The Trip Begins!

Ulises's family takes this trip every summer to visit their family. I have been invited twice before, but I didn't feel ready to go. His sisters had told me all kinds of stories, good and bad, about their home and country in the past and some of them made me feel scared that I wouldn't be able to handle the trip, but I this year was different. I wanted to go and meet Ulises's family and experience where he lived, but more importantly I wanted to see the place that made him who he is today.

We crossed the border at about 3 am, so there weren't many people around. Yet, even with no people to distinguish Mexico from the U.S. it was still very easy to see the difference. I was expecting Nuevo Laredo in Mexico to be pretty much the same thing as Laredo in the US, but I was very wrong. Everything about Nuevo Laredo was different; the streets, cars, stores, houses, and even the smell (not in a gross way though). The minute we crossed over, the streets became narrow, the buildings flattened out, and became much shorter and of course everything was in Spanish.



I was so surprised that there was a difference and it made me even more anxious to go further south to see even more change. I woke up when the sun came up and this is what I saw:

It was actually kind of creepy because that mist was covering everything and there were these enormous cactus's that looked like twisted hands popping out of the ground. It was very eerie!

When the fog cleared and the sun came out I could really see the country. Along the highway were abandoned houses and stores, some still with cars and furniture. There were also houses where families lived and sold fruit and vegetables on the side of the highway. There was a state we passed through that was known for their tunas (prickly pears), and because the fruit was in such abundance, there were maybe 100's of tuna stands along the highway. The fathers, mothers, children, and pets all sat at the booth in the 95+ degree weather hoping that they would be the stand that someone would stop at. We ended up stopping at a stand with a father and very young son. They were both wearing very dirty clothing and were so tan they looked black. We bought a crate of tunas and gave them water, drinkable yogurt, and chips. It was just so sad to see so many families out in the sun with their crates and crates of fruit that may never get sold because of the 100 other people selling it down the road.

The sights of small children and parents at those stands really tore at my heart, I think I may have even cried a little. This short experience made me wonder what the rest of the country would be like and if I could handle it emotionally.