In Transit

For those of you who don't know, I have a habit of chatting with random people on public transit, or just in public places in general. Friends of mine have occasionally questioned me as to how/why I do this, and express amazement at my willingness to to talk to random strangers. The reason is that I often meet interesting people this way and, though the interactions are usually fleeting, sometimes they're not. When I informed my friend Shayna that I met my previous boyfriend at a bus stop, she shook her head and responded: "Of course you did."

Tonight was one of those fleeting experiences. In general, I've found Uber drivers here to be rather quiet, but my driver this evening was talkative. I was on my way home from Coyoacán when he asked me where I'm from. When I told him that I'm Canadian, he informed me that he had heard my new government was going to change the laws to make it easier for Mexicans to get into Canada. "Is that true?" he asked. "Ojalá," I replied. God willing. But even if the laws change, I told him, I don't expect it will be much easier for Mexicans to migrate. This led to a lengthy conversation about migration, which kept my driver talking for the entire 20 minute drive home. He told me about the last time he illegally crossed into the US, when his pollero (smuggler) left he and his wife in the Arizona desert, where they wandered for a day and a half without food or water. After twelve years in Mexico, they want to go back to the US, but his wife is now disabled and she can't make the crossing. Maybe they'll try their luck in Canada.

Years later, he was working as a cab driver in the Estado de México when one day he was approached by 8 Honduran migrants looking for a ride. Like him, they too had been abandoned by their pollero and had no idea how to get across Mexico to the US border. The driver took the migrants, who were ragged and hungry, back to his house where he and his wife gave them food, soap, and a place to sleep for the night. When he found them a new pollero to get them to the border, the man asked how much the driver wanted for them. With a going rate of $8,000/head to cross into the US, they were worth a lot of money: $64,000, in fact. Disgusted at the idea of selling people "like animals," the driver explained that he didn't want any money. Like the Hondurans, he knew what it was like to be undocumented and abandoned in a foreign country. "Solidarity," I said. "Solidarity," he replied.

This is why I talk to strangers.