Mexicans experience ‘thrill’ of border crossings
“Quick, run, don’t stop,” people traffickers whispered, pushing their charges down a rocky bank to huddle together in the dark.
But there was no border to cross in the cactus-dotted hillsides of central Mexico, and the travellers had paid a fraction of the going rate to cross the US border on a journey that lasted just hours, instead of days.
The caminata nocturna, or night walk, is a mock border crossing advertised as an extreme sport, alongside dinghy rides and camping, at a park run by a community with a history of carrying out real border treks into the United States in the hope of making some money.
Ninety per cent of the 1,100 inhabitants of El Alberto community in Hidalgo State live and work in the United States, at least for part of the year.
Many have crossed the border illegally.
But as the US financial crisis sinks in and jobless Mexicans start to return home, the community, about 1,600 kilometres from the US border, is turning its unusual expertise into a lucrative tourist attraction.
“The idea of the night walk was born here because we have lived it, suffered it and we’re doing it because we know about it,” said Luis Garcia Bravo, the 42-year-old group leader who first crossed into the US in 1987.
The walks, organized most weekends, take place at a holiday resort amid fields of corn and beans, and are run by a close-knit community that otherwise lives off subsistence farming.
The project began 15 years ago with the construction of two public toilets and grew with funds and ideas sent back from the United States to include a swimming pool complex and tourist lodges.
Community members can vote to order others to come home from construction and housekeeping jobs in the United States on yearly rotations, to bring funds and hands to help the project grow.
“We’re elected for a year. We don’t keep a single peso. We spend it all here,” Bravo said, referring to how they have to stay home for a year to work on the project.
If someone refuses to take part they have to leave the village, and can only return if they pay a fine.
The border crossing was just another bid to make money when it began four years ago, but it has rapidly become a major attraction, and hundreds now take part each year.
They include tourists from across the country and abroad, as well as groups of school children.
Tourists now pay between 100 pesos (10 dollars) to 250 pesos for the experience.
“In the beginning, local authorities said we were promoting immigration and wanted us to stop,” said a tour leader wearing a balaclava and calling himself Pancho.
But organizers say they aim to raise awareness about the struggle of hundreds of thousands of desperate Mexicans who cross the border each year.
After lounging around a swimming pool on a sunny afternoon, some 60 high school students were given a walk on the wild side as they wandered into the night on their border adventure.
Patrol sirens and flashlights pursued the group during a four-hour journey, at one point forcing them to hide in a pitch black tunnel as shots rang out on the road.
“Where are you from? Don’t move,” a group of border agents shouted in English to a handful of kids caught in dazzling torchlight.
After running and crouching in rough terrain for several hours, one girl sprained her ankle and several others screamed in terror at hearing animal noises from the woods.
By the time the journey was over, the false immigrants had had enough.
Their teachers hoped the experience has catapulted them out of their comfort zones for a few hours.
“Definitely I think it will have an impact on them,” said English teacher Christa Kromer as her pupils interrogated their guides about real-life crossings, in a rare exchange across Mexico’s social divide.
“I wasn’t scared, but it’s strange to put yourself in someone else’s shoes, to feel how those who seek to cross the border feel,” said 19-year-old Mexican Sergio Salinas. “I knew that a lot of people suffered but I never realized how much.”
“I now realize that it’s not just stories, but there are real families who suffer this,” said 18-year-old Maria Isabel Golec. “The worst was the uncertainty of not being able to see where I was going.”
El Alberto residents hope visitors will keep coming to the park, as they watch the economic crisis unfold in the United States, with many planning to stay in Mexico to wait out the financial turmoil.
“We had good work there before with good salaries but since the crisis it has been much harder,” Bravo said.
“We hope that people who come here are frightened so they don’t want to go there. Now that there’s the crisis it’s not worth it, they shouldn’t go.”—AFP