Love and generosity

(Disclaimer: all names in this entry have been changed)

For the past week or so, Casa Puente has had an awesome guest, who I'll refer to as Gloria.  Her story has greatly inspired me, especially through a very hectic week, so I wanted to share a little bit with you.

Gloria is from the southeastern United States.  She worked for a cleaning company many years ago, and one day another worker, who I'll refer to as Maria, called her up.  Maria, who is from southern Mexico, was a teenager and didn't speak much English at the time, and Gloria spoke practically no Spanish.  However, through the help of a stranger, Maria was able to communicate to Gloria that she (Maria) was being held captive by the cleaning company contractor because they said she owed money for her coyote.  Maria had run away, but had no where to go, and she had found Gloria's phone number.  At this point, not knowing what else to do, Gloria took Maria in.

Gloria has a son (who I'll refer to as John) who is around the same age as Maria, and the two of them became very close.  Maria taught John Spanish as he helped her improve her English.  Gloria tried to warn Maria that John was bad news- that he was heavily involved in drugs and alcohol- but Maria didn't seem to mind.  It turns out that Maria's older brother in Mexico was the same way.  In fact, he would sexually abuse Maria when she was a child to the point that Maria's mother sent Maria to a convent when Maria reached menarche for the sole purpose of preventing Maria from getting pregnant.

Anyway, before long, Maria and John got married and had their first child.  However, John only continued to  use drugs and alcohol, and became quite abusive.  After giving birth to their second child, Maria decided to move back to Mexico with her children so she could be with her parents.  It wasn't long before John followed her down, and from there things got much worse.

Over Christmas this past year, Gloria went to Mexico to visit Maria and John and her two grandchildren.  In advance of her visit, she sent money so that they could buy food and presents for the holidays and so they could gas up the car to pick Gloria up at the airport.  When they picked Gloria up at the airport, John said that the car didn't have gas, and could Gloria help them out.  Then, when they got to Maria and John's house, there was almost nothing in the refrigerator and Maria told Gloria that there were no presents for the kids.  Gloria became very angry, asking what happened to the money she sent, but Maria didn't know anything about it.

Although Gloria very clearly struggles financially, she rented a place nearby to stay for a few weeks and took her grandchildren for the holidays.  She was also finally able to get Maria to admit that John is abusive and that he is involved with drug lords in Mexico.  She said that the kids are afraid of him and that she's scared for all of their lives.

So, flash forward to 7 months later.  Maria called Gloria to tell her that her third baby is due at the end of August, but that she "doesn't want to think about how it was conceived".  Maria decided it was time to leave John once and for all, but she didn't quite have the means to do it on her own.  So Gloria called a domestic abuse hotline and found out that she should have Maria come to Juárez from southern Mexico and then cross into El Paso to seek protection under VAWA.  Gloria sent Maria money for a bus ticket and then drove more than halfway across the southern United States with a friend.  Maria made the 3-day bus trip to Juárez (side note: this had to be terrible, especially since she's 8 months pregnant) and Gloria met her there.  They stayed for a few days in Juárez, and then they all crossed into El Paso (except for Maria's oldest child, who she sent to stay with her sister in Mexicali).  Gloria and her friend crossed the bridge with ease since they're U.S. citizens, but Maria and her 3-year-old daughter were at the port of entry for a few hours to go through the first VAWA interview.  (Luckily, she said the interview wasn't as bad as the interrogation that she was prepared for.)

Currently, Maria and her daughter are staying in a shelter in El Paso, waiting for a court date for the processing of Maria's visa (oftentimes people seeking VAWA visas are held in detention centers, but Maria is considered a humanitarian case due to her late stage of pregnancy and thus is allowed to stay in a special shelter as long as she does not try to leave El Paso).  Gloria's friend took a bus back home, so Gloria is hanging out with us, trying to figure out what comes next.  They're still unsure about when Maria's son is coming to El Paso and about whether the long trip back to Gloria's house will be too much for Maria before the baby is born.  Plus, now they have to figure out where Maria and the kids are going to live, since they feel like if John comes looking for them, the first place he'll look is his mother's house.

To be honest, hearing this story come out bit by bit has seemed more like a movie than real life.  I was able to spend several hours talking to Gloria last weekend, during which she told me that her son would literally kill her if he found out that she is helping Maria.  She expects that he will end up dead somewhere in southern Mexico over the next few years, just like many other people involved with drug cartels.  She also laments that she "created such a monster."

