I sat on a brown bench, one of a series which lined the sides of an inner-city bus going towards the airport in Ciudad Juárez. A picture of the Virgin Mary was plastered upon the maroon color that scaled the ceiling and walls of the bus, and there were a couple of men who either looked towards their phones or gazed straight forward. I inconspicuously glanced at my phone to make sure I was headed in the right direction, all should be good. My first brush with Juárez involved it being in route to me going to Central Mexico for Dia De los Muertos. Since then, I have been a couple of more times. I have a soft spot for the city and the people, from a mixture of having experiences that defy negative perceptions of the place, including the kindness shown towards me there, the resilience that the city embodies and the love that I have for Mexico. “Mira, aca!” the bus driver had pointed towards the smaller bus, implying that this is the one that would go by the airport. I had just been on a bus for hours coming from Denver towards Juárez, I had scheduled it would arrive during the day, hours before my flight. The initial bus was filled up with people from Denver and Las Cruzes, up until El Paso, where I found myself the only person left on the bus, headed across the border. At first, this made me nervous as this has historically not been a very safe city. The driver was pretty patient with me going through customs, walking inside the building with a softened look on his face while he made sure everything was going smoothly. The bus did not go to the airport directly, and he went out of his way to help me find a bus that would go by the airport. Taking buses is still something that makes me a little nervous, and this was my first time in Juárez with limited Spanish, but I could see that it was headed in the direction of the airport and took the risk. He invited me to stand up in the front part of the bus next to him so I could get a better view of La Equis (The X), a tribute to a former Mexican President, Benito Juárez. He was the first Mexican President with Aztec ancestral blood and is said to have been an intersection of Spanish and indigenous Mexican culture, hence the "X". "Gracias", I said as I walked towards the smaller bus with the maroon walls. I suddenly felt embarrassed. I hadn't exchanged money yet and needed to pay the fair. I embarrassingly gave the driver what I had in quarters, he didn't show any outward objection, but I hated to give this instead of pesos. I eventually signaled to get off the bus and stood next to a billboard reading "Bienvenidos a Cd. Juarez", and made a quick cross across the highway, towards the airport. I found myself upon another bus in Juárez on my way back from Central Mexico, Iooking out towards the mountains to my left. The words "Cd Juarez La bibla es la verdad leela" translating into, "The Bible is the truth, read it", were painted in large white letters on the mountain. I felt a sense of bewilderment that this city has so much violence within it, feeling safe but guarded on my bus journey towards the United States-Mexican border. The traffic condensed, and I could see the increasing congestion was because of the approaching border crossing. I looked around, stood up and walked towards the door on the bus, looking over at the driver as a signal that I was getting off. The door creaked open as I took steps down, looked over at where there were lines of people walking into Mexico, and crossed traffic to join them. I must have looked lost, as I stood at the intersection of the road bridging the U.S. and Mexico, and a curved road that followed the border on the Mexican side. I had made no plans to go into Juárez, it was a spur of the moment gut feeling that took me off of that bus, and I followed it. Walking forward, I could see shops on both sides of me, with Spanish signs and graffiti along the walls. I saw a mural of Juan Gabriel, one of Mexico's famed singers, scaling the side of a whole building. I looked around at the graffiti work, there were multiple stencils saying, "Ni una mas" (Not one more) with pink crosses covering each each piece. They were condemning gender-based violence across Mexico, and Juárez is a place where femicides occur. These mass murders against women include a majority who are innocent maquiladora workers who go missing and whose bodies are found mutilated and dismembered in the desert, dumpsters and sewers. Home to the Juárez, Barrio Azteca and La Linea cartels, the city is one of the world's most violent. During of my visits, I stopped by the currency exchange en route to the United States, where a man told me that he was from Juárez and he wouldn't recommend that anyone visit, not now. I heartbreakingly believed that he meant it, by the serious tone of his voice, the wideness in his eyes, the otherwise expressionless look that came my way, what I know about the city and his expressed disbelief that I was there, that I was "brave". Whatever you want to call it, I have the freedom to exercise movement and will, and it is intentions and actions that I use my life for that constitutes bravery, not simply going to a place that could potentially have a dangerous outcome. I thought of a woman who I kayaked with for hours in Colombia, we were strangers and I don't remember her name, but that genuine of a connection that was made in the adventures that I love having is one of the things that I find addicting about traveling. We paddled through Guatapé as we talked romance, she was thirty and newly single, after leaving a toxic relationship. She had spent months in Brazil, and had agreed to deliver some supplies in one of the most dangerous favelas. She was warned, "It'll be dangerous. Like, please consider what this means." She told me of how she was in the corner of a small shop on the street and people with guns burst in, yelling in Portuguese leaving her silent and disassociating. Dizzy and out of her body, as if she was truly an on-looker, peering in from the couch at a movie screen as the scenes rolled on in slow motion, leaving her clutching at the end of her seat with a heartbeat too loud to make out anything that was said, in a different language or not. She looked back at me as we talked about the point of placing yourself in certain situations. "There would be some tourists who would just rummage through the place, you know? Leaving with this large story like, oh, look at me I went into somewhere dangerous. They get the oohs and ahhs, while there are people living there every day. They can't leave that situation. Some people are born into it, are stuck in deep poverty. It's rather distasteful what some tourists do". Which reminds me of selfies, social media, and the "white savior" complex, but I will save that for another post. As I continued forward, I could see that there was an increasing amount of people walking around, I had reached the city center. This is an area I would return to again in the future, as I felt safe around the mass of people, weaving their way through the markets and watching street performers dance and sing. I ate an elote (whole piece of corn) covered with mayonnaise and chili powder, as I walked alongside a cathedral, where a group of about 25 young people with signs were smiling and walking up to people and hugging them. They were free hugs signs, and I must have received and given over 10 hugs. I could see a trail of smiles surrounding these teenagers, and I was one of the people who bore the infectious warmth that they gave freely. My ears perked up as I could hear music pouring out into the already music-filled scenario, and followed it into a mall, where there were over 100 people circled around the source. Trumpet players were next to women who were stepping one foot in front of the other, their feet poking out of the ends of their colorful dresses, as they sang in rhythm with those playing acoustic guitars . Ciudad Juárez is one of the many cities that sit along the U.S.-Mexico border, and whose large population and inter-city relations with El Paso make it the largest urban border area in the world. The two cities are interconnected, by economics, family, friends and close proximity, with thousands of people commuting over the border daily. In contrast to its sister city, El Paso is one of the most safe urban centers in the U.S. This sister and brotherhood between the cities embodies a type of parallel nature that exists between the United States and Mexico. "The X" Monument in Ciudad Juárez. - Credited El Paso Museum of History. http://www.digie.org/media/391
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Jessica -Thank you for visiting! This is my personal blog, where I write about social justice, geography, culture, and my own encounters and reflections from around the world. Categories-
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