Mercado Hidalgo

“Tomate Cave” by Kinsee Morlan

Mercado Hidalgo is a small open-air market in the heart of Tijuana. The produce is good and cheap and the culture is so thick you can taste it.

Here’s a fantastic multi-media piece on the mercado.

Holiday pictures, San Diego/Tijuana style

Winter in Balboa Park.

Moss to keep baby Jesus comfortable in his manger.

Thanksgiving Day communication. Why talk to one another when you have a laptop?

Christmas is so much better down south. I love hitting something continuously until it breaks into pieces, especially during the holiday season.

Getting arrested in TJ

A recently released report just named Tijuana as the number one foreign destination for Americans to get arrested, which reminded me of a misadventure not long ago…

My friends and I piled into my friend’s beat-up Toyota truck and headed for Rosarito, where we planned on getting completely and utterly wasted. It was college, and that’s about all we did back then.

So we got pretty wasted and — surprise, surprise — ended up in a Rosarito jail cell. One of the arrestees was caught pissing on a city street; the other was caught carrying an open bottle from one bar to another. Idiots.

I found my cuffed buddies sitting on the dirty concrete floor of the cell with their shoes off. They looked uncomfortable sitting right next to a toilet overflowing with fecal matter and an M&M wrapper. I laughed and asked the guards if I could be let in to take their pictures. They granted me access. I took photos — which I still have and cherish — and, in an instant when they let one of my friends out to ask him questions, I grabbed his hand and ran down the alley, tugging him along with me.

We managed to escape for about two minutes until a truck filled with gun-wielding police officers pulled up behind us and tugged my buddy into the back of the truck. They didn’t arrest me, though, yet another example of why being a woman is wonderful.

Anyway, I was still laughing and none of my other non-arrested friends understood why. In fact, they were crying and sorta freaking out over the whole incident. I, however, already had a few months of promoting for a Tijuana club under my belt, so I knew how things worked. I told them to give me all their cash.

Three-hundred dollars later, we were all piled back into my friend’s Toyota, headed back home to San Diego. The bribing system south of the border can be so efficient sometimes — much easier than all the paperwork and court dates that come with getting arrested in the U.S.

That’s what I used to think, but my Mexican BF has slowly managed to convince me otherwise. I recently told my coworker to just hand over a $20 if he got pulled over in Tijuana — he did get pulled over, twice, and got out both times with the help of good ol’ Jackson — but now, if people ask, I plan on telling them to take the ticket, go see a judge and try to do things the legal way.

If you’re pissing on a street or carrying an open container, this advice isn’t for you. You’re an idiot and I don’t really care how you get out.

But, if like my coworker you simply made a mistake driving in the chaos of Mexico traffic, do everyone a favor and don’t fork over the cash. Those bastard corrupt cops, as my BF says, are the graduated bullies of high school who’ve been pushing people around their entire lives. They are not actually allowed to take bribes, so if you tell them you want the ticket, they’ll follow you the the nearest station and you get your chance to explain your side of the story to the judge.

My BF and I got pulled over a few months ago and he convinced me that we should do things the right way (which I agreed to only because I had zero cash on my body). As it turns out, the cops were out of their juristiction and were simply trying to get cash out of us anyway — they had no intention of ever giving us a ticket. After a few moments of them slyly asking for money and my BF steadily telling them we’d rather follow them to the station, they eventually let us go — bribe and ticket free.

Why the hell was there a line getting IN to Tijuana last night?

If you were one of the unlucky thousand to get stuck in the insane traffic heading back into Tijuana last night, I’d like to start off by saying sorry. Traffic sucks.

I just got off the phone with the San Ysidro Port of Entry press guy and he says it was a “standard outbound operation,” meaning, they exercise their right to check people leaving the country every now and then when they have sufficient funding and staffing.

Essentially, they’re looking for terrorists, stolen cars, drugs, felons and undocumented workers, whom they process and deport.

The last part, the part about deporting the undocumented workers, is just sort of silly. They’re on their way back to Tijuana anyway, why clog up the system?

Anyway, there it is, the answer to your burning question.

The truth about Tijuana

Double Stop by Memho Sepulveda

It’s been some time since I’ve written about the day-to-day stuff that goes on here in my Tijuana flat. Let me start by saying I left my parents as soon as I turned 18 and told them I wanted to struggle. That’s right, I wanted to live a life away from the complete safety and comfort I’d been born into.

I moved to San Francisco, but ended up living in a beautiful home where I was a live-in nanny. Aside from the extreme alienation women feel when left alone with children all day, almost every day, for long, stressful periods of time, I struggled almost less than I had in my tiny hometown in Colorado surrounded by thick tobacco-lipped hicks I didn’t understand.