It's hard to imagine anything but pure love coming out of Gloria.  I have never met anyone so generous with what little she has.  And Maria is the same way.  I have felt so blessed having them, Maria's beautiful daughter, and their super cute dog in my life for the past week or so, as they have taught me so much about what extreme kindness really looks like.

Juarense adventures

I've been spending lots and lots of time in Ciudad Juárez lately.  I finally feel like I have a good sense of direction there, which makes me feel a lot more comfortable being there without an escort.

Last Sunday, I was feeling antsy, so I asked my roommate Quan if he wanted to go over to the tourist market in downtown Juárez.  Quan hadn't been over there yet, and I have been trying to find some small gifts for friends to bring back.  Our other roommate Eric explained to me where the tourist market is, and off we went.  It was super hot (and even humid!) outside, which made for two very sweaty tourists, but we found the market easily and were excited to start shopping.  The market is in a big warehouse-type building and looks exactly like every other tourist market I've been to in Latin America...with all of the same goods, too.  I always feel uncomfortable in places like that, especially when the vendors are each calling out, "Pásale, buen precios," or, even more uncomfortably, "Hello, you come here, I give you good price."  And, to make it even more uncomfortable, it was immediately obvious that at least half of the little booths were closed.  At Eric's suggestion, Quan and I went to the back corner of the market to talk to a guy who's originally from Oaxaca, lived in the U.S. for more than a decade, and then moved to Juárez after being deported.  His English is nearly perfect and he didn't harass us to buy things, probably because he lived in the U.S. long enough to know that most estadounidenses hate feeling pressured to look at things when shopping.  I asked him how business was these days, and he said the past few years have been horrible because the city barely sees any tourists anymore.  He and everyone else who sells stuff at the market have to also find other work in order to meet their expenses; for example, he sells ice cream during the week.  I felt really guilty not buying anything from him, but it was clear that everything being sold in the market was mass-produced (perhaps in factories in China?)

When we left the market, I wanted to go across the street to buy a Michoacana (popsicle).  As we were crossing 16 de Septiembre, the main street in the city, we looked to the left and saw throngs of people walking towards us.  It turns out that it was a protest against the recent presidential elections in which the PRI candidate won after what many Mexicans say were fraudulent practices.  Many of the protesters appeared to be university students and were donning shirts that say "Yo soy 132."  It seemed awkward to take a picture of the protesters, but I can tell you that there were hundreds and hundreds of them and that the whole thing remained incredibly peaceful (besides the fact that traffic was backed up so people were honking their horns incessantly).

I haven't really taken many pictures in Juárez, but here's a view of 16 de Septiembre (after the protesters moved over to the parallel street):

And here's a picture of the cathedral on the main square on 16 de Septiembre:

Since I was with Quan, I also felt more comfortable taking pictures on the bridge in the middle of the day.  A random guy actually came over mid-picture and said, "Don't do that; they'll take your camera" but I don't know if he meant the people in cars driving by or Border Patrol.  Anyway, it was too late by then, so it didn't really matter.  

Here's a picture of my favorite temporary mural on the Rio Grande.  It's hard to see, but pictures of individuals who have been "disappeared" in Juárez were used to spell out paz.  We had rain this week, so the whole thing is already completely washed away:

And here's a picture I took of downtown El Paso from about halfway down the US-side of the bridge:

Hot tamales!

On Friday night, Casa Puente had a despedida for our landlord, West, because he began a new adventure today in Ambos Nogales with the Kino Border Initiative (check them out!).

In addition to always having great company, the next best thing about the parties we have is the amount of awesome food that people bring: homemade mango pico de gallo, homemade coconut mochi...the assortment is almost unreal.  My next door neighbors brought over two big plates of steaming hot tamales, and as I was sitting with the mother, Maria, I finally asked her if she would teach me how to make them.  I tried to learn how to make Central American tamales (the ones wrapped in banana leaves) when I was in Costa Rica, but they are super labor intensive so I gave up and resigned myself to just eat them instead.  But I figured I would aprovechar the knowledge of my wonderful neighbors here and give Mexican tamales a shot.

