Two Tales Of A City: Part I

My hometown of El Paso shares a common border with it’s sister city, Juarez, Mexico.  Most cities have to look to Europe to find a sister city; ours was just a stones throw away.  You didn’t need to have a great arm for that rock toss either.  The border between the 2 cities/countries is the Rio Grande river; the subject of Old West folklore and many mythical tales of it’s might.  My friend Pee Wee of Pole Dancing fame tells the story of his Grandmother coming to El Paso to visit for the first time.  She was ecstatic to finally be able to see the mighty river she had read about in her elementary school books.  When they drove her across it, she cried.  Not with awe and reverence; but with sadness and  disbelief.

Back in the day, I’m sure the Rio Grande was the mighty river of folklore; but early in the 20th century, it was dammed up to provide drinking and irrigation water for southern New Mexico and West Texas cities and farms.  The river was turned in to a ditch.  Even north of the Dam, up in northern New Mexico around Albuquerque and Santa Fe, it still isn’t a raging river.  So I figure that either the dinosaurs exaggerated, or the Conquistadors used waaay too much peyote.  The fact is; during the winter when the river is low, you can walk across it on the sandbars.  I used to do it when I was a kid.  Even with water, it isn’t much more than 8 to 10 feet in the deepest spots; most of it is knee to waist deep.  That isn’t to  say that you can’t drown or be carried away by the current, you can, my point is; when it comes to being  an International border, it’s hardly a deterrent.  Here’s a picture:

The vantage point for this picture is from the UTEP campus looking across the border (river) into Juarez.  Most of the houses (if you can call them that) that you see in the hills are made out of scrap wood, old tires, mud and cardboard.  Most of the roads are dirt, as are most of the floors in their homes.  The conditions there are 3rd world by anyone’s estimation.  The paved road you see is Interstate 10; running from Los Angeles to Jacksonville, Florida.  The United States Government finally put a large green sign up that read “International Border” with an arrow pointing at Mexico so that those driving through wouldn’t mistake the ramshackle houses as being part of El Paso.  The average daily wage for the people who live in those shanty-towns is about 3 dollars a day.  They are victimized by a Government that for years has been run by corrupt politicians who wire money to Swiss bank accounts as fast as it comes in.  Just last summer they got a little bit of it back.  If that isn’t enough, they have been losing their daughters at a rate of over 35 a year.

Since 1993, somebody(s)  has been preying on the women of Juarez.  530 young women have been murdered so far.  86 were murdered last year alone.  That’s just counting the ones that they’ve found.  Estimates of how many are still missing range from 100 to almost 800.  One expert on serial killers says there may be as many as 3 serial killers in the area.  Others suspect the police, the drug cartels, cults and even organ harvesters.  The point is; no one knows for sure what is happening to these young women, and the local, state and federal officials in Mexico are seemingly powerless to do anything.  Rampant corruption, actual participation in the crimes, bribery and cover-up are all possibilities.  Two excellent sources of additional information can be found here and here if you want to read the whole story.  It’s hard for me to comprehend: living in a country where justice is sacrosanct can be just yards away from a country that treats it as a hindrance.

I remember visiting Juarez all the time.  Well, not all the time, but the bars there never closed.  El Pasoans would go out until the bars closed at 2am, and then either head home or cross the bridge into Juarez.  You could dance the night away at the clubs, have a sandwich at Fred’s, sip a Tecate at The Kentucky Club or do Tequila shots at The Submarine Bar.  The Sub, as it was affectionately called, was a storefront door that opened to a downward staircase; that was it.  No stairs up, no store, no nothing-just a set of stairs that took you down to the bar.  They tore it down in the late 80′s and put in a parking lot.  Wow, Joni Mitchell could write a song.

Some of the things that never changed about Juarez were the kids selling gum on the street (“Chicle? Senor, chicle?”), the taxi drivers who promised to take you to the “Donkey Show” (Yes, it’s exactly what it sounds like, and no, I never went) and would then show you a picture of Farrah Fawcett and say; “Shees juon of zee ladies!”, and then, there was the picture guy.  There were actually several picture guys.  They would roam the bars with their camera and offer to take your picture as a keepsake.  The more people you got together for the picture, the cheaper the price would be.  Everything was negotiable in Juarez.  They didn’t use Polaroids because the film was too expensive and you’d end up posing 20 times, but what they did have was a darkroom in each bar.  He’d take your picture, you’d tell him how many copies you wanted, he’d collect the money first (trust isn’t a virtue in Juarez) and then go develop your pictures.  10 or 15 minutes later he’d come out and you’d see these:

The pictures usually set you back 2 or 3 dollars, but they were worth it.  Each one of those pictures is over 20 years old, and I can name every person in all of them.  Well, except for one guy who kinda jumped in at the last second; a friend of a friend of a friend.  They remind me of a more innocent time in Juarez, before the Serial killers and the Drug Cartels showed up.  Don’t get me wrong, it was never completely innocent and safe, it was a foreign country, but that was part of the allure.  Kind of like East and West Berlin, but with a Mexican accent.  Making sure you had enough money to pay the toll at the bridge on the way back was always a good idea.  Driving over was NEVER a good idea.

I have plenty of fond memories of Juarez, as do most of my family and friends; but not one of us would set foot across that bridge today.  It’s another world now.  The slaughter and subsequent discarding of over 500 women in their city should shame the authorities to take action, but they don’t.  Maybe that statement isn’t completely fair, as there are other forces at work across the river.  I’ll tell you about those next time.