Over the Border

This weekend was an over the border experience. Due to problems, that are thankfully not in full rise anymore I finally went to go visit Juarez, of course, with the driving abilities of my dad because I for one would not like to be driving around there. We stop at a swap meet and there are so many people around, I am feeling a little overwhelmed. I’m starting to believe that I have social anxiety.

Any way, I focus my attention to the stand that my dad and are in. Here the ladies are selling freshly made gorditas. One of the ladies is a mother and her two young kids, maybe around the age of 3 and 4. It ceases to amaze me how she can be preparing food for other people and how she can making food for other people yet keeping an eye one her kids; the power of motherhood.

 The other two women are elderly, maybe around the ages of 65 to 70. They are happily chatting their mouth away while shaping the masa into the gordita shape. Since we everyone here is really close to each other, there really doesn't to be such a thing as personal space here, you can easily here what they are talking about. One man is talking to another about how is job has been really hard on him and he is not getting paid good enough.

In front of us, one of the elderly ladies is talking about how her grandchildren are little walking devil’s because they are such trouble makers. She blames the mom’s for not raising them right because they are lazy and don't watch over them correctly, then she quickly mentions how them having their kids at such a young age also could have affected that. I agree with her to some point because I know some mothers who had a child at a young age but they don't really tell them anything, instead they focus more on talking with their friends or being to preoccupied on their phones, rather than watching their child. I know, this is not true for all young mom’s though because there are some that are changing their lives for the better.

I notice though that the other lady isn’t really paying attention to what she is saying, she simply just nods, her head and says “oh yeah”, or “that's true”. This is amusing to me too because I spend most of my time in my dorm room, doing that with my roommate. She is always telling me stories that I could honestly care less about, which I know seems rude, but it has happened to every one at some time! Don't deny it!

Well anyway, this lady kept talking about daughters. Whenever someone one new came along, she would take their order but she was would ask them how their day was going, how they were as if she knew them. Come to think of it, everyone here was really friendly. There were a lot of people who were dressed in really outdated clothes and some that seemed to just be in rags, I’m not trying to sound rude or cause offense to anyone but it is the truth. I felt really bad for these people, but despite their conditions, they were some of the most happy and selfless people I had seen.