Despedidas

Today marks 14 weeks since I first arrived in El Paso.  The summer has absolutely flown by and now I'll be headed to Massachusetts to visit my family and friends on Monday before heading back to Emory on the 23rd.

The past week has pretty much just been a series of despedidas.  Jill, my supervisor, had a party at her house on Saturday night.  She has an incredible house and a magnificent view, and it was cool to spend time with a very diverse group of people (about half of whom I hadn't met before but who were invited because Jill thought I should meet them).  The special treat of the night was fresh watermelon mojitos- yum!

The next morning, a Lutheran church around the corner from my house had a beautiful service and lunch to say goodbye to the Border Servant Corps volunteers.  On Tuesday, the Labor Justice Committee had a despedida to honor their two most recent full-time volunteers.  Then on Wednesday, I had a special comida with the two women that I've worked most closely with in Juárez.  They took me to a really nice restaurant in a part of the city I hadn't been to yet and we had a delicious meal.  I even tried lengua (tongue), which wasn't as gross as I expected.

Goreti, me, and Beatriz at Maria Chuchena's

On Thursday, my office completely surprised me with a cake, flowers, and a U.S.-Mexico Border Health Commission 10th anniversary medal.  It was actually really amusing because they turned the lights off in the kitchen and awkwardly guided me in, so I expected everyone to yell "Surprise" and start singing "Happy Birthday"...but it wasn't my birthday, so they just turned the lights on and then Adriana, who I have spent a great deal of time with this summer, presented me with my goodbye gifts.  It was super sweet of them to plan it for Thursday because although yesterday was my last day of work, they realized that Fridays are super hectic days in the office and it's hard to get everyone together.

Tina, Denise, Adriana, me, Nicole, Jill, and Hector at the Commission

Yesterday I cleaned out my desk, sent out lots of thank you emails, interviewed an obstetrician, and worked on editing a paper with Jill.  I also managed to have lunch with some folks from Pax Christi at the Tejas Café, which is a very strange Mexican-American diner around the corner from my office.  After work, I spent some time with my next-door neighbors before eating family dinner with my roommates.

I still have one more interview to do by phone, but other than that, I'm just about ready to leave.  This practicum experience has been an excellent one, and I anticipate being back on the U.S.-Mexico border in the near future.  

Summer highs and lows

Unbelievably enough, I only have 3 more days of work! Things are noticeably winding down.  I'm caught up on everything, and am now just waiting on two of my participants to get released from the hospital so I can do my final interviews.

In beginning to reflect on my overall experience on the border this summer, I have identified my favorite and least favorite aspects of life here on the border:

Low: Macho Culture
I realize that sexism exists everywhere and that it is manifested in a multitude of ways.  However, for one reason or another, this summer, the machísmo of Mexican/Hispanic men in particular has really, really bothered me.  I hate having men "ch-ch" at me on the street.  (For those of you who don't know what I'm talking about, I'll just have to demonstrate for you because there's really no good way to describe the awkward whistle used generally by Hispanics/Latinos to get someone's attention.)  I hate being told to wear long pants when it's 105º and sunny so that I receive less undesired attention.  I hate seeing men literally stop on the sidewalk to look at my butt, or at the butts of other women walking by.  I hate hearing men make comments about my body while I'm at the gym.  By no means is it every Mexican/Hispanic man, and by no means is objectifying women unique to this population.  But it is absolutely disgusting.  Can you imagine if I, as a woman, objectified men's bodies in this way?  I'm not really sure why I put up with it, other than the fact that I don't quite know what a good retort would be.  

