I’m home sick today. My nose is running like a garden hose. I just plug the holes and it runs out my eyes! I’ve taken something for it but it doesn’t seem to touch it. However, it is giving me a chance to learn how to do this blog site. I’ll also wash my clothes (by hand). I don’t let them pile up or I could never catch up.
I said I went to Arriaga to see what was happening in the Shelter there. We arrived in Arriaga Friday night after dark. We stopped at the shelter that was full, full, full, full. Many come there to jump the train and they were thinking the train would leave Saturday. They never know when it goes--usually about twice a week but it doesn’t have a regular schedule. I got up to go for a walk before going to the shelter and just happened to walk toward the train. I saw people climbing up to the top, some opened a door and got in--one was a small woman with a tiny baby, some tied themselves to the boxcars because if they fall asleep as they travel--it may be a few days--they will fall onto the tracks. I took several pictures that I’ll try to put on this site. When I saw the priest, he said journalists come wanting to get pictures of the train and often never see it because it is just a chance that you are there when it goes.
After the train left I walked around the town. It’s about 20,000 people, breezy all day every day and windy like ND wind storms all night every night. It’s a farming and fishing town.
I spent the day at the shelter. No sooner had that large group gone on the train than more and more kept coming in. One person was kept busy all day just registering the guests coming in. They are coming to the shelter with their feet in blisters, many women have been raped, about half have been robbed; some by immigration, some by the police, most by robbers. There are many checkpoints on the road. The immigrants get off the road--they may have been riding in a car, bus, taxi, get out and walk in the terrain around the checkpoint and usually have plans to get back in the bus/car/taxi after the vehicle drives through. Robbers wait for the migrants to walk around the immigration check points and rob them there.It makes me want to bawl to see people almost literally pouring out of their countries. I keep thinking of Dorgan and his negative votes in relationship to immigration and have talked with Gabriel, his assistant on Immigration issues. I know Dorgan is a good guy, so I always think, ¨what would he do about this?¨ What would it take to convince people that something is going terribly wrong? No matter how many walls we build and how many laws we make, they are not going to stop this flood. People who risk all of this are desperate for a chance at life. Someone has got to do something that would allow people to stay in their own countries and be able to feed, clothe and educate their families. Walls and laws won’t do it. There has to be something economic done. I don’t know what it is, but it’s obvious that something is terribly wrong here.
They are adding on to the shelter in Arriaga. So far there have been over 500 people registered this year. They stay 1-3 days--so, that’s about 1000-1500 nights of shelter in the last 25 days! They have a lot of medicines and no one with a health care background. They are also planning to set up one room for a small clinic. I spent a lot of time cleaning and dressing foot wounds. I have to learn more about foot care when the person is going to have to continue walking for days in the same shoes that caused the blisters in the first place. There is a room at the end of the shelter that has it’s own entrance that can be made into 2 bedrooms and a bathroom. I told them I’d come when they have it ready for me .
When I got back to Tapachula I got off the combi (vans that run from the city center to different parts of the city) at the shelter here and called for someone to pick me up. (I still don’t know how to get to this house). When I went in, there had been a new man who came from the hospital. He’s got kidney problems, can’t walk, big swollen legs and a catheter that he had pulled out about 4 hrs earlier. He was a mess. I got him cleaned up, a new catheter in and was ready just as my ride came up.------------Boy, do I feel needed here!!! It’s a great feeling.
Wed, Jan 31, 2008
I spent the last couple of days at the shelter. Of course we started the day at 6:00 doing the buying to sell at the tienditas (little stands) for the day and mass. After that we came back to the house for breakfast and on to the shelter.
I am the ¨therapist¨ now. I feel like some miraculous saint. After I’ve done therapy, they can walk! Actually, what I think happens is someone is giving them TLC--physically touching and working with them and caring about them and that is VERY therapeutic! I work with Don F who had a car run over his good foot in the past so he has had skin grafts and has pain when he uses it. He had a stroke that affected his other side. I do the exercises with him that I’ve seen Mom doing after her stroke. I loosen everything up on his arm and leg like Chuck does for Mom then work on stretching and strengthening. When we finish, he’s been able to raise his arm about 6 inches higher than when we start. He has a little holy card of our lady of perpetual help at the side of his bed so we finish by my reading that prayer and we pray a Hail Mary together.+ If that were all I did in one day, I’d consider it a worthwhile day! However, I have lots of opportunities just as fulfilling.
