First days

The early days here were awesome. I have been to Mexico before. I go to the pretty places - D.F., Oaxaca, the Yucatan, Chiapas. When I received the notice from Fulbright that I had been accepted I was thrilled - it said I had been assigned to Baja California - a state I had never visited. I love the west coast - the attitude, the water, so different than Atlanta. As I hung up my dry cleaning I realized what came before "Baja California": Tijuana. TIJUANA. Drug cartels, shoot outs in broad daylight, a city barely south of the American border. Not the pretty adventure I imagined as a "Fulbrighter". It took me a minute. I have spent the last two summers hiking migrant trails barely north of the border in Arizona, looking for the sick and dying with a group called No More Deaths. Look them up; they are wonderful people. These summers have changed my life and impacted the rest of the year I spend away from them - looking forward to getting back on that hot ass trail and giving water to valiant people that risk their lives in order to improve it. Maybe this Tijuana thing made sense.

I knew I should stay home this summer, but couldn't resist returning to Arizona to work with the migrants. My sister and I drove cross country again and had a blast, then worked in the desert for two weeks. After finishing up with No More Deaths, I made a quick trip to TJ to meet my exchange partner and have a look at the city, then returned to Atlanta. I returned to Tijuana a few weeks later, July 26th to be exact, after quickly packing everything I own into my mother's basement and vacating my apartment. I was exhausted.

Tijuana seemed hot and crazy. A fantastic man named Roberto helped us with everything at the behest of my exchange partner. As I rode from the airport with my exchange partner's family I saw men swilling gas and blowing fire from their mouths for money in the street. The border wall loomed large to my left and I was the only one paying attention to it - it was a reality for the Mexicans and a sick curiosity for me. Alec and I stayed in a cheap hotel near the center of town that rented rooms by the hour - but also offered free wifi. Roberto picked us up everyday to house hunt, though his family was anticipating a major event: his wife was donating a kidney to his ailing teenage son. "No bother" he said when we asked him if he had time to drive us all around town on a daily basis. From the car I saw the fire breathing men and groups of soldiers patrolling the city from open backed trucks in full camouflage, carrying automatic weapons. One afternoon I saw a man in the middle of a congested street, his perhaps eight year old daughter stood on his shoulders and jumped off, then solicited money. I didn't hate him for endangering his daughter, I just felt sick to my stomach. Each day Roberto picked us up from the center of town and drove us east towards the neighborhood of the school - east TJ - the desert - a low income area where American tourists like us are stared at - obviously no one comes this far for prescription drugs or huge margaritas and donkey shows. I was always relieved to return to the center; one day a group of under ten year olds ran into the street with lucha libre masks on and began throwing each other over shoulders and hitting one another with chairs - I wanted to feel pity, but all I could do was hang out the window with all the change I had in my hand and smile and clap. They were amazing. And then we would return to the hotel - our new paradise - though the federales had taken over an upper class hotel a couple of doors down. We ran past it everyday - their black face masks and automatic weapons scared us.