Darién Gap: One Year Later | Part One: After The Jungle

Summary

It Could Happen Here – “Darién Gap: One Year Later | Part One: After The Jungle”

Date: December 1, 2025
Host/Interviewer: (Not explicitly named in transcript, likely James Stout)
Featured Voices: Primrose, Kim (her daughter), and other migrants

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Episode Overview

This episode revisits the harrowing migration journey of Primrose and her daughter Kim, migrants from Zimbabwe, who traversed the infamous Darién Gap and a gauntlet of Central American countries, dodging danger, extortion, and bureaucratic indifference. Now, a year after their initial interviews and the collapse of US asylum protections under a renewed Trump administration, the host checks in to learn what “after the jungle” looks like and reflects on the deeply human costs of contemporary migration policy.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Context: A Country Changed, a Journey Continues

• Host’s Framing (02:37): The host sets the somber tone, referencing the inauguration of Trump’s second term and its chilling effect on migrants and advocates alike.
• Primrose’s Situation (03:14): Primrose is physically stranded atop the US-Mexico border wall, a literal and metaphorical cliffhanger. This moment symbolizes the immense length, risk, and uncertainty of her journey, begun in Zimbabwe and traversing an entire continent.

2. The Shared Experience of Migrants in the Darién Gap

• Camaraderie and Risk (06:23–07:22): Kim and Primrose describe the vital support from strangers—especially other migrants—contrasting their exceptional peril as women traveling alone with the acts of kindness they received.
  • “Especially these Spanish people, they are very nice. …if you call them for help...they just come for help...they even give us tablets on the road, give us energy drinks, give my daughter sweets.” – Kim (06:54)

3. Dreams and Realities: “Why America?”

• A Mother’s Hope (07:37–07:46):
  • Primrose: "To go to school."
  • Kim: “Then she can achieve something in life. I don't wish my daughter to go back to them. No.”
    The American dream is reduced to its bedrock: safety and opportunity for a child.

4. The Crisis in Mexico and Beyond

• Increasing Dangers and Dead Ends (08:03–13:20): As Trump’s election sinks in, communication with migrants dwindles—robbery, assaults, kidnappings, and deaths all mount in Mexico.
  • The host receives heartbreaking messages from children like Noemi, clinging to tokens of hope.

5. The Emotional Toll and Powerlessness of Advocacy

• Disconnected and Overwhelmed Aid (08:03–13:20):
  • "With fast Internet and a web of friends across the Western hemisphere, I couldn't find the help people needed, and it made me increasingly angry and anxious the more I tried." – Host (12:36)
  • "That's what strong borders means. It means brave little girls disappearing so a politician who knows nothing of their struggles can point to a statistic." – Host (12:59)

6. Reflections on Grief, Borders, and Death

• Comparative Death Toll (16:43):
  • "Even as someone who talks to soldiers for a living, nothing really compares to the death toll inflicted by the US border regime..."
    The host imagines border memorials dwarfing those for world wars, underscoring scale and neglect.

7. The Payment Gauntlet: Extortion and Debt

• Extortion at Every Turn (18:58–23:26):
  • Primrose details being charged $60 each to leave Panama, continual requests for money in each country, and finally Mexican “agents” demanding $4,000 each for passage.
  • “My mum sold my land...she sell even also his stuff to get another [sum] to complete $7,000. … The agent took me...I spent there from October up to January.” – Primrose (23:26)
• Kidnapping and Sexual Threats (30:36–32:14):
  • In Mexico, Primrose and Kim are kidnapped, extorted for $15,000 each, and Primrose faces threats of sexual violence.
  • “They took my phone...broke it in front of my eyes...One wanted touching me...I was like, please, if you want to do something, you can do it to me...but don't do it in front of my daughter.” – Primrose (30:36)

8. Rescue and Survival through Community and Luck

• Kim’s Resourcefulness (32:14–34:05):
  • Kim, having learned Spanish along the journey, manages to communicate their plight, which ultimately helps secure their release from their captors.
  • “Kimberly, she was learning Spanish...there’s a guy...like, why can’t you leave this woman, because she doesn’t have money…” – Primrose (32:14)