I work with Don R who had a knee surgery and has a lot of residual pain. When he came to the shelter he could walk, but since he got a wheel chair at the shelter he quit walking. No one has been able to get him up and going. When I asked if he wanted to walk with me for therapy he was ready to go. It was painful, but he did it.
There is an old man (these old men are in their 60s!) who was out of it with alcoholism that affected his liver. They wanted to kick him out of the hospital, thought he was going to die anyway. Well, we’ve got him and he’s such a joy to work with! It feels like I’m watching Lazarus when I see him. He looks at the roses and a big smile comes over his face as if he’s seeing that beauty for the first time. He is so grateful for any small thing that anyone does for him.
Another guy had polio. He’s not so old. His mother died so he has no home to go to so lives at the shelter. Every morning he gets up and gets himself ready to bicycle off to sell. The thing is, the polio twisted up his feet and legs so he has rigged up a 3 wheel bike to petal by hand and carry the things he sells. You should see his smile!
Yesterday Olga said the nurse that is supposed to come to the clinic every evening to do treatments is very irresponsible, often not showing up. She asked if I would be willing to be the clinic nurse. I would love to do that, but I had told the priest in Arriaga that if he fixed up that extra room there for me, I’d come and work at HIS shelter. I want to go where I am most needed and can be of most help. But I don’t think there is a way of judging that there is more need in one place or another. I see so many needs and so many opportunities to help. I’m contemplating what to do now. One thought I have is to see if I could go to Arriaga one week a month to relieve the guys that are on duty 24 hrs a day 7 days a week. Maybe I could cover 2 days for each one of them. At the same time I could teach them about some foot care that I researched on the internet. (You will never guess what long distance runners recommend most for preventing and caring for blisters--DUCT TAPE!!!) The first person that comes down, I´m going to ask them to bring a few boxes of lancets that diabetics use to check their blood sugar. We can clean up the blisters, open them with a lancet and from there we will patch them up with Duct tape!
This is getting long so I better quit.
Lillian
Thursday, January 31, 2008
My first 2 days
I´m just starting this blog and may need to do revisions as I learn more. I´m starting out pasting the first couple of emails that I sent out.
I appreciate all of the support I´ve recieved from the community, my family and friends. I hope to be able to keep you up with what I´m doing through this blog. I don´t want to send emails to people who don´t want all of them and I don´t want to miss sending to people who want to know, SO, If you are interested, just check my blog! In time I hope to learn how to download pictures and put them on here.
Lillian
Tuesday Jan 22
I don’t know if I should tell people this (But I will). I will NOT read it as an omen!
My flight was supposed to leave at 6am. I thought it was 7 am and hadn’t double checked it! Luckily Marian and Linda had taken me to the airport by 5am so I made it on time. I was the last one on the plane. I called Marian and Linda and Linda said "can you imagine how early we would have gotten up if we had known it was 6am?" I guess that’s seeing the cup half full!
I had never been to O’Hare airport. I don’t think I want to go back! It is huge and I had difficulty finding my way around. The departure monitors were all United flights and I was supposed to take Aero Mexico and there were no information booths to ask for directions. Obviously I made it through.
When I arrived in Tapachula there was no one there to meet me!! So, I pulled out my number for Olga and my phone card. The pay phone wouldn’t accept the card so a taxi driver called Olga for me. Olga had forgotten that I was coming. (Actually, I wasn’t surprised that she wasn’t there--either forgot or busy). However, what I didn’t expect was when her husband came to pick me up, he asked what hotel I wanted him to take me to!!!!!!
