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THE PALM BEACH POST

SUNDAY, NOV. 12, 2006

train jumping A DESPERATE JOURNEY

Women quickly learn to ugly up

pass as male, hoping to be spared an attack by the gangs that terrorize the train tops, or the freelance bandits or police officers or men dressed as police officers who prowl the fields. To guard against all this, the women know how to cover up, ugly up, clam up. They might sleep with their brothers machete or cut a devils deal for protection, agreeing to be the girlfriend of one man, while hoping to avoid the advances of a dozen. There are other tricks, too. A woman who can catch and cook an armadillo, for example, is a valuable asset in a camp of hungry men. Dont fool with her, and shell ladle your soup generously into your bowl at night. One fact that even the most hardened observers remark upon: More and more women are crossing at least 10 percent of the migrant flow along the southern border is thought to be female and sometimes they are pregnant. If they make it to the States before they deliver, the baby will be a U.S. citizen. You have rights, the Grupo Beta rescue workers tell the migrants when they patrol the fields in their sturdy orange trucks. It is the first time some of them have heard it. The officers hand out bottled water and pocket-sized brochures with pictures warning of dangers. Our phone number is right here, they say, pointing. Call us if you have a problem. The migrants rarely call, but the townspeople do when they witness an accident on the tracks, or hear the rumor of rape in the fields. The journey continues >

hat does a migrant look like? If he has not yet been robbed, he will have an extra shirt in his backpack or in a plastic bag tied to his belt loop. He will put the fresh shirt on when he needs to pass as a Mexican local, or he might try to save it for the States, in order to look presentable and not stand out. His shoes will be a sight, ripped, wet, perhaps not even matching. More than one man has fumbled his way to the U.S. border and crossed in two left shoes. Enterprising shoemakers haunt the tracks, calling out to those in the shadows, offering to glue a flapping sole or patch a hole for a peso or two. The women usually dress exactly like the men, stuffing hair in tight little knots under caps to

Jorge Alvarez of Tapachula (above) makes a prosthesis in his shop for Camilo Marquez, 24, of Honduras. Marquez (far left) lost a leg on the trains, but that doesnt stop him from helping to build new rooms and repair plumbing at the Good Shepherd shelter.

Cenia Lovato of El Salvador, who broke her ankle jumping off a train, wheels herself to her room at the Good Shepherd shelter in Tapachula, Mexico. The shelters director, Olga Sanchez, has been helping injured migrants for more than a decade, ever since meeting a young pregnant woman who lost an arm jumping the train.

Olga Sanchezs home for injured migrants mostly train jumpers gives broken lives a second chance. By offering artificial limbs, shelter, food and faith, Sanchez rehabilitates not just bodies but spirits as well.
Olga Sanchez, known in Mexico as the angel of the tracks, leads an evening prayer service for the injured migrants staying at her Good Shepherd shelter.

DOA OLGA S