9. The Final Push: Border Chaos and Desperation

• Rushed to the Wall and a Daring Entry (38:10–39:06):
  • Primrose and Kim, after being dumped by their kidnappers, make the desperate crossing under the US-Mexico border wall with a group, crawling under bridges and climbing ladders. They pay $350 to be taken across in sewage canals.
  • “We were walking with our stomach like under the bridge till we get to USA and Mexican border. So they put ladder for us to help us...we were 15. Yeah. Then they helped us to jump.” – Primrose (38:10)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Migrant Community (06:54):
  • Kim: “Especially these Spanish people, they are very nice...they even give us tablets on the road, give us energy drinks, give my daughter sweets for energy.”
• On the American Dream (07:39):
  • Primrose: "To go to school."
  • Kim: “Then she can achieve something in life. I don't wish my daughter to go back to them. No.”
• On Policy and Loss (12:59):
  • Host: “That's what strong borders means. It means brave little girls disappearing so a politician who knows nothing of their struggles can point to a statistic.”
• On Risk and Regret (26:41):
  • Kim: “The river, it’s not easy at all...I, I, I don't even recommend someone to say, yeah, use Darién Gap, no.”
• On Survival and Release (32:14):
  • Primrose: “Kimberly, she was learning Spanish...there’s a guy...like, why can’t you leave this woman, because she doesn’t have money…”
• On Reaching America (38:10):
  • Primrose: “They took us with under the bridge, I think the sewage. We were walking with our stomach like under the bridge till we get to USA and Mexican border.”

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Important Timestamps

• 02:37 – Host sets the scene: inauguration day, running in the mountains, Primrose on the border wall.
• 03:14–04:02 – Primrose describes being stranded atop the wall as helpers flee from border patrol.
• 06:54 – Kim and Primrose discuss building community and survival through mutual aid.
• 07:37–07:46 – Primrose and Kim share their American dream.
• 12:59 – Host reflects bitterly on the cruelty of border regime policies.
• 18:58–23:26 – Primrose details the financial exploitation faced at each border.
• 26:41 – Kim describes the physical danger of the Darién Gap and the regret of making the journey.
• 30:36–32:14 – Primrose recounts being kidnapped and eventually released in Mexico after extortion and fear.
• 38:10–39:06 – Primrose narrates the final crossing into the U.S. via a sewage canal and climbing a ladder.

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Episode Tone & Takeaway

The tone is deeply empathetic, poignant, occasionally raw, and matter-of-fact about violence, cruelty, and the slim hopes that keep people moving. The host’s advocacy is clear but tempered by frustration and grief over the scale of harm and the powerlessness to effect change at the systemic level. The voices of Primrose and Kim convey resilience, fear, and relief in equal measure. Throughout, the story centers the lived reality of migrants, pushing listeners to think beyond headlines and statistics to the faces and dreams at the heart of modern migration crises.

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Next Episode Tease

The episode concludes with a promise to talk tomorrow about what crossing the actual U.S. border looks like for migrants today.

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[End of Summary]

Transcript

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[Becky Milligan]

Today, it's 1972. A young British family is attempting to sail around the world when disaster strikes. Their boat is hit by killer whales and it sinks in seconds. All they have left is a life raft and each other. This is the true story of the Robertson family and their fight to survive, hosted by me, Becky Milligan. Listen to Adrift, an Apple Original podcast produced by Blanchard House. Follow and listen on Apple Podcasts.

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[Narrator / Interviewer]

Like most of you, I wasn't having a great day on the 20th of January of 2025. I wasn't about to watch the inauguration, so I went for a run in the mountains instead. I spent the next few weeks trying to focus on the things we could do, the things we had to do to get through four years of fascism. Just a few miles away from my house, I set out for my run. And unbeknown to me, my friend Primrose was staring down from the top of a 30 foot steel monument to hate that Donald Trump had built the last time he was president. To be more accurate, it was one that he had modified. There had been versions of the border wall in San Diego for decades.

[Primrose]

They said, no, we have an option, we need to take you. But you know, for me, I had to take a risk because I was scared to stay in Mexico. So they took us under the bridge, I think the sewage. We were walking with our stomach, like under the bridge till we get to USA and Mexican border. So they put ladder for us to help us. Those people, when they saw American immigration came, they just removed the ladder and me, I was on top. So I had, yeah, I was stuck there and I had no choice. And Kimberly was crying like, come, let's go, let's go.