So on Saturday morning, Maria's son, Junior, came over to tell me it was "tamale time."  When I got there, Maria handed me a tamal to eat that she had just heated up.  Normally at parties I eat around the meat inside and discreetly throw the meat away inside the corn husk because I don't like to draw attention to the fact that I'm a vegetarian.  However, Maria was basically watching me eat, so I politely ate every last bit, including the  beef.  (This scenario was repeated two more times throughout the day because Maria wanted to make sure I had my tamal-making strength...my stomach was not very happy with me.)

I spent the next four hours cutting up several pounds of beef into bite-sized pieces and trying to memorize the recipe for tamales.  We used more pounds of Maseca than I could count, along with water, oil, salt, baking powder and the broth from cooking the beef.  We mixed enormous quantities at a time with our hands until the texture and taste was just right.  Then came the tedious work of covering each corn husk with a thin layer of the dough.  It was way more difficult than I thought to get the dough to spread evenly and smoothly.  I felt like I was slowing Maria down more than anything else, but she said that she likes teaching people how to cook and she enjoys the company that comes along with the very minor assistance that people like me offer. Plus, she was super proud of how much I improved throughout the day.

While we were cooking, Maria's three kids showed me a video of the oldest daughter's quinceañera last year and we chatted about all sorts of random stuff.  Maria also told me a little about her life; about how she grew up in the state of Durango but moved to Juárez when she was a teenager to work in a maquila, where she ended up meeting her husband.  She also shared with me some of the myths related to cooking tamales; for example, although groups of women often make tamales together, only one woman can put them in the pot to be cooked on the stove if they are going to turn out well.  Also, to start putting them in the pot, the first four go in a cross and she says a brief prayer.

The experience was really cool, and I was rewarded for my work with a bowl of hot, fresh tamales to bring home:

Only 3 more weeks?!

I hate being one of those people who's constantly counting down to something, but it feels very significant that today marks three weeks before I leave El Paso, especially because I have SO much to do before I go home.

A brief update on my project:

1. Evidently the 5th time is a charm- I finally got an EMS data disk from the state of Texas that functions and was able to do some really fun analyses last week!

2.  I am very happy to report that I did two more prenatal care observations and interviews on Friday morning with an El Paso-based OB we approached about participating on Wednesday! And I have at least one more prenatal care observation and interview scheduled for another El Paso-based OB this afternoon (my supervisor just approached her about participating on Friday!).  Annnd I have a postpartum interview scheduled for Wednesday morning in El Paso! Yay for some progress finally!

3.  I went to Juárez with my supervisor on Wednesday to meet an OB and an epidemiologist from one of the Seguro Social hospitals there.  It looks like I'm going to do "prenatal" interviews with women who qualify when they enter the hospital to deliver and then return the next day to do the postpartum interviews.  This is quite different than what I've been doing, but with my departure date looming it seems to be the only way to include another Mexican hospital in my study.  I will likely be starting tomorrow morning, si Dios quiere.


And a complete side note regarding my trip to Juárez on Wednesday:

As most of you know, since 2007, passports (or other valid documents) have been required to enter the U.S. from anywhere else in the Western Hemisphere (Ah, remember the days when only a birth certificate was required?).  I was kind of wondering what happened if U.S. citizens forgot their passports and tried to re-enter the U.S., and the answer came on Wednesday when someone I crossed with did exactly that.  The woman showed her U.S.-issued driver's license, and when the customs official asked for her passport, she explained that she left it at home.  He asked if she had visited Mexico before, and she said yes.  He asked if she was bringing anything back, and she said no.  Then he asked where she would get shark teeth, to which she responded "Florida."  And then he told her to have a nice day.

Why am I telling you this?  First of all, I felt rather offended that she was able to use a driver's license as her proof of citizenship since you don't necessarily need to be a citizen to get a driver's license.  This is significant because I have a feeling that if this woman was not white, it would've been a whole lot harder for her to prove her citizenship.  I don't need to go into a full rant about white privilege here, but this encounter seemed very significant since I'm constantly surrounded by talk about what it takes to "enter the United States legally."

And secondly, I wanted to make sure that everyone out there knew where you get shark teeth.  Evidently it's something that U.S. citizens know, but to be honest, I probably would've answered "from a shark" or "from an aquarium."  Good thing I carry my passport!

