WEBVTT - Darién Gap: One Year Later | Part One: After The Jungle 0:00:01.680 --> 0:00:29.000 Al Zone media. 0:00:29.840 --> 0:00:32.199 Like most of you, I wasn't having a great day 0:00:32.200 --> 0:00:35.599 on the twentieth of January of twenty twenty five. I 0:00:35.640 --> 0:00:37.920 wasn't about to watch the inauguration, so I went for 0:00:37.960 --> 0:00:40.959 a run in the mountains instead. I spent the next 0:00:41.000 --> 0:00:42.959 few weeks trying to focus on the things we could do, 0:00:43.440 --> 0:00:46.240 the things we had to do to get through four 0:00:46.320 --> 0:00:49.800 years of fascism. Just a few miles away from my house, 0:00:49.840 --> 0:00:52.040 I set out for my run, and unbeknown to me, 0:00:52.680 --> 0:00:55.000 my friend Primrose was staring down from the top of 0:00:55.000 --> 0:00:57.840 a thirty foot steel monument to hate Donald Trump had 0:00:57.840 --> 0:01:01.240 built the last time he was president. To be ir accurate, 0:01:01.280 --> 0:01:03.560 it was one that had modified. There have been versions 0:01:03.560 --> 0:01:05.480 of the border wall in San Diego for decades. 0:01:07.480 --> 0:01:10.000 They said, no, we have an option. We need to 0:01:10.040 --> 0:01:10.319 take you. 0:01:10.440 --> 0:01:12.800 But you know, for me, I had to take a 0:01:12.920 --> 0:01:19.160 risk because I was scared to stay in Mexico. So 0:01:19.200 --> 0:01:22.319 they took us with under the bridge, I think the sewage. 0:01:22.360 --> 0:01:25.840 We were walking with our stomach like under the bridge 0:01:27.560 --> 0:01:32.720 to get to USA and Mexican borders. So they put 0:01:32.800 --> 0:01:37.400 ladder for us to help us. Those people when they 0:01:37.440 --> 0:01:42.520 saw American immigration came, they just removed the ladder and 0:01:42.720 --> 0:01:46.080 me I was on top. So I had yeah, I 0:01:46.080 --> 0:01:48.520 was staged. Then I had no choice and the King 0:01:48.560 --> 0:01:51.880 Balish was crying like calm, let's go, let's go. 0:01:54.560 --> 0:01:57.040 At that time I knew nothing about it, but her 0:01:57.120 --> 0:02:00.400 daughter Kim had already jumped as a Biden press. He 0:02:00.440 --> 0:02:03.680 drew to a close but before Trump began signing executive 0:02:03.760 --> 0:02:06.800 orders with pens, he tossed into the crowd. She'd made 0:02:06.800 --> 0:02:10.200 it into the US. Her mum was in the US 0:02:10.240 --> 0:02:13.160 as well. The wall is inside the border, but the 0:02:13.160 --> 0:02:14.720 people who had helped it get up to the top 0:02:14.760 --> 0:02:17.520 of the war had fled when border patrol arrived, taking 0:02:17.560 --> 0:02:20.520 their ladder with them, and so Primrose was left atop 0:02:20.560 --> 0:02:24.080 the wall, the literal and metaphorical final hurdle in her 0:02:24.120 --> 0:02:27.400 long and dangerous journey that had begun in Zimbabwe, who 0:02:27.480 --> 0:02:33.840 went through South Africa, Brazil, Colombia, Panama, Costa Rica, Negaragua, Honduras, 0:02:34.240 --> 0:02:41.959 Guatemala and Mexico. But before we come down from the 0:02:42.000 --> 0:02:44.280 border wall, I want to take you back to the 0:02:44.280 --> 0:02:51.360 miss Soak River bank of Maragante. Last September, Yah Daddy, 0:02:51.720 --> 0:02:55.080 my fixer, and I had woken up at no godly hour, 0:02:55.639 --> 0:02:58.480 and so had the jungle birds. Along with half the 0:02:58.520 --> 0:03:02.120 population of the village, walked down to the riverbank, carrying 0:03:02.120 --> 0:03:05.839 the engines and fuel tanks to the Piraguas. A few 0:03:05.840 --> 0:03:08.840 minutes later, a chorus of two stroke engines and smoke 0:03:08.960 --> 0:03:11.480 fired up as the boats set off towards Bajo Jaquito. 