September 13, 2024 • 45 mins
James talks to Josef from Borderlands Relief Collective about a day of dropping water in triple digit temperatures at the border, and how you can help.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
All media. Hi everyone, it's me James. This is a pickup.
It's Thursday morning. I recorded with Joseph on Wednesday night.
Someone destroyed or removed one of our callers. Since then,
I've received photos this morning of a place where we
put it and it's gone. You can probably draw your
own conclusions as to how I feel about that, and
(00:23):
probably tell from how I'm talking to it, and I'm
pretty pissede off. Also, our friend Rafael, Rafael from Los
Angeles de la Desierto is without a vehicle at the moment.
His truck broke. This is a person who gives every
ounce of his being to rescuing migrants. He is there
with them in their hardest times. When they pass away,
he's there to recover their remains with dignity, to connect
(00:45):
their families with the passing moments of their loved ones.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
He's there to rescue people. He rescued a woman and
child on Monday.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
His truck's broken, and if you're able to give, I'm
going to include a link in the show notes.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
I talked to Borderland Reef Collective.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
We all agree that the most important thing right now
is to get money to Raphael so he can continue
doing that life saving search and rescue work as we
hit record temperatures here and before it gets freezing cold
in the winters. So if you can, please please just
a few bucks, like we'll buy them an old track.
I'll fix it. I just don't want more people to
(01:20):
die out there, and I think having a track for
Rafael would meaningfully make it safer for people. So if
you're able to give, please give. Otherwise, please enjoy this podcast.
And yeah, I understand if you can't. It's a hard
time for everyone, but yeah, either way, help if you
can enjoy this podcast. BI Hi everyone, and welcome to
(01:43):
the podcast today. It's me James and I'm joined by
Joseph Hauser, who's a volunteer from Borderlands Relief Collective who
was out with me on Sunday. We're recording this on
Wednesday night and we were dropping water at the border.
We wanted to describe for you a little bit of
our what we we were at there. It was very hot,
things were in a bad way. I think it's fair
(02:05):
to say like despite all of our best efforts, things
were really difficult. That there's only so much we can
do when it's one hundred and five degrees and there
are dozens of people and we're trying to get water
to all of them.
Speaker 2 (02:14):
So welcome to the show.
Speaker 3 (02:15):
Yeah, yeah, thank you, James. Thanks for having me on.
Speaker 2 (02:18):
No, I appreciate you being gay.
Speaker 1 (02:19):
So I think if we begin by like describing preps
for people, and we first started messaging a boy going
out on Sunday, like Saturday afternoon, right, I think.
Speaker 4 (02:31):
Yeah, Yeah, it was yeah, early Saturday afternoon. I had
just finished getting my haircut, I'd gone and grabbed an
early lunch, and I saw a message from you and
one of our group chats that some of the local
grocery stores were selling those big orange five gallon water
jugs for like thirteen dollars, Like apparently they're trying to
(02:53):
like get rid of their stock or something. So yeah,
you and me a couple of other people were scrambling
around the county trying to buy up as any of
them as we could.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
Yeah, like, I think that's a normally one hundred bucks
for reference. They're like an insulated water vessel with a
spout on the bottom. And given that we knew it
was going to be a record temperature and it was
already really hot on Saturday, we wanted to try and
get folks water that was as cold as possible. So yeah,
we went all around, bought all the ones from that
chain of grocery stores that we could and sort of
(03:24):
corralled them, and then we put ice in them. Right,
But this is the next day on Sunday, and then
you and I met up and we went out. Do
you want to just give people a sense of the
people we met right from all over the world, the
different places we met them, and then then the sort
of condition that we found them in.
Speaker 3 (03:40):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (03:40):
So the first group of people we met, we ran
into four Mauritanian men. Yeah, they seemed to be in
pretty good spirits. They were all traveling together. Give them
some food, gatorade, water, kind of our typical stuff that
we hand out. Yeah, and I don't know, maybe three
minutes down the road from there. I don't know where
(04:03):
the man was from, but is Asian man that did
not look to be in great shape. His clothes was
torn up, his face was really dirty. He from what
we could understand, he was saying he had been mugged,
his cell phone had been stolen from him. Yeah, and
he just looked in a bad way. So we you know,
(04:25):
gave him water, gave him again some gatorade, and when
we tried to give him some food, he was just like,
I can't, like, I'm so like, he's just so dehydrated.
Speaker 3 (04:37):
He couldn't stomach anything other than liquid.
Speaker 2 (04:40):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:40):
It was like we see people all the time who
who were in a bad state, but it's pretty rare
people to be like, I can't eat, I'm too dehydrated,
I can't face food right now. Because he'd been walking
for at least seven eight hours, I'm guessing, if not days.
Speaker 2 (04:56):
Yeah, that's how he came man.
Speaker 1 (04:59):
Because we would just drive along and he came out
of the verge like with his hands in the air,
looking just so afraid, like I'll stay with me for
a while, like absolute like fear, but he.
Speaker 3 (05:09):
Had yeah, like he just looked stricken.
Speaker 1 (05:12):
Yeah, yeah, like just really, it's just so sad to
see someone like reduced to that. I'm glad we were
able to help him and get him the stuff that
he needed. And then from there we moved on to
I'm trying to think where we went next. We went
up to the top, right, we drove up to the
(05:32):
top of them mountain.
Speaker 4 (05:33):
Yeah, we went up to an area where Borderlands Relief
Collective has set up what we call a welcome station.
It's up on top of one of the smaller peaks
in the area. It gives us a good view, like
you can see all the way down to the actual
border and stuff and kind of take note of like okay,
like we've got a group coming up here, there's some
people crossing over there. And then we've primarily done that
(05:58):
in the winter time, just to greet people with some
like some hot teas, some water food, just basically things
to say like hey, like you know you're here, yeah,
and at least give them a friendly face, because who
knows what they've you know, what everyone's been through just
to get to that point. But yeah, So we dropped
one of our water jugs there and then went a
(06:19):
little bit further down the road to a gate that
I think Border Patrol maintains that gate maybe cal fire
yeah as well, they keep that locked pretty much always,
but we know people take that road up obviously, So
we left one of the smaller water jugs we were
able to pick up.
Speaker 3 (06:38):
I think that one was like a two or three
gallon that we left there.
Speaker 1 (06:41):
Right, Yeah, because people people walk up for the boarder.
I always like that spot. Oh it's weird because sometimes
you see people in your they've got a long walk
and it's hot and I'm up here.
Speaker 2 (06:50):
And there down there and that that sucks.
Speaker 1 (06:52):
Yeah, sometimes it's a really if it was anywhere else,
it would be a beautiful view. It's a baby though,
with little oak grove and like the times you'll see
like a red tailed hawk or something and it'll be
like level with your eye line because you're at the
top there and it's but unfortunately, yeah, it's at the border,
so people have to suffer miserably there.
Speaker 4 (07:10):
Yeah, it's absolutely gorgeous like natural landscape, but it is
like just so unbelievably deadly and unforgiving.
Speaker 1 (07:17):
Yeah, Like you and I have both hiked, like alongside
hiking up and down the roads. We've hiked on the
trails and microans often take. And I've hacked a lot,
you've hiked a lot. It's incredibly difficult going. It's difficult
for us as like fit people with technical apparel and
good shoes, like we often see people in flip flops
or like crappy sneakers.
Speaker 3 (07:39):
Yeah, if they have footwear at all at that point.
Speaker 1 (07:42):
Yeah, I remember a number of the people we ran
into didn't have shoes, like later in the day. Yeah,
and I've definitely given away shoes before. And then we
have some of my drug. I'm a giant person, not everyone.
It's like penguin flip of feet, so I wasn't able
to help everyone. And so yeah, we went from there,
we dropped another We hiked to water in a little bit.
(08:05):
The road was too narrow to turn the truck around,
and we dropped that and a navigate and then I
think at that point things were pretty normal, and that
was like a normal water drop day or a driving
to drop day, I should say, not a hiking one.
Do you want to describe what we saw at the
next place you went to, because I think that was
when both of us realized that, like things were going
(08:29):
to be worse than normal and people needed as much
helps as we could possibly get them.
Speaker 3 (08:32):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (08:33):
So basically, once we finished up in that area, we
went from where we were, we went a little bit
further south.
Speaker 3 (08:40):
I don't know, I was like maybe a ten minute drive,
you think.
Speaker 4 (08:43):
Once we got back to the main road, Yeah, we
ran into.
Speaker 3 (08:48):
A group of three men.
Speaker 4 (08:50):
Believe they were more Aitanian again a different group of men. Yeah,
when we came across them, they were kind of walking
almost like just middle of the on the road, Yeah,
which was kind.
Speaker 3 (09:02):
Of like keyed us in that, like, oh, like we
should stop and check on these guys. They overall seemed to.
Speaker 4 (09:09):
Be doing pretty well, like they were obviously very tired,
exhausted from their journey, but they were telling us that,
you know, like oh we've got another.
Speaker 3 (09:17):
Two, We've got two more they fell behind.
Speaker 4 (09:21):
So we gave these guys, you know again the normal
like food, gatorade, water, checked in with them to see
if they had like any wounds or anything we could treat,
and they seemed pretty good. So we hung out in
that area for I don't know, it was maybe five
ten minutes max. Before we saw the people that they
(09:41):
had mentioned were further down the road.
Speaker 3 (09:44):
So another two guys came up.
Speaker 4 (09:46):
We again gave them what supplies they seemed like they needed.
The the fifth guy in that group seemed to be
in the worst shape.
Speaker 3 (09:55):
Of all of them.
Speaker 2 (09:56):
Yeah, he was upright.
Speaker 4 (09:58):
And you know, like moving under his own power, but
like you just kind of see that little wobble in
his step. So we kind of took some extra time
with him. I believe we got him like a little
ice pack to put on the back of his neck,
just to try and bring his body temperature down, and
then kind of just got that. All five of them
(10:19):
regrouped together under a tree in some shade, and then
from there we went, I don't know, maybe we got
maybe three hundred feet down the road and we came
across a group of five I believe they were all
Spanish speakers.
Speaker 3 (10:38):
I didn't catch where they were from.
Speaker 1 (10:40):
Yeah, I think once it's from Colombia. I can't remember
where the whole group were from.
Speaker 3 (10:45):
There, but that was so far.