High: Southern Hospitality
One thing I've always loved about spending time with Hispanics/Latinos is the culture of hospitality.  While my experience has taught me that many gringos thrive on the "by invitation only" idea, our neighbors to the south have the philosophy of "the more the merrier" when it comes to social gatherings.  For example, last Sunday evening, I attended a birthday party for a member of the Labor Justice Committee's daughter.  I wasn't actually invited, but two of my good friends here were, and they both saw it fit to invite me.  There were at least 50 guests present, along with a water slide, trampoline, piñata, and enough food to feed a small army.  I don't think I even met the birthday girl, who was turning 6 or something, but our host went completely out of his way to make the 3 gringo guests feel welcomed.  We received a special tour of the house, which he and his family had re-modeled to become a 2-family home (with his sister's family living in the other half).  We were also introduced to all the adult members of the family, and people were always coming over to where we were sitting to make sure we had enough to eat and drink.  The party was clearly a time to bring together the entire family and all of their friends and neighbors, and at 9pm when I left, the end was nowhere in sight.  I think my favorite part of the event was how many people showed up with an extra table or a few chairs.  All are welcome indeed.  I can't help but wish my country would show a little bit more hospitality to this population as a whole.

A full week in El Paso

I ended up not going to Juárez at all this past week because I was afraid of missing follow-up appointments with women in El Paso.  This ended up working out really well for my project, but I found myself kind of missing going into Mexico.  Therefore, I figured I would share the two most interesting things that I've seen in Juárez this summer:

1.  A few weeks ago, when I was waiting to get picked up at the hospital to be driven back to the bridge, I decided to venture into the old mall across the street.  The vast majority of the stores were closed up, but there was a decent crowd of people inside the grocery store and there were also people sitting on benches enjoying treats from the various stands.  However, the biggest surprise was that there was an ice skating rink in the middle of the hallway!  It was shut down "temporarily" according to the small hand-written sign, but I don't know how much I believe that since there wasn't any type of floor on the "rink".  Regardless, Ciudad Juárez would be the absolute last place I would think to look for an ice skating rink, so now I am on a quest to find one in El Paso.  Who knows, maybe we will see people from the desert skating in the Winter Olympics in two years!

2.  On the international bridges, there are lots of signs about how there is no selling/soliciting/etc. allowed.  Usually, the people selling gum and nuts and other random goods are right in front of the signs, making for a great photograph, but I figure that would be kind of awkward.  Anyway, one day about two weeks ago, I went over the bridge only to buy more minutes for my cell phone and to buy an agua fresca.  About 10 minutes later, when I was ready to walk back over to El Paso, the bridge was closed and there were at least 6 police vehicles.  I got a little nervous, especially when I saw the Mexican police escorting approximately 8 men off the bridge.  Then I was really confused because they sat the men in the back of the police pick-up truck and started driving away.  It didn't make sense until they re-opened the bridge and, for the first time since I've been here, there was no one trying to sell random stuff.  Evidently, every once in a while, the Mexican police decide to crack down on people not obeying the bridge rules and arrest the people they can, presumably to make an example out of them.  (In case you were wondering, the U.S. half of the bridge usually has Customs and Border Protection agents hanging out, telling potential vendors to stay on the Mexican side of the bridge.)  Two things about this situation kind of made me chuckle.  First, I've never seen a group of people being "arrested" before without handcuffs and just sitting in the back of a pick-up truck.  Granted, I doubt any of them would try to jump out since there was also a police officer in the back with them holding an AK-47.  Second, the next day, there was plenty of business taking place on the bridge again, and they were the same people that I always see.  This suggests that the penalty can't be that big of a deal and that the benefits of trying to make money on the bridge must outweigh the potential costs of apprehension.

I so wish that I had been able to capture photos of either of these, but hopefully you get the picture!

Progress

Hello, August! I can't believe you're already here!

Last week was absolutely insane as far as work goes.  In El Paso, I went from having 5 participants to having 10 participants and in Ciudad Juárez, I went from having 5 participants to having 8 participants.  I was super stressed, but I'm now in a much better place in preparing to do qualitative analysis for my thesis.

In El Paso, two of the women actually live in Ciudad Juárez but are both U.S. citizens by birth and want the same for their babies.  It was super interesting talking to them about their utilization of health care (I'm at least 99% sure that they're both paying cash for their prenatal care and subsequent hospital stay, which is something that the majority of people on both sides of the border cannot afford).