0:03:14.960 --> 0:03:17.440 I stood in the bow, still trying to master the 0:03:17.520 --> 0:03:19.959 use of the pole as we passed through the faster moving, 0:03:20.040 --> 0:03:23.600 shallower water. Daddy sat in the middle and laughed at me. 0:03:25.400 --> 0:03:28.000 Despite my best efforts, we arrived in one piece in 0:03:28.040 --> 0:03:30.639 Bajo Chiquito, and I launched myself from the bow into 0:03:30.720 --> 0:03:33.720 knee deep water on the rocky beach. In front of 0:03:33.760 --> 0:03:37.400 us stood hundreds of people, patiently waiting for the Piragueros 0:03:37.440 --> 0:03:41.200 to take them north and out of the jungle. Stretched 0:03:41.360 --> 0:03:43.320 like a snake all the way through town. The line 0:03:43.320 --> 0:03:46.760 of migrants must have totaled one thousand people. I walked 0:03:46.800 --> 0:03:50.440 backwards away from the boats, the only foreigner not leaving 0:03:51.280 --> 0:03:54.840 look for people i'd met the day before. About halfway 0:03:54.880 --> 0:03:58.120 down the line stood Primrose and Kim, and I stopped 0:03:58.120 --> 0:03:59.960 while we chatted for a bit about what the boat 0:04:00.360 --> 0:04:02.000 was like, what they could expect next. 0:04:03.440 --> 0:04:06.080 Yeah I'm going there. Yeah, yeah, I'm going. 0:04:05.840 --> 0:04:07.520 To Do you have family? 0:04:07.920 --> 0:04:08.800 No? 0:04:08.680 --> 0:04:11.560 No, you just make your American life. No, it's okay. 0:04:11.600 --> 0:04:14.280 I think I'm just trying. No, it's only me and 0:04:14.480 --> 0:04:14.920 I do it. 0:04:16.400 --> 0:04:20.159 Despite this, they had found community on the journey. I 0:04:20.200 --> 0:04:22.640 can't describe how scary it must be for two women 0:04:22.680 --> 0:04:25.640 to set out on this journey alone. It takes an 0:04:25.720 --> 0:04:27.920 awful lot to embark on that journey and to be 0:04:27.960 --> 0:04:30.640 able to trust people when everyone is a potential threat. 0:04:31.720 --> 0:04:33.880 But if there's one thing I learned in a jungle, 0:04:34.640 --> 0:04:37.279 it sit in the hardest times and the hardest places. 0:04:37.880 --> 0:04:42.040 The only way forward is together. Primrose reminded me of this, 0:04:42.800 --> 0:04:45.640 telling me how complete strangers had helped her. 0:04:46.560 --> 0:04:47.119 Very nice. 0:04:47.440 --> 0:04:50.359 This, especially these Spanish people, they are very nice. I 0:04:50.400 --> 0:04:53.080 don't know into life was. If you need yop, you 0:04:53.160 --> 0:04:55.960 forgot them for your look. The other ones they might 0:04:56.880 --> 0:05:00.920 run away by the other ones, they just for They 0:05:00.960 --> 0:05:05.120 even give us tablets on the road, give us energy drinks, 0:05:05.200 --> 0:05:09.440 give my daughter a sweets for enage. They push us like, 0:05:09.560 --> 0:05:13.479 let's go, guys, let's go, let's go. You make it, 0:05:13.120 --> 0:05:14.800 and we really make it. 0:05:15.240 --> 0:05:18.960 Yeah, that's really nice to hear. I asked Primrose a 0:05:19.040 --> 0:05:22.080 question I asked everyone there. What did she hope for 0:05:22.160 --> 0:05:24.880 when she got to America? What was her American dream? 0:05:25.320 --> 0:05:27.919 What do you hope for her in America? What do 0:05:27.960 --> 0:05:28.920 you want to do in America? 0:05:29.560 --> 0:05:34.800 I want to go to school, then she can I 0:05:34.920 --> 0:05:37.320 see something in life. I don't wish my daughter to 0:05:37.360 --> 0:05:41.559 go big, to same or no, not at all. Yeah, 0:05:42.320 --> 0:05:43.400 it's really really. 0:05:56.120 --> 0:05:59.080 I saw them a few days later last Blancas I've 0:05:59.120 --> 0:06:01.440 read chat with a group of little Venezuelan children playing 0:06:01.480 --> 0:06:04.000 a game where we'd throw bottletops into a broken half 0:06:04.040 --> 0:06:10.560 cinder block. We talked about the struggle they faced to 0:06:10.720 --> 0:06:12.719 pay for the bus north, and we didn't record anything 0:06:12.720 --> 0:06:15.960 that day, But as I was leaving for the evening, 0:06:16.440 --> 0:06:18.119 Kim asked me if I could buy her a drink. 