Speaker 4 (10:48):
Everyone we had run into was by a parent's middle
aged men I shouldn't say middle age, like young adult. Yeah, yeah,
like thirty thirty five maybe, like you know some we're
in that range.
Speaker 1 (11:01):
Yeah, yeah, they could be anywhere from like twenties to thirties.
Speaker 2 (11:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (11:04):
Like I think some of that is because it was
such a difficult day that like some folks who have
children or older people maybe decided not to make the
journey that day.
Speaker 2 (11:13):
Yeah, they had that choice. But this, yeah, this group
was yeah.
Speaker 4 (11:16):
This group of five we I want to say it
was three men in that age range. There was a
woman with them and then a kid that if I
had to guess, probably fifteen at the oldest, like I
seemed to remember like clogging that he had braces on,
Like he just he seemed young.
Speaker 2 (11:36):
Yeah, he seemed like a child. Yeah, it wasn't like
a young man.
Speaker 4 (11:39):
And so you know, we got off to the side
of the road again, we're giving them food, water, all that.
Speaker 3 (11:47):
Again, like this is all off the main road for
that area.
Speaker 4 (11:50):
And like as we're interacting with these groups, you know,
like several border patrol cars are just zooming passed, like yeah,
just about nobody. Nobody's stopping the check in and that
nobody's you know, like you stopping them from big finger
quotes here invading.
Speaker 1 (12:10):
Right getting getting on a bus. Is like people are
going so mad about us. We before they got mad
about Haitian people.
Speaker 4 (12:18):
But yeah, so we we worked with that group. Nobody
really seemed to be in dire straits there. So we're
working towards a trailhead which we could actually see from
where we were working with this group of five, and
there's like a little bridge there and we just kind
(12:39):
of see some heads popping up.
Speaker 2 (12:41):
Yeah, and we're.
Speaker 1 (12:42):
Like, oh, I think you have my binoculars. We were
like checking to see yeah, and.
Speaker 3 (12:46):
We're like, oh, like we like we need to get
over there.
Speaker 4 (12:49):
So we get back in the truck after we get
them kind of you know, as settled as we can,
and we get over to this trailhead, which is like, really,
I think where the day because, like you said, like
it was kind of a normal day up until we
got to this trailhead and then things kind of seemed
to take a turn.
Speaker 1 (13:08):
Yeah, talking of taking a turn, where don't we take
a turn to advertisements and then come back.
Speaker 3 (13:14):
That's why they're paying you the big bucks.
Speaker 2 (13:16):
That is. Yeah, I see did you see that? No,
no one saw that.
Speaker 1 (13:18):
Come all right, we are back. I hope that you
haven't bought anythink you could give money to board Lands
Relief Collective of Google it.
Speaker 3 (13:37):
Oh yeah, that would be really nice. I would appreciate that.
Speaker 1 (13:40):
Yeah, who would I do that? Don't go to chamber Causina. Yeah,
so we got over there and like that location just
to give people like paint a picture. There's the road
which we were traveling on and then parallel to that,
parallel to it ninety degrees. It's a dirt road which
we pulled into the road that we had traveling on.
(14:02):
Was it going over a creek which is dry at
this time of year, So there's a bridge, and it
was under that bridge that people were hiding from the sun,
and so that's why we couldn't see them until we
were very close. And yeah, describe what we saw there,
because that was when I was like, oh shit, that
was when we started to run out of enough bottles
(14:24):
for people to drink out of. So we had to
like just start opening like cans of energy drink and
beer and stuff or whatever we had just to use
them as bottles.
Speaker 4 (14:33):
Yeah, so we we pull off the road and underneath
that bridge, I mean I didn't do like a head
count necessarily or anything, but there was a group of
like fifteen twenty at least. Yeah, you know, again like
mostly men in that like twenty to thirty age range,
but there were moms with kids and there were just
(14:54):
there were so many people.
Speaker 3 (14:55):
We at that point, we had you know.
Speaker 4 (14:58):
Some water bottles as we had that one five gallon
jug with the ice water in it left that we
were going to take up to the top of this pass,
and we just like by the time we got done
getting every one water.
Speaker 3 (15:15):
We ran out of water in the jug.
Speaker 4 (15:18):
I think we had just about cleared out all the
food we had.
Speaker 3 (15:21):
We had no more gatorades.
Speaker 4 (15:23):
We were scrounging around in the back of your truck
trying to just find vessels essentially to give people what
liquid we could, you know, like get at shakeout of
the ice.
Speaker 2 (15:35):
Yeah, it was not good.
Speaker 4 (15:37):
And so then that was when there was one young man,
I believe he said he was from Jordan. He was
trying to get our attention and telling us, you know,
like I've got two like I've got family up there too,
two family And he keeps pointing up up the mountain
towards the pass, saying he's got two family members up there.
(16:00):
And then another man I didn't catch where he was from,
but he was telling us there were two family members
of first man. And then there was another three men
traveling up there, and they were trying to indicate to
us that one of them had heart problems.
Speaker 3 (16:18):
Yeah, was how they how they put it.
Speaker 4 (16:22):
So we kept telling them like, hey, like you know,
we're we're going to go help them. But the gate
to access that the road that goes up that pass
was locked. So first we had to figure out like
who we could contact to get through the gate. And
then that poor guy that you know said his family,
(16:42):
his family members were up on that mountain, Like he desperately,
desperately wanted us to drive him up there with us,
but we had to keep telling him, like we just
we can't, Like it is so illegal.
Speaker 3 (16:53):
For us to put you in a vehicle. Yeah, you anywhere?
Speaker 1 (16:57):
Yeah, Like, at least the interpretation of the lowest Border
Patrol sees is that we would be like trafficking them
at that point. And like maybe one could defend it
in court if the person was like bleeding out or
you know something, but pretty much that is something that
we can't do.
Speaker 4 (17:13):
Yeah, We've been out on a water drop together, just
handing out food and water to people on foot next
to the truck, and Border Patrol has threatened, like an
agent has threatened to write us up for trafficking.
Speaker 1 (17:28):
Yeah, yeah, in this particular incident, which like I don't
really care, This agent can go fuck himself like we were.
This girl was probably four years old. I would say,
I don't know exactly. I didn't ask. Wasn't the most
important thing at the time. She was with her mother.
They were both from Guinea and a Nigerian woman. Like
I speak French, so I was speaking to the Guineaian
(17:50):
family and like, I remember you were trying to feed
the little girl right like she had.
Speaker 4 (17:55):
Yeah, another another volunteer and I were trying to feed
her some trail mix I had and she she wouldn't
touch any of it but the but the dried banana
chips that were in there. So yeah, like actually, ever
since then, anytime I make trail mix for drops, I
always make sure that I've got dry banana trips in there,
just you know, in case there's another kid that that's
(18:15):
all they'll eat.
Speaker 1 (18:17):
Yeah, And I remember like she wasn't very responsive. I've
been talking to her mom, and her mother's feet were
in a very bad way, like immersion foot. And after
a while we were like, this little girls is like
not very talkative at all, like maybe to a degree
that we should be concerned. And I think we both
(18:37):
we all kind of quickly realized she was very cold,
like potentially hypothermic.
Speaker 2 (18:42):
I remember having there.
Speaker 1 (18:44):
I tried to record some of this for the podcast,
but it's all fun, it's all. I had to wrap
her up in a mile out blanket such that like
I was sitting behind her so that she would get
like warm from me right now and sit my jacket
so she would get warm from me. And obviously the
whole fucking podcast bit is my love blanket noise, which
(19:04):
is a shame because at that point a border patrol
agent arrived started swearing at us, accusing us of trafficking,
just like as if this little girl wasn't having the
worst day.
Speaker 2 (19:16):
Of her life anyway.
Speaker 1 (19:17):
Yeah, just like someone who's paid by my taxes and
your taxes turns up to scream at the only people
who are helping her that day and her right like
it scared them. And eventually one of our friends was
able to de escalate that situation and those people got
taken and hopefully protested, and I hope that they are
living a happy life in the US.
Speaker 3 (19:38):
Yeah for sure.
Speaker 2 (19:39):
But yeah, that was a bad day.
Speaker 1 (19:42):
So yeah, we as you said, right, we can't take
this guy with us back up the hill, and we're
now trying to get so it's about ten kilometers to
the top, and it's ten kilometers and I have no
idea how it's a lot of climbing, Like it's ten
kilometers all uphill. Yeah, and so like, it's not really
possible for us to hike up that road and get
(20:04):
to these people who need help in a timely manner, right,
in a manner that so we need to drive. I
think in the end we ended up calling nine one
one Yeah, I think that was what we also called
a friend who personally contacted Yeah.
Speaker 3 (20:20):
Then yeah, somebody got cow fire out for us.
Speaker 4 (20:24):
They opened the gate and kind of let us take
the lead up that dirt road. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (20:29):
I thought that was really cool of them, Like it
would have been easy for them to be like, yeah,
we're here to save you and like credit where it's
to you. They were like, your truck is going to
go fast enough, fire rangine, you guys should go first.
Speaker 4 (20:42):
Yeah. So we get a portion of the way up
and we run into the group of three men that
we were told were there and.
Speaker 3 (20:51):
Were At this point, I think is when we realized like.
Speaker 4 (20:54):
Oh shit, like the only water we have on our
that we have at all is our personal water.
Speaker 3 (21:02):
So I actually I have water bottle right here next
to me. I I like was.
Speaker 4 (21:08):
Literally pouring what I had left into their water bottle
for them. Luckily, this is like an insulated thing, so
it's cold for them, but you know, we're trying to
figure out like shit, like when we get to when
we find these you know, two women, the family members,
the guy kept talking about like yeah, what are like,
what are we going to do?
Speaker 1 (21:27):
Then?
Speaker 4 (21:28):
Like I think we ended up giving when we came
across them further up the mountain at that point, like
we basically just had my backup now Gene. Yeah, left,
So we were like, hey, we want you to to
take this, Like, we just gave them the full now
Gene and tried our best to explain to them that
(21:49):
we were going to go to the top make sure
that there wasn't anybody else up there.
Speaker 3 (21:54):
And then we were going to come back down to
check on them.
Speaker 2 (21:57):
So we do that.
Speaker 4 (21:58):
We go up to the top where you and some
other volunteers have built like a little shade structure to
try and just give people some relief.