I guess when she flippantly responded "Come" to my question ¨"If I wanted to help at the Albergue, what would I have to do?¨ and ¨Stay with me¨ when I asked where would I stay--- I guess she WAS being flippant! She didn’t remember me! Well, she’s got me now!
Someone asked what I thought I would be doing my first day. I hadn’t thought about it. And no matter what I thought, I wouldn´t have imagined THIS!Last night before going to bed, I asked what time things start happening here. They said 6:30 tomorrow morning.
I was up and ready before 6:30 and there was no sound. At 6:30 Olga came out of their bedroom, we jumped in the car and started running. They make their living and support the shelter by buying wholesale and selling at 3 different places every day (pop, water, toilet paper, juice, gum, toothpaste and toothbrushes, yogurt, candy, cookies). We started running to buy what would be needed for the day. By 7:30 we had made 3 buying stops and went to mass. Came home to regroup, eat breakfast, then I was off to help with selling at a conference at the Seminary. 3 of the shelter guests were also there.
I’m learning how to make change with Pesos. I felt like a kid in grade school. They set out all of the coins to show me how much each was worth. They were fun folks to work with. The shelter has a lot of support from the Catholic community so the Shelter guests and many of the priests knew each other and were joking around together.
Olga has her family helping her--husband Jordan, 2 Sisters; Doris and Chela, bro-in-law Marco, 16 yr old son-Jordan, "like our daughter" Myra, and a niece.
Between them they run 3 vehicles to get the supplies, make sure that someone is always at home to take care of Angel, the 5 mo old hydrocephalic baby that had been abandoned in the hospital, cook for whoever gets home whenever, get Myra to school to teach, Jordan to and from school, drop off, pick up and care for Lillian, (a 5 yr old niece) from school, make visits to the hospital and pay hospital and pharmacy bills, and run the shelter. When I asked, they said this is a pretty typical day!
It feels like grand central station! Doris said, "So, after today are you leaving tomorrow?"
Nope! I haven’t been to the shelter yet except to pick up the 3 guests to help with the selling at the seminary. Olga said the nurse that is supposed to do dressing changes in the afternoon is not very reliable so I may be able to do that. If I did this running around every day I would be worn out in very short time. I have some expectations that I would be able to spend the majority of my time at the shelter.----but, who knows what will really happen.
They are all expecting me to drive --probably by next week.
So, I’ll keep you posted...........................This was just day one!
Lillian
Jan 24, 2008
OK, Day 2, in addition to the activities of the first day, add 2 journalists are doing a documentary on migration starting at this border, moving up through Mx, through Arizona and to Chicago. They spent the day with us.........with a microphone on Olga the whole day and a camera in her face........even filming us during mass. They knew this was just my second day but wanted to interview me too..........eewww I hate that and feel SO dumb when I try to talk.
Also add that an old man died in the hospital. He had been at the shelter a couple of years ago and Olga had been paying for a room for him to live in for the last 2 years. She also then ended up taking responsibility for his funeral. She ordered the ¨box¨ (It really was not more than a box with a little cloth around it). It was delivered to the shelter, the doctor took it to the hospital, we went to the hospital and helped them put his body in the box, put the box in the back of the pickup and took him back to the shelter. We went to get his death registered and took the documents to the cemetery, paid for a burial plot and paid some men to dig a hole, went back to the shelter to pick up the body in the box and took it to the cemetery to bury. Olga said if we hadn’t done that, he’d have been dumped in a hole like a dog.--His death not even registered. I didn’t realize that deaths are registered, but something about registering a death feels like there is more dignity to his life. The difference between being dumped in a hole and having a registered death makes it feel like acknowledging his humanity and human dignity.
So, that’s a bit of an update. ...oh yes, and all of this was with the cameras rolling!
Olga’s got folks coming and going all the time---including some famous people like Maria Schriber, ambassadors, writers like Isabel Allende, Sonia Navaro??, the author of Enrique’s Journey (the book that got me down here.) Sonia stayed here while she did her piece on Tapachula and this area. They said she was going to stay here for a week to learn what they did but couldn’t last---------it’s crazy here! I’m afraid I’m going to start loving it!!