0:06:19.160 --> 0:06:21.520 I generally try not to splash my money around because 0:06:21.680 --> 0:06:23.640 I don't have enough money to help everyone, and I 0:06:23.680 --> 0:06:26.680 still have some scars from ridiculous concept of objectivity that 0:06:26.720 --> 0:06:29.200 would lead some editors not to commission a story from 0:06:29.240 --> 0:06:32.840 me if I gave the subject a gift. But this 0:06:32.880 --> 0:06:34.919 time I felt like buying her a drink, and I 0:06:35.000 --> 0:06:37.159 let her select the biggest bottle of cold soda she 0:06:37.160 --> 0:06:39.080 could find in the little store in the camp there. 0:06:40.360 --> 0:06:42.080 I told her and her mum to stay in touch 0:06:42.160 --> 0:06:43.960 and wrote my number on a piece of my notebook, 0:06:44.279 --> 0:06:47.520 tore it out and gave it to them. Months later, 0:06:48.120 --> 0:06:51.120 Kim was holding the same scrap of paper, looking up 0:06:51.240 --> 0:06:53.960 her mum stuck on the border wall. A whole lot 0:06:54.000 --> 0:06:57.599 had changed since I last saw them. A few days 0:06:57.640 --> 0:07:00.120 after my scriptured podcast and the Daddy and Gap was released, 0:07:00.360 --> 0:07:03.640 the United States elected Donald Trump as his forty seventh president. 0:07:04.360 --> 0:07:06.960 It was a ship month all round that My phone, 0:07:07.120 --> 0:07:09.520 as it often does, lit up with messages from my 0:07:09.560 --> 0:07:12.480 daddy and friends asking me what this meant and if 0:07:12.520 --> 0:07:15.240 Trump was going to close the border. I didn't really 0:07:15.280 --> 0:07:17.680 know how to answer those questions, because if as one 0:07:17.680 --> 0:07:20.000 thing we know about Trumps, he changed his mind every 0:07:20.000 --> 0:07:23.040 few weeks. As we got closer and closer to the 0:07:23.120 --> 0:07:26.560 day he was inaugurated, they got more and more concerned. 0:07:27.480 --> 0:07:29.560 Most of them hadn't made it out of southern Mexico. 0:07:30.120 --> 0:07:31.760 Many of them had told me that things there were 0:07:31.800 --> 0:07:35.480 even worse than the jungle. They'd all been robbed, some 0:07:35.520 --> 0:07:38.680 of them had been sexually assaulted, some of them kidnapped 0:07:39.040 --> 0:07:42.360 and some of them killed. I'd heard about all of 0:07:42.400 --> 0:07:46.080 these things every day from September last year to January 0:07:46.120 --> 0:07:48.800 this year. In the middle of a run, or when 0:07:48.800 --> 0:07:51.200 I was having dinner meeting a friend for a coffee, 0:07:51.200 --> 0:07:55.320 my phone would ring, and I'd be confronted with terrible injustice, 0:07:55.800 --> 0:07:59.480 and I'd be totally powerless to set it right. As 0:07:59.520 --> 0:08:02.240 time went on, I heard from fewer and fewer of them. 0:08:02.760 --> 0:08:05.040 I assume their phones were stolen, but there are, of 0:08:05.080 --> 0:08:07.480 course more upsetting explanations as to why they might have 0:08:07.480 --> 0:08:11.560 stopped contacting me. Noemi, the little girl who wanted to 0:08:11.640 --> 0:08:15.080 visit Minnie Mouse Video, called me once from Tapatula with 0:08:15.120 --> 0:08:17.320 a little tiny toy bear that I'd given her and 0:08:17.440 --> 0:08:19.960 that she kept with her on the whole journey. It 0:08:20.040 --> 0:08:22.480 may be happy to see them, and a silly little 0:08:22.480 --> 0:08:24.920 bear carved from soapstone that had traveled the lengths of 0:08:24.920 --> 0:08:28.280 South America with them. Every few weeks after I'd left, 0:08:28.320 --> 0:08:30.440 I'd get photos of the bear in a different country. 