Day 5: A Vacant Campus & Tatooine
Border Servant Corps Tour
Today, we toured the Las
Cruces campus of the Border Servant Corps, their last open campus since
the Trump administration took office. Since there is no longer a way
for migrants to enter the U.S. legally, the once-bustling facility now
only hosted resounding silence. Walking the empty halls that were once
filled with hundreds of migrants seeking a better life in the United
States, we reflected on the impact of their passing presence. This
impact was visible on walls laden with children's drawings and messages
of hope and encouragement, but also evident in how vacant the campus
felt without them. Just before lunch, a BSC team member ended our tour
by showing us to a cafeteria, inside which was an expansive exhibit of
stories and images of several previous residents of the facility.
Reading their hopes and aspirations for a better future saddened us, as
migrants like them could no longer enjoy the safety of the BSC campus,
but also made us grateful for the BSC's work in service of those
neglected by a broken system.
White Sands National Park
Arriving
in White Sands National Park, we were struck immediately with a sense
of awe. In the center of an otherwise monotonous and desolate desert,
the park's gypsum deposits rose in endless pure white dunes, looking
more like snow than sand. The moment we hiked beyond the ridge that
concealed our parking lot, it was as if we had stepped onto Tatooine. In
our sunglasses and bandanas, we were cosmonauts on a strange new
planet. Gone was the flat waste of the New Mexican desert with its
scores of squat shrubs, leaving only undulating peaks of blinding white
that seemed to stretch onward forever into the distance. All that
remained were the Organ Mountains, rising stoically as always above the
horizon. We took to the dunes with plastic sleds and enjoyed a moment of
fun in another world entirely. We surfed, we sledded, we rolled down
the gypsum slopes until we were too tired to do anything but sit in the
wind and stare together out at our ocean of white waves. For a few
hours, we revitalized the eager adventurousness of our earlier childhood
-- gooners on a new platform. Especially Maren.
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Word Bank (definitions omitted):
SixSeven
SUUUUUUPERWUAW
Meat Sweats
Goonstain
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We love Moms,
Parker, Grant, and Jonah
