Day 2: A day with Gooch!

-

 Hello everyone, 


It's Day 2! This is Tabitha and Ana blogging our experience!

Today was an incredible experience where we spent the whole day with a local cowboy activist, Gooch, who shared his eventful life stories. We were able to drive around and visit the border between Mexico and Arizona and it was crazy to see the similarity between both of the lands and how the AZ border is just an arbitrary line separating the two countries. We learned how the  border prohibits wildlife from passing, greatly impacting their ecosystems, and about the stories of migrants passing through risking their entire lives as they strive for a better life in the US. Gooch lived only a mile away from the border and experiences many migrants coming to his home, asking for water and food, and emphasized how no matter the different border controls (e.g. the Trump wall) and attempts at stopping migrants, its inevitable because of their dire situations.

We then visited the restoration of a one room school that Gooch went to about 60 years ago, now turned into a museum. He told us stories about his teacher being a cat-lady who had 20 cats living with them in the small school and how he lost one of his fingers in a cowboy accident....

Finally we all came back to the dorms, shared some pizza, and played games on the playground, wrapping up the day :)

P.S I would just like to say happy birthday to my dad (Andrew)!! I hope you have had an amazing day and I miss you so much already! 

Thank you for reading! 

- Tabitha and Ana







Getting ready for the day 

Gooch talking about his time as a volunteer firefighter

Max and Allie at the border 

Group photo at the AZ/Mexico border 









Comments

  1. CorkyMay 27, 2022 at 1:32 PM

    Thanks Tibs. Sounds like great fun. How clever to send me a message!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Day 3: Patagonia Youth Enrichment Center

-
Image
 By Willis and Max: Today we walked down to Patagonia's youth enrichment center which helps support the local community of 800 people. We witnessed their conservations efforts to capture rainwater during their monsoon season. The way that they captured is by collecting water in the gutters placed onto the roof, then letting them flow through a pipe that was approximately 4 inches higher than the cistern. This allows enough water pressure to push the rainwater into the tanks. The tanks had a T-pipe for over flow, the water can flows to another pipe leading to a rock basin, that waters a tree which will grow to shade the cistern in turn keeping it cool and able to last longer.  We helped build a rock lined basin to improve irrigation into their fruit garden and prevent erosion. In addition the rock basin allows water to go into the ground instead of being evaporated. The group laid down a liner and stacked rocks  to complete the rock basin. In addition, we added an extra cistern whic
Read more

Day 5 - Humanitarian Aid, Copper Mining, and Seguaro Cactus

-
Image
By Parker and Aaliyah, To start the day off, we met with Scott Warren, who was the subject of a documentary we studied before coming to Southern Arizona. We asked many questions about the current and past border situation, talking a lot about the humanitarian aid provided to immigrants and how the environment had been negatively affected by the construction of the wall. To start, we learned about the great amount of water pumped from the nearby environment and how it negatively affected its surroundings. Additionally, we talked about how the wall prevented the migration of not only animals, but also humans, who have migrated for thousands of years to meet their needs.  Next, we were lucky enough to enjoy a delicious brunch at the inn, having the luxury of trying Mimi's famous potatoes. Continuing to enjoy the company of Scott Warren, we devoured our flamboyant brunches, finishing every crumb on our plates. After brunch, many filming groups were grateful to be able to conduct an int
Read more