It is a double-edged sword this living in Mexico and going to work in the U.S., but it is the life of many Tijuana gringos and many, many, many Tijuana Mexicans.  Indeed, you can see this pattern repeated all along the border, in all the town and cities, Mexicali/Calexico, El Paso & Ciudad Juarez, the two Laredos, etc.  The power of the almighty yankee dollar is me, too.  Look 'em in the eye and say flash bam gunboat stars and streamers I am an Americano how much do your tamales cost please?

"Compramos transmisiones motores aluminio baterias que no sirbe" ("sirve") the difference between big B and little V is very problematic and changeable on the frontiers of language yes it is and no complaints by Ramon or Tere about people who lack the education to know the difference, no complaints can change that fact that people ARE switching the b for v and so there you might just as well enjoy the clunky old pickup truck who crawls through the blocks of Nueva Tijuana echoing loudspeaker siren call to sell your junk sell your junk sell your junk new lamps for old, new lamps for old Alladin yes this is the land of fabulous tales and mutating language, wondrous caves full of treasures AND deadly poison and dark sewage waste not to mention easy money and hard money and no money and lots of money and not any money and Sheherezade could tell a thousand and one tales of terror and delight and barely even scratch the surface.

Right now I AM scribbling notes IN A HORRIFIC LONG LINE waiting to cross the Otay gate at 07:45 and I think I shall be late (I will, 15 minutes) and miss my best bus (ditto). 

Meanwhile I listen to the trucks manouvering through the vast inspection yards before the truck gate, just north of Sor Juana de la Cruz.  Funny how literature and history and politics keep popping up in the names of streets. Next door from the Otay border gate boulevard, behind the fences and parked impounded cars and busses, the tractor trailer creatures are jostling and crawling around a twisting course, past Mexican checkouts toward UnitedStates checkins. From inspection gate to inspection gate they honk and growl growl growl growl honk growl and twist and turn around hairpin loops like some obstacle course between sovereign animals and truck driving school to the max-i-mum.

Meanwhile meanwhile meanwhile alongside the fifteen lane boulevard leading automobiles into and out of the double mouth between two worlds, meanwhile along the long long sidewalk, pedestrians are lined up way way back back back along the cement sidewalk this morning, a rare human line - usually it is very quick to walk across at Otay gate, usually only a line of ten or twelve, even at ten minutes to eight, but not today. I am going to be late to work.  I imagine makebelieve invent terror reasons why the inspection of foot traffic is so slow, or could it be as simple as inspector #37 (as in "inspected by inspector #37"?) and #34 called in sick this morning (Greg will come to my job sick with the flu) and all the lines are backing up everywhere oooooppps make up another story Dani okay Mikey I will he likes it yes.

So many of the heads in line are turned toward the boulevard, watching the cars crawl by, actually moving ahead of us, for a change.  And we all know it that THIS Is A Change From The Normal Yes.  A beautiful young woman in line before me has streaked hair and is talking on her cell phone and staring out into the sea of cars, looking for someone.  Three guys in front of her are turned, torn between watching the crunching traffic, or watching her.  They joke about not knowing someone in those cars.  Even the cars are moving faster, you see.  The cars are moving faster.  Cars move faster.  Move.  Crawl crawl crawling toward the inspection gates, with vendors wandering between their lines and rows with food and drink and souvenirs balanced on top their heads and draped over their shoulders or loaded onto little carts that they push before them....

AND THEN the beautiful young woman waves into the mass of cars, and promptly crosses into that sea of growling metal and singing vendors, headed toward her telephonic friend... All the men watch her go with interest at her hair, her figure, her good fortune....

FOR THIS Strange, wEiRd, indeed - frighteNing - change, we pedestrians at Otay gate are moving slower slower slower than that slowly crawling sea of automobiles, vans and pickups.  While the cars slowly edge forward, we only move in brief fits and starts, bits and pieces of three or four steps, then wait wait wait... five, ten, twenty minutes like this, up the long sidewalk, five steps, wait, ten steps, wait, four steps, wait, past the woman selling candy and cigarettes and gum on the last table before the sidewalk painted line, then across the line and around the semi-corner into another sidewalk tile patio before the flags and the stone slab carved with the name of Ronald Reagan, past the ugly UGLY statues of dancing folkloric giant Mexicans (Public Art) and into the glass doors.

LATER:
We finally got through, both my left and right hands invented character to live in this space between self and other self and we with other and I have missed my bus as I feared and shall get to work late. But the next bus takes me there between business parks and warehouses and open fields and the big new school at border wilderness city.

The gigantic flat space of Otay Mesa, and the jagged mass of Otay mountain, is a social wilderness of crime and rumor. Wild truck chases in jeeps bounding up the road onto the mountain turn into twisting rays of headlights at night.  Or green trucks prowling along the inside of the new fence, the new double fence and wall like some maximum security prison... all across the flat space, the double wall traces its scar of fear and desire.

Otay is a world divided up the middle by this border fence.  On one side, the U.S. with its factories and warehouses, houses and schools, on the other, Mexico with its factories and warehouses, houses and schools.  The words may be the same and the trucks go growling back and forth with the fruits of capital industry, but The THINGS themselves LOOK different.  The weather, however, burning California sun and cooling sea breeze, is the Same ON Both sides. The environment, before we screwed it all to hell and back again, is the same bioclime. It is humankind, this most busy monster, We, Ourselves, AND Us, who are different.  Si senor.

For my part I enjoy this difference, this crossing between two human worlds.  Nevertheless I prefer Mexico more.  Even if the streets are less well paved.  Even if there is not so much well-watered ornamental landscaping.  Even if the sidewalks are much less even, are much more broken and people park their cars all over those sidewalks and for me, a pedestrian, it is much more difficult to go for a walk, still, I prefer it.  It is the latin feeling, the Latin REALITY, the Mexicanidad, that attracts me.  The sound of Spanish spoken as a First, not a second, language.  There is something different.  I cannot put my finger on it, but it is different.  Some people, many gringoes, do Not Like It.  I do.  Many do.  Many are the mexiloco gringoes who live in Mexico.  Many are we who live in Tijuana, scattered throughout the city, or clustered in our little foreigners' colonies (like south of Rosarito, etc.)

For my part, I want to live with Mexicans.  I stay away from "American colonies" but... I must confess I have a certain desire to witness the peculiarly beautiful phenomenon of San Luis Miguel de Allende... and it is always a pleasure to run into my fellow countrymen - paisanos estadounidenses - at cultural events like art openings, etc., because they are almost always women and men who care deeply about Mexico and its art and culture.  Or to meet them at parties (except I rarely go to parties).  Then there are Tijuana Mexicans who reach across the line and understand both sides.  Luis I., for example, seems to know a lot of especially talented and good conationals from both nations yes.

But I remain a lover of Mexico.  Always have been.  And now I have the distinct pleasure of having lived here since before the millennium shifted numbers into a new rebirth of wonder and terror.  And now I actually live with a beautiful spirit, actually love a woman of this magnificent people who have always been among my most beloved neighbors.  And the second commandment is like: you love your neighbor as yourself.

Francisco Otiz Franco (1955-2004) que descanse en paz....

no apo strophe re member

okei bai         okay bye