So I went off to college, where I was sure four years of struggle lay ahead. Much to my dismay, I found fun, ease and a life I often miss. Sure, I starved from time to time, living off the pizza and coke I scored from volunteering to participate in alcohol studies they held outside my dorm, but the whole scene was a far cry from any real sort of struggle.

I graduated and hit the ground running in what had always been referred to as “the real world” by the old folks surrounding me. I’m here now, in the real world, working long hours and getting paid what I’m sure to some would be considered a meager sum, but the only thing that even mildly resembles a struggle is the day-to-day stuff here in my Tijuana flat.

The bugs, for one, make my life somewhat of a challenge. They’re everywhere and nowhere all at once. The fleas this summer ate me alive — I still have the scarred ankles to prove it — and now the cockroaches torment me with their wiggly little antennas and ugly brown faces that stare blankly at me every time I move a dish or pan.

And the water — once upon a time it ran with pressure that wasn’t good, but it wasn’t exactly bad either. Now, it trickles at best and my BF and I have taken to taking what he calls “cowboy showers.” You literally stand under a drip, freezing your ass off and, as quickly as is humanly possible, you scrub yourself down and get the hell out.

And the cold — my doors and windows have gaping cracks and holes in them through which the cold air pours in a constant stream. It makes getting up, getting out from under the protection of my warm Mexican blankets, quite the feat, and in these winter months it’s become a feat I sometimes feel I can’t muster.

And the food — apartments here don’t come with ovens or refrigerators so I’ve had to learn how to cook food on a hot-plate duo setup thingy and store food in a tiny box. We can’t cook with or drink the water so I’m constantly sending my BF across the street so I can continue the difficult process that has become cooking without a proper oven, or counter space, or hardware (I have three shitty pans that are never the right size for anything). Oh yeah, and we have to do the dishes in the bathroom sink. It’s the only sink in the flat.

Yet, I can’t call what I’ve encountered here in Tijuana a struggle. A few days ago, while waiting in the border line, I saw a woman with rotted flesh pealing from her leg. A few days ago, I saw a little kitten so toughened by life on the street that the little thing prowled instead of pranced like the domesticated cats in the U.S.

I see dead dogs on the side of the road bloated up like sickly balloons. I see children sleeping on blankets on the street beside their mothers selling glass pipes, bracelets and sunglasses just to get by. I see lonely men lingering near the border fence, peaking over the top waiting for el migre to get out of the way.

And then I think how foolish it was of me to ever want to struggle. There’s nothing glorious about it.

Support Tijuana Maquiladora Worker’ struggle

“Stairs to Somewhere” by Kinsee Morlan

 

 

What ever happened to caring about workers’ rights? See below.

 

 

Kinsee

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Support Tijuana Maquiladora Worker’ struggleYou are invited to Muebles Fino workers party

Muebles Fino Workers have been in strike for a year.

They demand a severance payment that the company has to pay according to the Mexican labor law.

Muebles Fino is a maquiladora owned by California FineWood Co. (Headquarter: Carson, CA)

Some workers have more than 15 years working for the company.

The Party

When: Sunday, Nov. 11, 1-6 pm

Where: Tijuana, in front of the factory

7550 1st Street, Tijuana

Directions from San Diego (San Ysidro Gate): Move toward the right lane as you cross the border so that you get under the sign that reads “Paseo de los Heroes”. Take Paseo de los Heroes through 4 traffic circles and then about seven traffic lights (the street changes its name after the traffic circles to Blvd. Federico Benitez). Go on Blvd. Federico Benitez for about 15/20 minutes. Turn left on Blvd. San Martin. Turn right on the first street (Calle 1-First Street). The factory is located at the end of the block.

Check: www.maps-of-mexico.com/mapquest.shtml

Click: Tijuana

In Mapquest Tijuana, from the San Ysidro International Border Gate, follow the beige avenue: Caracol Zona del Rio, then follow the beige avenue: Avenida Paseo de los Heroes, then follow Blvd.Benitez.

A Party to support Muebles Fino Workers

Latin American folk music: Anibal

Rock: Mano de Obra

Marcial Arts, bingo, sea food, Mexican food, games, tamales, kids art, more…

 

More information

Tijuana: 664-622-4269 (In Spanish)

San Diego: 619-388-3634

Tijuana history

“Waiting, Always Waiting” by Kinsee Morlan

A writer explores the history of Tijuana, calling it “the city that was Las Vegas before Vegas was Vegas.” Check it out.

San Diego / Tijuana DANCEonFILM Festival

 

This just in.