mexican reality

today's class with enrique was extremely informative, with new words like normal, but also with a great geography and cultural lesson.  i was asking him about places in mexico and what they're like, what places shouldn't be missed.  and the subject veered off to violence in certain areas, and what's going on in mexico now.

the basic idea is that i shouldn't be afraid to go to any specific area of mexico.  sure, there are bad places, like go to new york but don't go on certain streets, same thing here.  every town has its bad streets, but no place is completely bad.  even in the areas of mass killings, tourists have never been targets.  you'd have a better chance of getting robbed by some random guy on the metro than be a victim of drug crime.

the big drug traffickers are pretty careful about who they kill and cut into pieces, they don't just shoot who ever is in the area.  that's just in the united states!  they don't have a term similar to 'going postal', and they don't have kids that bring guns to schools and spray their classmates.  large scale violence against people you don't know doesn't occur here.  almost every person who was found dead was killed purposefully.  and everyone knows why.

whether true or not, enrique told a story about his father who lives in chihuahua.  he was sitting at a table playing cards with his friends, like he does every afternoon, and a man with a gun walks in and asks for a man by name.  the man answered, and got shot in the head.  no one was surprised, or did anything about it, because this man had a small hardware store in a small town, yet somehow made enough money to have several houses and all his kids had cars and studied in europe.

before i left kauai several people told me that i was stupid to even think about going to mexico, its too dangerous.  but with a bit of common sense there's no reason why i shouldn't go wherever i want here.

which brings up the list of places in mexico that need visiting.  it got bigger today.  i don't know how i'm ever going to move on to central america.  there's a train the goes to copper canyon, which is deeper than the grand canyon, although not as wide.  sounds good.  and if i'm in mazatlan, thinking about going to la paz, why not go north for a bit and check out the crazy desert next to the ocean in baja california?  and if i'm going all the way up there...tijuana??  i think i'm the only person i know who hasn't been to tijuana.

but i'm gonna have to rein it in here, there are far too many other places to see than mexico.  or i'm gonna have to find a way to travel for a living.  mexican sugar daddy?  i don't think that term exists here either.  but i'll keep looking.

chili rellenos from today's cooking class