Border Crossing

Photo by Josh MartinezOct.2004“We need to get off the bus,” Josh whispered from the seat behind me. A sweaty Mexican border agent with a gun on his hip and a wary look in his eye escorted us off the bus and shuffled the six of us (Katy, Kristin, Cohete, Nevin, Chase, and I) into a small room; from a dusty window in the tiny space I watched our bus drive down a hill and slowly out of sight. In the corner an elderly woman argued with an agent and static voices wafted through the air from a walkie talkie. A border agent with a gunslinger gaze, sitting behind an old wood and metal desk said something to me in Spanish then handed me a form and instructed me to fill it out. Frantically I scrawled down my information, where I was going, what I was doing in Mexico, how long I was to be there.Once done filling out the forms we were directed down the hill to a station where we found the bus we had come into Mexico on. A federale motioned for me to come and put my bags on a metal examination table and then he began pointing at a button underneath a light. I didn’t pick up on his cue at first to press the button but once I did I was apprehensive to take any action. Seconds seemed to stretch into minutes as the officer became more agitated and I didn’t know whether or not I should just press it or take off running. Finally I settled on pressing it and upon doing so a green light flickered on and he motioned for me to get back on the bus. I returned to the bus with the rest of my party and as the sun began to hang lower in the sky we sputtered and churned deeper into Mexico.