HS Community Service, 2011. Agua Prieta, Sonora, México
It is summer, the air congested,
thick as lumpy mud. The leader of the community center that houses those deported from the land of milk and honey pass water bottles to each student. Through the vertical grates of metal wall that cut through Agua Prieta like a great serpent, Douglas, the Promised Land-- we can see it. In Las Vegas New Mexico, at the death of summer, the smell of green and red chile peppers fill the nostrils. Strolling the streets of Agua Prieta when the fire of the sun finally wanes, chile peppers and tamales in the air, I realize New Mexico is not new. When I say the words over and over again, I can hear the New growing coyote teeth; I can hear the New’s biting echo spilling into Mexico, devouring it, erasing it like the hellish screams of a desert sun. . At the community center, we hop on the truck with the deported, each hand carrying a bottle of water. In the Chihuahuan desert, the trees and cacti whistle a tune I know-- having substituted one desert for another. The deported among us know the commonest route, and there, we place the water bottles at random. I say a prayer over mine. On our way back to Las Vegas, New Mexico, a sullen silence suffocates the van. We don’t know if the thing we did was worth it; we don’t know if a family cutting through the Chihuahuan Desert to get to the Promised Land will find our water bottles-- we had to disguise it, so the authorities wouldn’t find it and spill the precious water on the parched earth. At the border, they won’t let us in. They take Fatima to the border office and we wait and wait and wait-- perhaps they are calling President Barrack Hussein Obama, or the Afghani ambassador-- who knows-- to verify if this hijabi girl is a threat to the security of the nation. After many hours, in that hot van, they finally let us through. |
Tjizembua Tjikuzu
is an essayist and poet from Windhoek, Namibia. He graduated from the Rutgers-Camden MFA program in 2021. He has poetry published in Doek! Literary Magazine and an essay forthcoming in Columbia: Journal of Literature and Art. He currently lives in Philadelphia, PA. |