Speaker 1 (22:08):
Yeah I didn't built that one. I built that previous
one that got torn down. Okay, bye, some type of
cop lovely yeah great, really nice, really help. It wasn't
actually a cop, to be fat I'm pretty sure it was.
It was some other federal agency BLM or BP or someone.
Speaker 4 (22:28):
But so when we got up to the top. We
didn't see anybody else. We couldn't find anybody up there.
We were doing our best to try and use our
language skills.
Speaker 1 (22:39):
To Yeah, we were just shouting in various languages to
see if anyone needed help.
Speaker 4 (22:44):
Then the CalFire guys met back up with us up there,
you know, figured out like, hey, like you know, we
we're not seeing anybody else. So you and I decided
that basically all we could do at that point was
go down the mountain and go further south to a
(23:05):
little town that's like pretty much right on the border.
Speaker 2 (23:07):
I think, Yeah, it's literally a boat a crossing.
Speaker 4 (23:10):
Yeah, because we ended up, we drove down, checked in
on the women, the two women that were traveling down.
They seem to be doing about as okay as they
could at the time. Again, it's like, I don't know,
one hundred and five, Yeah, completely exposed up there.
Speaker 2 (23:25):
Yeah, there's no tree co a, you're not getting any shape.
Speaker 4 (23:28):
I don't I don't remember it being particularly windy at all.
Speaker 3 (23:32):
So it's just like hot still still. Yeah, But we get.
Speaker 4 (23:37):
Down the mountain kind of give everyone like the big
group that's there under the tree at the bridge at
the bottom heads up of what we're doing. We go
into this little town and like again like tiny little place,
like it's basically from what I saw, just parking lots
and then like a gas station and border crossing.
Speaker 2 (24:01):
Yeah, and that's it.
Speaker 4 (24:02):
We went into this gas station and bought I think
like sixteen gallons worth of water.
Speaker 1 (24:09):
Yeah, Livia had to go around the back to get
the rest of the water. Like we we took all
the gallons jugs they had.
Speaker 4 (24:15):
They had one of those little like displays of like
I don't know, I think it was like little keebler
like cheese cracker sandwiches.
Speaker 5 (24:22):
Like we just bought the whole display. Yeah, just to
try and give people some some more food. And then
from there, like we just high tailed it back to
the bridge, like distributed out some more water, checked in
with them again, just like explained like we're going back up.
Speaker 3 (24:40):
And as we were going.
Speaker 4 (24:42):
Back up the mountain, we started seeing these like little
rain drops hitting our windshield. Yeah, like oh that that
can't be good, you know, so we continue up. When
we when we found the two women, they were both
just kind of lying in some shade just.
Speaker 3 (24:59):
On the road.
Speaker 2 (25:00):
Yeah. It was not a good scene.
Speaker 4 (25:02):
Yeah, and so we got out, we mixed I think
it was we got one gallon of cold water and
then we took another of the gallon jugs and just
mixed up like a full thing with some catorade powder
we found in your truck. Yeah, and just kind of
sat down with them, and then we got help with
(25:23):
some translation over the phone, trying to like talk to
these women figure out like what exactly was going on.
Speaker 3 (25:29):
Because one of them kept like kind of pointing to her.
Speaker 1 (25:32):
Chest, yeah, and she was doing the like thump thump thump,
Yeah she was concerning. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (25:38):
You know, like through through the help we got translating
over the phone, just basically explained like we like we
just absolutely cannot transport to like we we want nothing
more in this world than to be able to take
you down the mountain, but we just can't.
Speaker 1 (25:53):
Yeah, Like I would very happily put those ladies in
my truck and driven them down, like it that would
have considerably improved my day to do that, because it
is fucking heartbreaking trying to tell someone they have to
keep walking when they're maybe halfway down and they're like
just lying there, exhausted, ready to I don't know what
(26:16):
just give up.
Speaker 2 (26:17):
But yeah, it fucking sucks. It sucks.
Speaker 1 (26:21):
We now know that several people died that day and
the day before and the day after. I guess I
don't know exactly how many because the medical examiner hasn't confirmed,
and I'm not going to say their names or really
much about the location beyond that because I want to
respect the privacy of their remains and their family.
Speaker 3 (26:42):
Yeah, and so.
Speaker 1 (26:44):
Until we hear from them, I won't. But like, it's
I found out some people had died in the vicinity
of where we were, and I don't know exactly where
it's people died.
Speaker 2 (26:54):
I don't know who they were, but.
Speaker 1 (26:56):
Like it's a really fucking hard thing to say with Like,
I think those people we helpful, probably, Okay, I think
between the fact that as we'll get onto a giant
thunderstorm soak soaks them to the degree that we had
to give them like ponchos, and then but just having
to deal with like I would happily if driven up
(27:16):
and down that road all day, but people in my
truck wouldn't bother me in the slightest. We're not not
able to. And somebody's journey ended in tragedy, and like
it's I don't know, like we we try our best
rather a lot, and it's not we do more than enough.
Like I'm not saying that, like I said, it's on
any way on us, but like we would love to
(27:38):
do more if they would let us. And like shit
like that, like not began to put people in the vehicle.
It's just it's just hard to live with, you know,
when you're sitting in bed at night or whatever your dinner,
like it sucks.
Speaker 4 (27:52):
But yeah, because like there's I feel like there's this
picture like when you talk about San Diego just kind
of southern California in general, it's oh, like it's sunny beaches,
it's nice.
Speaker 3 (28:04):
Days, like it's mild weather year round.
Speaker 4 (28:07):
But as we've said multiple times at this point, like
it gets fucking hot. It gets It was one hundred
and five degrees on that mountain. A thunderstorm rolled in,
and in a matter of I don't know, twenty thirty minutes,
our conversation went from like, oh, like I hope they
are you know, are not coming down with like a
heat illness or you know, gonna get heatstroke, to like,
oh shit, like are they gonna go hyperthermic?
Speaker 3 (28:28):
Like what do.
Speaker 4 (28:29):
What do we have to get them warm? We're trying
to cool them down. Now we're trying to warm them up.
Like what kind of cruel joke is this?
Speaker 1 (28:36):
Yeah, like it does seem like this most perverse thing
to be. Like then worried about fucking lightning on the
other side of the valley, you know, like it was
insane just from like we then we carried on up
the mountain, dropped some water, and then returned down to
check on these women again. And when we were at
the top of the mountain, we could look down on
(28:57):
the thunderstorm. Yeah, see it beneath us. And then yeah,
we drove into it and like just what an apocalyptic
scenario to be in, you know, like it's jumping with rain,
triple digit temperatures and or you have the only thing
you're allowed to do is walk, like it was difficult.
And then like I guess the last thing the last
(29:20):
person we ran into as we came down the mountain
was the guy who'd been pleading with us to go
help them. Yeah, God, and like had decided Border patrol
had collected everyone to take them to process them right
for their asylum claim and that we've heard on this
podcast before about what it's like when that happens. It's
not nice, it's not a pleasant stay. It's now considerably worse.
(29:43):
I imagine people are being moved to Texas. They stayed for weeks.
I met a young man a few months ago now
who was in detention for three or four weeks before,
I presume being deported back. I can't find any record
of him being released, which fucking sucks. So like this
guy had chosen not to go back, and instead he'd
chosen to hike back up the mountain without any food,
(30:06):
without any water, to try and rescue these women, which
I mean, it's an incredibly selfless thing to do, but
he was in a bad, bad way, right.
Speaker 4 (30:16):
Yeah, because when we so we passed the two women
on the way down, kind of gave them little snacks
here they're like, just tried to encourage them as much
as we could. And then when we ran into this man,
he you know, kind of had that I don't know
what other word to use, but kind of like crazed
look in his eyes, like he wasn't sure, like yeah
I do I just go back down, like I can't
(30:38):
leave them, like I need to keep going, Like I
feel like I can't, and so we tried to get
him settled as much as we could.
Speaker 3 (30:44):
We got them some water.
Speaker 4 (30:46):
I think you dug out some like gummy worms or
something from one of your bags.
Speaker 1 (30:50):
Yeah, it had a bag of hot It wasn't. It's
like an open back of harrabo that he was happy
to receive.
Speaker 4 (30:58):
Yeah, and you know, we're just did our best to
try and convince him to just kind of sit there
rest a little bit and you know, like assure him
that they're coming.
Speaker 3 (31:10):
They're walking down now.
Speaker 4 (31:11):
And it was honestly kind of beautiful the one woman
because the two women had kind of split up a
little bit while they were walking downhill. So the one
comes around the bend and like when they saw each other,
like he just kind of.
Speaker 3 (31:25):
Like you could see like just everything about him just kind.
Speaker 4 (31:28):
Of elevated, and he, you know, pepinist stuff, was like,
oh my god, like I'm so happy to see you.
Speaker 1 (31:34):
And yeah, he got up because he'd just been kind
of slouched there almost like just looking exhausted.
Speaker 4 (31:42):
Yeah, So like seeing them kind of reunite was really nice,
and they had a quick conversation and seemed like they
kind of decided she was going to keep going down,
and you know he just seemed like energized by that
and decided to keep going up to find other woman
to make sure she made it down as well.
Speaker 1 (32:02):
Yeah, which was like not an easy choice, I'm sure
for him. Like like at that point, again, we were
out of food. We we mixed him up some gatorade.
I think we took the sugar backets from m E
and like mixed them in there and some salt, just
like try and give him, like I guess something some
fluid he could hold on too, so he doesn't get
(32:23):
hype and a tree make right, which is definitely something
when you see the amount of salt on people, like
the white crusting on them, like they're only drinking water
and they're not replacing electrolytes, like it becomes a concern. Yeah,
that I guess was us for the day, right, Like
we we drove home and like we don't get to
really find out how any one did and we don't
(32:45):
get to follow up, right, Like it's kind of not
how that works.
Speaker 2 (32:51):
But yeah, that's just one day.
Speaker 1 (32:53):
Like I spoke to Raphael from and Helisted and he
was out on Monday, said it was just bad, right,
doing a search and rescue on Monday for a mother
and child and that they were able to rescue them,
And like, I felt like it was a value to
highlight what we saw in one day because it's it's
(33:13):
every day. I mean, it's cooled off now and Wednesday
it's well, that's hot, which is good, but it's every
day at the moment.