[Narrator / Interviewer]

At that time, I knew nothing about it. But her daughter Kim had already jumped as the Biden presidency drew to a close. But before Trump began signing executive orders with pens he tossed into the crowd, she'd made it into the us. Her mum was in the US as well. The wall is inside the border. But the people who had helped her get up to the top of the wall had fled when border patrol arrived, taking their ladder with them. And so Primrose was left atop the wall. The literal and metaphorical final hurdle in her long and dangerous journey that had begun in Zimbabwe went through South Africa, Brazil, Colombia, Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala and Mexico. But before we come down from the border wall, I want to take you back to the Miss Soaked riverbank of Mariganti. Last September, Daddy, my fixer and I had woken up at an ungodly hour and so had the jungle birds, along with half the population of the village. We walked down to the riverbank carrying the engines and fuel tanks. At Piraguas a few minutes later, a chorus of two stroke engines and smoke fired up as the boat set off towards Bajo Chiquito. I stood in the bow, still trying to master the use of the pole as we passed through the faster moving, shallower water. Daddy sat in the middle and laughed at me. Despite my best efforts, we arrived in one piece in Bajo Chiquito. And I launched myself from the bow into knee deep water. On the rocky beach in front of us stood hundreds of people patiently waiting for the Piragueros to take them north and out of the jungle. Stretched like a snake all the way through town. The line of migrants must have totaled a thousand people. I walked backwards away from the boats. The only foreigner not leaving looked for people I'd met The day before, about halfway down the line stood Primrose and Kim. I stopped while we chatted for a bit about what the boat ride was like, what they could expect next.

[Kim]

Yeah, I'm going there.

[Narrator / Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Primrose]

Yeah, I'm going to United States.

[Narrator / Interviewer]

Do you have family?

[Primrose]

No.

[Narrator / Interviewer]

Yeah. No. You just make your American life. No, that's okay. I think.

[Kim]

I'm just trying. No, it's only me and my daughter.

[Narrator / Interviewer]

Despite this, they had found community on the journey. I can't describe how scary it must be for two women to set out on this journey alone. It takes an awful lot to embark on that journey and to be able to trust people when everyone is a potential threat. But if there's one thing I learned in a jungle, it's that in the hardest times and the hardest places, the only way forward is together. Primrose reminded me of this, telling me how complete strangers had helped her.

[Kim]

Very nice. This. Especially these Spanish people, they are very nice. I don't want to lie, because if.

[Primrose]

You need help, if you call them.

[Kim]

For help, the other ones, they might run away. But the other ones, they just come for help. They even give us tablets on the road, give us energy drinks, give my daughter sweets for energy. They push us, like, let's go, guys. Let's go.

[Primrose]

Let's go. You make it.

[Kim]

And we really make it.

[Narrator / Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Primrose]

Yeah.

[Narrator / Interviewer]

That's really nice to hear. I asked Primrose a question. I asked everyone there. What did she hope for when she got to America? What was her American dream? What do you hope for for her in America? What do you want to do in America?

[Kim]

I want to answer.

[Primrose]

To go to school.

[Kim]

Then she can achieve something in life. I don't wish my daughter to go back to them. No.

[Narrator / Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Primrose]

Not at all.

[Narrator / Interviewer]

No. It's very hard in Zimbabwe.

[Kim]

Yeah, it's really, really tough. Even in South Africa.

[Narrator / Interviewer]