Olga just keeps moving on.......laughing all the way--and I’m enjoying laughing with her.
We are getting a young man from Honduras at the shelter tomorrow. He’s coming to us from the hospital. I don’t know what actually happened to him but I saw him yesterday. He’s been in a coma for 4 months, has a fractured pelvis and I don’t know what all else. It looks like I will be using my nursing skills after all.
There are currently 18 people at the shelter. Many of them have had amputations for some time and you don’t see them around because they are also helping at the little stands selling pop, water, etc. It’s a way that they are earning something and learning that they can do something to make a living.
Tomorrow I am going to Arriaga with a priest who wants our community to take over running the shelter for migrants there! I asked if he thought the sisters should be able to speak Spanish. It never occurred to him that most couldn’t. When I asked what support the shelter gets from the diocese he said ¨Moral support, that is to say, support but no money¨. I am still going with him to learn more.
My Spanish is improving by the minute. Pretty soon I’ll be able to understand what they are saying! They slur and speak under their breath like everyone else in the world does....it’s just that they have to look at me, and enunciate very clearly if I’m going to understand. I’m afraid that when I go with this priest I’ll lose a lot of what I could learn just because I’m not as sharp in Spanish as I’d like to be...........but I’ll be much better soon!
Lillian
I appreciate all of the support I´ve recieved from the community, my family and friends. I hope to be able to keep you up with what I´m doing through this blog. I don´t want to send emails to people who don´t want all of them and I don´t want to miss sending to people who want to know, SO, If you are interested, just check my blog! In time I hope to learn how to download pictures and put them on here.
Lillian
Tuesday Jan 22
I don’t know if I should tell people this (But I will). I will NOT read it as an omen!
My flight was supposed to leave at 6am. I thought it was 7 am and hadn’t double checked it! Luckily Marian and Linda had taken me to the airport by 5am so I made it on time. I was the last one on the plane. I called Marian and Linda and Linda said "can you imagine how early we would have gotten up if we had known it was 6am?" I guess that’s seeing the cup half full!
I had never been to O’Hare airport. I don’t think I want to go back! It is huge and I had difficulty finding my way around. The departure monitors were all United flights and I was supposed to take Aero Mexico and there were no information booths to ask for directions. Obviously I made it through.
When I arrived in Tapachula there was no one there to meet me!! So, I pulled out my number for Olga and my phone card. The pay phone wouldn’t accept the card so a taxi driver called Olga for me. Olga had forgotten that I was coming. (Actually, I wasn’t surprised that she wasn’t there--either forgot or busy). However, what I didn’t expect was when her husband came to pick me up, he asked what hotel I wanted him to take me to!!!!!!
I guess when she flippantly responded "Come" to my question ¨"If I wanted to help at the Albergue, what would I have to do?¨ and ¨Stay with me¨ when I asked where would I stay--- I guess she WAS being flippant! She didn’t remember me! Well, she’s got me now!
Someone asked what I thought I would be doing my first day. I hadn’t thought about it. And no matter what I thought, I wouldn´t have imagined THIS!Last night before going to bed, I asked what time things start happening here. They said 6:30 tomorrow morning.
I was up and ready before 6:30 and there was no sound. At 6:30 Olga came out of their bedroom, we jumped in the car and started running. They make their living and support the shelter by buying wholesale and selling at 3 different places every day (pop, water, toilet paper, juice, gum, toothpaste and toothbrushes, yogurt, candy, cookies). We started running to buy what would be needed for the day. By 7:30 we had made 3 buying stops and went to mass. Came home to regroup, eat breakfast, then I was off to help with selling at a conference at the Seminary. 3 of the shelter guests were also there.
I’m learning how to make change with Pesos. I felt like a kid in grade school. They set out all of the coins to show me how much each was worth. They were fun folks to work with. The shelter has a lot of support from the Catholic community so the Shelter guests and many of the priests knew each other and were joking around together.
Olga has her family helping her--husband Jordan, 2 Sisters; Doris and Chela, bro-in-law Marco, 16 yr old son-Jordan, "like our daughter" Myra, and a niece.