0:08:30.720 --> 0:08:33.439 As a little Losito worked its way closer to Disneyland, 0:08:34.280 --> 0:08:36.600 some people who worked at Disneyland had reached out to 0:08:36.600 --> 0:08:39.600 off was suggestions about tickets other people had reached out, 0:08:39.640 --> 0:08:44.240 offering to pay. I was, despite the odds, hoping that 0:08:44.320 --> 0:08:47.040 one day I could help one little girl see her 0:08:47.040 --> 0:08:50.640 American dream come true. When we spoke, she was with 0:08:50.760 --> 0:08:52.679 her mum and they were trying to log onto CBP 0:08:52.840 --> 0:08:56.360 one hoping for an appointment, but it wouldn't work on 0:08:56.400 --> 0:08:59.840 their old Android phones. I tried to find shelters with 0:08:59.840 --> 0:09:02.800 her liable internet that would take them in, and called 0:09:02.800 --> 0:09:05.880 friends and endio's almost every week, passing along questions or 0:09:05.920 --> 0:09:10.560 looking for resources. I spent hours calling, finding it hard 0:09:10.559 --> 0:09:12.719 to accept that the capacity for mutual aid was so 0:09:12.760 --> 0:09:16.240 overwhelmed that nobody had a safe space for little girl 0:09:16.240 --> 0:09:19.200 and her mom, and wondering if it still felt like 0:09:19.240 --> 0:09:23.120 a pepper Pig adventure or if even little indomitable Miami 0:09:23.240 --> 0:09:26.959 was scared now. Even from where I was was a 0:09:27.000 --> 0:09:29.920 fast Internet and a weather friends across the Western hemisphere, 0:09:30.800 --> 0:09:33.360 I couldn't find the help people needed, and it made 0:09:33.400 --> 0:09:37.680 me increasingly angry and anxious the more I tried. It sucked, 0:09:38.640 --> 0:09:41.160 but there was still a chance, however slim, that one 0:09:41.240 --> 0:09:43.680 day I might get to see Miami meet Minnie Mouse. 0:09:44.480 --> 0:09:48.840 So I kept trying, and so did her mom. Then 0:09:49.559 --> 0:09:52.560 one day I got no response from her mum's WhatsApp 0:09:52.600 --> 0:09:55.280 when I messaged her, nobody picked up the phone when 0:09:55.320 --> 0:09:58.320 I tried to ring. I still haven't had a response, 0:09:59.440 --> 0:10:03.240 but artically I'll keep trying. Even the last messages and 0:10:03.240 --> 0:10:06.400 photos are gone now after my words up updated. Like 0:10:06.480 --> 0:10:08.600 so many of the people who I shared my food with, 0:10:09.080 --> 0:10:11.200 whose little children held my hand in the darkness of 0:10:11.200 --> 0:10:14.400 the jungle, who I desperately wished and wish I could 0:10:14.440 --> 0:10:16.200 do more for, they're gone. 0:10:16.280 --> 0:10:16.520 Now. 0:10:17.559 --> 0:10:21.400 That's what strong borders means. It means brave little girls 0:10:21.400 --> 0:10:24.480 disappearing so a politician who knows nothing of their struggles 0:10:24.800 --> 0:10:28.199 can point to a statistic. I've listened to the interview 0:10:28.240 --> 0:10:30.880 I conducted with them so many times since last September. 0:10:31.880 --> 0:10:33.800 I still can't really work out her. Anyone with a 0:10:33.880 --> 0:10:36.360 heart could hear that and think they wanted to live 0:10:36.400 --> 0:10:39.240 in a world where that little girl wasn't safe. But 0:10:39.720 --> 0:10:42.920 that's what people voted for. I guess I don't think 0:10:42.960 --> 0:10:46.400 they did. Actually I can't think they did. I think 0:10:46.480 --> 0:10:50.400 people liked them, and that's what they voted for. But nonetheless, 0:10:50.400 --> 0:10:52.319 here we are now, sitting in a country that didn't 0:10:52.320 --> 0:10:54.200 want to help the little girl who flexed he around 0:10:54.240 --> 0:10:57.000 muscles to show me how strong she was after climbing 0:10:57.000 --> 0:10:59.240 the mountain into the most dangerous land migration route in 0:10:59.280 --> 0:11:02.640 the Americas, and told me it was for her all 0:11:02.679 --> 0:11:11.800 a adventure. Her mother gave a different account. 0:11:13.360 --> 0:11:15.240 I didn't want to cry because I didn't want her 0:11:15.320 --> 0:11:17.840 to see me crying. But sometimes I would explode because 0:11:17.840 --> 0:11:20.160 it's hard for your child to ask you for water, 0:11:20.240 --> 0:11:22.480 to ask you for food, and you don't have any 0:11:23.520 --> 0:11:25.800 to be in a place where you walk. You walk 0:11:25.840 --> 0:11:28.119 from five in the morning, it's five in the afternoon. 