In Juárez, I spent two days last week at a Seguro Social hospital.  This is the system that people who have formal employment but who are not federal workers.  The hospital is much larger than the seguro popular hospital I was in before, and it also seems to be much better managed.  This is likely because seguro popular is the system that covers people who are either unemployed or who lack formal employment (e.g. the people who sell delicious aguas frescas in the streets).  In the latter system, people tend to be poorer and less educated than those who are part of Seguro Social.

I was very lucky to meet some nice people at this hospital who could help explain how this health system works.  I also formally interviewed three women.  One of them isn't due until early September, so she technically didn't qualify for my study because I won't be able to get follow-up with her, but we were both bored in the waiting room so I went ahead with the interview.  Plus, I already am lacking follow-up for the five women from the seguro popular, so it doesn't seem like that big of a deal to "lose to follow-up" at this point.  For the other two women, I was able to interview them literally hours before they gave birth and then about two hours after they delivered.  This wasn't ideal- the women were in pain beforehand and exhausted afterwards.  The whole situation was super awkward, too, because I was either interviewing women in their hospital beds, which were rolled out into the hallway, or I was wearing scrubs and hanging out in the labor & delivery area. When the latter happened, it was even harder to remind people that no, I'm not a doctor.  (This conversation always ends up lasting was longer than necessary because everyone wants to tell me that in Mexico, you have to be a medical doctor in order to study public health.)  By the way, the #1 way to figure out that a woman is too tired to do an interview is when she falls asleep mid-sentence.  Yeah, that happened...

About 90% of my time during my days in Mexico last week consisted of sitting around, mostly reading "Twelve Patients," which happens to be the best book I've read in quite a long time (Thanks, Dad!), or thinking about how sweaty I was since the hospital air conditioning was non-existent (I think it was just broken last week). I won't write about all the gory details of what I witnessed in the hospital, but if you want to know, just ask ;-)

Needless to say, amidst running around last week, I was trying to frantically keep up with transcribing my interviews.  That pretty much failed, but I am happy to report that as of today I am completely caught up.  Phew, just in time to start a series of postpartum interviews in El Paso tomorrow!

Love and generosity

(Disclaimer: all names in this entry have been changed)

For the past week or so, Casa Puente has had an awesome guest, who I'll refer to as Gloria.  Her story has greatly inspired me, especially through a very hectic week, so I wanted to share a little bit with you.

Gloria is from the southeastern United States.  She worked for a cleaning company many years ago, and one day another worker, who I'll refer to as Maria, called her up.  Maria, who is from southern Mexico, was a teenager and didn't speak much English at the time, and Gloria spoke practically no Spanish.  However, through the help of a stranger, Maria was able to communicate to Gloria that she (Maria) was being held captive by the cleaning company contractor because they said she owed money for her coyote.  Maria had run away, but had no where to go, and she had found Gloria's phone number.  At this point, not knowing what else to do, Gloria took Maria in.

Gloria has a son (who I'll refer to as John) who is around the same age as Maria, and the two of them became very close.  Maria taught John Spanish as he helped her improve her English.  Gloria tried to warn Maria that John was bad news- that he was heavily involved in drugs and alcohol- but Maria didn't seem to mind.  It turns out that Maria's older brother in Mexico was the same way.  In fact, he would sexually abuse Maria when she was a child to the point that Maria's mother sent Maria to a convent when Maria reached menarche for the sole purpose of preventing Maria from getting pregnant.

Anyway, before long, Maria and John got married and had their first child.  However, John only continued to  use drugs and alcohol, and became quite abusive.  After giving birth to their second child, Maria decided to move back to Mexico with her children so she could be with her parents.  It wasn't long before John followed her down, and from there things got much worse.

Over Christmas this past year, Gloria went to Mexico to visit Maria and John and her two grandchildren.  In advance of her visit, she sent money so that they could buy food and presents for the holidays and so they could gas up the car to pick Gloria up at the airport.  When they picked Gloria up at the airport, John said that the car didn't have gas, and could Gloria help them out.  Then, when they got to Maria and John's house, there was almost nothing in the refrigerator and Maria told Gloria that there were no presents for the kids.  Gloria became very angry, asking what happened to the money she sent, but Maria didn't know anything about it.

