins.

Culture, history, and economics, all embedded with some degree of sexism, have come together to make men the coffee farmers in Chiapas. Is that wrong? Not necessarily. The goal must never be to tell all people what to do, but to increase their ability to make good choices freely. But it would be better if women had more choices, and especially if they had more say. What is my repsonsibility to try and make that more of a reality? I'm not sure about that either. But I think it is important to ask these questions, and to be honest when things make us uncomfortable. I think this issue pales in comparison to Starbucks in Saudi Arabia, but it is by no means a non-issue. It is important, however, to call a good thing a good thing. Starbucks health benefits in the U.S. are a good thing. And Just Coffee is a good thing. But so is honest self-reflection.

Feminism is a great thing.

The desert post and pictures are coming. I promise.

Here I am again, back where I began.

Try as I may I can't get away from you.
And all of these roads lead me to roam, bring me back home.
Here I am again, right where I began.

-Caedmon's Call


I won't be posting here for more than a week. I had hoped to get a big post up about Michael Pollan before I left but I don't think it's going to happen.

Tomorrow I will be participating in a Christian Peacemaker Team action at the U.S./Mexican border. We are going to pray, paint the fence with crosses for people who have died, and be "present" with God. I'm looking forward to it.

After that I am heading up to Tucson for a house warming party, to pick up supplies for the Migrant Resource Center, and to prepare for next week. On Monday I start a seven day, seventy-five mile trip from the Mexican town of Sasabe back up to Tucson. Walking. About 50 people are coming together to participate in the Migrant Trail. We'll walk between ten and twenty miles every day, mostly in the early morning, and hide from the sun all afternoon long.

The point is not to actually experience the life of a migrant, but to remind people that this is a trip that thousands of people start every single day.

I'm excited for everything but the blisters.

I hope to have pictures of it to post when I get back.