I saw them a few days later in Las Blancas after it sat with a group of little Venezuelan children playing a game where we'd throw bottle tops into a broken half cinder block. We talked about the struggle they faced to pay for the bus north, and we didn't record anything that day. But as I was leaving for the evening, Kim asked me if I could buy her a drink. I generally try not to splash my money around because I don't have enough money to help everyone. And I still have some scars from the ridiculous concept of objectivity that would lead some editors not to commission a story from me if I gave the subject a gift. But this time, I felt like buying her a drink, and I let her select the biggest bottle of cold soda she could find in the little store in the camp there. I told her and her mum to stay in touch and wrote my number on a piece of my notebook, tore it out and gave it to them. Months later, Kim was holding the same scrap of paper, looking up at her mum stuck on the border wall. A whole lot had changed since I last saw them. A few days after my scripted podcast from the Daddy and Gap was released, the United States elected Donald Trump as its 47th president. It was a shit month all around that. My phone, as it often does, lit up with messages from my daddy and friends asking me what this meant and if Trump was going to close the border. I didn't really know how to answer those questions, because if there's one thing we know about Trump, it's he changes his mind every few weeks. As we got closer and closer to the day he was inaugurated, they got more and more concerned. Most of them hadn't made it out of southern Mexico. Many of them had told me that things there were even worse in the jungle. They'd all been robbed, some of them had been sexually assaulted, some of them kidnapped, and some of them killed. I'd heard about all of these things every day from September last year to January this year. In the middle of a run or when I was having dinner, meeting a friend for a coffee, my phone would ring and I'd be confronted with terrible injustice and I'd be totally powerless to set it right. As time went on, I heard from fewer and fewer of them. I assume their phones were stolen, but there are, of course, more upsetting explanations as to why they might have stopped contacting me. Noemi, a little girl who wanted to visit Minnie Mouse Video, called me once from Tapachulo with a little tiny toy bear that I'd given her and that she kept with her on the whole journey. It made me happy to see them and a silly little bear carved from soapstone that had traveled the lengths of South America with them. Every few weeks after I'd left, I'd get photos of the bear in a different country as a little osito worked its way closer to Disneyland. Some people who worked at Disneyland had reached out to offer suggestions about tickets. Other people had reached out offering to pay. I was, despite the odds, hoping that one day I could help one little girl see her American dream come true. When we spoke, she was with her mum and they were trying to log on to CBP1, hoping for an appointment, but it wouldn't work. On their old Android phones. I tried to find shelters with reliable Internet that would take them in, and called friends and NGOs almost every week, passing along questions or looking for resources. I spent hours calling, finding it hard to accept that the capacity for mutual aid was so overwhelmed that nobody had a safe space for little girl and her mom. I'm wondering if it still felt like a Peppa Pig adventure, or if even little indomitable Noemi was scared now, even from where I was. With fast Internet and a web of friends across the Western hemisphere, I couldn't find the help people needed, and it made me increasingly angry and anxious the more I tried. It sucked, but there was still a chance I was slim, that one day I might get to see Noemi meet Minnie Mouse. So I kept trying and so did her mum. Then one day I got no response from her mum's WhatsApp when I messaged her. Nobody picked up the phone when I tried to ring. I still haven't had a response, but periodically I'll keep trying. Even the last messages and photos are gone now after my WhatsApp updated. Like so many of the people who I shared my food with, whose little children held my hand in the darkness of the jungle, who I desperately wished and wish I could do more for, they're gone now. That's what strong borders means. It means brave little girls disappearing so a politician who knows nothing of their struggles can point to a statistic. I have listened to the interview I conducted with them so many times since last September. I still can't really work out how anyone with a heart could hear that and think they wanted to live in a world where that little girl wasn't safe. But that's what people voted for, I guess. I don't think they did, actually. I can't think they did. I think people lied to them and that's what they voted for. But nonetheless, here we are now, sitting in a country that didn't want to help the little girl who flexed her arm muscles to show me how strong she was after climbing the mountains of the most dangerous land migration route in the Americas and told me it was for her all an adventure. Her mother gave a different account.

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I didn't want to cry because I didn't want her to see me crying. But sometimes I would explode. Because it's hard for your child to ask you for water, to ask you for food, and you don't have any. So be in a place where you walk. You walk from five in the morning, it's five in the afternoon. You're walking, you don't know what to do. Going through more than 100 rivers and asking God not to rain and not wanting it to get worse. It rained and the girl got a fever. She got a fever. But, well, God is good that we pray a lot. I say that we don't know God so much in the church in the process and the process that we are in. And we don't know we can be so strong until we go through that storm and we see that he protects us. He knows that he was always there watching over us, taking care of us at all times.

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[Becky Milligan]

Today, it's 1972. A young British family is attempting to sail around the world when disaster strikes. Their boat is hit by killer whales and it sinks in seconds. All they have left is a life raft and each other. This is the true story of the Robertson family and their fight to survive. Hosted by me, Becky Milligan. Listen to Adrift, an Apple original podcast produced by Blanchard House. Follow and listen on Apple Podcasts.

[High Key Podcast Host]

Looking for your next obsession? Listen to High Key, a bold, joyful, unfiltered culture podcast coming at you you every Friday.

[Mafia Game Player]

Now my question is, in this game of Mafia that we're going to play, are you going to do better than me?

[Narrator / Interviewer]

Say it now. Duh. Period.

[High Key Podcast Host]

I'm going to eat.

