Our small team Leslie, Judy and I have arrived in Texas at the border. We have been instructed to be very careful with posts, no images and no details as to where we are. So I will describe things without names.
There is a shelter in an old nursing home. We arrived after dark so we just did a quick walk through to the clinic area in the back. Many, many people. The hallways were full of people milling around and the rooms had stacks of sleeping pads. A few peaks in the room and I saw several people sharing a pad. There is a semi in the parking lot with showers and many people waiting to bathe. Kids were playing on the grass outside and there were some balls and a few outdoor toys for them.
The clinic was really pretty nice, stocked well with non prescription drugs, clean. Our bags of medicine we brought, prescription drugs are much needed so worth the haul. We only saw a few patients tonight as we arrived late. We will start tomorrow and expect a large number. The patients we saw were from Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador. One man and his son had been walking over a month and felt weak. He was okay though and had crossed the border 8 days ago. He had a bus ticket to another town in Texas where he had family. I don’t understand the process yet – who gets to cross, who goes to detention? Will learn more tomorrow.
Leslie, our star provider, is fluent in Spanish, I have some phrases and understand a bit and both Judy and I have index cards with key words in our pockets. One interesting thing on our drive from the airport to this town 4 hours away, we passed a border patrol road block, at least 25 border patrol vehicles.