Another great weekend

One of the exciting points of last week was when my landlord, West, asked if I was interested in attending and helping out with a conference he's been planning through the Border Network for Human Rights (BNHR).  The conference was on Friday night and all day Saturday and its theme was "We The Border."  The premise was that the prevailing border narrative in the United States includes talk of violence, drugs, chaos, weapons, "illegal" immigrants, etc.  However, the majority of the people who talk about this country's southern border haven't spent much time here.  Even Gov. Rick Perry has been known to repeatedly misspeak about El Paso, which, to the surprise of some, is actually in Texas.  So, the BNHR decided that it wanted to work with various border stakeholders to write a new border narrative, and that they would do so by hosting a conference here in El Paso.

Since I live with West, I have been able to witness the hard work that has gone into this conference for the past few months.  A planning committee was created, and each of them set out to gather others to write border narratives from their perspectives.  Before the conference even began, border narratives were written by law makers, faith leaders, law enforcement, academics, people working in non-profits, etc. all across the country.  These narratives included the reality that these working groups see and what they would like for the future of the border.

The conference itself had about 80 people attend.  Some especially interesting guests included Don Kerwin, the Executive Director of the Center for Migration Studies in New York; John Fife, co-Founder of the Sanctuary Movement and of No More Deaths in Arizona; a border patrol officer; a woman in charge of all community relations for the Department of Homeland Security; a county judge in Presidio, TX; and Dee Margo, the only Republican state representative for El Paso.  There were also lots of academics, religious, and representatives from non-governmental organizations.

The first portion of the conference included a lot of networking and presentations.  Then, on Saturday afternoon, we really got to work.  Four editors went through all of the narratives and condensed what people said into four topics: national security, community safety, human rights, and economic opportunity.  All of the conference attendees were then assigned one of those four topics and we created working groups.  I was the moderator for the national security group.  We had an hour and a half to review what the narratives included about national security and then offer additions/changes.  The content was broken up into the categories of myths vs. realities, vision for the future, and recommendations.  The session was bilingual and included about 20 people.  After these break-out sessions, the editors took some time to create a PowerPoint presentation with the conclusions from the work groups, which will now be written out a little more formally to be used by various groups.

Overall, I met a lot of really interesting people who I hope to get to know better if I end up moving back to El Paso after I graduate in May.  And I especially enjoyed the multi-disciplinary approach that the conference took.  I was glad that I wasn't sitting in a room with a bunch of public health professionals who see the world in almost the same way that I do.  Even if I didn't necessary agree with everything that everyone said, the atmosphere remained extremely respectful and productive- I would love to see this type of model used more often in our society!

On Saturday night when I got home from the conference, I was pleasantly surprised to find out that five Jesuits were staying in my house for a couple of nights.  They are currently on a journey from El Progreso, Honduras to Nogales, Arizona and are keeping an excellent blog about the trip.  I've actually been following them since the beginning, and when I saw that they were stopping in El Paso I just assumed that they were staying at Annunciation House because they've been staying mostly at migrant shelters along the popular migration corridor.  But alas, they stayed at Casa Puente, which provided me a great opportunity to hear more about their journey.  It's also really cool to just hear more about their formation; only one guy in the group is ordained, and the rest are at different points in their long journeys to become priests.


Yesterday was especially nice, as I spent most of the day with the group.  In the morning, we went to Mass at Sagrado Corazon, the Jesuit-run parish here in El Paso.  Then we ate lunch at the tortilleria, which is housed in the old gymnasium at the church and is used to provide financial support to the parish while also providing jobs in the community.  The food was SO good!!!  


Mid-day, the Jesuits went to the Farm Workers Center, which gave me the opportunity to spend a little time with two of my roommates, Katy and Eric.  Katy is currently working with the Park Service in the Gila, but was in town for the weekend for a wedding.  If you're looking for a good read about the U.S.-Mexico border, I highly recommend their blog about their recent four-month bike trip from the Pacific to the Gulf of Mexico.  


