Rachel McCormick

it's physically impossible to bring enough water with you to survive.

So the volunteers and I would spend the daylight hours leaving hundreds of gallons of water in different places, hoping that people would find them and drink them and stay alive.

At night, we would sleep under the stars as the desert came to life with javelinas and rattlesnakes and so many different people from so many different places walking north

It wasn't until my second to last day in the desert that I actually met one of the people I was trying to help.

I had been walking a trail with a couple of other volunteers when we heard this faint groan in the bushes to our right.

As we got closer to the noise, we could see that there was a man there lying on his back and struggling to keep his eyes from rolling into the back of his head.

As I got even closer, I could see that his lips were cracked and his complexion was nearly gray.

I was in shock.

All I could think to do was to stare at this man and to check to see if he was alive.

And as I looked at his face, I could have sworn that I saw Idvi, my new husband, so far from home and yet so close to death.

And on the flight back to New York, all I could think about was this man.

Where had he come from?

Where had he been going?

Had he survived the damages of dehydration and exposure?

And I wondered, how had Idvi survived?

I'll probably never really know, but frankly, I'm just glad that he did.

Thank you.