Speaker 4 (33:19):
Well, and I guess, for like context, cooled off means
it's like load of mid nineties.
Speaker 1 (33:26):
Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah, it's still like it's still not
safe to make that hike without water. People are often
mugged right when they cross the border or sometimes before.
Sometimes they get their bags stolen. That often involves them
getting their water bottles stolen that they've taken with them
right and makest journey a lot more dangerous. They also
get their phone stolen, so even if they need help,
(33:47):
they can't call nine one one. Border Patrol sometimes has
like rescue beacons that you can press them and it
calls Border Patrol. On the route that we run for
the back half of the day, there are none of
those I saw, Like, I know, I came back and
then you know, I sort of tried to process my
day and get on with my life when you do.
And and I saw the presidential debate last night, and
(34:11):
it just makes me so fucking angry. I mean, we
shouldn't expect anymore from these people. They're politicians. They don't
give a shit about you, they don't give a shit
about me, and they certainly don't care about these poor,
desperate people. And like, and it's then that people want
to vote for Kamala because maybe she's less bad than Trump.
But like, I have a real fucking hard time thinking
(34:31):
about the parents of the young man who died at
the border having to deal with Okay, well, she's less
bad than Trump.
Speaker 2 (34:38):
Cool, it doesn't bring their baby boy back, you know, Like, and.
Speaker 1 (34:43):
Just seeing both of them, Like, the whole framing of
the immigration discussion was how do we reduce numbers and
make it harder. They didn't entertain for a moment that
someone might come here because they've got nowhere else to
go and they need to be safe, or because they
want to work hard and have a better future for
their family. There are a million reasons to come here, right.
I came here to fucking do a PhD in Spanish history,
(35:03):
and no one made me race my bike.
Speaker 2 (35:06):
No, no, one made me walk across the desert. You know,
it's the reasons.
Speaker 1 (35:10):
Were a lot more valid than mine would And like I,
I guess, I guess we should take a commercial break.
Speaker 2 (35:26):
Okay, we're back.
Speaker 1 (35:29):
I guess I want to finish up. You told me
a story about why you started volunteering, which I thought
was really meaningful and I'd like people to hear it.
Would you mind sharing that with everyone?
Speaker 3 (35:38):
Oh, yeah, no problem.
Speaker 4 (35:39):
So my grandmother on my father's side came to the
US from Panama to go to college. My grandma on
my mother's side. My understanding is they originally came to
the US because somewhere down the line they were German.
Speaker 3 (35:58):
One of them was a duke.
Speaker 4 (35:59):
Fell in love with you know, like a servant girl
or something, you know that old story. Yeah, got ostracized
from the family and fled to you know, the United States,
and so like even though looking at me like, I'm
a why does white can be freckles? And all right,
like my family it's immigrants like you go back, yeah,
(36:20):
like you know, as we all are. And this was
twenty nineteen. I didn't know what I was doing. I
felt stuck in my job. I just kind of wanted
to get away from my family for you know, lack
of a better phrase, and I thought, hell, why not
(36:42):
the like why not the Peace Corps? Go do something
good on the government's dime. And you know, see the world,
it's you know, it's big, it's sexy, it's foreign.
Speaker 3 (36:52):
And so I went.
Speaker 4 (36:55):
I got placed in Swatini, which is a country in
southern Africa, and I was in the youth development sector there.
Speaker 3 (37:06):
So I got placed.
Speaker 4 (37:08):
I was working at a high school there and I
was having a conversation one day with the religion teacher
who just couldn't he could not understand the idea of
like why we don't teach religion in high schools in
the US. Like he's like, you know, how can you
learn to understand somebody else's point of view if you're
not allowed to learn about it. And so like talked
(37:30):
about like how we value the concept of separation of
church and state, and it just kind of got on
the topic of different viewpoints between our two cultures like that,
and this man looked at me and said, I feel
so blessed that there is a country in this world,
(37:51):
like the United States, where there's no poverty, nobody goes hungry.
Speaker 3 (37:56):
Everybody has a job, and there are people like you willing.
Speaker 4 (38:01):
To leave such a beautiful place to come here and
help us, which you know, naturally, I was like, oh,
like that's, you know, really nice of you to say.
But you know, like in the United States, like we
have people that go hungry, we you know, deal with poverty, homelessness,
et cetera, et cetera. And I'll never forget this guy
(38:23):
looked me dead in the eyes and just said like, oh,
then why are you here, Why aren't you at home
helping them? And it just kind of shattered me in this,
you know, like yeah, no, like you're right, Like I
totally and completely joined the Peace Corps for like these
(38:44):
super selfish reasons. And so, like I said, I was
there twenty nineteen, So I was there.
Speaker 3 (38:51):
I don't know if you were.
Speaker 4 (38:52):
The listeners heard about this thing called COVID and the
pandemic that happened, But I was part of the global
evacuation order that went out for Peace Corps or came
back to the US, moved around a little bit, and
last year I was listening to your podcast at work.
You interviewed a couple of people that do work with
Borderland's Relief Collective and just kind of thought to myself, well, like, shit,
(39:17):
I live near there, Like I can carry stuff in
a backpack, Like I know how to hike, you know,
why not me?
Speaker 3 (39:22):
Why not go see how I can help out?
Speaker 4 (39:24):
And you know, it's been a year and some change
at this point that I've been with the group, and
you know, like it's not like I've got some big
fancy degree in like international relations or anything like that.
Speaker 3 (39:39):
I'm just a I'm some guy.
Speaker 4 (39:40):
I'm a graphic I'm a graphic designer that can carry
stuff at a backpack. Yeah, but you know that makes
all the difference sometimes. Yeah, it's just being willing to
go out there and you know, like put that compassion
to you know.
Speaker 3 (39:56):
To work.
Speaker 1 (39:57):
Yeah, I think it like we just two dudes with
the truck and like a credit card to buy water bottles.
Like it doesn't take brilliant or command. I speak a
couple of other languages, but often like maybe I'll make
the image for this show my Google Translate app for
that day. We were just using the tools that most
(40:19):
of us have, right like, and it doesn't have to
be at the border obviously, lots of people listen I'm
the border, but like things would be so much worse
there if local folks didn't just take it upon themselves
to do the things that the state refuses to do.
And like that applies to the unhoused population too, write
like I know my friends were also carrying water for
(40:40):
them this weekend because it was hot trying to get
and the city shut down the Homelessness Resource Center because
the temperatures were too high for the stuff, which is
fucking just something else. But I don't think we should
expect anymore from the state. That's not what it's for.
It's not to keep us safe. It's to keep capital safe.
It's to keep else safe. It's to keep a certain
(41:01):
class of people's faith. And it camouflages itself and all
these institutions which say they're there to look after us.
But like when it comes down to it, like when
those ladies are lying on the dirt, it's just two
toots in a truck kind of scrounge around for gatorade, right,
And like I want people listening. I know I harp
on this a lot, but like the only way that
(41:22):
we fix it is you. It's not someone else. It's
not posting I would love it if you could donate, right,
I'll include a link in the show.
Speaker 2 (41:30):
That'd be great.
Speaker 1 (41:31):
But I would love it so much more if you
could do something wherever you are, Like, just don't think
that anyone doing this is special, Like, of course the
things that I think they're special, people enjoy spending time
with them. But like, you could do it too. There's
nothing that's inherently stopping you from doing it. And it
(41:51):
doesn't matter who wins the election, right, it really doesn't matter.
Every year that Joe Biden has been president, more people
have died than the year before. And he was the
guy who was supposed to be kind. He didn't even
run on a harsh border policy. Harris is running on
a half border policy. It's only going to get worse.
She's even renegged on building more wall, like they are
(42:13):
beginning to construct wall around her cumber in the places
where we looked after people last winter. So that'll push
people to Valley of the Moon, where it is impassable terrain,
where more people will die in the cold and more
people will die in the heat. And I guess we'll
probably be out there too trying to help them. But
I just want everyone listening like, I know we've covered
(42:34):
the election a lot. It doesn't I don't want to
tell you it doesn't matter. I'm sure it matters, like
it matters for my friends in Kurdistan who Trump fucking
abandoned left to die after they gave thousands of their
children to fight.
Speaker 2 (42:46):
Isis right?
Speaker 1 (42:48):
But even if Harris wins, like, donations went down so
much in the Biden earror compared to to Trumpira and
people died in the desert, people died in Tijuana, right,
because that's what this system does. But people stop caring
when a lot of big commercial networks start reporting on it.
(43:08):
And I would like you will still to care whoever
win the election. I'd like you will still to care
before the election. And the way you can show that
you carry showing up for your community whatever it is, right,
Homona isn't going to fucking solve homelessness. OI there. So yeah,
you got anything to leave people with if anything you
want to you want to say, want to plug just.
Speaker 4 (43:28):
You know, order lands relief, collective order, kindness, Raphael's group,
the anhelas the Desier though, I think, yeah, you know,
just if you can come out like if you're in
the area. If you can come out, you can help great.
Like the more people that carry supplies, the more we
can leave. If you're not in the area or you know,
(43:50):
like hiking and carrying heavy things is not what you're into.
Donating always super appreciated. I know, specifically Order Lands Relief
collect of every single cent that is donated to us
goes to supplies that we leave for migrants. And even
if it's only a few dollars, I mean, like we're
(44:11):
talking bottled water. I mean the sixteen gallons of water
that we bought I think ended up running somewhere in
ballpark like fifty bucks. Like yeah, you know, like it's
it's water, gatorade. Sometimes it's you know, off brand gatorade.
So like a few dollars can go a long way,
and that long way could mean saving someone's life.
Speaker 1 (44:33):
Yeah, totally. So you know, whatever you can give I
would be appreciated. I know our friend Befael from Lochanngelestill, Desierto,
is his vehicle broke this weekend. He does search and rescue.
I gave you got a few bucks, and you want
to pass him his way. It's Los A Hills, like
the town del Desierto or that in the link too,
but we'll put both those in the show notes. Please
(44:56):
do whatever you can and yeah, hopefully next time I
talked to you about what stuff, it'll be better than you.
Speaker 3 (45:01):
Thank you, James.
Speaker 2 (45:02):
Yeah, thanks man.
Speaker 6 (45:07):
It Could Happen Here is a production of cool Zone Media.
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now find sources for It Could Happen Here listened directly
in episode descriptions. Thanks for listening.
