Paul, stalking me through a phone app, noticed I was in Mexico most of today. It was, once again, a heart-breaking-open experience of human pain, strength and compassion. And remember at its root compassion means "suffering with."
We went to El Comedor ("The Dining Room").
This rough space, is right over the border in Nogales, Sonora.* That means, when people are deported from the U.S., dropped on the Mexico side of the border often in the middle of the night, with nothing but the clothes on their backs, El Comedor is often their first stop. At El Comedor they are fed - with a hot meal, but more importantly with compassion and respect.
Things are orderly at El Comedor. The migrants (mostly men) sit with napkins and a real spoon before them. We bring them milky sweet coffee, and salsa and tortillas are already on the table. Then, in a line like a fire brigade, we pass them plates with rice, beans, eggs, some meat. But before anybody eats there is a (long) prayer, and information about all the services available at El Comedor: there are people to help with legal issues, asylum paperwork, contacting family, and more that I just didn't figure out. The diners are incredibly polite and patient. At their feet might be a backpack, or the plastic bags labeled "Homeland Security." After everyone has eaten and brought their dishes to be cleaned, they head back outside to line up. Then four at a time they can come in to receive a pair of pants or a shirt and a pack of toiletries.
It would have been intrusive to take photos (I grabbed the image above from the web), so I can't show you the sloping, broken concrete floor. Or the kitchen crew working magic. Or the grim faces of the people at the table. Without knowing their stories it reminded me of serving clients a meal at Lowell Transitional Living Center; easy to think of these folks as experiencing homelessness. But then I would remember that some of these people had jobs and homes and families within view on the other side of the border. But it might as well have been a world away.
Along with the staff of El Comedor, there were about seven experienced volunteers (and four of us who were clueless first-timers). Apparently different groups take different days at El Comedor, and Tuesday is for Samaritans. Despite the fact that I've been working with this group for a week, I keep meeting new members. Most are retired folks who spend weeks or months - with some year-rounders - in this region of Arizona. I will have to write one whole blog post or a poem or an opera or something to express how amazing these Samaritans are.
Turns out El Comedor was an easy trip compared to the visit to the asylum seekers. That's my next post.
*Sonora, by the way, is a state in Mexico. Let me continue to reveal my ignorance by stating I did not know there were 31 states in Mexico.
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