do you know what a steer is? and how it relates to a cow? and/or a bull?

these are the kinds of questions — along with what is the worst natural disaster to be caught in — with which we have been entertaining ourselves on the interminable drives through the desert. That, and repeated encounters with the Border Patrol.

We’ve been following the border as closely as possible whenever there’s a road that takes us generally inthe direction we’re headed, not only to see the changes in food along the border but to scope out the conditions that migrants are experiencing. A couple of days ago, en route from Phoenix to Tucson, we drove south and east through the Tohono O’Odham reservation. It’s a huge area, and abuts the border for many miles. We’d heard from some of the people we met in Mexico that they crossed the border through the reservation, and there’s rumors that members of the Tohono O’Odham nation run a fairly extortionate business crossing people, especially kids. So it wasn’t really a surprise to see border patrol agents at the entrance and the exit of the reservation. It was, however, a bit of a blow to see a couple of Border Patrol trucks in the act of picking up a couple of guys, clearly migrants. There were three of them (migrants), they appeared to be from the south of Mexico somewhere, and of course I wanted to stop and observe and watch. But no, it was probably not a good idea, so we kept going…with the image of these three guys and their erstwhile captors engaged in a piece of totally futile enforcement theater. Chances are the migrants know they’ll eventually make it across, the border guards know they’ll make it across, and in the meantime they’re all going through the motions of an apprehension.

THe next day, en route from Tucson to El Paso, we followed the border again, but this time we accidentally went to Mexico. There’s this teeny tiny crossing point from Columbus, New Mexico into Palomas, Chihuaha (or vice versa, depending on your geopolitical orientation). We were heading south, looking for the left turn to head east towards Texas, when we discovered that we were in a “you must enter Mexico” lane. We were the only car for miles; this point of entry is in the middle of nowhere, and the aduaneros at the border were highly entertained by us. ¿Qué van a hacer en Mexico?” nos preguntaron. “Ummmm, turn around?” Les contesto. “Oh, está bien, solo que favor de dar una vuelta por el pueblo para que lo conozcan, antes de irse” nos invitó the guy. “Con mucho gusto” les respondemos, amused by how delighted they seemed to have guests. The town is 3 blocks long, with roughly all the amenities you´d expect of an itsy bitsy border pueblo in northern Chihuahua. (I have to say that I was not expecting the drive through beer store with giant santa clauses, though). So that was that, we turned around, and drove back through the 3 blocks of Palomas’ main street, heading to the US.

Which, of course, was not nearly as inviting or as pleasant an experience. The lady who came up to the car first asked us for our id´s. Then she wanted to know why we had gone to Mexico and how long we were there. Apparently, “we are too dumb to read street signs” was a suspicious answer, so she instructed me to put my cell phone on the dashboard, asked Max if he was carrying a knife, and told us to get out of the car and proceed to an outside holding pen while the car was inspected. She proceeded to interrogate us about our trip, how we know each other, all that stuff. Meanwhile, they checked the car but, curiously, did not open the trunk. Probably a good thing, since it´s so stuffed with crap (all legit, though). Finally we were instructed to leave, but the whole experience was aggressive and formal and generally unwelcoming.

We did, however, see some amazing moon rises.