Crossing the Rio Grande

Today I made my first foray into Mexico. Rosanna, my Brownsville Angel, her father Mr.Torio, and Danielle, her wonderful daughter are my guides. The day is spectacular it is nearly ninety, Sunday it was still chilly with the heat on. My coloring was a subject of discussion with Rosanna and I had to swear I would not venture there alone once I learned the ropes. I don't speak a word of Spanish so really it was an easy promise to make and keep. Well for now. We park by the big college just two blocks from the border. Downtown is seedy and run down, the college rubs cheek and jowl with the Rio Grande and the once prosperous downtown area. It was the Jews who opened their stores just after WWI. How they got here I haven't a clue but they sold Furniture, Housewares, Liquor and Pharmacies. I'm pretty sure there were a few Shmata shoppes thrown in. They are still here the intrepid wandering tribe of Yids, they are still a vibrant part of the community even if their downtown stores are mostly gone. Lacks furniture is still downtown, and Feldmans liquor.

We walk over dividers and side streets as we near the cement compound with razor wire strung like festival lights over and along the buildings and border walls. To the right is the "To" Mexico crossing. We place sixty cents into the turnstile and BINGO Mexico. That is the cheapest trip over a border I have ever spent. Here there are automatic maybe AK47's in the hands of some very young looking soldiers. My son Adam would know what the guns are but for me, I wasn't really expecting such a large display of hardware. Hell, I only stepped one foot in. In for a penny or sixty cents... Garcia's is our goal. It is the over the border tourist spot, they sell pharmaceuticals and liquor, very good copies of designer pocket books, pottery, jewelry and chachkas. There are a few beggars, some very down and out types but mostly people going about the days chores or trying to cross to the U.S.

Crossing the plaza we head to an unremarkable two story concrete building that houses Garcias. There is a restaurant on the left when we mount the stairs, a large open room with all manner of local products and gentlemen who are dressed in white shirts ties and black pants ready to give you a better bargain than the sale sign. No matter where you wander the white shirt follows and points out the merits of the merchandise. On our right is a bar and night club very dark at the moment. It looks worn and perhaps a little dangerous right now with the lights out and just the shadows of tables, maybe a stage there in the background in the darker depths. Who knows it might be a fun spot at night.

Mr. Torio goes to the liquor store I go to the pharmacy and Danielle sticks like glue to the pocketbooks. The prices are crazy cheap and I pay six bucks for a sixty count bottle of Prilosec OTC and five bucks and change for Pepcid for Piper my cat. He and I both enjoy the delights of GIRD. At the rate I pop the Prilosec it begins to be a very expensive habit. I get a two month supply and some Retin-A cream for eight bucks. Crazy stuff this.

We shop around and I plan to pull my truck into the garage downstairs and load up with pottery et all once we are in the new house. The exchange for the dollar though is lousy we are just a penny over the Peso. So it really is dollar for dollar.

Mr. Torio veto's lunch at Garcias it is too expensive and a tourist trap. So we go out to the main street and begin to window shop, although the windows have little to recommend them. Rosanna gets advice for Taco's from a gal on the street and we head further into Matamoros. The streets become similar to other places I've been where it is semi-desert, with homes tucked away along the city streets. Danielle tells me "yes it smells like Mexico". She has never been to this town, Rosanna's mother lives further down the coast. To me it has a feel,a texture of Israel, or Greece that dry dust scent, it's true though, it does smell different. The spices of cooking hang on the hot air. Most of the roads are badly paved, with areas of cobblestone, and the sidewalks are concrete with a shell pattern stamped on. The homes are modest on the outside with wrought iron bars at the windows and heavy wood doors. Inside they might just be beautiful, with courtyards. It is surprisingly quiet and clean. I also notice it isn't as windy here as it is in Brownsville. There is a prevailing wind that comes off the Gulf, I have very few good hair days . Today I have it up and plastered with hairspray. It was blowing when we left Brownsville, here it is calm.

There are street push carts with charcoal braziers roasting whole corns on sticks, condiments of margarine, mayonnaise, a red sauce I assume to be pepper and some other bowls I can't identify. It smells great. A little farther along a push cart with watermelon, limes, coconuts and salt shakers. AT last Las Tablitas Resturant Bar and Grill. Mario Alberto Garza Segura, Propietario. The food is really good, the three girls have Crepes and Mr. Torio has the small Taco's I love. My crepes are huge filled with Bistek, mushrooms in a garlic cheese sauce. Good, not too spicy and very filling. I have a beer, afraid of the water. Rosanna, has squash crepes with cheese, Danielle, spinach and cheese she and I box the rest of ours. For an appetiser we had melted cheese on a plate with tiny tortillas to fill. A large chocolate cake arrives but I am a very good girl and keep my spoon resting on the plate.

Arriving back at the border we place thirty cents in the turnstiles and hand our identification over, I show my cache of drugs and the guard commiserates with me, he too uses the OTC. Just like that I am back in the states. There are cars waiting to clear the border, they line the road for quite a way. It is after three and I guess this is the start of the rush hour. It is a busy border, there are many factories in Matamoros. NAFTA and the local Mexican families who live in Brownsville, but still own business over the border. It is safer to live here and commute to work although crossing by car can take a few hours.

Just a pleasant day with great people, and a toe in the water of the other North American Country on our border. Going to Canada was just as easy really but always felt like an extension of the U.S. French, was also something I could tackle or mangle depending on your prospective. It always seemed to me not a big culture leap visiting there. South of our border though it is much more of a cultural change. Brownsville is the happy middle ground, but culturaly very much the Mexican Step-sister. Again, it was a very little step into this new world just at my door step, and Rosanna and I will have more adventures I am sure, after all a promise is a promise.