Archive for June, 2010

Juarez, the most dangerous city in the world, is but a stone’s through across the Rio Grande from El Paso. The Rio Grande is such a skinny river, that Luis Camacho, one of a handful of locals who hosted me here in EP, told me a person could wade across it. This past weekend, I was at the banks of the Rio Grande, looking straight across and reading the street signs of neighboring Juarez, where murder, police corruption, and grave fear amongst the innocents are part of the local daily reality in the virtual anarchic/mob-ocratic metropolis. Of course, I was reading the street signs from the safe side, El Paso, the second safest large city in America. The contrast seemed to tear at me inside: we’re in a safe zone, El Paso, where even the mayor of Juarez lives, and there were all of these people living in chaos just across Rio Grande– a river far more narrow than almost any neighborhood street. The grave injustice to the overabundance of innocents just isn’t right. The narrow line is bordered by a high wall, and countless Border Patrol, a very prison-like environment, where the most serious crime that throws you into the anarchy of the prison is to simply be born on the wrong side of the fence.
“El Paso is America’s best kept secret,” says Celia Pechak, professor of University of Texas – El Paso’s graduate physical therapy program. Celia has lived in many parts of the country (including Seattle) as well as other parts of the world, and has been in El Paso just a couple of years now. She explains that the winter weather is superb, the mountains are in their backyard (causing El Paso to horseshoe its way around them), El Paso is very close to White Sands, snowy mountains in New Mexico, and more. Summers can get a little hot, but the dry heat is vastly preferable to east coast humidity, and generous winds will often mitigate the powerful sun’s punishing summer impact. Indeed, having spent some two weeks now in the El Paso-Las Cruces corridor, I completely comprehend Celia’s points.
Locals are easily amongst the friendliest people I’ve come across so far. The majority of the population is Hispanic, and many of the second and third generation children and grandchildren born here, on the safe side of the fence, still maintain the strong tie to the Spanish language. There are parts of the El Paso area which are so Hispanic, that I’m spoken to in Spanish when entering a store. I actually really like this– as I often think of the extended periods of times I’ve spent in Latin America, and am very optimistic about my next opportunity to return.
Though I’ve stayed with a variety of hosts here in El Paso, I’ve received more invitations here than I’ve been able to accept, and having arrived here just as the weather was reaching triple digits, with long, lonely, often waterless stretches ahead of me, I’ve decided that El Paso is the perfect place to begin my long-planned summer recess. I’ve left off on Dyer St & Fort Blvd, near Fort Bliss, and I will continue my walk of inspiration across America from this exact intersection in the fall. For now, a summer replete with volunteer work, planning the next chapters of the walk, and possibly walking across the State of Washington awaits me. I’m just about to leave the newly-beloved El Paso metro area, eager to return in a few months, as the seasons shift once again…

SUMMER BREAK: Texas tonight, New Mexico tomorrow, Arizona Friday.
Direction: home.
Time frame: days, probably weeks till I arrive…

All have been treating me fantastically well here. It was a toss-up whether or not I was to visit El Paso. I will ultimately proceed back through eastern New Mexico– Alamogordo, Artesia, and beyond, so coming to El Paso was actually adding miles to the route, again. I’ve found by now though that every time I feel some sort of intuitive calling to go out of my way to a place which adds miles to the route, I’m always rewarded in one way or another.
One of many things I plan to do this break is write more. I’m not sure how quickly reflective blogs will arrive, but I’ll post them as they do…
Robert, Karen, Russ, Aida, Celia, Jeff, Diana, Luis and others have been so helpful to me here in greater El Paso. I look forward to returning here after this summer to continue the Walk. Tomorrow I’ll spend another night with Las Cruces hosts Allyson & Katie, and hopefully finally sort out the incompetency and confusion regarding the large general delivery I’ve been awaiting for weeks at the Las Cruces central post office. I’ll catch a bus to Phoenix on Friday, returning to Mike & Brooke’s (new house now), spending some days with them (hopefully seeing the local Ceckas and other Brooke too), and next look for a connection probably to the Bay Area…
Life is a challenge, and it would be a bore if it weren’t. Attitude is key: Life is great and getting better…