[Mafia Game Player]

You going to do better than me?

[High Key Podcast Host]

I'm going to eat.

[Primrose]

Yes.

[High Key Podcast Host]

I literally will. Ryan will. I cannot wait till we both team up and get you out and then one of us gets the other out. Cuz we didn't realize they were a traitor the whole time and you were actually an innocent. Y' all won't even know that I'm a traitor.

[Mafia Game Player]

This is going to be be delicious.

[High Key Podcast Host]

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[Mafia Game Player]

And on that note, thank you for coming to my show.

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[Narrator / Interviewer]

I don't want to dwell on this too long, because talking in public about grief is something I'm bad at. One of my friends died fighting in Ukraine this year. A colleague died just weeks before we'd planned a trip together. Some of my Burmese friends died fighting. But even as someone who talks to soldiers for a living, nothing really compares to the death toll inflicted by the US border regime. The little village in England where I grew up there are memorials in every town and village for the young people who died fighting in the world wars. If we built those at the border, they'd soon be towering far above the wall that does so much of the killing. Things are as bad now as they've ever been. The wall construction in the San Diego sector that the Trump administration has proposed will waive environmental and cultural protections and push migrants further into the desert. In the desert, further from help, further from water, more of them will die. I speak to migrants all the time, the ones who stayed in Mexico, even the ones who took the Venezuelan government's offer. As for flights home, as much as they ask about America, they also ask about each other. Do I know what happened to the Angolans who shared their food so generously? They say no, I haven't heard from them. What about the Venezuelan trans girl who braided their children's hair? Well, she's still braiding hair, but she hasn't made it to the US Gradually, she did make it, and then she was immediately deported back to southern Mexico. How about Rose? They say the Bolivian girl who came all on her own and found a family along the trail only to be separated from them again. I haven't heard from her in a year. Universally, they're happy to hear about Kim and Primrose. They're glad to hear that someone made it, that somebody can make it because of the more than 100 pages I tore out of my notebook with my phone number. They are two of the three people who let me know they made it here. So let's hear from Primrose about what it looks like to make it here, how it feels to have the best outcome of anyone I met. Let's pick up at Lahas Blancas, the now shuttered migrant reception center where hundreds languish for weeks and months trying to get together the money to pay for a bus to the Panama Costa Rica border.

[Primrose]

I think I spent seven days in Panama, was short with money. So I went to immigration trying to ask them if they can help me to take a bus to Costa Rica, of which they refused. They said no, you have to pay your $60, you and your daughter. Which one? 20. Yeah. So I paid that. So I asked people, man, the people I know, they helped me with money. So from Panama, we took a bus from Panama to Costa Rica.

[Narrator / Interviewer]

This is a very common story. People borrow money from a huge range of friends and relatives along the way. They hope to get to the us, Work hard and be able to pay it back. The whole process takes every penny they've earned in their life and generates significant amounts of debt. In most cases this is made worse by the fact that on arrival they will wait months if not years for a work permit and their immigration judge can stop the clock on this at any time for any reason. Primrose and Kim's case, Costa Rica moved them through its territory quickly as they do with nearly all migrants. Next they arrived in Nicaragua.

[Primrose]

Yeah, to Nicaragua. Then in Nicaragua, I think we walk from Costa Rica border to Nicaragua border. Then we walk again. I think it was eight, eight hours walk from. Yeah, to Nicaragua bus terminus. We just walk. Then we, when we reached there, we paid again to Honduras. Then there's a also place we walked from Honduras. From Nicaragua to Honduras bus Terminas. I think this was a whole day. Then from Honduras, Guatemala. Yeah, in Guatemala we spent three days again because it was tough. Guatemala people, they really need asking for a lot of money. So my life was like asking people, asking people, and do we get until we reach Mexico.

[Narrator / Interviewer]

Then exhausted and broke, she and Kim made it to Mexico. Their journey began in Zimbabwe and took them from there to South Africa, then to Brazil and across the continent. Now they had just one more country to go before they made it. But as they were to find out, this one country is the one that so many migrants don't make it out of.

[Primrose]

Then in Mexico my life was like ended because they were charging a lot of money in Mexico. In fact, when we reach Mexico, we reached Tapachula, not before. Tapachula, I just forget the name. So they took us in the bush where we paid money again. When we paid money, they start searching us. If we don't have cars Then they walk with us. It was 12 midnight. They walk with us till they get a transport to take us to Tapachula. So when I reached Tapachula, you know, people, we were giving information to each other. So I was also following other people like from Cameroon and Venezuela. So when we reached Tapachula, we reached Tapachula on 3 July, October 2024.