Anyway, after Eric had to bring Katy back to work, I went to the Chamizal Park (which is right on the border and is technically binational, although the multitude of fences along the Rio Grande take away that feel) with the Jesuits for Music in the Park.  We brought sandwiches and enjoyed the beautiful weather, blue grass music, and good conversation on some big picnic blankets.  Another Jesuit (the one who actually celebrated Mass earlier) joined us, and after talking to him for a few minutes, we realized that he had talked to my group in the Dominican Republic over five years ago! It sure is a small world!  The night was exactly what I needed to mentally prepare myself for another work week, and to top it all off, I helped myself to a paleta Michoacana de coco and an agua de melon. I guess it really is the simple pleasures in life that make a difference :)  

(Tough) Lessons Learned

Today begins the one month countdown to my trip home to Massachusetts and the four week countdown to my last day of work.  I am certainly looking forward to going home for the first time in 8 months, but I feel very crunched for time as far as my project goes.

This week has been a rough one for my practicum.  On Monday, I spent most of the afternoon trying to get in touch with five women in Juárez and one in El Paso.  I absolutely hate trying to chase people down, especially when it is an epic failure.  I called one house in Juárez at least a dozen times in order to confirm an appointment for a postpartum interview that I had previously set up with a woman for Tuesday morning.  I managed to talk to the woman's husband and to her sister, but never to her.  All the phone calls made me appreciate how much I don't miss spending 50% of my time on the phone at the clinic I worked at in Savannah, and also made me appreciate the ease of calling local numbers.  In order to call Juárez from my office, I have to dial 9-011-52-1-656-xxx-xxxx.  That is a lot of dialing!

I spent Tuesday morning in Juárez.  As you probably predicted, the woman who I was scheduled to interview didn't show up.  I waited for a little over an hour before giving up.  However, it was nice to spend time with the clinical manager and one of the residents.  We chatted a lot about the Mexican health care system and about both of their desires to eventually live and work in the United States.  I was especially grateful that they could acknowledge my frustration with women not showing up for the follow-up interviews while gently reminding me that it's to be expected at some level when doing any type of research.  Then they very kindly called all five participants from that hospital to schedule appointments with them for Friday.  They didn't mention anything about doing an interview, instead saying that they wanted to schedule postpartum check-ups.  I expressed my concern that they were lying to the women, but they said they would definitely do an exam on the women and then ask the women if I could do a second interview with them since I was conveniently present that day.  Three of the five women picked up the phone, and the clinical manager promised to call all five women back again on Thursday to confirm the appointments.  I left the hospital feeling hopeful about Friday, but then when I saw 15 people getting deported while I was walking back across the bridge, I couldn't help but feel kind of down.

This morning, I returned to Juárez with the expectation of getting at least one postpartum interview.  However, none of the women showed up for their appointments.  I nearly cried when I realized that I've exhausted every possible way to follow-up with this group of women.  The clinical manager patiently explained that women in this health system (seguro popular) are not used to returning to the clinic for care after giving birth.  Plus, with my participants being so young (none of them are of age to get a driver's license!), I know that transportation can be especially difficult.  Protecting me from being completely downtrodden was a once again enjoyable couple of hours spent in the staff room.  The guard and most of the clinical and clerical staff now knows me (I am, after all, supposedly the only gringa that goes there regularly) and always warmly greets me, which feels really welcoming.  Plus, today the sister of one of the residents was visiting from the city of Chihuahua, so we sat and chatted the entire two hours I spent waiting for my participants to show up.  She's a dentist and told me a lot about the rest of the state of Chihuahua as well as about Mexico City, where she's originally from.  We also talked a lot about the public school systems in our respective countries, which I think was very educational (no pun intended) for both of us.  She also seemed genuinely interested in me and my work, and was eager to exchange phone numbers.  I love expanding my network here :)


On top of my follow-up problems in Juárez, I was supposed to have a meeting this week to start work at a seguro social hospital there.  However, the people I need to meet with have yet to get back to me.  I also still haven't gotten any new participants in El Paso.  One doctor thought he had a potential woman to enroll, but she declined.  Plus, I have been continuously unable to reach one participant here who gave birth a few weeks ago in order to conduct the postpartum interview.  Gah!

In addition to doing my own qualitative work, I've also been helping out with a lot of quantitative work in my office.  I really like this, as it especially helps to reinforce my statistical/programming knowledge.  However, this week was very frustrating.  First, this week I received the fourth disk of data from the state of Texas that I'm supposed to be analyzing.  The first three were all either blank disks or the wrong files, and it turns out that the fourth disk was also blank.  Additionally, I've been helping another graduate student learn how to write code on SAS.  However, she's trying to work with a very complex data set from Mexico, so I spent most of my afternoons this week trying to troubleshoot some things with that.  I've actually been very successful, which is certainly affirming for me, but it's been super time-consuming and tedious.  


