![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.arroya.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/01\/picking-out-some-warm-clothes.jpeg\" "\\"picking")
<\/a>Picking out some warm clothes<\/p><\/div>\n
I approach one of them, an older gentleman, and ask him, “Where is your home?”\u00a0 It is one phrase I know in Spanish:\u00a0 “Donde esta su casa?<\/em>”\u00a0 He looks at me and shakes his head.\u00a0 His eyes are a thousand miles away.\u00a0 He is with a young boy, perhaps 14 years old, who says nothing and gives me no eye contact.\u00a0 There is a young woman who is crying and rocking back and forth on a bench.\u00a0 She is part of this traveling trio.\u00a0 She tells me in Spanish that they are from a village six hours from the city of Oaxaca and they desperately want to go home.\u00a0\u00a0 The main dialect of this village is not Spanish but a language that no one here at the comedor speaks.\u00a0 Thankfully the young woman speaks Spanish and we are able to piece together part of their story.<\/p>\n The girl from Oaxaca<\/p><\/div>\n I have been coming to this shelter on the border of Arizona and Mexico for almost a year now, and this is the most traumatized group of immigrants I have seen.\u00a0 The woman is limping, and shows me her knee, which is twice the normal size.\u00a0 I want to apply ice, wrap the knee in an Ace bandage, offer the woman some Advil.\u00a0 Unfortunately the small clinica<\/em> that was conveniently located across the street from this shelter is now closed.\u00a0 The rent was raised, and the Jesuits who operate the comedor can no longer pay the monthly fee. \u00a0 The relocated clinic is at least three blocks up the street, and there is no way this woman can walk this distance today.<\/p>\n The two men accompanying her are dressed in tattered jackets and carry blankets under their arms.\u00a0 The temperature these nights has been below freezing.\u00a0 The young woman tells me that they have been four days in the desert and were picked up by the Border Patrol and deported to the Nogales immigration authorities.\u00a0 The older man is her uncle, the younger boy her nephew.<\/p>\n Trying to hold herself together emotionally, the young woman tells me she has a baby who is two years old and very sick.\u00a0 The baby is with the grandmother in the village outside of Oaxaca.\u00a0 There are many tears as she tells me of her baby, the illness, the journey, why she was trying to cross the U.S. border. \u00a0 I understand maybe half of what she is saying.<\/p>\n Baby Jesus at the comedor<\/p><\/div>\n So like good Samaritans, we all march over to the bus station to try and help this little group of refugees.\u00a0 Sometimes the Mexican immigration authorities will pay for a bus ticket home if there is a baby involved.\u00a0 Well, there is a baby involved, but the baby is more than thirty hours away by bus in a tiny village in the jungles of the state of Oaxaca.<\/p>\n Bus tickets for the three of them will cost $298. \u00a0 Plus they need money for food for the long bus ride. We empty our pockets and come up with $100 and change.\u00a0 Once again the manager of the bus station lets us pay for one ticket, and we write an IOU for the balance to be paid in one week.\u00a0 I am sure angels reside in this bus station.\u00a0 There are high fives all around.\u00a0 Even the older gentleman cracks a smile as these crazy Americans dance around the office of the bus station.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/a>