[Narrator / Interviewer]

Tapachula, in the south of Mexico, is where thousands of migrants end up. The Mexican government at the time had a policy of trying to keep people there and began offering them free bus rides north if they had a CBP1 appointment. But unlike places like Tijuana, where there have been migrants gathered for many decades, there are not as many services in Tapachula. And the shelters and services that exist there are overwhelmed by the demand. The volume of migrants and the relative absence of services leave the space open for abuse. That's what happened to Primrose and Kimberley. They ended up paying someone who they thought could help them navigate the complicated and convoluted system of registration in Mexico, the CBP1 app. And then traveling north to the USA and ultimately being able to make their asylum claim. Finally, in the end, what they got was the opposite of help.

[Primrose]

Then the agents charged us 4000 each, which is me 4000 and my daughter 4000 of which I was. I wasn't left that month. Other people, they were paying. So I just talked to the agent. Then I said, no, can you please go down a little bit? Because I'm a single parent and I don't have anyone to help me with that kind of money. Then he said, okay, 3.5. So I started asking people, big home. The people I know, maybe they can help me. So I have a lady who helped me with the money, which is. She gave me 4,000 yen. Then my mom sell my land. I was having a land which she sold less money. Then she sell even also his stuff to get another man to complete 7,000. So we ask someone to send it to America because in Mexico they don't receive money from Africa. So I find someone here in America to receive the man. So he sent it to me in Mexico. But when I paid the man, the agent took me. He said, I'm going to take you. So he sent the guys, which they were four Mexicans guys. So they come to fetch us. We were six, seven. Yeah. I don't even know where they took us. So they took us to the. To the bush. Which is Guajara Dala. I can't even remember is it Guajara Dala? Yeah, I think so. I spent there from October up to January.

[Narrator / Interviewer]

In the background here you'll hear splashing. That's Kim playing in the pool. A little apartment complex where they were living in east la. As is common for migrants to share the flat with someone else. It didn't have much in the way of furniture. But the last time I saw Primrose and Kim, it was by the Tuquesa river in Las Blancas. There, the brown water was something to be afraid of. Migrants died crossing the river every day, swept away by the fast moving water and relying only on strangers to hold them as the current tried to pull them in. The few times I walked out into that river, I felt the tug of the current on my boots and wondered what it must be like higher up in the mountains. At six foot three, the river I crossed never came above waist high. It's deeper higher up, but even then, reaching out my hand to carry someone's bag or grab a child's hand as they came from the other direction and struggled to keep their toddlers and their few positions out the current, I get little jolts of fear when I stepped on a wet rock. Here's Primrose talking about that part of her journey.

[Kim]

How was your day? My daughter, she was strong. She was strong, but she was crying also. But she got wounds all over the body. Even me, I was crying myself. I was like, I want to just put myself in the water. Then I can just go both. The gene was tough, really, really tough. The mountain, the stones, the river, it's.

[Primrose]

Not easy at all.

[Kim]

It's not, it's not very, I, I, I don't even recommended someone to say, yeah, use Darian Gap, no. And even myself, I did know about it. Yeah, I was regretting myself. I was crying, I was like, God, I don't know. My family and my family, they don't know where I am right now.

[Narrator / Interviewer]

Back in Los Angeles, Primrose told me that she'd fallen in the river and two Venezuelan men had jumped in to pull her and Kim out. Total strangers on their own journey had risked their lives to help a woman and child who they didn't know, with whom they couldn't even speak. The river kills people who drink it too. The concentration of human waste and human remains in the water makes it incredibly dangerous to drink, even for people dying of thirst. I couldn't stop thinking of that river and how much it scared people. I'm feeling so grateful that Kimberly could still enjoy the water after all of that. Next time, I said they could take the train down to San Diego and we could all go to the beach.

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[Becky Milligan]

It's 1972. A young British family is attempting to sail around the world when disaster strikes. Their boat is hit by killer whales and it sinks in seconds. All they have left is a life raft and each other. This is the true story of the Robertson family and their fight to survive. Hosted by me, Becky Milligan. Listen to Adrift, an Apple original podcast produced by Blanchard House. Follow and listen on Apple Podcasts.