All media. Hi everyone, it's me James. This is a pickup.
It's Thursday morning. I recorded with Joseph on Wednesday night.
Someone destroyed or removed one of our callers. Since then,
I've received photos this morning of a place where we
put it and it's gone. You can probably draw your
own conclusions as to how I feel about that, and
(00:23):
probably tell from how I'm talking to it, and I'm
pretty pissede off. Also, our friend Rafael, Rafael from Los
Angeles de la Desierto is without a vehicle at the moment.
His truck broke. This is a person who gives every
ounce of his being to rescuing migrants. He is there
with them in their hardest times. When they pass away,
he's there to recover their remains with dignity, to connect
(00:45):
their families with the passing moments of their loved ones.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
He's there to rescue people. He rescued a woman and
child on Monday.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
His truck's broken, and if you're able to give, I'm
going to include a link in the show notes.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
I talked to Borderland Reef Collective.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
We all agree that the most important thing right now
is to get money to Raphael so he can continue
doing that life saving search and rescue work as we
hit record temperatures here and before it gets freezing cold
in the winters. So if you can, please please just
a few bucks, like we'll buy them an old track.
I'll fix it. I just don't want more people to
(01:20):
die out there, and I think having a track for
Rafael would meaningfully make it safer for people. So if
you're able to give, please give. Otherwise, please enjoy this podcast.
And yeah, I understand if you can't. It's a hard
time for everyone, but yeah, either way, help if you
can enjoy this podcast. BI Hi everyone, and welcome to
(01:43):
the podcast today. It's me James and I'm joined by
Joseph Hauser, who's a volunteer from Borderlands Relief Collective who
was out with me on Sunday. We're recording this on
Wednesday night and we were dropping water at the border.
We wanted to describe for you a little bit of
our what we we were at there. It was very hot,
things were in a bad way. I think it's fair
(02:05):
to say like despite all of our best efforts, things
were really difficult. That there's only so much we can
do when it's one hundred and five degrees and there
are dozens of people and we're trying to get water
to all of them.
Speaker 2 (02:14):
So welcome to the show.
Speaker 3 (02:15):
Yeah, yeah, thank you, James. Thanks for having me on.
Speaker 2 (02:18):
No, I appreciate you being gay.
Speaker 1 (02:19):
So I think if we begin by like describing preps
for people, and we first started messaging a boy going
out on Sunday, like Saturday afternoon, right, I think.
Speaker 4 (02:31):
Yeah, Yeah, it was yeah, early Saturday afternoon. I had
just finished getting my haircut, I'd gone and grabbed an
early lunch, and I saw a message from you and
one of our group chats that some of the local
grocery stores were selling those big orange five gallon water
jugs for like thirteen dollars, Like apparently they're trying to
(02:53):
like get rid of their stock or something. So yeah,
you and me a couple of other people were scrambling
around the county trying to buy up as any of
them as we could.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
Yeah, like, I think that's a normally one hundred bucks
for reference. They're like an insulated water vessel with a
spout on the bottom. And given that we knew it
was going to be a record temperature and it was
already really hot on Saturday, we wanted to try and
get folks water that was as cold as possible. So yeah,
we went all around, bought all the ones from that
chain of grocery stores that we could and sort of
(03:24):
corralled them, and then we put ice in them. Right,
But this is the next day on Sunday, and then
you and I met up and we went out. Do
you want to just give people a sense of the
people we met right from all over the world, the
different places we met them, and then then the sort
of condition that we found them in.
Speaker 3 (03:40):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (03:40):
So the first group of people we met, we ran
into four Mauritanian men. Yeah, they seemed to be in
pretty good spirits. They were all traveling together. Give them
some food, gatorade, water, kind of our typical stuff that
we hand out. Yeah, and I don't know, maybe three
minutes down the road from there. I don't know where
(04:03):
the man was from, but is Asian man that did
not look to be in great shape. His clothes was
torn up, his face was really dirty. He from what
we could understand, he was saying he had been mugged,
his cell phone had been stolen from him. Yeah, and
he just looked in a bad way. So we you know,
(04:25):
gave him water, gave him again some gatorade, and when
we tried to give him some food, he was just like,
I can't, like, I'm so like, he's just so dehydrated.
Speaker 3 (04:37):
He couldn't stomach anything other than liquid.
Speaker 2 (04:40):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:40):
It was like we see people all the time who
who were in a bad state, but it's pretty rare
people to be like, I can't eat, I'm too dehydrated,
I can't face food right now. Because he'd been walking
for at least seven eight hours, I'm guessing, if not days.
Speaker 2 (04:56):
Yeah, that's how he came man.
Speaker 1 (04:59):
Because we would just drive along and he came out
of the verge like with his hands in the air,
looking just so afraid, like I'll stay with me for
a while, like absolute like fear, but he.
Speaker 3 (05:09):
Had yeah, like he just looked stricken.
Speaker 1 (05:12):
Yeah, yeah, like just really, it's just so sad to
see someone like reduced to that. I'm glad we were
able to help him and get him the stuff that
he needed. And then from there we moved on to
I'm trying to think where we went next. We went
up to the top, right, we drove up to the
(05:32):
top of them mountain.
Speaker 4 (05:33):
Yeah, we went up to an area where Borderlands Relief
Collective has set up what we call a welcome station.
It's up on top of one of the smaller peaks
in the area. It gives us a good view, like
you can see all the way down to the actual
border and stuff and kind of take note of like okay,
like we've got a group coming up here, there's some
people crossing over there. And then we've primarily done that
(05:58):
in the winter time, just to greet people with some
like some hot teas, some water food, just basically things
to say like hey, like you know you're here, yeah,
and at least give them a friendly face, because who
knows what they've you know, what everyone's been through just
to get to that point. But yeah, So we dropped
one of our water jugs there and then went a
(06:19):
little bit further down the road to a gate that
I think Border Patrol maintains that gate maybe cal fire
yeah as well, they keep that locked pretty much always,
but we know people take that road up obviously, So
we left one of the smaller water jugs we were
able to pick up.
Speaker 3 (06:38):
I think that one was like a two or three
gallon that we left there.
Speaker 1 (06:41):
Right, Yeah, because people people walk up for the boarder.
I always like that spot. Oh it's weird because sometimes
you see people in your they've got a long walk
and it's hot and I'm up here.
Speaker 2 (06:50):
And there down there and that that sucks.
Speaker 1 (06:52):
Yeah, sometimes it's a really if it was anywhere else,
it would be a beautiful view. It's a baby though,
with little oak grove and like the times you'll see
like a red tailed hawk or something and it'll be
like level with your eye line because you're at the
top there and it's but unfortunately, yeah, it's at the border,
so people have to suffer miserably there.
Speaker 4 (07:10):
Yeah, it's absolutely gorgeous like natural landscape, but it is
like just so unbelievably deadly and unforgiving.
Speaker 1 (07:17):
Yeah, Like you and I have both hiked, like alongside
hiking up and down the roads. We've hiked on the
trails and microans often take. And I've hacked a lot,
you've hiked a lot. It's incredibly difficult going. It's difficult
for us as like fit people with technical apparel and
good shoes, like we often see people in flip flops
or like crappy sneakers.
Speaker 3 (07:39):
Yeah, if they have footwear at all at that point.
Speaker 1 (07:42):
Yeah, I remember a number of the people we ran
into didn't have shoes, like later in the day. Yeah,
and I've definitely given away shoes before. And then we
have some of my drug. I'm a giant person, not everyone.
It's like penguin flip of feet, so I wasn't able
to help everyone. And so yeah, we went from there,
we dropped another We hiked to water in a little bit.
(08:05):
The road was too narrow to turn the truck around,
and we dropped that and a navigate and then I
think at that point things were pretty normal, and that
was like a normal water drop day or a driving
to drop day, I should say, not a hiking one.
Do you want to describe what we saw at the
next place you went to, because I think that was
when both of us realized that, like things were going
(08:29):
to be worse than normal and people needed as much
helps as we could possibly get them.
Speaker 3 (08:32):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (08:33):
So basically, once we finished up in that area, we
went from where we were, we went a little bit
further south.
Speaker 3 (08:40):
I don't know, I was like maybe a ten minute drive,
you think.
Speaker 4 (08:43):
Once we got back to the main road, Yeah, we
ran into.
Speaker 3 (08:48):
A group of three men.
Speaker 4 (08:50):
Believe they were more Aitanian again a different group of men. Yeah,
when we came across them, they were kind of walking
almost like just middle of the on the road, Yeah,
which was kind.
Speaker 3 (09:02):
Of like keyed us in that, like, oh, like we
should stop and check on these guys. They overall seemed to.
Speaker 4 (09:09):
Be doing pretty well, like they were obviously very tired,
exhausted from their journey, but they were telling us that,
you know, like oh we've got another.
Speaker 3 (09:17):
Two, We've got two more they fell behind.
Speaker 4 (09:21):
So we gave these guys, you know again the normal
like food, gatorade, water, checked in with them to see
if they had like any wounds or anything we could treat,
and they seemed pretty good. So we hung out in
that area for I don't know, it was maybe five
ten minutes max. Before we saw the people that they
(09:41):
had mentioned were further down the road.
Speaker 3 (09:44):
So another two guys came up.
Speaker 4 (09:46):
We again gave them what supplies they seemed like they needed.
The the fifth guy in that group seemed to be
in the worst shape.
Speaker 3 (09:55):
Of all of them.
Speaker 2 (09:56):
Yeah, he was upright.
Speaker 4 (09:58):
And you know, like moving under his own power, but
like you just kind of see that little wobble in
his step. So we kind of took some extra time
with him. I believe we got him like a little
ice pack to put on the back of his neck,
just to try and bring his body temperature down, and
then kind of just got that. All five of them
(10:19):
regrouped together under a tree in some shade, and then
from there we went, I don't know, maybe we got
maybe three hundred feet down the road and we came
across a group of five I believe they were all
Spanish speakers.
Speaker 3 (10:38):
I didn't catch where they were from.
Speaker 1 (10:40):
Yeah, I think once it's from Colombia. I can't remember
where the whole group were from.
Speaker 3 (10:45):
There, but that was so far.
Speaker 4 (10:48):
Everyone we had run into was by a parent's middle
aged men I shouldn't say middle age, like young adult. Yeah, yeah,
like thirty thirty five maybe, like you know some we're
in that range.