Although Gloria very clearly struggles financially, she rented a place nearby to stay for a few weeks and took her grandchildren for the holidays.  She was also finally able to get Maria to admit that John is abusive and that he is involved with drug lords in Mexico.  She said that the kids are afraid of him and that she's scared for all of their lives.

So, flash forward to 7 months later.  Maria called Gloria to tell her that her third baby is due at the end of August, but that she "doesn't want to think about how it was conceived".  Maria decided it was time to leave John once and for all, but she didn't quite have the means to do it on her own.  So Gloria called a domestic abuse hotline and found out that she should have Maria come to Juárez from southern Mexico and then cross into El Paso to seek protection under VAWA.  Gloria sent Maria money for a bus ticket and then drove more than halfway across the southern United States with a friend.  Maria made the 3-day bus trip to Juárez (side note: this had to be terrible, especially since she's 8 months pregnant) and Gloria met her there.  They stayed for a few days in Juárez, and then they all crossed into El Paso (except for Maria's oldest child, who she sent to stay with her sister in Mexicali).  Gloria and her friend crossed the bridge with ease since they're U.S. citizens, but Maria and her 3-year-old daughter were at the port of entry for a few hours to go through the first VAWA interview.  (Luckily, she said the interview wasn't as bad as the interrogation that she was prepared for.)

Currently, Maria and her daughter are staying in a shelter in El Paso, waiting for a court date for the processing of Maria's visa (oftentimes people seeking VAWA visas are held in detention centers, but Maria is considered a humanitarian case due to her late stage of pregnancy and thus is allowed to stay in a special shelter as long as she does not try to leave El Paso).  Gloria's friend took a bus back home, so Gloria is hanging out with us, trying to figure out what comes next.  They're still unsure about when Maria's son is coming to El Paso and about whether the long trip back to Gloria's house will be too much for Maria before the baby is born.  Plus, now they have to figure out where Maria and the kids are going to live, since they feel like if John comes looking for them, the first place he'll look is his mother's house.

To be honest, hearing this story come out bit by bit has seemed more like a movie than real life.  I was able to spend several hours talking to Gloria last weekend, during which she told me that her son would literally kill her if he found out that she is helping Maria.  She expects that he will end up dead somewhere in southern Mexico over the next few years, just like many other people involved with drug cartels.  She also laments that she "created such a monster."

It's hard to imagine anything but pure love coming out of Gloria.  I have never met anyone so generous with what little she has.  And Maria is the same way.  I have felt so blessed having them, Maria's beautiful daughter, and their super cute dog in my life for the past week or so, as they have taught me so much about what extreme kindness really looks like.

Juarense adventures

I've been spending lots and lots of time in Ciudad Juárez lately.  I finally feel like I have a good sense of direction there, which makes me feel a lot more comfortable being there without an escort.

Last Sunday, I was feeling antsy, so I asked my roommate Quan if he wanted to go over to the tourist market in downtown Juárez.  Quan hadn't been over there yet, and I have been trying to find some small gifts for friends to bring back.  Our other roommate Eric explained to me where the tourist market is, and off we went.  It was super hot (and even humid!) outside, which made for two very sweaty tourists, but we found the market easily and were excited to start shopping.  The market is in a big warehouse-type building and looks exactly like every other tourist market I've been to in Latin America...with all of the same goods, too.  I always feel uncomfortable in places like that, especially when the vendors are each calling out, "Pásale, buen precios," or, even more uncomfortably, "Hello, you come here, I give you good price."  And, to make it even more uncomfortable, it was immediately obvious that at least half of the little booths were closed.  At Eric's suggestion, Quan and I went to the back corner of the market to talk to a guy who's originally from Oaxaca, lived in the U.S. for more than a decade, and then moved to Juárez after being deported.  His English is nearly perfect and he didn't harass us to buy things, probably because he lived in the U.S. long enough to know that most estadounidenses hate feeling pressured to look at things when shopping.  I asked him how business was these days, and he said the past few years have been horrible because the city barely sees any tourists anymore.  He and everyone else who sells stuff at the market have to also find other work in order to meet their expenses; for example, he sells ice cream during the week.  I felt really guilty not buying anything from him, but it was clear that everything being sold in the market was mass-produced (perhaps in factories in China?)

