Legality

I spent this morning in the capital getting my visa renewed. My 90 days of legal tourist status - which I got when I first arrived in Guatemala - come up on Friday the 3rd. I left Suchitoto at 8am and was back by 1pm. (And at least 3.5 of those 5 hours were spent in transit.)

I needed a few copies of documents, a letter from the Center, a passport-size photo, and $25.

I've sat here for about five minutes now trying to figure out a creative and/or deep/reasoned way of putting this, but I have nothing at the moment. What I really want to know is why it was the ridiculously easy for me to renew my visa and navigate the migration system here, but people die EVERY DAY trying to go to the US. And what sort of desperation could possibly move someone - much less thousands of someones - to take on the risk, the physical and psychological pain, and the expense of coming undocumented to the States? People take on these weights all the time. Why aren't we paying attention to the human side of that reality??

There are economic and political arguments that can be made (and even those I argue with), but I came across a quote this afternoon that resonated with me in this particular moment: "Rats and roaches live by competition under the laws of supply and demand; it is the privilege of human beings to live under the laws of justice and mercy." Wendell Berry

Last week there was a massacre of 72 migrants in Mexico on their way to the US, including 13 Salvadorans and 5 Guatemalans. (Obviously, the nationalities are far from important, but those two figures hit close right now.) I've heard varying things about how much US coverage there has been of this, but here it has its own few pages in the paper each day.

There aren't really words to describe how I feel about the massacre, largely because I think I'm not allowing myself to feel anything, for fear that I'll collapse under the scale of it. I'm letting the numbers get close to my skin because they are so much safer than the real stories. But on the bus on the way home today, I just sat there thinking, "That was so easy. Too easy? No - it should be that easy. Everywhere. For everyone, not just do-gooder from the US who can work a copy machine (sometimes) and a cash machine." Because an equally-equipped Salvadoran in the US would not receive the same treatment - from a migration official who remembered me from my first visit and chatted with me for half an hour.

Diana's (another volunteer here) folks were here during my second week in Suchitoto. At that point I was trying to figure out if I had an option like what I did this morning, rather than having to travel all the way to Mexico and come back in. Her dad half-jokingly invited me to simply "have an illegal experience, like so many in the US right now." I appreciated that reminder. The fear that this wouldn't work out to my most convenient advantage was already weighing on me, but was nothing compared to what would face me if I were living undocumented in the US. I'm not here for either economic or safety reasons; if I were to get sent back and never allowed to come back into Central America, I would be incredibly sad, but my life would continue without fear of violence or hunger.

This is (as my entries are tending to be these days) really just a jumble of thoughts. But there is something at work in there; I just can't tie it all together. I hope at least my general idea came across. It is just so frustrating. The paper today had a photo of the most recently-identified Salvadoran. She was 15. The same age as my teacher's nephew when he left last year, except his nephew survived (barely). She was younger than Ella by almost three years.

Those were really just more things I had swimming around to add to the pile. Still not concise, but there it is in spite of that.