Speaker 1 (11:01):
Yeah, yeah, they could be anywhere from like twenties to thirties.
Speaker 2 (11:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (11:04):
Like I think some of that is because it was
such a difficult day that like some folks who have
children or older people maybe decided not to make the
journey that day.
Speaker 2 (11:13):
Yeah, they had that choice. But this, yeah, this group
was yeah.
Speaker 4 (11:16):
This group of five we I want to say it
was three men in that age range. There was a
woman with them and then a kid that if I
had to guess, probably fifteen at the oldest, like I
seemed to remember like clogging that he had braces on,
Like he just he seemed young.
Speaker 2 (11:36):
Yeah, he seemed like a child. Yeah, it wasn't like
a young man.
Speaker 4 (11:39):
And so you know, we got off to the side
of the road again, we're giving them food, water, all that.
Speaker 3 (11:47):
Again, like this is all off the main road for
that area.
Speaker 4 (11:50):
And like as we're interacting with these groups, you know,
like several border patrol cars are just zooming passed, like yeah,
just about nobody. Nobody's stopping the check in and that
nobody's you know, like you stopping them from big finger
quotes here invading.
Speaker 1 (12:10):
Right getting getting on a bus. Is like people are
going so mad about us. We before they got mad
about Haitian people.
Speaker 4 (12:18):
But yeah, so we we worked with that group. Nobody
really seemed to be in dire straits there. So we're
working towards a trailhead which we could actually see from
where we were working with this group of five, and
there's like a little bridge there and we just kind
(12:39):
of see some heads popping up.
Speaker 2 (12:41):
Yeah, and we're.
Speaker 1 (12:42):
Like, oh, I think you have my binoculars. We were
like checking to see yeah, and.
Speaker 3 (12:46):
We're like, oh, like we like we need to get
over there.
Speaker 4 (12:49):
So we get back in the truck after we get
them kind of you know, as settled as we can,
and we get over to this trailhead, which is like, really,
I think where the day because, like you said, like
it was kind of a normal day up until we
got to this trailhead and then things kind of seemed
to take a turn.
Speaker 1 (13:08):
Yeah, talking of taking a turn, where don't we take
a turn to advertisements and then come back.
Speaker 3 (13:14):
That's why they're paying you the big bucks.
Speaker 2 (13:16):
That is. Yeah, I see did you see that? No,
no one saw that.
Speaker 1 (13:18):
Come all right, we are back. I hope that you
haven't bought anythink you could give money to board Lands
Relief Collective of Google it.
Speaker 3 (13:37):
Oh yeah, that would be really nice. I would appreciate that.
Speaker 1 (13:40):
Yeah, who would I do that? Don't go to chamber Causina. Yeah,
so we got over there and like that location just
to give people like paint a picture. There's the road
which we were traveling on and then parallel to that,
parallel to it ninety degrees. It's a dirt road which
we pulled into the road that we had traveling on.
(14:02):
Was it going over a creek which is dry at
this time of year, So there's a bridge, and it
was under that bridge that people were hiding from the sun,
and so that's why we couldn't see them until we
were very close. And yeah, describe what we saw there,
because that was when I was like, oh shit, that
was when we started to run out of enough bottles
(14:24):
for people to drink out of. So we had to
like just start opening like cans of energy drink and
beer and stuff or whatever we had just to use
them as bottles.
Speaker 4 (14:33):
Yeah, so we we pull off the road and underneath
that bridge, I mean I didn't do like a head
count necessarily or anything, but there was a group of
like fifteen twenty at least. Yeah, you know, again like
mostly men in that like twenty to thirty age range,
but there were moms with kids and there were just
(14:54):
there were so many people.
Speaker 3 (14:55):
We at that point, we had you know.
Speaker 4 (14:58):
Some water bottles as we had that one five gallon
jug with the ice water in it left that we
were going to take up to the top of this pass,
and we just like by the time we got done
getting every one water.
Speaker 3 (15:15):
We ran out of water in the jug.
Speaker 4 (15:18):
I think we had just about cleared out all the
food we had.
Speaker 3 (15:21):
We had no more gatorades.
Speaker 4 (15:23):
We were scrounging around in the back of your truck
trying to just find vessels essentially to give people what
liquid we could, you know, like get at shakeout of
the ice.
Speaker 2 (15:35):
Yeah, it was not good.
Speaker 4 (15:37):
And so then that was when there was one young man,
I believe he said he was from Jordan. He was
trying to get our attention and telling us, you know,
like I've got two like I've got family up there too,
two family And he keeps pointing up up the mountain
towards the pass, saying he's got two family members up there.
(16:00):
And then another man I didn't catch where he was from,
but he was telling us there were two family members
of first man. And then there was another three men
traveling up there, and they were trying to indicate to
us that one of them had heart problems.
Speaker 3 (16:18):
Yeah, was how they how they put it.
Speaker 4 (16:22):
So we kept telling them like, hey, like you know,
we're we're going to go help them. But the gate
to access that the road that goes up that pass
was locked. So first we had to figure out like
who we could contact to get through the gate. And
then that poor guy that you know said his family,
(16:42):
his family members were up on that mountain, Like he desperately,
desperately wanted us to drive him up there with us,
but we had to keep telling him, like we just
we can't, Like it is so illegal.
Speaker 3 (16:53):
For us to put you in a vehicle. Yeah, you anywhere?
Speaker 1 (16:57):
Yeah, Like, at least the interpretation of the lowest Border
Patrol sees is that we would be like trafficking them
at that point. And like maybe one could defend it
in court if the person was like bleeding out or
you know something, but pretty much that is something that
we can't do.
Speaker 4 (17:13):
Yeah, We've been out on a water drop together, just
handing out food and water to people on foot next
to the truck, and Border Patrol has threatened, like an
agent has threatened to write us up for trafficking.
Speaker 1 (17:28):
Yeah, yeah, in this particular incident, which like I don't
really care, This agent can go fuck himself like we were.
This girl was probably four years old. I would say,
I don't know exactly. I didn't ask. Wasn't the most
important thing at the time. She was with her mother.
They were both from Guinea and a Nigerian woman. Like
I speak French, so I was speaking to the Guineaian
(17:50):
family and like, I remember you were trying to feed
the little girl right like she had.
Speaker 4 (17:55):
Yeah, another another volunteer and I were trying to feed
her some trail mix I had and she she wouldn't
touch any of it but the but the dried banana
chips that were in there. So yeah, like actually, ever
since then, anytime I make trail mix for drops, I
always make sure that I've got dry banana trips in there,
just you know, in case there's another kid that that's
(18:15):
all they'll eat.
Speaker 1 (18:17):
Yeah, And I remember like she wasn't very responsive. I've
been talking to her mom, and her mother's feet were
in a very bad way, like immersion foot. And after
a while we were like, this little girls is like
not very talkative at all, like maybe to a degree
that we should be concerned. And I think we both
(18:37):
we all kind of quickly realized she was very cold,
like potentially hypothermic.
Speaker 2 (18:42):
I remember having there.
Speaker 1 (18:44):
I tried to record some of this for the podcast,
but it's all fun, it's all. I had to wrap
her up in a mile out blanket such that like
I was sitting behind her so that she would get
like warm from me right now and sit my jacket
so she would get warm from me. And obviously the
whole fucking podcast bit is my love blanket noise, which
(19:04):
is a shame because at that point a border patrol
agent arrived started swearing at us, accusing us of trafficking,
just like as if this little girl wasn't having the
worst day.
Speaker 2 (19:16):
Of her life anyway.
Speaker 1 (19:17):
Yeah, just like someone who's paid by my taxes and
your taxes turns up to scream at the only people
who are helping her that day and her right like
it scared them. And eventually one of our friends was
able to de escalate that situation and those people got
taken and hopefully protested, and I hope that they are
living a happy life in the US.
Speaker 3 (19:38):
Yeah for sure.
Speaker 2 (19:39):
But yeah, that was a bad day.
Speaker 1 (19:42):
So yeah, we as you said, right, we can't take
this guy with us back up the hill, and we're
now trying to get so it's about ten kilometers to
the top, and it's ten kilometers and I have no
idea how it's a lot of climbing, Like it's ten
kilometers all uphill. Yeah, and so like, it's not really
possible for us to hike up that road and get
(20:04):
to these people who need help in a timely manner, right,
in a manner that so we need to drive. I
think in the end we ended up calling nine one
one Yeah, I think that was what we also called
a friend who personally contacted Yeah.
Speaker 3 (20:20):
Then yeah, somebody got cow fire out for us.
Speaker 4 (20:24):
They opened the gate and kind of let us take
the lead up that dirt road. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (20:29):
I thought that was really cool of them, Like it
would have been easy for them to be like, yeah,
we're here to save you and like credit where it's
to you. They were like, your truck is going to
go fast enough, fire rangine, you guys should go first.
Speaker 4 (20:42):
Yeah. So we get a portion of the way up
and we run into the group of three men that
we were told were there and.
Speaker 3 (20:51):
Were At this point, I think is when we realized like.
Speaker 4 (20:54):
Oh shit, like the only water we have on our
that we have at all is our personal water.
Speaker 3 (21:02):
So I actually I have water bottle right here next
to me. I I like was.
Speaker 4 (21:08):
Literally pouring what I had left into their water bottle
for them. Luckily, this is like an insulated thing, so
it's cold for them, but you know, we're trying to
figure out like shit, like when we get to when
we find these you know, two women, the family members,
the guy kept talking about like yeah, what are like,
what are we going to do?
Speaker 1 (21:27):
Then?
Speaker 4 (21:28):
Like I think we ended up giving when we came
across them further up the mountain at that point, like
we basically just had my backup now Gene. Yeah, left,
So we were like, hey, we want you to to
take this, Like, we just gave them the full now
Gene and tried our best to explain to them that
(21:49):
we were going to go to the top make sure
that there wasn't anybody else up there.
Speaker 3 (21:54):
And then we were going to come back down to
check on them.
Speaker 2 (21:57):
So we do that.
Speaker 4 (21:58):
We go up to the top where you and some
other volunteers have built like a little shade structure to
try and just give people some relief.
Speaker 1 (22:08):
Yeah I didn't built that one. I built that previous
one that got torn down. Okay, bye, some type of
cop lovely yeah great, really nice, really help. It wasn't
actually a cop, to be fat I'm pretty sure it was.
