Maria Guazhambo

According to Maria's 10 year old son, who was with her at the time: the group left from Altar, Sonora in a truck that took them to the border (it was a 6 hour drive). They crossed the border, and had walked for one week, and were headed towards Tucson (they were told). They crossed the border on a Tuesday morning. They walked until Thursday—that is when Maria started getting a severe headache. On Friday, they ran out of water. Later in the day on Friday evening, they found a large water tank. It was rusty metal, about 3 feet high, with a ladder on the side. There were cows in the area. The water tank was located near the bank of an arroyo or dry stream bed. On Friday night, Maria fainted. She started bleeding— there was a lot of blood on her pants, so she changed into a pair of her son's pants (boy's pants, too big for her). She was able to continue until Sunday afternoon, when Maria fainted again and couldn’t speak. They moved her under a big tree, in the shade. She was extremely weak, and told her son she couldn’t go on. The coyote insisted that they had to go on, and they convinced her son to leave his mother (they told him another group was coming behind them, and would pick her up). The group met the truck 2-4 hours from where they left her. The truck picked them up and drove 6 hours to a farm/ranch. Another car met them there, and then there was a 2-3 hour drive to Phoenix.