All-Terrain Woman

Today was the first time that I heard the phrase "all-terrain woman." A news reporter was interviewing a young Honduran woman named Rosalin Guillermo with three children who had been waiting on the bridge between Guatemala and Mexico for twenty-four hours with no food or water and in desperation she had climbed down a sort of rope ladder into a boat that was below the bridge and some kind young men climbed down after her bringing her children with them and they all crossed he river together. When the reporter asked her how she had the courage to do something like that she said, "This bridge, this river, they can't stop me. I am an all-terrain woman." ("Soy una mujer todo terreno"). By the use the metaphor "all-terrain woman", she labeled herself as a strong person who can endure a lot of difficult situations.

When asked why she was making this difficult, dangerous, and uncertain journey to seek asylum in the United States with her young children she said, "I want them to study, have a good future. My husband is dead so I do this for my kids. I ask you with all my heart, wouldn't your mother do the same for you?" When the reporter mentioned that Donald Trump has a "zero tolerance" policy for her actions she said "I know about this," she says. "But I have faith in God. He has the final word. We did not come to rob or kill anyone. All we want to do is work and start a new life."

Her courage and determination remind me of a line from the English poet, James Allen:

The human will, that force unseen,
The offspring of a deathless soul,
Can hew the way to any goal,
Though walls of granite intervene.

My hat is off to all-terrain women everywhere!

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