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