I get a pass

I find scenes like these so strange and so interesting. You could be put in prison for swimming across to the far bank of the Rio Bravo without the correct papers, yet it looks like nothing. It looks like any other river. I wonder, if the river changed course and snaked its way around northern Texas, would the Texans become Mexicans again or would the Mexicans just loose their right to bathe in the Rio Bravo?

I think it was Ryszard Kapuscinski who wrote the Great Wall of China is something along the lines of a tragedy rather than a wonder. All the more so that you can see it from space. A great display of humanity’s love of division and inability to understand each other. How much money does the US spend each year on protecting this river? For how many people is crossing this river their ultimate goal and dream? How many people die each year trying to do just that?

So many people ask me, “pero, ¿tu puedes cruzar la puente sin problemas?” Y yo les digo “si, creo que si, pero no me interesa tanto.” Maybe I get my pass too easily after being born on an Atlantic island some 4,000 miles away.

A couple taking pictures near the Mexican border town of Ciudad Acuna. The bank on the far side of the river is the southern border of the USA and the state of Texas.