Jeanne Simonelli, Erin McCulley, and Rachel Simonellisucked down into the mud. The van made it through approximately
half way when the thick slop took hold of the tires and sucked us
down into the sludge, making us stagnant among the workers and
soldiers looking on.
We stopped, and then the soldiers surrounded us and were bending
down, examining underneath our van, undoubtedly trying to access a
way to get us out of the mud and out of their way. Momentarily, they
surrounded the superior officer present, obtaining what appeared to
be a variety of orders, and then dispersed to their tasks. After slinging
their semiautomatic rifles over their shoulders and manipulating their
machetes to a position that would not impede their movement, some
began digging rocks out of the mud and tossing them to the side; oth-
ers began digging at the tires.
We turned around to notice that some of the soldiers were inside of
and on top of a Humvee that was making its way toward us. The ve-
hicle began to swerve to the left, attempting to go around us through
the mud, from which the rocks had recently been cleared. It appeared
to be about to hit us dead on but then suddenly stopped. Because my
seat was behind the driver, I had only to look out my window to realize
that a rock was now wedged behind the tire and had caused the vehi-
cle to stop. To put it more simply, now the Humvee was stuck, too.
It is at this point that Nicole, one of the Hartwick students in the
seat in front of me, begins to analyze our situation and give it a little
perspective. She says:
Okay, dude, we are four students from New York in the middle
of nowhere in Mexico. We are in a van by ourselves with no idea
of what the hell is going on or any way to find out because all of
the people who speak Spanish were smart enough to stay on the
road. Our driver is now outside with about fifteen military guys
who almost just hit us with a hummer and now they are all stand-
ing around us, staring at this van while we all sit here stuck in the
mud—together.
I instantly burst into laughter, and by this point everyone in the
van had so much nervous energy that they had been storing over the
last twenty minutes that they too could no longer contain themselves.