How Bad Is It?
Palm Sunday, 2011 -- Although the website is not done reconstructing yet--expect it before May--I had to post a commentary today. To all the Into the Beautiful North readers, especially. Do you recall the beach in the novel where Nayeli and Aunt Irma take everybody crab fishing? This is a real Sinaloa beach in a real Sinaloa community where we used to go back in the 70s and 80s. The beach community thereabouts is called Caimanero. Basically, "The Alligator Area." Makes a real impression on a teenaged boy. Last night, there was a quinceanera at Caimanero. You know, the fancy dress-up party/dance that celebrates a girl's fifteenth birthday. The kind of celebration Nayeli would have loved. Except, after midnight, the narcos showed up. Armed. And they opened fire. The massacred six teens at least and left them scattered in the sand. All along the route in Mexico where my novel takes place, there have been massacres, dismemberments, beheadings and kidnappings that lead to torture and often death. I have tried to sketch out a new horror novel based on the narco world, but guess what. They outstrip my worst imaginings every week. If you are interested and have a strong stomach, I recommend the heroic--and appalling--Mexican website blogdelnarco.com. I warn you: there is snuff fottage on display. But if you care to know how deadly the drug war is, right now, take a look. Say a prayer for the children.
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This is heartbreaking! I just tried to find news reports about the shootings on Google, and found them in Spanish, but none in English. That, in itself, is so wrong.
Sheryl -- It is wrong not to at least honor those killed needlessly, but consider this...Not long ago the 17-year-old niece of friends was beaten by her boyfriend in San Antonio Texas. She died in a few hours of her wounds...because I'd met the girl, knew her parents and all of her cousins and aunts and uncles, I checked the newspapers in San Antonio, I followed the television station websites -- not only was the boyfriend not arrested, there was not a big about this murder, not in any of those sources. Now multiply this by every city in the US... in this case the girl and the guy were Hispanic -- is that why his action and her death were not important enough to be reported? Was it considered a family matter -- they didn't live together. The police said they couldn't arrest him because there were no witnesses -- yet she called a friend's cell phone during the beating... or is it because of the color of their skin...haven't we gone beyond that, YET. I grieve for them all -- the kids killed in gang actions, the ones who die of drug addiction, the ones beaten to death or who suicide behind teenage love. The drive bys, the prom night accidents, the heart attacks on the football field and Basketball floor and cheerleading practice fields. All of the unnoticed, unreported, unsupported, the bystanders, the ones in the way, the ones who are fragile and those who take the less right path. Bless them all.
Thanks for sharing this, Luis. My book club friends and I loved "Into the Beautiful North" and they will be interested, though very saddened, to read this news. I often wonder what those of us on the sidelines can do about the madness we encounter. As writers, I suppose we keep writing about what we know, and as readers, we keep reading about what we don't know. Knowledge is power... but what will the collective do with it? Here's hoping for new leadership, a new economy, and a new heart that will take Mexico back from the narco-fascists.
What can one say...this is so tragic. I do not know what we can do except mourn. Sorry but I am not strong enough to go to the website. Just can't. It seems all we can do is cry, pray, but it is not enough.
Thanks for the update. I drove that route twice 20 years ago when I was moving to Lake Chapala from southern California -- how different life was there then...I blew the engine on my car and spent 24 hours hobbling from mechanic shop to mechanic shop until I was rescued along the road by the gerente de los mechanicos of the new highway project. He found me a room in a motel, and then took me to breakfast at his mother's house in Estancion del Don -- between Navajoa and Los Mochis.
All too often this year I've heard sad news from that area and from around Mazatlan. Prayers underway.