Yesterday I returned to my sadly screwed-up homeland from the sadly-screwed up Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua, Mexico. I am now in Albuquerque, New Mexico, staying at the house of a participant in New Mexico Indymedia.
After a week without accessing the internet I have a lot to catch up on (even though we were in a pretty nice business-class hotel in Juarez, which had a computer room, the computer would not connect to the net for some reason). I think I will take it gradually and chronologically, starting with Tucson where I last connected from. The morning of the 30th in Tucson our caravan to Juarez met with some car troubles, as documented by our main driver, Swaneagle. Sadly, we were forced to leave her, her daughter Taina, and Luma, in Tucson. Luckily the breakdown did not happen earlier in the trip. We were done with all of our events, but we still needed to get to Las Cruces so that the next day we could cross into Mexico with the rest of the Caravanistas and Delegates. Jessica rented a car and she, Ramona, Nicole and I drove to Las Cruces across the beautiful desert.
Once there we were immediately plunged into the hectic excitement of the dinner and meeting of all the different caravan legs from all over the U.S. and Canada. We were hosted by local activists Amigas de las Mujeres de Juarez, a Las Cruces group that works to assist the mothers of the murdered women in Juarez. It was an exciting time, a flurry of activity in a small house in suburban Las Cruces as people planned for the next day's border crossing and other events.
I will stop here for now. This is just a first return entry to say "I'm back safely."
I will add that being in Mexico during the election was strange and oddly comforting, like being shielded from the grief and outrage and anger that I would have experienced had I been home (don't worry, I voted early before I left Portland). Now that I am back, the full impact of the horrendous results of November 2 is still hitting me. I'm especially disturbed by the sweeping success of the bigoted anti gay marriage measures across the country, even in Oregon. I am truly ashamed for my nation and people.
I'll blog more as I get time. Today should be pretty relaxed, as I don't have much to do till my screening of Bolivia videos here in Albuquerque tonite (Saturday Nov. 6th 7pm at the Center for Peace and Justice, 202 Harvard SE).
other dates on my tour:
--Monday November 8th 7pm at Warehouse 21, 1614 Paseo de Peralta, in Santa Fe.
--Saturday November 13th in Tempe, AZ at Gentelstrength Coop, 7pm
--Monday november 14th in Tucson at Sexto Sol(?? not sure of the name of the venue)