In the small town of Emiliano Zapata, farmers struggle to find a viable way to get their fruit to market. Meanwhile, much of it rots on the ground. A plan to build a processing plant may hold the key to their future.
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In the winter of 2007, Ruben Ku Poot’s son fell ill. The boy, 2-month-old Abraham, coughed and wheezed and seemed at times unable to take a breath.

Ku Poot lives in Emiliano Zapata, an impoverished farming town of no more than 500 people in Campeche, along the Gulf of Mexico. Few houses in the village have glass windows, furniture is limited to hammocks and residents are used to doing without.

Abraham spent two months in the Campeche hospital, connected to tubes and complex equipment. It seemed to Ku Poot that the boy grew no better or worse -– that he merely hung on to life for 60 days straight.

Ku Poot spent every night at the hospital. Although he had two older children and 10 hectares of land to farm, he couldn’t bring himself to leave his youngest son’s side.

Doctors decided that Abraham should undergo surgery 120 miles away in Merida, in the neighboring state of Yucatan. He was to have a tracheal tube inserted into his throat to help him breathe.

This is when Ku Poot met Juan Manuel Cardona Chable –- the man who would change not only the lives of Ruben and Abraham Ku Poot but also the entire town of Emiliano Zapata.

* * * * * *

Two miles east of Emiliano Zapata there is a side road blocked by a locked gate.

Because the vast majority of Emiliano Zapata residents are of Mayan descent, they mainly harvest traditional crops such as maiz and calabasa. But the townspeople’s farmland behind the gate is different.

Thousands of lush trees loaded with fruit –- lemon, lime, orange, mango and papaya -– reach toward the Mexican sky. The papaya trees glisten bright green under the Yucatan sun, and the lemon tree branches bow under impressive burdens. Virtually all of this fruit is 100 percent organic, untreated by chemicals of any kind.

And virtually none of it will ever be eaten.

* * * * * *

A small, gray Chevy S10 pickup truck pulled up alongside a field of mango trees. As the engine died, six people stepped down from the vehicle and began to amble through the orchard, careful not to step on the scores of overripe mangos that have fallen from the trees.

Jesus Hernandez Arias placed his hand against the trunk of a nearby tree as he explained why the residents of Emiliano Zapata have not been harvesting the vast majority of these crops.

Hernandez knows the problem well: He has much experience working with coffee growers in southern Mexico who also have trouble finding markets for their product.

He estimated that 80 percent to 90 percent of the area’s mangos –- about 15 metric tons — are lost each year because there is no place to sell them. Farmers do better with the lemons, but nearly as many oranges as mangos are wasted for the same reason.

“And some 80 percent of papaya,” added Hernandez’s friend Juan Cardona, cutting a slice from a ripe mango with his pocketknife.

The fruit the townspeople do manage to sell, Ku Poot said, goes to ‘coyotes’ -– brokers with the means to refrigerate the produce and transport it to distant markets. Generally, they pay next to nothing for the fruit and resell it for handsome profits.

The project these men have in mind will change all that and in the process transform Ku Poot’s humble town.

Hernandez and Cardona are working with an international nonprofit organization called AGIRabcd to build a factory that will turn local produce into juice and export it –- they don’t yet know where. AGIRabcd, based in Paris, France, is powered by retired and semi-retired professionals who offer their skills to projects in developing countries.

The factory they hope to build is to be owned and operated by local farmers. To find markets for the juice, organizers hope to take advantage of the 9-year-old free trade agreement between Mexico and the European Union that has eliminated or steadily reduced tariffs on agricultural exports of tropical fruits, vegetables, concentrated juices and honey.

While a factory may not be exactly what the people of Emiliano Zapata had in mind when they planted the trees, it would fulfill one of their dreams, Ku Poot said as he picked up his son, who bears a circular scar on his throat.

“Our grandparents,” he said, “planted these as seedlings so we could live better.”

* * * * * *

Ku Poot was born in Emiliano Zapata but moved to the city of Campeche as a young man to pursue a degree in biochemical engineering. Soon after graduating, he realized there was no demand in Campeche for someone with his skills, so he moved back home and started to farm once again.