When we left the market, I wanted to go across the street to buy a Michoacana (popsicle).  As we were crossing 16 de Septiembre, the main street in the city, we looked to the left and saw throngs of people walking towards us.  It turns out that it was a protest against the recent presidential elections in which the PRI candidate won after what many Mexicans say were fraudulent practices.  Many of the protesters appeared to be university students and were donning shirts that say "Yo soy 132."  It seemed awkward to take a picture of the protesters, but I can tell you that there were hundreds and hundreds of them and that the whole thing remained incredibly peaceful (besides the fact that traffic was backed up so people were honking their horns incessantly).

I haven't really taken many pictures in Juárez, but here's a view of 16 de Septiembre (after the protesters moved over to the parallel street):

And here's a picture of the cathedral on the main square on 16 de Septiembre:

Since I was with Quan, I also felt more comfortable taking pictures on the bridge in the middle of the day.  A random guy actually came over mid-picture and said, "Don't do that; they'll take your camera" but I don't know if he meant the people in cars driving by or Border Patrol.  Anyway, it was too late by then, so it didn't really matter.  

Here's a picture of my favorite temporary mural on the Rio Grande.  It's hard to see, but pictures of individuals who have been "disappeared" in Juárez were used to spell out paz.  We had rain this week, so the whole thing is already completely washed away:

And here's a picture I took of downtown El Paso from about halfway down the US-side of the bridge:

Hot tamales!

On Friday night, Casa Puente had a despedida for our landlord, West, because he began a new adventure today in Ambos Nogales with the Kino Border Initiative (check them out!).

In addition to always having great company, the next best thing about the parties we have is the amount of awesome food that people bring: homemade mango pico de gallo, homemade coconut mochi...the assortment is almost unreal.  My next door neighbors brought over two big plates of steaming hot tamales, and as I was sitting with the mother, Maria, I finally asked her if she would teach me how to make them.  I tried to learn how to make Central American tamales (the ones wrapped in banana leaves) when I was in Costa Rica, but they are super labor intensive so I gave up and resigned myself to just eat them instead.  But I figured I would aprovechar the knowledge of my wonderful neighbors here and give Mexican tamales a shot.

So on Saturday morning, Maria's son, Junior, came over to tell me it was "tamale time."  When I got there, Maria handed me a tamal to eat that she had just heated up.  Normally at parties I eat around the meat inside and discreetly throw the meat away inside the corn husk because I don't like to draw attention to the fact that I'm a vegetarian.  However, Maria was basically watching me eat, so I politely ate every last bit, including the  beef.  (This scenario was repeated two more times throughout the day because Maria wanted to make sure I had my tamal-making strength...my stomach was not very happy with me.)

I spent the next four hours cutting up several pounds of beef into bite-sized pieces and trying to memorize the recipe for tamales.  We used more pounds of Maseca than I could count, along with water, oil, salt, baking powder and the broth from cooking the beef.  We mixed enormous quantities at a time with our hands until the texture and taste was just right.  Then came the tedious work of covering each corn husk with a thin layer of the dough.  It was way more difficult than I thought to get the dough to spread evenly and smoothly.  I felt like I was slowing Maria down more than anything else, but she said that she likes teaching people how to cook and she enjoys the company that comes along with the very minor assistance that people like me offer. Plus, she was super proud of how much I improved throughout the day.

While we were cooking, Maria's three kids showed me a video of the oldest daughter's quinceañera last year and we chatted about all sorts of random stuff.  Maria also told me a little about her life; about how she grew up in the state of Durango but moved to Juárez when she was a teenager to work in a maquila, where she ended up meeting her husband.  She also shared with me some of the myths related to cooking tamales; for example, although groups of women often make tamales together, only one woman can put them in the pot to be cooked on the stove if they are going to turn out well.  Also, to start putting them in the pot, the first four go in a cross and she says a brief prayer.

The experience was really cool, and I was rewarded for my work with a bowl of hot, fresh tamales to bring home: