First Day: Escuelita

We crammed quite a bit into our first morning. Meeting at the Brownsville bus station, we joined a good-sized group of volunteers in a centering ritual before walking en masse across the bridge into Mexico.

Crossing was smooth. They were telling people to open their backpacks for inspection, but when I got to the front of the line, carrying a big bag of yoga mats, they just looked in the bag and ignored my little backpack. We’d been warned that it can be a big deal to bring supplies across the border, and to make sure our materials were in original unopened packaging and that we had receipts. I had all that for the notebooks and pens we’d brought, but they didn’t even look.

This was an Escuelita (“little school”) day. Some of us jumped right in to help either with a yoga class or an art activity. Dina and I were in the yoga class, and we weren’t needed to assist, so we actually got to do yoga.

Then it was our turn to teach in the Escuelita. We had prearranged to divide ourselves into three groups, each offering a different set of lessons. Alice, Dina, and I did a one-hour lesson with the older kids, working with Somos Como Las Nubes (We Are Like the Clouds), a bilingual book of poetry by Jorge Argueta, a Salvadoran poet who emigrated to the US in the 1980s.

Alice began by introducing the book, having them look at the cover, and then leafing through the book to identify one or more poems or pictures that spoke to them. Then Dina read one of the poems in Spanish and had them write or draw what came up for them, using the notebooks and pens we’d bought in India (where they were very inexpensive). Finally, I introduced the song “Otro Mundo Es Posible” (Another World is Possible), which Dina and Alice–who sing way better than I do–taught, and then I gave them a homework exercise to write or draw some components of the perfect world they’d like to live in.

The whole lesson went very well. My only regret is that it was too noisy immediately outside the tent to have the kids share their work with everyone else.

Betty Lynne, Annique, and Joan worked with the youngest group (6 and under), along with two women who were only here for the day, bringing a nice supply of art materials. They played games with balls and a parachute while counting, naming the color the balls landed on. And the kids were shrieking with joy. Then they removed the balls and paraded around the parachute, lifted it high, and had the kids run underneath. When that was done, Annique read The Very Hungry Caterpillar in Spanish, and then had the kids decorate crowns illustrated with scenes from the book for another parade (big thanks to the Eric Carle Museum in Amherst, Massachusetts for donating these materials). Earlier, while Dina and I were doing yoga, they’d led an art, feelings, and imagination activity.

Susie, Carolyn, Holly, and Karen led songs and movement activities (Hokey-Pokey, Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes) for a mixed-age elementary school group.

All three groups found the kids eager to be involved and happy for our presence.

When the Escuelita was over, Ginny Gray (who lives in Northampton but we didn’t know her) gave us a briefing and then led us on a tour of the refugee camp. We were able to meet with medical and sanitation personnel as well as another educator involved with a different escuelita and find out how we can best support their work, as well as to have some conversations with the families and kids living in the camp. Ginny told us that when she first came in October, conditions were much worse, with all the tents on a bare concrete patch just over the bridge. Now, the Mexican government has given a much larger piece of land and there are a decent number of porta-potties. Still, it must be very muddy when it rains. And Melba, one of the coordinators, is frustrated because she has people willing to build a floor, but they don’t want US citizens building in Mexico.

As we returned to the US, we spent a few minutes with Josh Rubin and his group of witnesses, who inspired us to come here. We’ll be witnessing with them at various times during the week.

This evening, Dina will lead us in an immigrant-justice-themed celebration of Tu B’Shvat, the Jewish new year for the trees.