When his son Abraham fell ill, Ku Poot used all of his savings to pay the medical bills, but he was unable to cover everything.

In the middle of this nightmarish journey, Ku Poot met Cardona, who was working for Desarrollo Integral de la Familia, Mexico’s department of social services. Cardona came to inform Ku Poot of his options for state assistance, and the two became friends.

Before long, Cardona could often be found in Emiliano Zapata, socializing with farmers and eating in the open-air kitchen at Ku Poot’s father-in-law’s home.

One day, Ku Poot brought Cardona out to the Emiliano Zapata orchards. Cardona, marveling at all of the perfectly edible fruit that would never be picked, could hardly believe that the orchards’ owners could live in such an impoverished town. That’s when he called his friend Jesus Hernandez.

* * * * * *

Sitting in a hammock in his living room, Ku Poot spoke quietly about how he made it through his son’s illness. He talked about how his extended family took in his two other children while he and his wife were away, how they harvested his crops for him while he sat in a hospital waiting room.

He recalled how his wife changed Abraham’s tracheal tube every three hours once the family finally returned home from the hospital. He fell silent for a moment.

“Every three hours,” he repeated.

He continued to speak about all the things his family had done for him through his son’s illness, and suddenly remembered a recent moment when he had been sitting alone with Cardona.

“You’ve taught me something that I once had, and lost,” Cardona said to him.

“What was that?” asked Ku Poot.

“That family is the most important thing there is.”

* * * * * *

The story of Emiliano Zapata’s agrarian reform is far from over. The farmers still need to organize and agree on how to operate a cooperative juice factory, and AGIRabcd representatives have yet to sign the papers granting the money to build it.

But if the story is to end happily -– if the factory is to be built and Emiliano Zapata’s dream of agrarian reform is to come true -– a sick child may be to thank.

If Abraham had never gotten sick, his father would have never met Juan Cardona, who would never have seen the spectacle of ripe, untouched fruit and contacted Jesus Hernandez and informed him of the astounding opportunity.

(Click to read Part 1 of the award-winning series, “Crossing Lines”)

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Journalism student David Kempa of Arizona State won a 2010 Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award for a three-part series “Crossing Borders,” about immigration issues and one man’s mission to help impoverished Mexican farmers.

Kempa won the RFK award in the collegiate category for focusing on “human rights, social justice and the power of individual action in the United States and around the world.” The RFK judges, which included Good News Network founder and editor, Geri Weis-Corbley, said, “Illegal immigration is a complicated problem, and Kempa addresses it in a fresh way that contributes to efforts to solve the problem. The reporter found engaging characters and compelling situations. He connected their stories seamlessly, capturing readers’ attention on a vital and heart-rending social issue.”

The story was originally published by the News21.com program for University journalists, a project funded by the Carnegie Corp. and the Knight Foundation, which includes 12 universities, including the Cronkite School at ASU, which is the national headquarters for the initiative.

Thieves who burglarized an art gallery near Lubbock, Texas evidently experienced a change of heart.

Tornado Gallery owners were flabbergasted when a Methodist Church worker called Monday, asking for someone to retrieve two large boxes of items that had been stolen back on Sept. 29.

“It renews my faith in humankind,” said Simmons. “This is the best news I’ve had in about forever.”

(READ the story in Lubbock Online)

Pphoto by Clarita, via Morguefile.com

Jesus Hernandez Arias lay in the Arizona desert, half-blind and freezing.

Dawn was approaching on March 11, 2006. It was cold –- no more than 45 degrees -– and winds upwards of 35 mph only added to the discomfort brought on by unrepentant rain.

Hernandez, a 43-year-old diabetic, had by now lost almost all feeling in his extremities, and his vision amounted to nothing more than varying shades of black. He worried about his blood glucose level, the possibility of paralysis or death.

Hernandez had crossed the U.S.-Mexico border the night before with 17 others who, like him, could not afford a pollero’s guidance.

Most of those in Hernandez’s group were crossing for the same reasons: to find work and send money home to impoverished families, to start new lives in the United States or simply rejoin relatives.

Hernandez’s reason, however, was different: He was crossing the border so others wouldn’t have to.

But altruism cannot dictate the delicate balance of a diabetic’s blood sugar.

* * * * * *

Hernandez, divorced and the father of a young daughter, had moved four months earlier to Veracruz, Mexico, where he’d met numerous coffee growers. He was impressed by their work ethic but alarmed by their impoverished living conditions.

This incongruity, Hernandez soon found, was due to the fact that the growers had no local market. Unable to sell locally at a reasonable price and too poor to transport their beans to locations with high coffee demand, the growers had no choice but to sell to coyotes, who bought the harvested beans at low prices and resold them to large coffee companies for exorbitant profits.

This had been going on for decades, and the poorer the growers grew the more insoluble their plight became.

Then, in the 1970s, some of the area’s young men began traveling to the United States to work and send money home. Soon, families of those who had found employment on the other side began to enjoy luxuries others could never afford: American-made vehicles, extra bedrooms and glass windows in their homes.

Crossing over became something of a rite of passage as countless young men said goodbye to their families to face the dangers that came with crossing the border illegally: unforgivable terrain, unreliable polleros and an unstable border peppered with drug cartels and American vigilante groups.

Unsettled by the risk he saw young people taking, Hernandez decided the answer was organizing growers so they could start their own coffee cooperative. As their own bosses, he reasoned, growers would enjoy the profits they deserved, their standards of living would rise dramatically and their sons might no longer be tempted to gamble their lives on the border.

Hernandez had training in agronomy, but the growers needed money to organize, and the majority had nothing to spare for the cause. Not even Hernandez, who was living on his savings, could afford to invest in the project.

Determined to pull these growers out of poverty, Hernandez turned his gaze northward. He decided working in El Norte was the best and fastest way to finance the collective.

* * * * * *

Among those in Hernandez’s group was Erica, the Venezuelan who claimed to have crossed twice before and –- more or less -– knew the way, as well as a Poblano (originating in the State of Puebla, Mexico.) wearing high-heeled cowboy boots. Hernandez recalled warning the Poblano that he’d never be able to make it out of the desert with such big heels, but the man stood by his choice in footwear.

His group ran across the border at 7 p.m., entering the U.S. Border Patrol’s Tucson sector, the harshest in terms of climate and terrain.

They ran all through the night, hoping to find shelter from the weather and a place to hide from Border Patrol agents before daybreak.

It grew cold. Then it began to rain. Then snow.

Hernandez was among the first in his group to react to the elements -– due, perhaps, to his diabetes and the lack of proper food. His black clothes, meant to hide him during the night from Border Patrol agents, were soaked. He began to freeze.

Then, as the small party neared the town of Arivaca, Ariz., Hernandez’s vision started failing. Towering cactuses blurred together, small plants disappeared into the trail before him and his companions turned to 17 shuffling specters.

One shadow (he did not know whose) took Hernandez by the hand, guiding him through the desert. Others helped, too.

“This way; that way,” they said. “Careful for that; don’t trip. There’s a bunch of thorns over there –- get to that side.”

Somehow he moved on. By 3:30 a.m., as a result of the cold, his high blood sugar or both, Hernandez’s arms and legs had grown so numb that he could no longer continue. His body had given up.

As he began to ease himself to the ground, Hernandez saw a shadow approach. It patted him on the back.

“How’s it going?” said the shadow. It was the Poblano.

“Very bad. I can’t see,” said Hernandez. “On top of that, I’m growing cold. I’m freezing.”

The Poblano helped him sit down.

“No more. I’m going to stay.”

“I can’t take it anymore, either,” said the Poblano. “You were right about these heels.”

He sat down next to Hernandez, and the two waited.

Little by little, in a time span that could have easily been five minutes or five hours, Hernandez lost feeling throughout his body. He slipped in and out of consciousness, catching portions of conversations the Poblano could only have been holding with himself. Conversations about la migra. About going back home. About God.

As the cold took Hernandez, his mind went hundreds of miles south, to his 7-year-old daughter.

* * * * * *

Jesus Hernandez Arias is scarcely more than 5 feet tall. He has brown, somewhat leathery, skin, dark eyes and a thick mustache. He smiles rarely with his mouth -– though often with his eyes. When he does open his mouth, he displays a couple of missing teeth, like many people in rural southern Mexico.

He speaks calmly of crossing to the United States, though with reined emotion, as if retelling a poignant scene from a movie he once saw.

He remembers waking up in a white bed: “I couldn’t articulate words. My jaw wouldn’t move. I couldn’t speak. I could feel nothing. The only thing I could feel was the cold.”

Although he did not know it at the time, he had just woken up in St. Mary’s Hospital in Tucson, Ariz.

Hernandez didn’t remember how he had gotten to the hospital. Had he been picked up by an Arivaca resident or perhaps by a member of a humanitarian organization? Who knows -– it might even have been la migra.

The Poblano was not there with him, although he must have seen to Hernandez long enough to make sure his belongings were safely stored beside his hospital bed. Perhaps it was the Poblano who had carried him to safety.

Within days, Hernandez was contacted by Sarah Roberts, a nurse and No More Deaths volunteer, who took charge of his care after his week-long stay at the hospital. No More Deaths, an organization dedicated to humanitarian aid and civil rights for illegal immigrants, supplying them with water, food and medical assistance. Hernandez decided to volunteer with the group while figured out his next move.

Hernandez joined the co-op, agreeing to return to Mexico to work at the company’s coffee roasting and packaging facility in Agua Prieta, the border town facing Douglas, Ariz.

But, as luck would have it, Border Patrol agents pulled over the vehicle in which Hernandez was a passenger heading back to Mexico, and took him into Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody.

Hernandez’s experiences in ICE custody and his subsequent deportation only reinforced his resolve to create choices for impoverished Mexican farmers who feel that migrating to the United States is their only option for a better standard of living.

He went to work for Just Coffee at its Agua Prieta and Salvador Urbina locations before returning to help the growers he’d left behind in Veracruz set up their own branch of the co-op.

Then, about a year ago, Hernandez realized that while he was helping dozens of farmers with Just Coffee, he could be helping thousands of impoverished Mexicans under a larger, more organized system.

Today, Hernandez works for AGIRabcd, a nonprofit organization based in France that puts retired workers with specialized skills to work helping others. He promotes agrarian projects and grower-owned commercialization all over Latin America.

He is focusing his efforts in southern Mexico’s Campeche countryside, where he is collaborating with local fruit producers and French AGIRabcd volunteers to build a juice manufacturing plant outside of a small town, aptly named Emiliano Zapata.

Hernandez has not lost his quixotic selflessness and does not feel he ever will.

It is that drive that led him to Emiliano Zapata. (In the small town of Emiliano Zapata, farmers struggle to find a viable way to get their fruit to market. Meanwhile, much of it rots on the ground. A plan to build a processing plant may hold the key to their future.)

(Look for PART 2 of this award-winning series “Crossing Lines”, tomorrow)

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Journalism student David Kempa of Arizona State won a 2010 Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award for a three-part series “Crossing Borders,” about immigration issues and one man’s mission to help impoverished Mexican farmers.

Kempa won the RFK award in the collegiate category for focusing on “human rights, social justice and the power of individual action in the United States and around the world.”  The RFK judges, which included Good News Network founder and editor, Geri Weis-Corbley, said, “Illegal immigration is a complicated problem, and Kempa addresses it in a fresh way that contributes to efforts to solve the problem. The reporter found engaging characters and compelling situations. He connected their stories seamlessly, capturing readers’ attention on a vital and heart-rending social issue.”

The story was originally published by the News21.com program for University journalists, a project funded by the Carnegie Corp. and the Knight Foundation, which includes 12 universities, including the Cronkite School at ASU, which is the national headquarters for the initiative.