Immigration…

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Another weekend gone by. I managed to get some of my garden stuff, did some raking in the front yard – trying to scratch up the front lawn, it’s so pathetic, sort of thatching and readying it for some new fertilizer and re-seeding – bagged some of the leaves I left in the front gardens to protect my perennials through the winter months and generally just got some spring preparation done. It felt good to be out there with my hands and mind in the dirt for most of the day on Saturday. Today, Sunday, it’s been raining all day so I worked inside putting up some new valances on some of the windows – hand-me-downs from Mom, very pretty ones at that!

This weekend’s main trending news was on the border mess, Georgia’s new voter suppression laws signed into law on Friday by Gov. Kemp, and the huge-ass ship blocking the Suez Canal and bunging up trade worldwide. Get ready for another toilet paper crisis, it’s coming! There are other very important issues in the news and happening world-wide, but I need to narrow the scope here for brevity’s sake!

Our southern border with Mexico, the primary land entry into the USA, is currently quite a debacle. It has been this way for YEARS, it’s just that now that President Biden has been in office 60 days it’s somehow ALL his fault…yeah…NO. The whole immigration to America has been a complete mess for 40+ years, so worse than others. Different leaders – in both Mexico and the USA – have handled it in a wide variety of ways. This is MY personal understanding and take on what’s happening down there.

#1 I am NOT seeing ANY GOOD journalistic coverage of this whole issue, beginning in their home countries; starting with when did the “surge” of people, seemingly rushing our border for entry into the country start AND WHY are they coming? This problem did NOT start on January 20th, 2021 when Joe Biden took office and we all KNOW that for fact. It’s been going on for about as long as I can remember! Hell, I recall Reagan dealing with this – until him and the general got caught selling them weapons, ouch. What we need to SEE is a history of the problem and the reasons behind all of these people believing they HAVE to flee their own countries in order to stay alive.

I do not believe that many Americans even know, understand or are aware of why this is happening because all they are “hearing” on the TV is how horrible it is that they ARE coming, how the conditions at the border where we are forced to take these people, house them, cloth them, feed them and provide medical treatment and comfort to a HUGE number of refugees – that’s what they ARE, I don’t believe these people are asylum seekers as much as they are refugees.

Americans have always had open arms for people fleeing to the USA for a better life; our country was founded on immigration. Unless you are native American you ARE product of immigration somewhere along the line. Providing refuge to people is our way, it will always be our way. We have always shown compassion, empathy and love – bestowing special attention to those threatened by violence, death or human rights abuses of all kinds. But there has to be a process and there must be the facilities to handle the numbers arriving – or we’ll just end up like some EU countries who are dealing with huge refugee encampments with squalid conditions.

The number of people crossing our southern border daily is fluctuating between 3-5000 DAILY. Where do we EXPECT to PUT these people? I don’t believe we even have enough structure to get roofs over all of their heads! It’s going to take TIME and WORK and PATIENCE – from not only US Americans but from the refugees themselves, who should be cooperating to the max and helping us get this figured out and done.

We need buildings, perhaps even a whole military style “base” to handle our southern border influx and all southern border immigration. The base needs to have an intake center, a court with 20+ courtrooms and immigration judges as well as attorneys. The base should have cafeterias, barracks style living for singles, pod style living for family units. There are other things it will need too, but we HAVE to start looking at things like THIS to get this under some sort of manageable control.

I can see thousands of good paying JOBS in building a few of these immigration bases. I would bet that many of these refugees would like nothing more than to have one of those jobs helping to solve some portions of the problems. Construction, food service, laundry, etc…they could fill many of these jobs! WE MUST GET CREATIVE!

As far as stopping them from coming, good luck. That’s just not going to happen. They will always come. Until the horrible conditions in the Latin triangle are remedied the people will continue to flee the violence, poverty and sure death to try to save themselves and their families.

**Additional Notes:

“To respond to the unprecedented spike in arrivals of migrant children traveling without parents or legal guardians, the U.S. government is on track to open at least nine emergency housing facilities within President Biden’s first three months in office. The Trump administration operated three influx housing facilities over four years, and only one of them is currently active.” (Article Link) Mar. 25, 2021

What is happening at the US southern border? This is a terrific, well written and easily understandable article by the IRC (International Rescue Committee) March 24, 2021. The IRC is a non-partisan NGO that provides much assistance and coordinates to provide housing and care for many of these asylum seekers at our southern border. I highly recommend doing some reading on their website and considering donating to lend a hand. We all need to try to be part of the solution!

