day 35 or something...

I have a lot of things on my mind right now. Usually, as you have seen, I try to at compose sentences and paragraphs. Right now, however, the ideas swimming around in my head won't stay still long enough for me to capture them that way. I'm settling for bullet points instead.

I've lost track of what "Day" it is, but I know I've been here exactly one month!

The past couple of days have been pretty hectic. I wrote my previous post while on my Casa Teresa shift. I was literally waiting with nothing to do, so I thought, why not write some? I actually ended up writing quite a bit.

After lunch, though, my activity became as fast as it had been slow before. Ruben Garcia, our director, came into the office and asked, "Dara, can I borrow you for a bit?" I said "Sure."

Sunday and Monday

Sunday, as I'm sure most of you are aware, was Father's Day, and we decided to have a special cookout to mark the occasion. All of the guests at Casa Vides (A. House's sister shelter where mostly long-term women and families reside) joined us in the A. House parking lot. We grilled burgers, gulped sodas, inhaled sandia and feasted on cake. We invited the fathers to go through the buffet line first. It made me sad to think about all of the families that were divided by the border on that day, and every day for that matter. It made ache for the children at Vides and A. House whose fathers are not in the picture. It made me proud for the men who were working and sending money back to feed their kids.

Day 24 (already?!)

The next day (Day 22) I worked at Casa Teresa in the office again. I did some research about Sergio Adrian Hernandez Güereca, the teenage boy who was shot and killed by border patrol on June 7th under the bridge between Juarez and El Paso. My research focused on negative allegations made against Sergio, specifically on any criminal past he might have had. Regardless of whether Sergio worked for coyotes or was involved in something much worse, in the United States we have a wonderful institution called due process.

Day 21

Yesterday I had my first guest welfare meeting for a guest whom I will refer to as "R." Each guest at Annunciation House has what is called their "contact volunteer" who serves more-or-less as their social worker during their stay at the house.

Day 19 (whoops...sorry about the past few days)

Although interesting things are always happening here, nothing out of the ordinary (for A. House) has happened recently.

I had my day off yesterday and finally got to meet up with the other SCB fellows (Dimple, Sarah, and Laura) at UTEP. It was really good seeing them and getting to spend some fun quality time.

Although we are all in El Paso, the environments that we live in are very different. From what I've heard about the work all of them are doing (Laura at Border Network for Human Rights, Dimple at MHMR, and Sarah with FEMAP), it's all really incredible and I'm so proud of them and for them. Our internships are different, however, in that when they come home, it is a college dorm.

Day 15

It's hard to believe I'm beginning my third week here!

In some ways it has already gone so quickly, yet in other ways it feels as though I've been here forever. It's difficult imagining myself just two weeks ago.

Days 13 and 14

What did I do yesterday? I'm so tired I can't really remember. The heat has taken a lot out of me. The high temperature yesterday was 107 degrees and we still have NO air conditioning.

I've been diving into my house responsibilities, scrubbing the kitchen like crazy. It's pretty gross, and I'm glad to be making a bit of a difference. I keep finding random goo and dead bugs. Ew. At least it's getting better.

Like most things, the grime in the kitchen was easy to ignore at a distance...I hadn't taken a closer look to see just how bad it was. It serves as a good analogy to being here. There are so many problems, like the immigration crisis, that are easy to ignore when you don't see them up close. Once you've seen the problem up close though, and how troubling the grime is, one can't help but feel compelled to do something about it...

Day 12

I apologize to anyone whom this may upset, but I went to Ciudad Juarez yesterday with four volunteers from Annunciation House. Family and friends strongly discouraged me from going, and I understand why.

It is known to be a very volatile place.

I didn't feel like I could live and work at Annunciation House, often serving people from Ciudad Juarez, without knowing where they are coming from. I had to see for myself.

Day 11 (I wrote this yesterday, but the internet was down)

Today is my final day of "orientation" at Annunciation House. I supposedly will have learned enough to be a full volunteer here...responsible for being a contact volunteer (kind of like a case worker to help guests figure out their course of action) as well as being fully capable of being on shift solo with no one else around. Granted, I can always bounce ideas off other volunteers, which is encouraged, but it's still a bit intimidating, as it probably should be.

More of Day 9 and some of Day 10 (today)

Yesterday after walking around downtown El Paso I relaxed a bit and then went to a capoeira group with Dunya, another volunteer who is the house coordinator at A. House. It was really fun and intense, but now I am pretty sore.

Days 8 and 9 (yesterday and today)

Yesterday I had my first solo PM shift. Overall I would say that it went well. Some guests pushed the boundaries to see if they could aprovecharan de la nueva voluntaria(take advantage of the new volunteer). I took a hardliner stance with most people because I know that in order to get respect from them, they need to trust that I treat everyone fairly...even if it's about something simple, like storing soft drinks for guests in the fridge (which we don't).

The most stressful part of shift is opening the door to an unfamiliar face.

Day 7 (I wrote this yesterday, but the internet was down)

We started off the morning continuing our orientation.  We watched two documentaries: one focused on the journey of migrants across the border, and the second was about the femicides of Ciudad Juarez (called Bajo Juarez).  Following the videos, we also began to discuss some of the really heavy issues facing us as volunteers.

The first of those issues was the legality of what it is that we do at Annunciation House.  There is a federal statute (I think 1243, if I'm remembering correctly) that has existed since the 1960s that prohibits "harboring, aiding, and abetting" certain undocumented("illegal") immigrants.