Between them they run 3 vehicles to get the supplies, make sure that someone is always at home to take care of Angel, the 5 mo old hydrocephalic baby that had been abandoned in the hospital, cook for whoever gets home whenever, get Myra to school to teach, Jordan to and from school, drop off, pick up and care for Lillian, (a 5 yr old niece) from school, make visits to the hospital and pay hospital and pharmacy bills, and run the shelter. When I asked, they said this is a pretty typical day!
It feels like grand central station! Doris said, "So, after today are you leaving tomorrow?"
Nope! I haven’t been to the shelter yet except to pick up the 3 guests to help with the selling at the seminary. Olga said the nurse that is supposed to do dressing changes in the afternoon is not very reliable so I may be able to do that. If I did this running around every day I would be worn out in very short time. I have some expectations that I would be able to spend the majority of my time at the shelter.----but, who knows what will really happen.
They are all expecting me to drive --probably by next week.
So, I’ll keep you posted...........................This was just day one!
Lillian
Jan 24, 2008
OK, Day 2, in addition to the activities of the first day, add 2 journalists are doing a documentary on migration starting at this border, moving up through Mx, through Arizona and to Chicago. They spent the day with us.........with a microphone on Olga the whole day and a camera in her face........even filming us during mass. They knew this was just my second day but wanted to interview me too..........eewww I hate that and feel SO dumb when I try to talk.
Also add that an old man died in the hospital. He had been at the shelter a couple of years ago and Olga had been paying for a room for him to live in for the last 2 years. She also then ended up taking responsibility for his funeral. She ordered the ¨box¨ (It really was not more than a box with a little cloth around it). It was delivered to the shelter, the doctor took it to the hospital, we went to the hospital and helped them put his body in the box, put the box in the back of the pickup and took him back to the shelter. We went to get his death registered and took the documents to the cemetery, paid for a burial plot and paid some men to dig a hole, went back to the shelter to pick up the body in the box and took it to the cemetery to bury. Olga said if we hadn’t done that, he’d have been dumped in a hole like a dog.--His death not even registered. I didn’t realize that deaths are registered, but something about registering a death feels like there is more dignity to his life. The difference between being dumped in a hole and having a registered death makes it feel like acknowledging his humanity and human dignity.
So, that’s a bit of an update. ...oh yes, and all of this was with the cameras rolling!
Olga’s got folks coming and going all the time---including some famous people like Maria Schriber, ambassadors, writers like Isabel Allende, Sonia Navaro??, the author of Enrique’s Journey (the book that got me down here.) Sonia stayed here while she did her piece on Tapachula and this area. They said she was going to stay here for a week to learn what they did but couldn’t last---------it’s crazy here! I’m afraid I’m going to start loving it!!
Olga just keeps moving on.......laughing all the way--and I’m enjoying laughing with her.
We are getting a young man from Honduras at the shelter tomorrow. He’s coming to us from the hospital. I don’t know what actually happened to him but I saw him yesterday. He’s been in a coma for 4 months, has a fractured pelvis and I don’t know what all else. It looks like I will be using my nursing skills after all.
There are currently 18 people at the shelter. Many of them have had amputations for some time and you don’t see them around because they are also helping at the little stands selling pop, water, etc. It’s a way that they are earning something and learning that they can do something to make a living.
Tomorrow I am going to Arriaga with a priest who wants our community to take over running the shelter for migrants there! I asked if he thought the sisters should be able to speak Spanish. It never occurred to him that most couldn’t. When I asked what support the shelter gets from the diocese he said ¨Moral support, that is to say, support but no money¨. I am still going with him to learn more.
My Spanish is improving by the minute. Pretty soon I’ll be able to understand what they are saying! They slur and speak under their breath like everyone else in the world does....it’s just that they have to look at me, and enunciate very clearly if I’m going to understand. I’m afraid that when I go with this priest I’ll lose a lot of what I could learn just because I’m not as sharp in Spanish as I’d like to be...........but I’ll be much better soon!
Lillian
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