"Welcome to Hermosillo, This Way to Your Cell"

Mexico is a dangerous place these days.

Just before we started our journey, we were greeted with this news about a gang fight outside Nogales (where we crossed the border) resulting in 21 dead. The cynical (i.e. Me) wouldn't be too upset by this news as it does not appear any innocents were harmed. In my book, this is somewhat akin to Taliban and al Qaeda killing each other. We should be so fortunate - no tears were lost by me.

And then during our first weekend here, the big news was the car bomb triggered in Juarez (can't pronounce Juarez without "War").

Perhaps coincidentally, less than two weeks after the Nogales incident (but before the latest in war-zone-esque Juarez), the State Department issued yet another travel advisory in Mexico. I'll outline some highlights of this lengthy report:

Common-sense precautions such as visiting only legitimate business and tourist areas during daylight hours, and avoiding areas where criminal activity might occur, can help ensure that travel to Mexico is safe and enjoyable.

Continued concerns regarding road safety along the Mexican border have prompted the U.S. Mission in Mexico to impose certain restrictions on U.S. government employees transiting the area. Effective July 15, 2010, Mission employees and their families may not travel by vehicle across the U.S.-Mexico border to or from any post in the interior of Mexico...This policy does not apply to employees and their family members assigned to border posts (Tijuana, Nogales, Ciudad Juarez, Nuevo Laredo, and Matamoros), although they may not drive to interior posts as outlined above.

And finally, the one of most interest to me:

Travel is permitted between Hermosillo and Nogales, but not permitted from Hermosillo to any other interior posts.

Not sure if your familiar with the Mexican map, but there is nothing of interest along the road between Nogales and Hermosillo. We can't drive east or south due to this most recent travel advisory. Fortunately, we can still go west to the beaches, but I imagine we are one incident away from losing that privilege as well.

As a reference, I've brought back this Mexican crime map from an earlier post. Sonora, the state we live in now, is the big yellow one in the upper left. Working your way right, you have the more dangerous, reddish states of Chihuahua, Coahuila de Zaragoza and Tamaulipas. The yellow state south of Sonora is Sinaloa, which probably has been upgraded to reddish now.

One of the other diplomats pointed out that this city has become very isolated and hard to get in and out of. Welcome to Hermosillo, Africa.

Hermosillo itself is not that dangerous in terms of drug-trade-related crime. The city has your typical big city petty crime such as pick-pockets, burglary, etc. Some one told us it used to be the case that the drug lords had an understanding of sorts to keep the drug fighting out of this city because many of the lords have families in Hermosillo. Sure, let the thugs off each other in other parts of Mexico (Juarez), but let's not let it effect our families. But even that understanding is starting to wear off as there has been some drug-related violence here.

In my last post I lavished praise on our house. And I do love this house. But what I saved for today is that these homes are designed to keep intruders out, which has the flip effect of being difficult for us to get out.

I don't want to go into too much details about the security measures here for fear that could upset some of the government types, but we have bars in our windows and doorways. We have spikes and nasty barbed wire on walls. We have security systems. We have secret handshakes. We don't mess around when it comes to security.

EFM: the Excellent, the Foul and the Monstrous

Instead of using bullet points again, I found another way to deal with lists, and everyone loves lists. It's a great way writers to keep the attention of the easily distracted American. So this is the EF'M take on the good, the bad and the ugly.

THE EXCELLENT
For the first time since we've been married, Natalie and I are debt free! There will be dancing in the streets of Crystal City! College loans were paid off last year, and our final car payment will be paid off as soon as it goes through.

Which brings up an another interesting tidbit gathered from Free Studies Inside (FSI) course from last week about moving. For those of you still paying off car loans and who will be leaving the country soon for post with your car, you ought to check with your bank to make sure you are allowed to take the car with you. Apparently, many banks have rules against this because it is expensive to send the repo man to another country.

THE FOUL
(Mom, if you're reading, skip to the next topic.) There has been a lot of bad news about crime and drugs in the northern part of Mexico culminating in a State Department Travel Alert.

Here is one little pearl from that posting: "Large firefights have taken place in towns and cities across Mexico, but occur mostly in northern Mexico, including Ciudad Juarez [as I say, you can't pronounce Juarez without "War"], Tijuana, Chihuahua City, Nogales, Matamoros, Reynosa and Monterrey."

I should be troubled by the inclusion of Nogales, because that is where we are going to be crossing the border, but for whatever reason, I'm not terribly concerned by the travel alert. I suppose part of it might be the little bit of denial that lingers in the back of my mind that this is all actually going to happen soon. Still doesn't seem real.

I suppose I'm also not too worried because Hermosillo did not appear on the list. I know there will be some dangers living in Mexico, but then again, there are some dangers living in Washington, D.C., as well. Just have to be smart. (Safe to read again, Mom.)

THE MONSTROUS
The timing of this massive earthquake couldn't have been worse for the Chilean people.

I'm guessing many Americans don't have the budget to dip into their pockets a second time to help relieve another natural disaster abroad, but here is hoping they can. Not to take anything away from the work our diplomatic corps does, but I have to imagine we do our best diplomacy in the form of American charity to other countries following such disasters.

In terms of American contributions to the Chilean people, I'm going to predict that coupled with the fact that Americans already gave so much to Haiti, other factors including that fewer Americans appeared to have been harmed/killed (I don't have any stats on this) in the earthquake and that Chile was better prepared for such an event will result in less media coverage and less donations.

Still, if you can, please offer what you can to another suffering people. The State Department has been directing people to the Global Disaster Relief facebook site, but Doctors Without Borders also is always another good not-for-profit to send funds after these kinds of disasters.