0:11:28.360 --> 0:11:30.400 You're walking, you don't know what to do, going through 0:11:30.440 --> 0:11:32.560 more than one hundred rivers and asking God not to 0:11:32.679 --> 0:11:35.680 rain and not wanting it to get worse. It rained, 0:11:35.920 --> 0:11:37.920 and the girl got a fever. She got a fever. 0:11:38.760 --> 0:11:40.840 But well, God is good that we pray a lot. 0:11:42.160 --> 0:11:43.800 I say that we don't know God so much in 0:11:43.840 --> 0:11:46.680 the church from the process and the process that we 0:11:46.720 --> 0:11:49.240 are in, and we don't know we can be so 0:11:49.240 --> 0:11:51.800 strong until we go through that storm and we see 0:11:51.840 --> 0:11:54.560 that He protext us. He knows that He was always 0:11:54.559 --> 0:12:06.800 there watching over us, taking care of us at all times. 0:12:11.960 --> 0:12:14.720 I don't want to dwell on this too long, because 0:12:14.800 --> 0:12:17.440 talking in public about grief is something I'm bad at. 0:12:18.760 --> 0:12:20.959 One of my friends died fighting in Ukraine this year. 0:12:21.640 --> 0:12:24.240 A colleague died just weeks before we'd planned a trip together. 0:12:24.960 --> 0:12:28.679 Some of my Burmese friends died fighting. But even as 0:12:28.679 --> 0:12:31.120 someone who talks to soldiers for a living, nothing really 0:12:31.160 --> 0:12:34.240 compares to the death toll inflicted by the US border regime. 0:12:35.760 --> 0:12:37.880 The little village in England where I grew up, there 0:12:37.880 --> 0:12:40.360 are memorials in every town a village for the young 0:12:40.360 --> 0:12:43.440 people who died fighting in the World Wars. If we 0:12:43.440 --> 0:12:46.240 built those at the border, they'd soon be towering far 0:12:46.320 --> 0:12:48.320 above the wall that does so much of the killing. 0:12:49.320 --> 0:12:52.480 Things are as bad now as they've ever been. The 0:12:52.600 --> 0:12:55.559 wall construction in the San Diego sector that Trump administration 0:12:55.640 --> 0:12:59.640 has proposed will wave environmental and cultural protections and push 0:12:59.720 --> 0:13:04.240 micro further into the desert. In the desert, further from help, 0:13:04.760 --> 0:13:09.120 further from water. More of them will die. Speak to 0:13:09.200 --> 0:13:11.920 migrants all the time, the ones who stayed in Mexico, 0:13:12.480 --> 0:13:14.679 even the ones who took the Venezuelan governments offers of 0:13:14.720 --> 0:13:18.480 flights home. As much as they ask about America, they 0:13:18.480 --> 0:13:21.360 also ask about each other. Do I know what happens 0:13:21.360 --> 0:13:25.080 to the Angolans who shared their food too generously? They say, No, 0:13:25.360 --> 0:13:26.320 I haven't heard from them. 0:13:26.960 --> 0:13:27.480 What about the. 0:13:27.480 --> 0:13:31.079 Venezuelan trans girl who braided their children's hair, Well, she's 0:13:31.080 --> 0:13:34.760 still braiding hair, but she hasn't made it to the US. Gradually, 0:13:34.800 --> 0:13:36.760 she did make it, and then she was immediately deported 0:13:36.800 --> 0:13:40.480 back to southern Mexico. How about Rose, they say, the 0:13:40.480 --> 0:13:42.840 Bolivian girl who came all on her own and founder 0:13:42.880 --> 0:13:46.040 found me along the trail, only to be separated from them. Again. 0:13:46.600 --> 0:13:50.720 I haven't heard from her in a year. Universally, they're 0:13:50.760 --> 0:13:53.640 happy to hear about Kim and Primrose. They're glad to 0:13:53.679 --> 0:13:56.280 hear that someone made it, that somebody can make it. 0:13:57.240 --> 0:13:59.360 Because of the more than one hundred pages I tore 0:13:59.440 --> 0:14:02.199 out of my note book with my phone number, they 0:14:02.200 --> 0:14:04.560 are two of the three people who let me know 0:14:04.600 --> 0:14:08.000 they made it here. So let's hear from Primerose about 0:14:08.320 --> 0:14:10.880 what it looks like to make it here, how it 0:14:10.920 --> 0:14:14.640 feels to have the best outcome of anyone I met. 0:14:14.880 --> 0:14:17.720 Let's pick up at Las Blancas there now shattered migrant 0:14:17.720 --> 0:14:21.560 reception center. We're a hundred language for weeks and months 0:14:21.800 --> 0:14:24.120 trying to get together the money to pay for a 0:14:24.160 --> 0:14:26.040 bus to the Panama Costa Lika border. 