It was some other federal agency BLM or BP or someone.
Speaker 4 (22:28):
But so when we got up to the top. We
didn't see anybody else. We couldn't find anybody up there.
We were doing our best to try and use our
language skills.
Speaker 1 (22:39):
To Yeah, we were just shouting in various languages to
see if anyone needed help.
Speaker 4 (22:44):
Then the CalFire guys met back up with us up there,
you know, figured out like, hey, like you know, we
we're not seeing anybody else. So you and I decided
that basically all we could do at that point was
go down the mountain and go further south to a
(23:05):
little town that's like pretty much right on the border.
Speaker 2 (23:07):
I think, Yeah, it's literally a boat a crossing.
Speaker 4 (23:10):
Yeah, because we ended up, we drove down, checked in
on the women, the two women that were traveling down.
They seem to be doing about as okay as they
could at the time. Again, it's like, I don't know,
one hundred and five, Yeah, completely exposed up there.
Speaker 2 (23:25):
Yeah, there's no tree co a, you're not getting any shape.
Speaker 4 (23:28):
I don't I don't remember it being particularly windy at all.
Speaker 3 (23:32):
So it's just like hot still still. Yeah, But we get.
Speaker 4 (23:37):
Down the mountain kind of give everyone like the big
group that's there under the tree at the bridge at
the bottom heads up of what we're doing. We go
into this little town and like again like tiny little place,
like it's basically from what I saw, just parking lots
and then like a gas station and border crossing.
Speaker 2 (24:01):
Yeah, and that's it.
Speaker 4 (24:02):
We went into this gas station and bought I think
like sixteen gallons worth of water.
Speaker 1 (24:09):
Yeah, Livia had to go around the back to get
the rest of the water. Like we we took all
the gallons jugs they had.
Speaker 4 (24:15):
They had one of those little like displays of like
I don't know, I think it was like little keebler
like cheese cracker sandwiches.
Speaker 5 (24:22):
Like we just bought the whole display. Yeah, just to
try and give people some some more food. And then
from there, like we just high tailed it back to
the bridge, like distributed out some more water, checked in
with them again, just like explained like we're going back up.
Speaker 3 (24:40):
And as we were going.
Speaker 4 (24:42):
Back up the mountain, we started seeing these like little
rain drops hitting our windshield. Yeah, like oh that that
can't be good, you know, so we continue up. When
we when we found the two women, they were both
just kind of lying in some shade just.
Speaker 3 (24:59):
On the road.
Speaker 2 (25:00):
Yeah. It was not a good scene.
Speaker 4 (25:02):
Yeah, and so we got out, we mixed I think
it was we got one gallon of cold water and
then we took another of the gallon jugs and just
mixed up like a full thing with some catorade powder
we found in your truck. Yeah, and just kind of
sat down with them, and then we got help with
(25:23):
some translation over the phone, trying to like talk to
these women figure out like what exactly was going on.
Speaker 3 (25:29):
Because one of them kept like kind of pointing to her.
Speaker 1 (25:32):
Chest, yeah, and she was doing the like thump thump thump,
Yeah she was concerning. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (25:38):
You know, like through through the help we got translating
over the phone, just basically explained like we like we
just absolutely cannot transport to like we we want nothing
more in this world than to be able to take
you down the mountain, but we just can't.
Speaker 1 (25:53):
Yeah, Like I would very happily put those ladies in
my truck and driven them down, like it that would
have considerably improved my day to do that, because it
is fucking heartbreaking trying to tell someone they have to
keep walking when they're maybe halfway down and they're like
just lying there, exhausted, ready to I don't know what
(26:16):
just give up.
Speaker 2 (26:17):
But yeah, it fucking sucks. It sucks.
Speaker 1 (26:21):
We now know that several people died that day and
the day before and the day after. I guess I
don't know exactly how many because the medical examiner hasn't confirmed,
and I'm not going to say their names or really
much about the location beyond that because I want to
respect the privacy of their remains and their family.
Speaker 3 (26:42):
Yeah, and so.
Speaker 1 (26:44):
Until we hear from them, I won't. But like, it's
I found out some people had died in the vicinity
of where we were, and I don't know exactly where
it's people died.
Speaker 2 (26:54):
I don't know who they were, but.
Speaker 1 (26:56):
Like it's a really fucking hard thing to say with Like,
I think those people we helpful, probably, Okay, I think
between the fact that as we'll get onto a giant
thunderstorm soak soaks them to the degree that we had
to give them like ponchos, and then but just having
to deal with like I would happily if driven up
(27:16):
and down that road all day, but people in my
truck wouldn't bother me in the slightest. We're not not
able to. And somebody's journey ended in tragedy, and like
it's I don't know, like we we try our best
rather a lot, and it's not we do more than enough.
Like I'm not saying that, like I said, it's on
any way on us, but like we would love to
(27:38):
do more if they would let us. And like shit
like that, like not began to put people in the vehicle.
It's just it's just hard to live with, you know,
when you're sitting in bed at night or whatever your dinner,
like it sucks.
Speaker 4 (27:52):
But yeah, because like there's I feel like there's this
picture like when you talk about San Diego just kind
of southern California in general, it's oh, like it's sunny beaches,
it's nice.
Speaker 3 (28:04):
Days, like it's mild weather year round.
Speaker 4 (28:07):
But as we've said multiple times at this point, like
it gets fucking hot. It gets It was one hundred
and five degrees on that mountain. A thunderstorm rolled in,
and in a matter of I don't know, twenty thirty minutes,
our conversation went from like, oh, like I hope they
are you know, are not coming down with like a
heat illness or you know, gonna get heatstroke, to like,
oh shit, like are they gonna go hyperthermic?
Speaker 3 (28:28):
Like what do.
Speaker 4 (28:29):
What do we have to get them warm? We're trying
to cool them down. Now we're trying to warm them up.
Like what kind of cruel joke is this?
Speaker 1 (28:36):
Yeah, like it does seem like this most perverse thing
to be. Like then worried about fucking lightning on the
other side of the valley, you know, like it was
insane just from like we then we carried on up
the mountain, dropped some water, and then returned down to
check on these women again. And when we were at
the top of the mountain, we could look down on
(28:57):
the thunderstorm. Yeah, see it beneath us. And then yeah,
we drove into it and like just what an apocalyptic
scenario to be in, you know, like it's jumping with rain,
triple digit temperatures and or you have the only thing
you're allowed to do is walk, like it was difficult.
And then like I guess the last thing the last
(29:20):
person we ran into as we came down the mountain
was the guy who'd been pleading with us to go
help them. Yeah, God, and like had decided Border patrol
had collected everyone to take them to process them right
for their asylum claim and that we've heard on this
podcast before about what it's like when that happens. It's
not nice, it's not a pleasant stay. It's now considerably worse.
(29:43):
I imagine people are being moved to Texas. They stayed for weeks.
I met a young man a few months ago now
who was in detention for three or four weeks before,
I presume being deported back. I can't find any record
of him being released, which fucking sucks. So like this
guy had chosen not to go back, and instead he'd
chosen to hike back up the mountain without any food,
(30:06):
without any water, to try and rescue these women, which
I mean, it's an incredibly selfless thing to do, but
he was in a bad, bad way, right.
Speaker 4 (30:16):
Yeah, because when we so we passed the two women
on the way down, kind of gave them little snacks
here they're like, just tried to encourage them as much
as we could. And then when we ran into this man,
he you know, kind of had that I don't know
what other word to use, but kind of like crazed
look in his eyes, like he wasn't sure, like yeah
I do I just go back down, like I can't
(30:38):
leave them, like I need to keep going, Like I
feel like I can't, and so we tried to get
him settled as much as we could.
Speaker 3 (30:44):
We got them some water.
Speaker 4 (30:46):
I think you dug out some like gummy worms or
something from one of your bags.
Speaker 1 (30:50):
Yeah, it had a bag of hot It wasn't. It's
like an open back of harrabo that he was happy
to receive.
Speaker 4 (30:58):
Yeah, and you know, we're just did our best to
try and convince him to just kind of sit there
rest a little bit and you know, like assure him
that they're coming.
Speaker 3 (31:10):
They're walking down now.
Speaker 4 (31:11):
And it was honestly kind of beautiful the one woman
because the two women had kind of split up a
little bit while they were walking downhill. So the one
comes around the bend and like when they saw each other,
like he just kind of.
Speaker 3 (31:25):
Like you could see like just everything about him just kind.
Speaker 4 (31:28):
Of elevated, and he, you know, pepinist stuff, was like,
oh my god, like I'm so happy to see you.
Speaker 1 (31:34):
And yeah, he got up because he'd just been kind
of slouched there almost like just looking exhausted.
Speaker 4 (31:42):
Yeah, So like seeing them kind of reunite was really nice,
and they had a quick conversation and seemed like they
kind of decided she was going to keep going down,
and you know he just seemed like energized by that
and decided to keep going up to find other woman
to make sure she made it down as well.
Speaker 1 (32:02):
Yeah, which was like not an easy choice, I'm sure
for him. Like like at that point, again, we were
out of food. We we mixed him up some gatorade.
I think we took the sugar backets from m E
and like mixed them in there and some salt, just
like try and give him, like I guess something some
fluid he could hold on too, so he doesn't get
(32:23):
hype and a tree make right, which is definitely something
when you see the amount of salt on people, like
the white crusting on them, like they're only drinking water
and they're not replacing electrolytes, like it becomes a concern. Yeah,
that I guess was us for the day, right, Like
we we drove home and like we don't get to
really find out how any one did and we don't
(32:45):
get to follow up, right, Like it's kind of not
how that works.
Speaker 2 (32:51):
But yeah, that's just one day.
Speaker 1 (32:53):
Like I spoke to Raphael from and Helisted and he
was out on Monday, said it was just bad, right,
doing a search and rescue on Monday for a mother
and child and that they were able to rescue them,
And like, I felt like it was a value to
highlight what we saw in one day because it's it's
(33:13):
every day. I mean, it's cooled off now and Wednesday
it's well, that's hot, which is good, but it's every
day at the moment.
Speaker 4 (33:19):
Well, and I guess, for like context, cooled off means
it's like load of mid nineties.