[High Key Podcast Host]

Looking for your next obsession? Listen to High Key, a bold, joyful, unfiltered culture podcast coming at you you every Friday.

[Mafia Game Player]

Now my question is, in this game of mafia that we're going to play, are you going to do better than me?

[Narrator / Interviewer]

Say it now. Duh. Period.

[High Key Podcast Host]

I'm going to eat.

[Mafia Game Player]

You're going to do better than me?

[High Key Podcast Host]

I'm going to eat. Yes, I literally will. Ryan will. I cannot wait till we both team up and get you out and then one of us gets the other out. Cuz we didn't realize they were a traitor the whole time and you were actually an innocent. Y' all won't even know that I'm a traitor.

[Mafia Game Player]

This is going be to be delicious.

[High Key Podcast Host]

Well, thank you for coming to our show.

[Mafia Game Player]

And on that note, thank you for coming to my show.

[High Key Podcast Host]

Listen to High key on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Narrator / Interviewer]

Let's go back to Mexico now, to Guadalajara, when many migrants told me that of all the things they had endured, including the jungle things, were the worst of all. Primoza's arrival in Mexico had not been great. And having paid one person, she was now being held by another group and asked for yet more money.

[Primrose]

They were kidnapping me. They were asking for $15,000 each. They said, we are not going to take you. And I was crying. Kim, she was also crying. The other people, they will get money paid and leave, I think, from my group. For the people they were kidnapping, it was only me left and Kim. And I was crying. Depression, I think. In November, I tried one to escape, run away. I fell down and my leg was something else. I didn't even go to hospital. My leg was swollen and the way they would treat us, it was bad. Especially when I came. The other one wanted touching me, the whole body, like. I was like, please, if you want to do something, you can do it to me. And plus, don't do it in front of my daughter. Because she was also crying. Disturbing. I didn't even go to hospital. I asked them to go to hospital. They refused. Yeah, James, I'm too emotional. I'm sorry. Cause.

[Narrator / Interviewer]

Primrose understandably had trouble even recounting this story. It's not the sort of memory that's easy to share. But just when things seemed to be beyond repair and when it seemed like there was nothing to hope for, it was Kimberly who came through to help her mum.

[Primrose]

Yeah, then. So Kimberly, she was like learning Spanish, so she was understanding some of the words. So she just telling me, there's a guy. Also was like, why can't you leave this woman? Because she doesn't have money. Because those people, they took my phone, they even break it in front of my eyes, the phone I was having from Africa.

[Narrator / Interviewer]

Kim's Spanish was pretty good by the time I met them in Los Angeles this summer. We went out for dinner and I asked Kim what she'd like to eat. She said she wanted to try seafood and practice her Spanish. So we went to a Mexican seafood place, complete with cabana decor, taxidermy fish on the wall, and the waitress kindly helped Kim order in Spanish, patiently showing her different menu items and smiling as Kim read them off. It was a happy moment for me and one I didn't think I'd ever be having when I moved here in the Bush era. But that part of Southern California has always been a welcoming place for me. When I was in my 20s and racing bikes for a living, I'd fly into LAX and often end up spending the night at Union Station or Elvera street before taking a train to San Diego. I speak Spanish and I always felt like the people I met there were such a better reflection of LA than the portrayal we see of it in the media now. A decade and a half later, sitting in a Mexican restaurant while a lady from Nayarit helped a little girl from Zimbabwe speak Spanish, it felt like a little glimpse of the way we're told things are here and the way they can be in working class communities. A nation built by migrants, yes, on stolen land, but one that nonetheless welcomed people who needed help and took the time to help them. Sadly, not everyone was helpful on Kim and Primrose's journey. And when her captors realized she had no money to pay them, they eventually just decided to let her go.

