Travel bags filled and ready for our guests to take. According to recent news reports, the numbers of migrants requesting asylum at the Southern border is still increasing and government facilities are overwhelmed. That means respite centers like the monastery will be overwhelmed too and it will be even more important to limit the amount of time the guests stay in the shelters. If all goes well, asylum seekers only spend one or two nights at the monastery. As soon as they arrive, volunteers contact the refugees' sponsors and arrange for transportation to their final destinations. What that usually means is the sponsor must purchase Greyhound bus tickets at short notice, often costing them hundreds of dollars. The sponsors send confirmation numbers for the tickets to the monastery where the names of the travelers are added to a spreadsheet that's displayed on a big monitor. The spreadsheet notes the names of people traveling together, their destination and the time their bus leaves Tucson. Volunteers who have signed up for "travel" take our guests to the bus station and make sure they get on the correct bus. In a perfect world this would be a straightforward process. But this isn't a perfect world. Greyhound often cancels buses with no notice, or reassigns travelers to a different bus. If that's leaving at an earlier time we scramble to get our guests to the station before the bus leaves.
On one trip to the bus station David and four other volunteers, each with a family in tow, were told the bus was canceled and the next one would be in three hours. The asylum seekers didn't want to go back to the monastery to wait - not even to get a hot lunch. They had come this far. Their destination was in sight. They didn't want to take what seemed like a backward step. So everyone settled onto the hard benches in the bus station and prepared for the long wait. Then David noticed the young mother he was escorting looking at the vending machine. He asked if she'd like something from the machine. "Pepsi" she said. In went the credit card. Out came the Pepsi. But when David turned around a line of eager refugees had formed behind him. Another volunteer offered his credit card too and everyone who wanted something was given it - even the tot who insisted on a bag of Jalapeno-flavored chips. Credit cards work overtime at the monastery - there is always a need for something. Gas for the van. Granola bars for the travel bags. Shoes to replace those that are falling apart. Baby wipes, hand sanitizer, coffee, beans, tortillas, and on and on; the need is endless. (If you want to help, please see the donation links below.)
On one trip to the bus station David and four other volunteers, each with a family in tow, were told the bus was canceled and the next one would be in three hours. The asylum seekers didn't want to go back to the monastery to wait - not even to get a hot lunch. They had come this far. Their destination was in sight. They didn't want to take what seemed like a backward step. So everyone settled onto the hard benches in the bus station and prepared for the long wait. Then David noticed the young mother he was escorting looking at the vending machine. He asked if she'd like something from the machine. "Pepsi" she said. In went the credit card. Out came the Pepsi. But when David turned around a line of eager refugees had formed behind him. Another volunteer offered his credit card too and everyone who wanted something was given it - even the tot who insisted on a bag of Jalapeno-flavored chips. Credit cards work overtime at the monastery - there is always a need for something. Gas for the van. Granola bars for the travel bags. Shoes to replace those that are falling apart. Baby wipes, hand sanitizer, coffee, beans, tortillas, and on and on; the need is endless. (If you want to help, please see the donation links below.)
Baggies filled with cereal ready to be placed in travel bags. Our guests have nothing when they arrive. They are patient and resigned - even the children - but they have no luggage, no cash, no toys to keep the kids entertained, and cell phones with limited service. Some will be on Greyhound buses for four days. Without money, how will they feed themselves and their kids on their long journeys? Volunteers at the monastery do what they can by making up travel bags to give them. The bags are usually donated totes that we fill with 2 or 3 bottles of water, a couple of juice boxes, a handful of granola bars, 2/3 baggies filled with cereal like Cheerios, a couple of bags of trail mix, a couple of apple sauce pouches, some fruit snacks, cookies, a few PB&J sandwiches - anything we can find that won't spoil on a bus on a long journey. If we have them we stuff in a lightweight travel blanket. And we tell our travelers not to throw the empty water bottles away but to refill them from drinking fountains. We can't get any more snacks or water in the bags and a mother traveling alone with a toddler and no stroller won't be able to carry more anyway. So we hope this will be enough to sustain them on their journey. Sometimes we run out of vital items and don't have much to put in the bags; on those days I'm devastated because it means children will go hungry. The first photo shows shelves stacked with travel bags ready to go. It took hours of work to gather the snacks and fill these bags but these will be gone very quickly. Making travel bags is a sisyphean task. I've lost count of how many evenings I spent ladling cereal or trail mix into baggies.
I cannot imagine riding across the US alone with small children on a series of Greyhound buses with no cash for emergencies, no cell phone, and no food except snacks that will probably run out after a day or two. And yet that is what our travelers do. If I think about it too much I become paralyzed with fear for them. The women are particularly vulnerable in bus stations late at night if they're traveling alone. But we do know that along the way other kind people will help them. We've seen other bus passengers slip a few dollars into their hands.
One last thing - I used to worry because I never knew if our travelers reached their destinations safely. We can't follow through on thousands and thousands of people. But if they didn't arrive, their sponsors would call us and since we don't get those calls I think it's safe to assume all our guests have reached their new homes. That's a huge relief.
Here's a moving account of migrants' Greyhound journeys that includes some photos of the monastery and its guests.
As always we are in need of donations:
Disclaimer: The opinions in this blog are mine alone and do not represent an official Alitas account. Any mistakes are mine and mine alone.
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I cannot imagine riding across the US alone with small children on a series of Greyhound buses with no cash for emergencies, no cell phone, and no food except snacks that will probably run out after a day or two. And yet that is what our travelers do. If I think about it too much I become paralyzed with fear for them. The women are particularly vulnerable in bus stations late at night if they're traveling alone. But we do know that along the way other kind people will help them. We've seen other bus passengers slip a few dollars into their hands.
One last thing - I used to worry because I never knew if our travelers reached their destinations safely. We can't follow through on thousands and thousands of people. But if they didn't arrive, their sponsors would call us and since we don't get those calls I think it's safe to assume all our guests have reached their new homes. That's a huge relief.
Here's a moving account of migrants' Greyhound journeys that includes some photos of the monastery and its guests.
As always we are in need of donations:
- Aid to migrant women and children - how to donate.
- Official GoFundMe for the Alitas program.
Disclaimer: The opinions in this blog are mine alone and do not represent an official Alitas account. Any mistakes are mine and mine alone.
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