El Cero

Joven …work in progress,

me — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 22:35:10 +0000

Where’s a good place to be kidnapped?

me — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 21:25:25 +0000

The scariest place I’ve ever been to.

One Hundred Metres

me — Sat, 03 Sep 2011 21:40:04 +0000

Mexicans bathing in the Rio Bravo as it runs through the Mexican town of Piedras Negras. The International Bridge, the US town of Eagle Pass, and the Eagle Pass golf course can all be see on the far side of the river.

Rumours

me — Wed, 22 Jun 2011 03:15:58 +0000

Juan Jose, he’d taken 2 months to reach northern Mexico from his home in Honduras.

I’ve been passing time in these places called Casas de Migrantes or Migrant Centres. They’re a way to find stories rather than a story in themselves. Some people are heading south while others are heading north. People come with accounts of what’s happening in different parts of the country, as well as their own incredible personal tales. On Friday Juan Jose offered to take me across the border with him. He wanted his story to be documented so that the US president would take pity, and grant him political asylum. I wasn’t that comfortable with the motivation to be honest, as I knew I would never be able to meet his expectations, I also knew I just wasn’t prepared for such a journey this time either. I didn’t have the time and I only carry enough money to cover any particular trip. It feels like a serious undertaking, swimming across the river followed by a 4-day walk through the bush. Walking at night to dodge La Migra and sleeping during the day. For me however, successfully getting into the US feels far less daunting than successfully leaving Mexico. I’m told there are men who guard the river on the Mexican side, they’ll try to charge anyone wanting to cross a $200 fee. If you can’t or won’t pay they may well kill, or at the very least kidnap you and sometimes they’ll kidnap you even if you do pay. Kidnapping seems to be very big business in Mexico at the moment.

Listen:

Street Theatre

me — Fri, 10 Jun 2011 01:01:46 +0000

It’s 7.30am, you’re in a narrow one-way street. A young guy walks quickly past you. A car drives up the wrong way and stops alongside him. They’re 2-3 meters away. You’re not really paying attention. Then, time slows down.

- That’s a gun. Shit, that guy’s pointing a gun.

- I don’t know how long I just stood and stared.

You duck behind a car, you’re crouched next to the wheel. They back off, the guy runs past you. The car reverses after him. Two shots. The adrenaline’s making you shake. You walk down the street but there’s nothing to see, they’ve gone. There’s no sign, no blood. Time speeds up. The buses rumble past, the taxis beep advertising rides, the people are off to work and you’ve still got a full day with so many things to do.

Off to Church

me — Mon, 06 Jun 2011 02:42:34 +0000

La Casa de Migrante in Matamoros on their way back from the Sunday Mass.

Apparently a year ago the group was regularly attacked on their way to and from church. Armed men tried to kidnap and then hold would-be migrants for ransom. Now they hold crucifixes, bibles and sing songs as a form of protection and they say the situation in general has got better this year. La Casa is located 10km from the centre of town and the neighbourhood feels quite isolated. Matamoros is in the border state of Tamaulipas and is the most northeastern town in Mexico. Tamaulipas is one of the most troubled areas of Mexico at the moment.

It still amazes me how much I stand-out in this country. I’m a ‘Guero’ and assumed to be American. Everybody notices and many people stare. Normally I don’t mind, however I felt quite exposed standing on a street corner here. It’s a poor neighbourhood but there are plenty of expensive SUV’s with blacked out windows flying around. I can’t help asking who the people are inside. I just try to look away and hope they only see the Mexican I’m standing with. Apart from anything else some people may believe I’ll be worth a healthy ransom.

Which way home?

me — Thu, 26 May 2011 16:44:55 +0000

Back at the end of March the son of a Mexican poet was murdered alongside friends in the city of Cuernavaca, Morelos just south of Mexico City. His father Javier Sicilia called for nation-wide protests against the violence in Mexico and the current government policies being used to combat it. I saw the protest in Monterrey and some of the things that struck me most were its size and the people who were leading it. Now I don’t know the history of protests around this issue in Monterrey, and I don’t know the traditions of political movements within Mexico itself, but I felt the absence of traditional community leaders on the day. The issue is massively important for the region and Monterrey, but I was left with the feeling of a fringe event, that saying Stop the Violence was in some sense controversial, even embarrassing.

The protest in front of the government palace, Monterrey.

However, the majority of the people who were there, and who were willing to stand in front of the TV cameras and reporters were normal, young 20-30 year-olds. They were prepared to talk about and criticise a situation in full public view, that many people struggle to mention within the safety of their homes. Young people who don’t have any protection from heavily armed security contingents, or who can rely on the sanctity projected by the Catholic Church within Mexico. Last weekend as I watched people mourn at the site of another indiscriminate killing, it was the same young people who were alone, putting themselves in front of the cameras, speaking out about what was happening and finding alternative ways to be active against the violence other than just using more violence. In the circumstances I find this incredibly powerful.

A guitarist in front of a pock-marked wall, plastered over with political messages criticising the current situation in Mexico.

Many people I talk to say the violence will be over after the next presidential election in just over a year. They hope that the next President will work with, rather than fight against the drug cartels and the situation will normalise. I can fully understand people being desperate for some peace and I’m not a Mexican who’s lived in Mexico over the last few years, but this view really surprised me. Will this problem – and all the moral questions that have come with it – not just rise again the next time all these parties are in disagreement? Will everything that’s happened just be forgotten?

Fear

me — Mon, 23 May 2011 04:04:43 +0000

According to one Latin American business magazine, the city of Monterrey in northeastern Mexico was the safest city in Latin America 5-6 years ago. Unfortunately the drug related violence now means Monterrey is given a special mention in both the U.S. State Department’s and the British Foreign Office’s travel warnings on Mexico. I don’t keep a record of the killings but they seem to happen almost daily alongside many other terrible and disturbing acts. For me second only to the violence itself, is seeing people living in fear. Fear disables people. People can’t think, speak or move freely.

Scared to say certain names, scared to discuss certain topics, scared to talk to strangers, scared because you don’t know who is who and who is talking to who, scared to leave your home after a certain time, scared to go to certain places, scared of the roadblocks, scared of the carjackings, scared of the robberies, scared of the extortion, scared of the kidnappings, scared of the disappearances, scared by the stories of torture, decapitation and mass graves, scared of the men in their masks with guns almost as big as their bodies, scared because you have no trust in the political structures or the security forces that guard them, scared of the nightly bursts of indiscriminate automatic gun fire.

Boundaries

me — Fri, 13 May 2011 02:51:34 +0000

Back when things were very different.

Mansour Mortezaee hasn’t got anything to do with Mexico as far as I know, but he’s certainly felt the impact of the boundaries his birthplace has put on him. Exiled from Iran in 1978, Mansour has had a successful career as a classical musician and teacher in the U.K., but he described the experience of being separated from his land as ‘very painful’ and the reality of not being part of Iran as ‘very difficult’. He was still making the U.K. his home after all this time.

Conversation with a priest

me — Sun, 01 May 2011 18:44:48 +0000

“So how long have you been here?”

“A couple of nights.”

“You see I already knew you were in town before you came here today, and if I know you’re here then so will other people. Do you understand?”

I had just spent the last two evenings sitting in his office trying to organise 20 minutes with him – which I hadn’t done elsewhere. However comments like this are stressful and they make you pause, I certainly don’t feel I can work as freely as I’d like in such an atmosphere.