Riot on an empty street

Chihuahua is known since two years as one of the most dangerous places in Mexico and in the world. A gang war in the cities of Juárez and in Chihuahua (both in the State of Chihuahua) is seen as the main reason for this wave of violence, but the real problem is the increasing drug consumption in the United States.

I was born in Chihuahua in November 1978 and during my childhood I was able to play on the streets, run in the parks and even talk to strangers on the street; Chihuahua in the 1980´s was an old-fashioned city, where every morning the milkman delivered milk bottles in front of your door.

Since September 1996 I live abroad and travel to Chihuahua once a year; only in 2008 and 2009 I was twice in my hometown. In 2008, when the gang-war started, I felt unsecure for the first time. I remember that when I was in high school (in the early 1990´s), if I saw an expensive pimped-car I thought it was owned by a gangster, but since last year, whenever I see a pimped car, I get scared and prepare myself for a shooting. But I have been lucky and never experienced a crime in my life, not even when I lived Managua.

At the moment I am in Chihuahua, but have the feeling that I am in Europe: The big avenues (with 6 and 8 lanes) are very quiet, people drive respectfully, respect the speed limit and they never use the horn. Although it is almost May, it is not hot at all, it rains constantly and the temperature is perfect (21 C degrees during the day, 10 C degrees at night). But the weirdest thing of all is that last night it snowed 9 cm in two cities in Chihuahua.

But Chihuahua is not on the old continent and everything has an explanation: The nice weather is probably a result of global warming and the quietness in the streets is because the entire city is afraid of meeting the wrong person. I enjoy being here and everything is quite and nice, but I am also afraid that something may happen, I don´t know what.

Well, greetings to all of you from one of the world´s most violent cities, which appears to me as one of the quietest.

the dance floor

When I arrived in Chihuahua everything was great: the weather was nicer than in Innsbruck (22 degrees instead of 15) and my brother was already there (he lives in Los Cabos, Baja California), another highlight was that my cousin Karla and her funny Spanish husband Albino (that´s only his name and not his pigmentation) were also in Chihuahua.

The wedding day was great despite it rained a little bit during the photo session. But before that, when Tita was still home getting ready, I got sentimental when I helped my sister to put on her bride dress. I hid my feelings pretty well and did not cry while buttoning her back. It was a very simple, but beautiful moment, one of the best I in my life.

The ceremony was short and nice, but I managed to fall asleep for a second or two and the video-guy got me…asshole!

The party after the church was great. I saw so many old friends and relatives! However the best was the dance floor. Tita got one made out of LED squares (see the profile picture), which gave the party a 70´s feeling. My shoes couldn´t resist, so I danced without a break from 11 p.m. until the wedding was over at 1:45 a.m. I simply can’t recall a single day in which I dance for so long in my entire life. The best songs were Vanilla Ice´s classic “ice ice baby” and Pitbull´s “calle ocho”, a song which reminds me of the warm evenings with Tita and Tomás, and later my mom in Managua.

On Monday we went to the airport, my sister and Víctor left to Hawaii for honeymoon and I tried to get my flight back to Munich, but was not allowed to. I am still stuck in Chihuahua until next week. It could have been worst, I could have got stuck on Houston or Newark, but I am happy I can stay some extra days home.

how a pregnancy test almost ruined my evening

It is 1:30 a.m. and it won’t be until 4:10 that the taxi will pick me up to take me to the airport. I am flying to Tita’s wedding in Chihuahua. For me, it is completely weird to know she is marrying. Only a week ago I edited visuals for the wedding and while preparing them, I got very nostalgic and even felt like crying. While editing the visuals, many memories came back since I used only childhood pictures from her and her fiancé. My mom and Victor’s mother sent me wonderful material. The earliest photos were taken in the hospital, right after each one’s birth. There were some pictures of them from the cradle and other showing them learning to walk; however, my favourite is a picture of Tita eating a mango on a beach; by the expression of her face you can tell that at the moment the picture was taken, that mango was for her the most precious thing on the universe.

Talking about mangoes, Verena, one of my best friends, came to visit me today. We haven’t seen each other in more than six months; she was in Burma and India during my time in Nicaragua. I brought Verena a package of dried mangoes I bought from a single-mother’s cooperative in Managua. Right after she left, Isabella, another very important friend of mine, came to bring me a copy of her Master’s Thesis and a picture she draw for my Aunt’s Women's rights NGO in Chihuahua. Isabella researched for her thesis during her residence in Chihuahua 2009, the year she unofficially became a part of the Germes Castro family.

Today I also practiced a pregnancy test on myself; as expected, it turned out to be negative, but I felt very sad to see on that plastic tool that I was not pregnant.

Hannes rescued the evening, he also visited me and we worked for a while on our Short Film Festival, and later, we went to have dinner on a nice mountain cabin with friends: Sarah and Lisa (they are sisters and help us prepare the festival), Marion, another Lisa, and Marcelo, the Argentinean boyfriend of the first Lisa. Marcelo knows serigraphy and he will help us print t-shirts for the festival :-)

For me, the coolest things happening at the moment are my sister’s wedding, the festival and all the friends I am meeting again; those will be surely repeating topics in my next blog entries.

Have a nice evening; I will keep on waiting for my taxi.