This issue is very important to me – I wish it were to so many more! These people are fighting everyday to survive, to come to America and make a better life and they are willing to DIE trying to do it. Americans sit here and throw rocks. Bitching and moaning about immigrants while they seriously have NO IDEA what these people are up against in their home countries. We have lost our way; empathy is dying. We sit here in our little red, white and blue cocoons and pretend this doesn’t affect us – unless we have some weird thought that “…MAYBE they are getting something I’m not!” Then they freak the fuck out and turn into uninformed idiots. I wish I could be part of better educating people about stuff like this, I don’t get why people are not more interested in what is happening in their own country and why…just baffles me.

I’m off for the night. Get my first covid-19 shot tomorrow! Yay

Peace ~ MB

“Far Traveler”

Let me take you far back in women’s history, to meet a courageous, strong woman a Viking who lived more than 1000 years ago who navigated crossing the Atlantic Ocean between Greenland in North America and her home in Iceland, EIGHT times in her lifetime! Making her the Viking record holder of sorts for most crossings! This fierce Viking woman’s name was Gudrid Thorbjarmardottir.

A young woman of 15, she traveled to Greenland, where Eirik the Red is constructing a settlement. Gudrid meets and marries Eirik’s younger brother Thorstein. Thorstein’s older brother most know, he was the famous Viking explorer Leif Erikson, the 1st European to set foot in North America, as the saga goes. Gudrid was widowed at 17 when a particularly harsh winter took her husband Thorstein and many other settlers that year. She claims his ghost told her “that her destiny (will) be a great one” according to one verson of the sagas of Gudrid.

Gudrid remarries and conceives a son with her new husband Thorfinn Karsefni “the makings of a man” his name translates to. Their son Snorri and them return back home to Iceland.

The story of Gudrids travels gets a little harder to follow as she becomes an older woman of 50. The story goes that she travels to Rome, a pilgramage and then returning to her farm in Glaumbaer, Iceland. She makes this incredible voyage entirely on foot. There she lives out her days as a “nun and recluse”, so say Viking scholars.

Gudrid’s story, like many others, was passed down orally from storyteller to storyteller for over 200 years, until sometime in the 1200’s it was written out as told by storytellers.

Archaeologists have done work in Iceland to excavate the turf house in Glaumbaer where sher supposedly lived out her days. Unlike other Viking structures in that town hers most closely resembled another Viking age turf home in Greenland, in the same village where she and Thorstein lived. Did she bring the design back to Iceland?

Did Gudrid really live? Was Gudrid a real woman? A Viking woman? The “Far Traveler” as the sagas and handed down clan stories tell us? Because there is no written history of Viking existance 1000 years ago plus/minus, we have to deduct from the stories, not if they are “true” but if they are actually “believable” or “plausible”.

Yes this could have happened, it could be true. There is archaeologic suggestion that women lived in Greenland alongside Viking men. A thread spindle was found at the turf house site, indicating women were spooling thread – not a job men would do in Viking culture. But was it Gudrid’s? Perhaps a friend’s?

The mind does wander, personally I can picture a strong, determined woman who could sail the sea, help build homes, care for her settlement in food and defense and now perhaps sewing clothing or blankets.

I love Viking lore. Recent discoveries in Norway, Denmark, Sweden and even England have show us a vibrant, sometimes vicious, race of strong sea-going men and women ruled Europe with strong hearts and iron fists for 300 years. These recent discoveries have brough women Viking warriors to live. It was previously thought that only Viking men did battle, swung the sword and rode horses into brutal battles. Several mounds in sweden have been excavated and the incredible finds of women warriors, buried with the highest of warrior honors with weapons, protection amulets, helmets, shields and swords. Those items had never previously been found with women Viking remains anywhere but there have always been stories – handed down – of valiant Viking women warriors of long ago.

My next women’s history piece will be about one of these women warriors, her life and her burial of honor. It’s another great story of Viking life, of travelers, warriors and women of integrity, honor and with skills in battle.

Stay tuned!

Peace! ~MB