Rupa & the April Fishes: Roman's story

I'm up early this morning in El Centro. We drove here last night from Tijuana. The rest of our time in Tijuana was profound.

I met a young man who was in the sick room at the Casa del Migrante. His name is Roman Tlapa Ortiz. He's 22 years old and will likely never walk properly again. He had originally crossed the border into the US when he was 16 years old to work in Los Angeles as a metal worker. He made $12/hour working 40 hours a week and sent most of that money home to his family. In Mexico, the same kind of labor would pay him anywhere between $5-15 a day.

He ended up coming home to Veracruz a year ago to visit his family who he hadn't seen in 5 years. Early this month, he tried to cross the border again to get back to work. He walked through the mountains east of Tijuana with a group of 4 others. In the night, they panicked seeing the lights of "la migra"--the border patrol--and he started running. He tripped and fell down a large rock, breaking his right ankle, his left 4th digit and injuring his left knee.

After 15 minutes of trying to help him out, his companions realized he couldn't walk anymore. So they left him there. They gave him two woolen blankets they told him to burn so the border patrol would find him and two loaves of bread. and some water.

He spent 11 days alone, crawling on his hands and knees. He burned the two blankets and no one came. Certain he was going to die, the only thing that crossed his mind repeatedly was how dangerous this was. He drank all the water and collected rainwater that fell. It's the only way he survived.

Eventually another group of migrants found him and took him to a road where the border patrol found him. The border patrol picked him up and sent him back to Mexico-with no medical attention.

When I saw him, he was 3 weeks out from his injury. From my basic ortho exam, it appears he has a fracture of his ankle--he needs an XRAY to properly assess it. He also has what looks like a PCL tear on the left, leading to an unstable joint. He needs surgery, but apparently there's two types of medical care in Mexico. One good system for those with money and then nothing for people like Roman.

He will likely never walk properly again and this young man depends on his mobility for his livelihood.

Later yesterday, we drove to El Centro. The band dropped me off at the local community hospital where I interviewed an ER phyisician, a gentleman who described himself as "a northern boy." He said in a soft drawl how much he despised the current border policies.

"I am against pain and suffering and the way the border has been handled maximizes pain and suffering."

He told me that here between Calexico and Mexicali there is a 12 foot wall and people climb the wall and jump over which seems easy enough. Except that there's a concrete slab that has been put under the wall so that when people fall 12 feet, they invariably end up with fractures--mostly calcaneal fractures in the ankle. With no proper medical care, these people will not walk well again. He sees a few of these cases a week. Hard-working people who are coming for work who become permanently disabled.

And when people are not jumping over the fence, they are in the desert. And in a few weeks, the mortalities will start coming in. People who have core body temperatures of 108F. The brain starts to cook above 104F and the body sets off a lethal set of inflammatory cascades with these temperatures. As the heat is coming, a few of almost dead people get carried in by the border patrol.

I don't see any easy solutions. But I see an obvious need for change quickly because of the harm to honest people's lives. They come because they are forced to, by poverty and by an economic system here and there that promotes the exploitation of their labor. Most of the people I met are lovely people, who have honest intentions--feeding their families.

Today we will go to the graveyard where the unidentified migrants found in the desert are buried. Tonight we will play in Tuscon. Everyone in the band is responding to all this differently. It's beautiful to watch how we are all affected. Safa is himself an immigrant. He crossed another desert on horseback at 7 years old to escape the tyranny reigning in Iran. He was the first one to sit down to dinner last night with a table of men at the Casa del Migrante. I feel grateful to be surrounded by the kindness and insight and at times the sense of humor everyone brings.

More from the road soon...

Peace, Rupa

Read more about Rupa & the April Fishes here and follow along this blog as they take their journey along the US-Mexico border.