0:14:27.360 --> 0:14:32.600 I think I spent seven days in Banama. Oh what's 0:14:32.640 --> 0:14:37.200 short with money? So I went into immigrash trying to 0:14:37.240 --> 0:14:40.400 ask them if you can they can help me to 0:14:40.480 --> 0:14:45.600 take a bus to Costa Rica, of which they say no, 0:14:45.680 --> 0:14:48.320 you have to pay your sixty dollars. 0:14:48.360 --> 0:14:51.760 You're in your daughter which one India? So I pay that? 0:14:52.840 --> 0:14:57.320 So I ask you people, man, the people I know 0:14:57.680 --> 0:15:01.240 they helped me with money saw Fromanama. We took it 0:15:01.240 --> 0:15:02.880 a bus from Banama to Costa Rica. 0:15:04.280 --> 0:15:07.480 This is a very common story. People borrow money from 0:15:07.480 --> 0:15:10.240 a huge range of friends and relatives along the way 0:15:10.920 --> 0:15:13.800 they hope to get to the US, work hard, and 0:15:13.800 --> 0:15:17.080 be able to pay it back. The whole process takes 0:15:17.240 --> 0:15:20.600 every penny they've earned in their life and generates significant 0:15:20.640 --> 0:15:23.560 amounts of debt. In most cases, this has made worse 0:15:23.600 --> 0:15:25.760 by the fact that on arrival they will wait months, 0:15:25.800 --> 0:15:29.440 if not years, for work permit, and their immigration judge 0:15:29.480 --> 0:15:31.520 could stop the clock on this at any time for 0:15:31.560 --> 0:15:35.600 any reason. Primros and Kim's case, Costaly can move them 0:15:35.640 --> 0:15:38.880 through its territory quickly, as they do with nearly all migrants. 0:15:39.600 --> 0:15:41.040 Next they arrived in Nicaragua. 0:15:42.160 --> 0:15:47.320 Yeah, to Nicaragua. Then in Nicaragua, I think we walk 0:15:47.480 --> 0:15:51.600 from Costatica border to Nicaragua border. Then we walk again. 0:15:52.560 --> 0:15:55.560 I think it was it was walk from Yah to 0:15:56.360 --> 0:16:00.760 Nicaragua bus team. In US we just walk. Then we 0:16:00.800 --> 0:16:06.400 when we reached there, we paid again to wander Us. 0:16:07.160 --> 0:16:11.880 Then there's also place we walked from Honduras from nicarag 0:16:11.880 --> 0:16:15.960 got to wander Us by stemin Us. I think it 0:16:16.000 --> 0:16:23.560 just was the all day. Then from wander Us Guatemalam. Yeah, 0:16:23.640 --> 0:16:27.840 in Guatemala we spent it three days again because it 0:16:28.040 --> 0:16:31.800 was tough Guatemala. People they really need asking for a 0:16:31.840 --> 0:16:36.200 lot of money. So my life was like asking people, 0:16:36.240 --> 0:16:40.640 asking people and do it get and do we reach Mexico. 0:16:42.040 --> 0:16:46.080 Then exhausted and broke, she came made it to Mexico. 0:16:46.960 --> 0:16:49.640 Then you only began in Zimbabwe and took them from 0:16:49.640 --> 0:16:53.000 there to South Africa, then to Brazil and across the continent. 0:16:53.680 --> 0:16:56.080 Now they had just warn more country to go before 0:16:56.080 --> 0:16:58.800 they made it. But I say, where to find out 0:16:59.240 --> 0:17:01.920 this one country is the one that so many migrants 0:17:01.920 --> 0:17:02.840 don't make it out of. 0:17:03.880 --> 0:17:09.800 Then in Mexico. My life was like in this because 0:17:09.920 --> 0:17:13.880 they were charging a lot of money. In In fact, 0:17:14.760 --> 0:17:17.680 when we reached Mexico, we reached Tapatola and not before 0:17:17.720 --> 0:17:22.280 ta Patula. I just forget the name. So they took 0:17:22.400 --> 0:17:28.280 us in the bush where we paid money. Again, when 0:17:28.280 --> 0:17:31.800 we paid money, they started teaching us. If we don't 0:17:31.840 --> 0:17:35.840 live gus, then they walk with us. It was two 0:17:35.880 --> 0:17:41.680 of midnight. They walk with us till they get a 0:17:41.800 --> 0:17:46.919 transport to take us to Tappatola. So when I reached Tapachola, 0:17:48.119 --> 0:17:51.600 you know people, we were giving information to each other. 