I don't want y'all to think that things are all bad here, though.  For instance, on Tuesday night I was able to get dinner and margaritas with my friend Michelle from Emory.  She finished her practicum in Kenya on Monday, so we could definitely empathize with each other's field work challenges.  And last night I attended a movie night at the Columban Mission Center, which is a really cool place where I want to try to spend more time.  We watched "The Gatekeeper", which was super intense but very well-done- I totally recommend it.  


To be honest, despite my major challenges, I am still happy here.  I am learning so much, from how to conduct field research to some random things about Juarense culture. (Side note: Today, every pregnant woman I saw in Juárez was wearing a safety pin on her clothes in front of where her belly button is.  Turns out that it's a common superstition that on particular days, in this case Friday the 13th, the safety pins are needed to protect the baby from harm.)  I feel very passionate about what I'm studying, and I feel quite confident that I'll be back in El Paso soon after graduating from Emory to continue this type of work on the border.  So I guess I just have to continue to be flexible with what I expect to get out of my analysis and continue to work hard with an optimistic attitude so that I can get as much more done as possible in the next few weeks.  

The best laid plans...

Nothing seems to be going quite as planned with my research.

On Thursday morning, I was really excited to do a second interview in Juárez.  I was over the bridge by 8:30 because I love spending time in front of the Presidencia before my day begins.  The area rests between the two downtown bridges and is full of bustle.  The land there sits slightly above the land in downtown El Paso, so you get a really interesting perspective looking at the big Chase and Wells Fargo buildings with the backdrop of the Franklin Mountains.  (Before I leave, I'm going to bring a friend over with me so we can take some pictures...I don't quite feel comfortable enough pulling out my camera alone amidst all the other commotion.)

Anyway, I was supposed to be picked up at 8:45, but Goreti didn't come until 9, which happened to be the time I was supposed to meet my study participant.  The hospital is about a 10 minute drive from where I was, but the streets were all super flooded due to the lack of drainage system, so it took longer than usual. (Super exciting side note: We got a little rain over the past few days, and the temperature has been below 100 for the past week! The humidity in the air and the sight of clouds in the sky have been absolutely wonderful!)  I texted the participant but didn't hear back.  I got to the hospital around 9:15 and assumed I had still gotten there before her; after all, we are on "border time."  I called her phone but it was off, so I waited until 10.  She never showed up, though.  While I was there, I was able to aprovechar the good signal on my Mexican cell phone and set up another postpartum interview for Juárez for Tuesday, so I guess my time wasn't completely wasted.


At 10, Goreti came back for me.  However, she had a friend, her friend's daughter, and their dog in the car.  Before going back to the bridge, we had to go to the vet because the dog was sick.  The trip was actually pretty cool; I got to see a lot more of Juárez while also learning that Mexico has public veterinarians, which are significantly less expensive than the private ones.  This is especially good since most people (like Goreti's friend) acquire pets by taking them in from the streets... so at least there's an affordable way to get the animals taken care of.  I also really enjoyed chatting with Goreti's friend's four-year-old daughter; I absolutely love little kid Spanish.  

So anyway, I've been trying to set up two postpartum interviews in El Paso for the past week, which has been a major struggle.  Then, on Friday morning, one of the participants texted me and asked if I could meet her at an IHOP in 15 minutes.  The IHOP is 15 miles from my office and I don't have a car.  I was freaking out so my supervisor kindly drove me over there.  Then I conducted the interview over pancakes with the participant and her boyfriend while their 8-day-old baby sat at the end of the table.  It was kind of an awkward situation, and the restaurant was really loud.  I've been trying to transcribe the interview, but the background noise makes it painful and I keep getting frustrated at hearing the interruptions in the conversation every time the waitress comes by the table.  At least the interview happened though; evidently the couple is moving about 3 hours east of here in a couple of days!  It took me an hour and 15 minutes to get back to my office using two different buses, but it also only cost $1, so I guess I can't really complain.

I leave El Paso five weeks from tomorrow and am still less than 1/3 done with my summer project.  I've come to accept the fact that I will likely not get prenatal and postpartum interviews with 15 women on each side of the border.  My new goal is for 10 on each side of the border; with that I'll hopefully have enough data to analyze for my thesis.  And if not, well, I guess I'll be able to say I worked as hard as I could on this and then cut my losses by doing a completely quantitative thesis.

