D e s e r t E x p o s u r e
December
2008
A Season for Sharing
Desert Exposure readers donate more than $1,200 to help feed hungry families in Palomas.
Maria was driving around in her blue van, knocking on doors or sometimes just honking her horn in front of the houses. She pushed the gas pedal or braked with her silver high heels on, as the vehicle struggled over the deeply rutted, unpaved streets.
Maria, the social worker, was distributing some of the money donated as a result of my last two columns published in this paper about the soaring rate of hunger in Palomas.
The outpouring of donations sent to Desert Exposure was really touching. As of Thanksgiving, we've received more than $1,200 already, from as far away as Nevada. The surprise of getting the envelope in the mail with the checks brought tears to my eyes. I didn't expect that much, considering the economic crisis in the US. A hearty thank you goes out to all the people who were so generous. Every bit of it is very appreciated.
Donations also came in from other sources, including a woman who sorts chile at a processor in Deming. She gave me three huge bags of her children's cast-off clothes and has another bag on the way. A woman in Cliff got people there to donate food, and sent a truckload down to the border. A Desert Exposure reader in Deming donated the proceeds of her rummage sale. The Palomas Hunger Project of Our Lady of Palomas Hermitage and Retreat Center in Columbus is also getting hundreds of dollars from a piece they published in the Deming Headlight.
Riding around the streets with Maria, I saw a side of Palomas I'd never seen. She dropped off food for a mentally handicapped woman with four children, who was crying over the many problems she had. We saw a deformed teenage boy, an old man with a missing arm.
She brought me into a couple homes to show me the empty or nearly empty refrigerators. I joked that I was a "turista de comida" — a food tourist.
A woman at one house thanked us and gave us a stack of tortillas she was making. The woman in the back seat with her nine-year-old daughter, who was helping Maria, took the warm tortilla I offered and ate it hungrily, and gave one to her daughter. They had arrived recently in Palomas to escape the drug violence in Durango, and were being helped by the mayor.
Maria laughed as she took a tortilla and bit into it. "We're bringing food to other people when we're hungry ourselves!"
She was telling me that more and more people were having their electricity, heat or water cut off because they couldn't pay the bills. She even chuckled at this, a little strangely — as if to say, "Another sob story!"
I asked her wryly, "Do you wear those high heels in the mud?" She smiled, "Si, claro" — of course. (Some of Palomas' streets become small ponds in the summer.) Her heels are usually about four inches high.
But her humor is mixed with tears at times, and she gets a little weepy when she talks about the sad situations she witnesses.
The violence in Juarez continues. Drug-related murders there have risen to over 1,400 this year. There's a higher concentration of violence in Juarez than anyplace else in Mexico, although it's under-reported in the US. The narcos have recently been trying to extort the Christmas bonuses from teachers in Juarez, sometimes worth a month's wages. They're threatening to kill students or harm the teachers' families if they don't shell out. It's as if the narcos are trying to show us what absolute evil is.
Crime reporter Armando Rodriguez of the Diario de Juarez was gunned down one morning recently as he brought his daughter to school. Juarez journalist Jorge Luis Aguirre, director of the feisty news website La Polaka, fled in terror to El Paso after a phone threat while he was walking to Rodriguez' funeral. Juarez journalists are more cautious now, and may have to stop reporting drug violence. Some of them strongly suspect police involvement with the threats against them.
I haven't heard stories of collusion with narcos among Palomas police, but I've heard there's fear of the Mexican soldiers. A young woman I know said that a friend of hers was picked up off a street corner in Palomas by soldiers who yelled at her and twisted and squeezed her arm. She thinks it was a case of mistaken identity. The soldiers released her south of town and she was an hour late to work.
Another woman said her nephew, who takes a class at the Learning Center in Deming, was picked up at a night spot in Palomas and brought to the army base. He was then let go, after a half-hour of extreme anxiety for the family.
It's so satisfying to fill the mouths of people who haven't eaten in a day or two or three. When I went to buy food with Maria, her assistant Karina, and Sandra of the Palomas Hunger Project, we all got happy and silly. Maria wants us Americans to be part of the process so we can witness that the money's being used well.
We went to Memo's Supermarket and filled clear plastic bags with rice, eggs, bananas, onions, cabbages, a few limes, coffee, beef cut in cubes for picado, and a few other things, loading three carts up high. I felt as if we were buying happiness for those families with empty kitchens.
Ordinary food in Palomas costs about 75 percent less than in the US, and Memo's also gave Maria a discount. She buys the food at different grocery stores in Palomas to support businesses there and create work for residents.
She typically buys food for 15 or 20 households. Someone usually writes down how many people they help, but there are no triplicate forms to fill out as there would be here. Are there gaps in the system? I'm sure there are. But Maria does this work conscientiously, and with all her heart.
It feels so good to get so many donations, and take part in the process, but
the total need is vast.
On Dec. 20, Mayor Tanys Garcia is planning a festival centering on the traditional Mexican Posada event, which hasn't been done for years in Palomas, if ever. In the Posada, a group of people representing Mary and Joseph walk from house to house, and sing songs asking to be let into the inn. They plan to have clowns and musicians. When we Americans had a meeting with Garcia, he talked about it as being a life-affirming event for the healing of the community.
Participants are invited to bring donations of food or unwrapped gifts for children, for which there's a special need this Christmas.
Donations to Integral Family Development (DIF) are still needed, and may be sent payable to Maria Lopez/DIF in care of Desert Exposure, PO Box 191, Silver City, NM 88062.
Borderlines columnist Marjorie Lilly lives in Deming.