0:17:52.200 --> 0:17:55.600 So I was also following other people like from Cameroons 0:17:55.640 --> 0:17:59.880 and Venezuela. So when we reached Tabachela, we reached Tarpatola 0:18:00.080 --> 0:18:03.080 the tend of October twenty twenty four. 0:18:04.640 --> 0:18:08.080 Tapatula in the south of Mexico. It's where thousands of 0:18:08.119 --> 0:18:11.000 migrants send up. The Mexican government at the time had 0:18:11.000 --> 0:18:13.879 a policy of trying to keep people there and began 0:18:13.960 --> 0:18:16.320 offering them free bus rides north. They had a CBP 0:18:16.400 --> 0:18:20.240 one appointment. But unlike places like Tijuana, where there have 0:18:20.320 --> 0:18:22.840 been migrants gathered for many decades, there are not as 0:18:22.880 --> 0:18:26.080 many services in Tapatula and the shelters and services that 0:18:26.160 --> 0:18:29.919 exist there are overwhelmed by the demand. The volume of 0:18:29.960 --> 0:18:33.159 migrants and the relative absence of services leaves a space 0:18:33.200 --> 0:18:36.640 open for abuse. That's what happened to Primrose and Kimberly. 0:18:37.520 --> 0:18:39.920 They ended up paying someone who they thought could help 0:18:39.960 --> 0:18:43.640 them navigate the complicated and convoluted system of registration in Mexico, 0:18:43.800 --> 0:18:46.359 the CBP one app and then traveling north to the 0:18:46.440 --> 0:18:50.920 USA and ultimately being able to make their asylum claim. Finally, 0:18:52.080 --> 0:18:54.480 in the end, what they got was the opposite of help. 0:18:55.400 --> 0:18:58.560 Then the agents judge US four thousand each, which is 0:18:58.920 --> 0:19:03.240 me four thousand, my daughter four thousand, of which I 0:19:02.840 --> 0:19:07.439 was I wasn't lift that man other people that we're paying. 0:19:09.040 --> 0:19:12.600 So I just talked to the agent. Then I said, okay, 0:19:12.680 --> 0:19:15.520 you please go down a little bit because I'm a 0:19:15.560 --> 0:19:18.040 single party. And then I don't have anyone to help 0:19:18.080 --> 0:19:20.680 me with that kind of money. Then he said, okay, 0:19:20.760 --> 0:19:27.399 three point five. So I started asking people become the 0:19:27.440 --> 0:19:31.000 people I know, maybe they can help me. So I 0:19:31.040 --> 0:19:34.520 have a lady who helped me with the money, which 0:19:34.560 --> 0:19:41.160 is she gave me four thousand years. Then my mom 0:19:41.359 --> 0:19:45.960 sell my land. I was saving a land with which 0:19:46.080 --> 0:19:50.800 she saw which lays money. Then she saw even also 0:19:51.320 --> 0:19:55.200 stuff to get another man to complete seven thousand. So 0:19:56.200 --> 0:19:59.159 we asked someone to send it to America because in 0:19:59.200 --> 0:20:02.399 Mexico they don't do this money from Africa. So I 0:20:02.440 --> 0:20:06.120 found someone here in America to receive the man. So 0:20:06.280 --> 0:20:09.879 he sent it to me in Mexico. But when I 0:20:09.920 --> 0:20:14.119 paid the man, the agent took me. He said that 0:20:14.200 --> 0:20:18.840 way I'm going to take you. So he sent the guys, 0:20:18.960 --> 0:20:23.040 which there were four Mexican guys. So they came to 0:20:23.080 --> 0:20:28.960 feature us. We were six seven. Yeah, I don't even 0:20:29.040 --> 0:20:31.320 know where they took us. So they took us to 0:20:31.400 --> 0:20:36.280 the to the bush which is Guajaradella. I can't even 0:20:36.320 --> 0:20:41.440 remember it. Gajadella, Yeah, I think so. I spent the 0:20:41.600 --> 0:20:44.840 day from October up to. 0:20:44.840 --> 0:20:50.280 January in the background. Here you're