Fatigue, solidaridad, and pecans!

Amber Mathwig
Nov 4 · 5 min read
Did you know this is what pecans looked like on the tree? I didn’t.

It’s been a week. I spent most of the past week battling myself to stay awake for more than a couple hours at a time. Last fall, after years of pressing for answers, I was finally diagnosed with a daytime sleep disorder. I was given some medications that promote “alertness”, but they are only so effective. When I am in a down cycle, just sitting can cause me to completely lose any energy I had moments before and even fall asleep. Waking up early, particularly forced through an alarm, is impossible.

The advantage to not being committed to a regular work schedule now is that I can honor my body a bit more, which is resulting in much shorter time periods of being asleep. When I was working a regular schedule, some of my unplanned naps could mean several hours — often missing out on activities planned with others. Between this and the three days of rain this past week (and my friend traveling for speaking engagements), I spent my waking hours entertaining the dogs and doing some research I hope to share with y’all in the future.

I made it back to the immigration court on Thursday morning, finding once again that often the biggest impediment to an immigrant, refugee, or asylum seeker being treated fairly and kindly in this unfair and unkind system is the judge who is assigned to their case. Whereas some judges appear to believe it is part of their duty to dehumanize the people standing before them in the courts, others at least have the courtesy to call the people by their full names (as opposed to “A numbers” — Alien Control Number) or allow their representing lawyer via telephone to speak to them briefly in their native language to ensure they understood what just happened.

Thursday evening I was alerted to a situation in which a man seeking asylum, who had been granted bond, was in need of assistance to return to his family (in this case, family are close friends). They could not pick him up and had paid someone else to do so and that person did not follow through. They had exhausted all their savings and cash to pay his legal fees, bond, and to give to the person who was supposed to pick him up.

Through the greatness of my Twitter community, we had bus ticket money plus spending cash for the individual within 10 minutes of my posting the need! He did not know this, of course, until his lawyer met him outside the detention center. He and two other men were hosted by Paz Amigos in Columbus for the night, who provided them with a travel backpack with blanket, pillow, and snacks, and ensured they made it to the bus station at the appropriate time the next day. What a difference from the days not too long ago when ICE would simply drop them off late at night, with whatever possessions they had at the time they were kidnapped by the government, to await their buses. It got to 35 degrees in Columbus the other night. A warm, safe bed and hot meal was a much better alternative.

Which reminds me — it’s almost winter, even in the South! Detainees are now being issued light jackets as part of their winter uniforms, but they are only allowed to wear them in the yard (which they are still restricted from after over a month due to September’s sit in demonstration) and in their living “pods”. They can not wear them to court, meal times, etc. They are allowed to wear long sleeved shirts, which are available for purchase in the commissary for $8–10. If you’d like to contribute to a solidarity fund for detainees to purchase long sleeved shirts, please see the link below. I will be managing placing the funds on individual commissary accounts and notifying the recipient.

Finally — pecans! Look, I don’t know how many I’ve actually picked up at this point but it’s a lot. When I go to crack them for use, such as for a 1/3 cup needed for banana pecans muffins, I find that there are many more minutes of labor expected than I anticipated! Now I know why pecans cost so much. Basically the cracker is going to be sitting out all the time, so I can knock a few out whenever the mood strikes me. If I’ve promised you pecans — don’t expect them shelled!

Ways to help

Shirts for Stewart!

Notify me here if you’d like to be on a contact list to provide funds for a detained person for their phone account or other commissary needs.

Donate to Paz Amigos here

As always, I am in need of remote work so that I can continue to stay here in Lumpkin while supporting my need for gas, groceries, truck payments, and very necessary wine. Check out my website here.

If you’d just like to chip in directly to help with my monthly expenses:
Paypal: paypal.me/AMathwig
Venmo: @Amber-Mathwig (black background with electric red rose)
CashApp: $ambermathwig

What I’ve been writing this week

Working on something for Medium, but otherwise I’ve mostly been writing FOIA’s this past week! Federal government FOIA’s for a project I’m working on and long overdue FOIA’s related to my termination from UNC Chapel Hill. I am expecting to hear the decision of the committee from my last grievance hearing this week (or hear that they’ve requested an extension, more likely) and want to be ready to refute more of the argument being used for my dismissal. I’ve, obviously, never believed that HR exists for the benefit of the employee, but this has still been a heck of an experience.

What I’ve been reading this week

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