Wow, if someone ever told me I'd be spending 2 nights alone in Chihuahua City, Mexico a few years ago I would have been baffled. There is a reason I am here that I will get to in a moment. But seeing it, you would understand why I wouldn't have expected to ever go here, unless you thought I was really into cowboy boots - there are about 200 boot stores here, supposedly one of the best places in Mexico to buy cowboy boots - there just is not really any tourististic reason to be here at all. Actually, it is the terminus of the Copper Canyon rail line, so people are probably passing throuh. But there's very little that caters to foreign visitors.
It's not an unpleasant town. There are several very nice plazas in el Centro, and a pedestrian walkway a few blocks long, though it has virtually no benches to sit on, and no coffee culture presence or any other sidewalk sit-and-hang-out restaurants or bars or whatever. Here in Chihuahua eople seem to like to buy ice cream and walk with it, rather than sip lattes while sitting at sidewalk tables. In fact in the whole downtown area I only found one coffee place where you can sit down and drink real coffee and relax. This is specifically Chihuahense, or maybe of el norte, because in D.F. and in San Cristobal there was definitely a coffee culture, even apart from tourism.
Anyway, the reason I AM here is to interview people regarding the femicides of Juarez and Chihuahua. About 5 hours south of Juarez, this city, capital of the state of Chihuahua, has seen similar killings of young women, and an activist group called Justicia Para Nuestras Hijas (Justice for Our Daughters) has arisen and is based here. Late afternoon yesterday I rolled into town on a bus 17 hours or so out from Mazatlan and checked my email. Macrina from Mexico Solidarity Network had come through for me and had arranged with Alma Gomez, one of the leaders of Justicia Para, for me to do some interviews. So I called up Alma and we have made plans to meet at her house. Two mothers of victims from here, and also perhaps another woman who is a main leader of the group, Lucha Castro, will meet us there.
So I'm pretty pleased. 3, maybe 4 interviews in one day. Now I just have to find my way to Alma's house, which is outside of el centro.
There's so many other things I'd like to blog, so many thoughts and observations, but I think its best to start with just what's going on, and if I have time, after checking my email and other tasks, maybe I'll blog again with some other random themes. hasta loo...