En el Día de Independencia

Happy 4th of July! I'm starting to think that it'd be much nicer to have every Sunday and Wednesday off instead of every Saturday and Sunday... Today is such a wonderful break!

Anyway, things with work have gotten a bit better.  I felt very accomplished actually getting in touch with one of the women in Juárez who delivered a few weeks ago.  I'm going to interview her tomorrow morning, so hopefully everything goes off without a hitch.  Now I just need to continuously stalk the other four women over there until they answer their phones, and also start working at a second hospital sometime next week.  Luckily, with the latter, I'm partnering up with a really cool epidemiologist who has taken a lot of interest in my study- he even called me so we could talk more about what I'm looking for!

On the U.S.-side, I'll hopefully have a second interview with another woman either late this week or early next week.  I feel kind of bad stalking people down when they're adjusting to life with a new baby, but I don't know another way around it.

I'm still having recruitment issues here.  Unfortunately, a well-known OB-GYN in El Paso had a bike accident a few weeks after I arrived, and he died from the injuries last week.  He was supposed to participate in my study, but obviously that didn't work out.  However, the two doctors who have taken responsibility for all of his patients were also supposed to participate in my study, and they told me on Monday that it won't be possible because they already feel so over-loaded.

On top of this tragedy, I'm still not officially cleared at this one hospital in El Paso.  I sat through a worthless HIPAA training with medical residents on Monday and got a badge saying I'm "shadowing", and was told that once those were complete I'd be all set.  However, yesterday afternoon before I left work, I got an email from some compliance woman saying that she doesn't understand how my study is IRB exempt.  I'm getting quite frustrated having to explain to people that I'm doing a small, qualitative study that's non-generalizable and doesn't require looking at any confidential health information.  My supervisor keeps reminding me that people aren't used to dealing with public health studies, especially in this area.  I guess it's helpful for me to think of this as strengthening research capacity here, although that doesn't actually diminish my frustrations.

Although things with my own work aren't exactly perfect, I've been really enjoying doing other work in my office.  For example, yesterday morning I prepped some tables and figures for publication for my supervisor.  Then yesterday afternoon I worked with a local public health student to teach her how to use SAS.  Doing this has definitely affirmed that Emory was the perfect school for me- it's amazing to realize how much I've learned throughout the past year!  This type of stuff has also helped me hone in on what I want to be doing after I graduate in May, which is certainly a good thing!

Border Immersion Part 3

On Friday morning before going to work, I visited Mile Marker One and Oñate Park with the immersion group.  As I've mentioned previously, the Rio Grande serves as the border between Texas and Mexico.  However, when the river heads north, there is no natural boundary between the United States and Mexico; hence the building of the border fence.

Mile Marker One is the first mile marker out of over 1000 that stretch from the point where the Rio Grande no longer serves as the national boundary all the way west to San Diego.  A very unique point about Mile Marker One is its lack of border fence.  I have no idea why there is no fence there, and I haven't found anyone who can give me a plausible answer.  Getting to the area is kind of sketchy- it involves crossing a little, old bridge off the Border Highway and then driving on a dirt road.  However, it's a really interesting place to be, and evidently there are sometimes binational meetings and such that take place there.

Here are some pictures:

The actual mile marker

Looking directly west, Mile Marker Two sits at the top of Mt. Cristo Rey next to the visible white cross

The border in this area.  I'm standing in both countries at once to take this picture (although it's illegal to cross the border outside of ports of entry, the Border Patrol evidently doesn't mind if you stand on the concrete panel around the mile marker to take pictures)

Taken just to the left of the mile marker

I have no idea why Oñate Park is called a park.  It's actually pretty depressing looking.  However, it's another good location to gain perspective on what the border looks like:

This is a security camera that cost $400,000.  These sit all along the border area.

This sign is very significant: many people die each year trying to swim across the dam.  The water looks calm, but it can be as deep as 12 feet and the current can run as fast as 35 mph.

Looking through the fence at the dam.  The area of land that lies in the center of the photo is still U.S. territory, because on the other side of it is the Rio Grande.  Therefore, the actual boundary of the countries is in the middle of the river (which you can't see here).  Past the river, the land you do see (like the little hill) is Juárez.