MrNybbles's Journal: Day of the Mexicans

This happened earlier this year and I forget exactly when.

That evening I was working on something on the computer while my parents watched TV when we heared a loud knock on the door and someone shouted "Boarder Partol!" and the dogs started barking. Living in rural Southern Arizona this isn't a very unlikely event, but it was still a big suprise.

I had no idea what was going on. Did they think we were harboring illegal aliens in a post-September-eleventh environment? Was there a problem? Did somebody jump the wall into our back yard?

The three of us came to the door and my parents held the dogs back. I said "Just a moment," turned the porch light on and opened the door.

Standing there was a Boarder Partol agent from Nogales with a flash light and he politely said, "Hi. How do you get to the main road from here?"

I felt relieved that it was nothing serious.

He then said "I found these guys running through your back yard and need to get a van down here to pick them up." as he turned and shined his flashlight on thirteen Mexicans sitting in our front yard looking back at us. Yes, I counted.

They were wearing sneakers, blue-jean pants, t-shirts, and some had baseball caps. They were wearing the type of clothes I wear.

I have no idea why they followed the boarder patrol agent's instructions but they were very polite and did not try to run.

We let them use our hose for water and they were very polite and said thank you. One asked for my name but I didn't say anything. (I can understand at least that much Espanól.) They were still strangers after all.

That was the largest number of guests we ever entertained so far.

My father gave directions to our home over the phone to the boarder partol agents so they could get a van to where they were.

We found out that the Mexicans had abandoned a vehicle that was transporting them and had ran through our neighbor's property and were either shot at them or was shooting in the air to scare them off. Maybe that's why nobody tried to run off. The boarder patrol agent had a large gun on him as well. The van eventually came and picked them up to eventually drop them off at the boarder so they could eventually try to cross over again. There is a season, turn, turn, turn. . .

(2004)