[Primrose]

Then I think on January 7th or 5th, I don't remember, then they just took us, Then they just dumped us. I don't even know. Then after I switched an immigration, immigration officer with the guy with the car, then I stopped him, then I translate to ask him to. Then they said, oh, okay, get inside the car. They took us to immigration. So we get a pass from there to another town. Because I was like shifting, shifting, shifting, asking to, I get Tijuana. But those guys before, they, they told me like, wherever you go, even if you are here near in Mexico, we put a tracker for you. So if you tell anyone, if we find, we are going to kill you. So me, I was scared, yeah, I was scared. So I didn't tell even the immigration officer, yeah, yeah, till I get to Tijuana. So I, we get to join on the 20th of January. So I just asked the Mexicans people. Then there's a guy also said, okay, I will try to help you but you need to pay. Then I said, I don't have money. Said if you don't have money, we can't help you. Say, well I was like only asking people, asking everywhere people to help me and the other people, they were just helping me because I said, people, look where I am with my daughter, I'm far. But my family, the other family, especially my, my other family member, they don't even know where I am. So those guys from Tijuana, they said, guys, if you are not crossing today, you are not going to cross because look, the president said he's going to shut down all the borders in between.

[Narrator / Interviewer]

November and January, non. Stop. Rumors circulated in giant WhatsApp groups. Trump was closing the border, Biden was opening it. Most migrants didn't have the means to get to the southern border. Even if they tried, CBP1 remained mostly useless and people spent days, weeks, months refreshing it to no availability. Those who did get appointments would find them cancelled once a new administration came into office. Their reward for doing things in the so called right way was to be left with no options in a country where they were anything but safe and far from home. Mostly, my friends from the jungle have retained their incredibly good humor. That Aswalen friends video caught me once when I was on a hike. They started laughing at me, sweating, going uphill and paused the conversation to shout encouragement for a while. A year after I left the jungle, I would still be more than happy to welcome these people as my neighbors, but it seems unlikely I ever will. Border crossings have dropped dramatically. They are not, as the administration sometimes claims, zero, but they are lower. People die crossing the border. Still, sometimes the volunteers you've heard in my last series have to hike miles into the desert and sift through sand and rocks to search their remains once nature scatters them like leaves blowing around the canyons. Sometimes I'm there with them. Sometimes we haul wooden crosses up mountains that don't have names on the map to mark the places where people's dreams died. Those people don't get a viral video or a story in the New York Times because even at a time where people are more engaged than they ever have been in my lifetime in advocacy for migrants, there's still not much attention paid to the actual border that every single migrant has to cross. Tomorrow that's what we're going to talk about. Let's hear from Primrose about how that same day, January 20th, went for her.

[Primrose]

Then they took us to the border, but we couldn't get in because the gates were closed. Then they said no, we have options, we need to take you. But you know, for me I had to take a risk because I was scared to stay in Mexico. So they took us with under the bridge, I think the sewage. We were walking with our stomach like under the bridge till we get to USA and Mexican border. So they put ladder for us to help us to but we paid them 350. 350 they charge. I found the other people. They also. We were 15. Yeah, we were 15. Yeah. Then they helped us to jump.

[Cool Zone Media Announcer]

It could happen. Here is a production of Cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from Cool Zone Media, Visit our website coolzone media.com or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts you can now find sources for it could happen here, listed directly in Episode Descriptions. Thanks for listening.

[NordicTrack Advertiser]

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[Podcast Advertiser]

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[Julian Edelman / Bowen Yang / Matt Rogers]

This is Julian Edelman from Games With Names. Fantasy football can be exhausting. I mean that literally. You're so anxious over your lineup you can't fall asleep. Best way to deal with it is unisom. There's a reason it's the number one doctor recommended over the counter sleep aid brand. It helps you fall asleep faster, wake up less and feel refreshed in the morning. Plus, unisom sleep tabs are clinically tested and proven effective and completely non habit forming. So make the ultimate sleeper pick and put it to bed with unisom. Use as directed. This is Bowen Yang from Lost Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang. And I'm Matt Rogers from the very same podcast. And guess what? It's the holiday season and you know what that means. Holiday parties, Beau holiday parties. They're the best. But there's always the stress of what to wear, what to bring. Easy solution. Okay, bring a bottle of Casamigos.

[Narrator / Interviewer]

Casamigos.

[Julian Edelman / Bowen Yang / Matt Rogers]

Wow, that is the move you can make. Casamigos Mules or Casamigos Espresso Martinis or Casamigos Cram. And don't forget about Casamigos Margaritas. A Casamigos margarita is the perfect cocktail all year round. Casamigos is just the perfect gift that keeps on giving. And as the saying goes, anything goes with my Casamigos. On second thought, a holiday party might be in order. That's a great idea. Please drink responsibly. Imported by Casamigos Spirits Company, White Plains New Amigos Tequila. 40% alcohol by volume.

[Podcast Advertiser]

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