here splashing. That's came 0:20:50.320 --> 0:20:52.480 playing in the pool. A little apartment complex where they 0:20:52.480 --> 0:20:55.760 were living in East La I just comment for migrants 0:20:55.800 --> 0:20:58.320 to share a flat with someone else. Didn't have much 0:20:58.320 --> 0:21:00.680 in the way of furniture. The last time I saw 0:21:00.680 --> 0:21:03.200 Primrose and Kim, it was by the Tuquesso River in 0:21:03.280 --> 0:21:06.359 Las Blancas. There the brown water was something to be 0:21:06.400 --> 0:21:10.800 afraid of. Migrants died crossing the river every day, swept 0:21:10.800 --> 0:21:13.600 away by the fast moving water and relying only on 0:21:13.720 --> 0:21:16.000 strangers to hold them as the current tried to pull 0:21:16.040 --> 0:21:18.600 them in. A few times I walked out into that river. 0:21:19.160 --> 0:21:21.080 I felt the tug of the current on my boots. 0:21:21.680 --> 0:21:23.520 I wondered what it must be like higher up in 0:21:23.520 --> 0:21:27.040 the mountains. At six foot three. The river I crossed 0:21:27.040 --> 0:21:30.679 never came above waist high. It's deeper higher up. But 0:21:30.800 --> 0:21:33.440 even then, reaching out my hand to carry someone's bag 0:21:33.640 --> 0:21:35.639 or grab a child's hand as they came from other 0:21:35.720 --> 0:21:37.960 direction and struggled to keep their toddlers and their few 0:21:38.000 --> 0:21:41.080 positions out the current, I get little jolts of fear 0:21:41.119 --> 0:21:44.680 when I stepped on a wet rock. His primrose talking 0:21:44.680 --> 0:21:46.120 about that part of her journey. 0:21:46.920 --> 0:21:52.320 I was good, my daughter, she was strong, she was strong, 0:21:52.359 --> 0:21:55.119 but she was crying also, but she had what wounds 0:21:55.440 --> 0:21:58.399 all over their body? Even me, I was crying myself. 0:21:58.400 --> 0:22:01.520 I was like, I want to just put myself in 0:22:01.560 --> 0:22:03.760 the water, then I can just go both. The gain 0:22:03.920 --> 0:22:09.240 was tough, really really tough. The mountain, the stones, the river. 0:22:09.520 --> 0:22:13.920 It's not easy at all. It's not very I don't 0:22:13.920 --> 0:22:17.200 even recommended someone to say you use that and give no. 0:22:17.800 --> 0:22:21.239 And even myself I did know about it. I was 0:22:21.280 --> 0:22:25.639 regretting myself. I was crying. I was like, God, I 0:22:25.760 --> 0:22:28.200 don't know my family, and my family they don't know 0:22:28.240 --> 0:22:29.639 where I am right now. 0:22:31.240 --> 0:22:33.920 Back in Los Angeles, primers told me that she'd fallen 0:22:33.920 --> 0:22:36.800 in the river and two Venezuelan men had jumped in 0:22:36.880 --> 0:22:40.080 to pull her and came out total strangers on their 0:22:40.119 --> 0:22:42.560 own journey, had risked their lives to help a woman 0:22:42.720 --> 0:22:45.760 child who didn't know, with whom they couldn't even speak. 0:22:46.960 --> 0:22:50.240 The river kills people who drink it too. The concentration 0:22:50.280 --> 0:22:52.640 of human waste and human remains in the water makes 0:22:52.680 --> 0:22:56.399 it incredibly dangerous to drink, even for people dying of thirst. 0:22:57.960 --> 0:23:00.440 I couldn't stop thinking of that river and how much 0:23:00.440 --> 0:23:03.600 it scared people, Feeling so grateful the Kimberley could to 0:23:03.760 --> 0:23:07.040 enjoy the water after all of that. Next time, I said, 0:23:07.280 --> 0:23:08.879 they could take the train down to San Diego and 0:23:08.880 --> 0:23:22.719 we could all go to the beach. Let's go back 0:23:22.760 --> 0:23:27.320 to Mexico. Now to Guadalajara, where many migrants told me 0:23:27.320 --> 0:23:29.840 that of all the things they had endured, including the jungle. 0:23:30.280 --> 0:23:34.640 Things were the worst of all. Promoter's arrival in Mexico 0:23:34.720 --> 0:23:37.280 had not been great, and having paid one person, she 0:23:37.359 --> 0:23:39.760