Speaker 1 (33:26):
Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah, it's still like it's still not
safe to make that hike without water. People are often
mugged right when they cross the border or sometimes before.
Sometimes they get their bags stolen. That often involves them
getting their water bottles stolen that they've taken with them
right and makest journey a lot more dangerous. They also
get their phone stolen, so even if they need help,
(33:47):
they can't call nine one one. Border Patrol sometimes has
like rescue beacons that you can press them and it
calls Border Patrol. On the route that we run for
the back half of the day, there are none of
those I saw, Like, I know, I came back and
then you know, I sort of tried to process my
day and get on with my life when you do.
And and I saw the presidential debate last night, and
(34:11):
it just makes me so fucking angry. I mean, we
shouldn't expect anymore from these people. They're politicians. They don't
give a shit about you, they don't give a shit
about me, and they certainly don't care about these poor,
desperate people. And like, and it's then that people want
to vote for Kamala because maybe she's less bad than Trump.
But like, I have a real fucking hard time thinking
(34:31):
about the parents of the young man who died at
the border having to deal with Okay, well, she's less
bad than Trump.
Speaker 2 (34:38):
Cool, it doesn't bring their baby boy back, you know, Like, and.
Speaker 1 (34:43):
Just seeing both of them, Like, the whole framing of
the immigration discussion was how do we reduce numbers and
make it harder. They didn't entertain for a moment that
someone might come here because they've got nowhere else to
go and they need to be safe, or because they
want to work hard and have a better future for
their family. There are a million reasons to come here, right.
I came here to fucking do a PhD in Spanish history,
(35:03):
and no one made me race my bike.
Speaker 2 (35:06):
No, no, one made me walk across the desert. You know,
it's the reasons.
Speaker 1 (35:10):
Were a lot more valid than mine would And like I,
I guess, I guess we should take a commercial break.
Speaker 2 (35:26):
Okay, we're back.
Speaker 1 (35:29):
I guess I want to finish up. You told me
a story about why you started volunteering, which I thought
was really meaningful and I'd like people to hear it.
Would you mind sharing that with everyone?
Speaker 3 (35:38):
Oh, yeah, no problem.
Speaker 4 (35:39):
So my grandmother on my father's side came to the
US from Panama to go to college. My grandma on
my mother's side. My understanding is they originally came to
the US because somewhere down the line they were German.
Speaker 3 (35:58):
One of them was a duke.
Speaker 4 (35:59):
Fell in love with you know, like a servant girl
or something, you know that old story. Yeah, got ostracized
from the family and fled to you know, the United States,
and so like even though looking at me like, I'm
a why does white can be freckles? And all right,
like my family it's immigrants like you go back, yeah,
(36:20):
like you know, as we all are. And this was
twenty nineteen. I didn't know what I was doing. I
felt stuck in my job. I just kind of wanted
to get away from my family for you know, lack
of a better phrase, and I thought, hell, why not
(36:42):
the like why not the Peace Corps? Go do something
good on the government's dime. And you know, see the world,
it's you know, it's big, it's sexy, it's foreign.
Speaker 3 (36:52):
And so I went.
Speaker 4 (36:55):
I got placed in Swatini, which is a country in
southern Africa, and I was in the youth development sector there.
Speaker 3 (37:06):
So I got placed.
Speaker 4 (37:08):
I was working at a high school there and I
was having a conversation one day with the religion teacher
who just couldn't he could not understand the idea of
like why we don't teach religion in high schools in
the US. Like he's like, you know, how can you
learn to understand somebody else's point of view if you're
not allowed to learn about it. And so like talked
(37:30):
about like how we value the concept of separation of
church and state, and it just kind of got on
the topic of different viewpoints between our two cultures like that,
and this man looked at me and said, I feel
so blessed that there is a country in this world,
(37:51):
like the United States, where there's no poverty, nobody goes hungry.
Speaker 3 (37:56):
Everybody has a job, and there are people like you willing.
Speaker 4 (38:01):
To leave such a beautiful place to come here and
help us, which you know, naturally, I was like, oh,
like that's, you know, really nice of you to say.
But you know, like in the United States, like we
have people that go hungry, we you know, deal with poverty, homelessness,
et cetera, et cetera. And I'll never forget this guy
(38:23):
looked me dead in the eyes and just said like, oh,
then why are you here, Why aren't you at home
helping them? And it just kind of shattered me in this,
you know, like yeah, no, like you're right, Like I
totally and completely joined the Peace Corps for like these
(38:44):
super selfish reasons. And so, like I said, I was
there twenty nineteen, So I was there.
Speaker 3 (38:51):
I don't know if you were.
Speaker 4 (38:52):
The listeners heard about this thing called COVID and the
pandemic that happened, But I was part of the global
evacuation order that went out for Peace Corps or came
back to the US, moved around a little bit, and
last year I was listening to your podcast at work.
You interviewed a couple of people that do work with
Borderland's Relief Collective and just kind of thought to myself, well, like, shit,
(39:17):
I live near there, Like I can carry stuff in
a backpack, Like I know how to hike, you know,
why not me?
Speaker 3 (39:22):
Why not go see how I can help out?
Speaker 4 (39:24):
And you know, it's been a year and some change
at this point that I've been with the group, and
you know, like it's not like I've got some big
fancy degree in like international relations or anything like that.
Speaker 3 (39:39):
I'm just a I'm some guy.
Speaker 4 (39:40):
I'm a graphic I'm a graphic designer that can carry
stuff at a backpack. Yeah, but you know that makes
all the difference sometimes. Yeah, it's just being willing to
go out there and you know, like put that compassion
to you know.
Speaker 3 (39:56):
To work.
Speaker 1 (39:57):
Yeah, I think it like we just two dudes with
the truck and like a credit card to buy water bottles.
Like it doesn't take brilliant or command. I speak a
couple of other languages, but often like maybe I'll make
the image for this show my Google Translate app for
that day. We were just using the tools that most
(40:19):
of us have, right like, and it doesn't have to
be at the border obviously, lots of people listen I'm
the border, but like things would be so much worse
there if local folks didn't just take it upon themselves
to do the things that the state refuses to do.
And like that applies to the unhoused population too, write
like I know my friends were also carrying water for
(40:40):
them this weekend because it was hot trying to get
and the city shut down the Homelessness Resource Center because
the temperatures were too high for the stuff, which is
fucking just something else. But I don't think we should
expect anymore from the state. That's not what it's for.
It's not to keep us safe. It's to keep capital safe.
It's to keep else safe. It's to keep a certain
(41:01):
class of people's faith. And it camouflages itself and all
these institutions which say they're there to look after us.
But like when it comes down to it, like when
those ladies are lying on the dirt, it's just two
toots in a truck kind of scrounge around for gatorade, right,
And like I want people listening. I know I harp
on this a lot, but like the only way that
(41:22):
we fix it is you. It's not someone else. It's
not posting I would love it if you could donate, right,
I'll include a link in the show.
Speaker 2 (41:30):
That'd be great.
Speaker 1 (41:31):
But I would love it so much more if you
could do something wherever you are, Like, just don't think
that anyone doing this is special, Like, of course the
things that I think they're special, people enjoy spending time
with them. But like, you could do it too. There's
nothing that's inherently stopping you from doing it. And it
(41:51):
doesn't matter who wins the election, right, it really doesn't matter.
Every year that Joe Biden has been president, more people
have died than the year before. And he was the
guy who was supposed to be kind. He didn't even
run on a harsh border policy. Harris is running on
a half border policy. It's only going to get worse.
She's even renegged on building more wall, like they are
(42:13):
beginning to construct wall around her cumber in the places
where we looked after people last winter. So that'll push
people to Valley of the Moon, where it is impassable terrain,
where more people will die in the cold and more
people will die in the heat. And I guess we'll
probably be out there too trying to help them. But
I just want everyone listening like, I know we've covered
(42:34):
the election a lot. It doesn't I don't want to
tell you it doesn't matter. I'm sure it matters, like
it matters for my friends in Kurdistan who Trump fucking
abandoned left to die after they gave thousands of their
children to fight.
Speaker 2 (42:46):
Isis right?
Speaker 1 (42:48):
But even if Harris wins, like, donations went down so
much in the Biden earror compared to to Trumpira and
people died in the desert, people died in Tijuana, right,
because that's what this system does. But people stop caring
when a lot of big commercial networks start reporting on it.
(43:08):
And I would like you will still to care whoever
win the election. I'd like you will still to care
before the election. And the way you can show that
you carry showing up for your community whatever it is, right,
Homona isn't going to fucking solve homelessness. OI there. So yeah,
you got anything to leave people with if anything you
want to you want to say, want to plug just.
Speaker 4 (43:28):
You know, order lands relief, collective order, kindness, Raphael's group,
the anhelas the Desier though, I think, yeah, you know,
just if you can come out like if you're in
the area. If you can come out, you can help great.
Like the more people that carry supplies, the more we
can leave. If you're not in the area or you know,
(43:50):
like hiking and carrying heavy things is not what you're into.
Donating always super appreciated. I know, specifically Order Lands Relief
collect of every single cent that is donated to us
goes to supplies that we leave for migrants. And even
if it's only a few dollars, I mean, like we're
(44:11):
talking bottled water. I mean the sixteen gallons of water
that we bought I think ended up running somewhere in
ballpark like fifty bucks. Like yeah, you know, like it's
it's water, gatorade. Sometimes it's you know, off brand gatorade.
So like a few dollars can go a long way,
and that long way could mean saving someone's life.
Speaker 1 (44:33):
Yeah, totally. So you know, whatever you can give I
would be appreciated. I know our friend Befael from Lochanngelestill, Desierto,
is his vehicle broke this weekend. He does search and rescue.
I gave you got a few bucks, and you want
to pass him his way. It's Los A Hills, like
the town del Desierto or that in the link too,
but we'll put both those in the show notes. Please
(44:56):
do whatever you can and yeah, hopefully next time I
talked to you about what stuff, it'll be better than you.
Speaker 3 (45:01):
Thank you, James.
Speaker 2 (45:02):
Yeah, thanks man.
Speaker 6 (45:07):
It Could Happen Here is a production of cool Zone Media.
For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website
coolzonmedia dot com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app,
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now find sources for It Could Happen Here listened directly
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It Could Happen Here News
Hosts And Creators
Robert Evans
Garrison Davis
James Stout
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