The Tijuana you don't read about

As we walk up the street with Tony, our new-found-friend, the distractions are many:

“Senor, you want a taxi?”
“Amigos, come with me. I have great drink specials for you.”
“Come, you want to buy gifts? I will show you. Special price.”

I pass by an attractive girl who looks to be in her mid twenties. She is wearing a short skirt and high heels, and she smiles at me. Naturally I smile back. Tony, observing this, urges me along. “She’s a hooker,” he says matter-of-factly. “300 of them line this street every night.” Downtown Tijuana is what you’d expect from a border city in a third world country; crowded sidewalks and busy streets, flashy signs, tourist shops and food carts on every corner. But Tijuana has something that many border cities don’t: a warning from the State Department about the safety of U.S. Citizens. The State Department issued an alert in May warning travelers that the "equivalent to military small-unit combat" is taking place across the southern U.S. border in Mexico and that Americans are being kidnapped and murdered there. “Recent Mexican army and police force conflicts with heavily-armed narcotics cartels have escalated to levels equivalent to military small-unit combat and have included use of machine guns and fragmentation grenades," the report said.

We continue to walk. I keep my eyes fixed straight ahead of me as we pass by a couple of Tijuana policemen, notorious for their corruption. A few blocks later we pass a man being arrested on his car as the police search him from head to toe for drugs. Cars drive around him without slowing and nobody seems that surprised or concerned.

Tony is the newest edition to the Tijuana exploration party that began as Eric and myself. Tony is a 60 year-old American who has lectured at a number of universities and now spends his time teaching English in Tijuana. By charging 20 pesos a kid per hour, he can make about 20 bucks an hour teaching ten kids. Coincidently, the 20 dollars an hour he makes is 14 dollars and 70 cents above the minimum daily wage in Mexico.

We met Tony at the first bar we stopped at, happy to have a run into another American. As we drank beer and listened to hits from the 90’s, a little girl with long brown hair and deep brown eyes dangled bracelets in front of us. I asked her in Spanish how old she was. “Ocho,” she replied shyly. My thoughts drifted to my own sister, now at a summer camp that costs about 7,000 dollars a summer to attend, a number that is a few dollars short of the GDP per capita in Mexico as of 2007. While I know as well as anyone that she will see very little if any of the money I give her, I’m compelled by my conscience to give her something.

Sometime after lunch, Eric, Tony, and myself decide to take a trip to Rossarito, a beach town about forty-five minutes south of Tijuana. We take the “5-and-10” bus, which is really just a school bus that has been painted green. After an hour, we get out for our transfer and to pick up some tequila and Cubans. We find the Mexico we’re in quite different from the Mexico we left; it’s the Mexico that few tourists ever make it to. Gone are the Taxi drivers shouting their rates and the commissioned waiters tempting us with their two for one drink specials. Gone are the little kids begging for donations. We are now among the every day people. After catching the connecting bus, we settle down on the beach and chase Cuban cigars with Jimador out of the bottle. The sun begins to set over the beach, engulfing children playing soccer in a glowing orange hue. Sounds of laughter are complemented by crashing waves and blaring radios churning out Spanish hits and the occasional American song. So this is Mexico.

As the tequila runs through me, I have to pee. Not a surprise. What is a surprise is the man standing outside the bathroom who wishes to charge me 5 pesos to pee, but since he is one of the few Mexicans I’ve run into that is bigger than me, I don’t object. On the way back to where we were sitting I happened upon a family. One member of this family, noticing that I was a tourist on a beach almost completely populated by locals, asked me with a grin, “porque estan aqui?” I explained that we had biked from Portland to Mexico and that we were now in Mexico to celebrate. He was in disbelief, and he brought me over to the family to explain my story. His brother-and-law, Cesar, was equally as surprised, and he invited me to bring over the other two guys I was with over and have some beers with him and his family. I’m not one to turn down free beer, so I immediately bring over the other two and we get to drinking and talking, We drink coronas and mess around until a cop drives up and tells us to leave the beach (it’s 8 O’ clock and the beach closes at sunset). I hide my beer out of instinct as he approaches. Seeing this, Cesar laughs. “My father worked for the government…no te preocupas amigo.” Cesar then asks us where we’ll be staying that night, and on our mention of the word hotel he immediately cuts us off. “No,” he says. “Tonight you come with me and stay with me and my family.” Eric and I look at each other and it’s clear that we’re both making the same assessment in our heads. The State Department has issued a warning about the kidnapping of U.S. Nationals and this man is definitely stronger than us and potentially armed. There is really no way for us to know if his intentions are good. However, I have a firm believe in the goodness of mankind and more importantly, in my own ability to judge character, so being cocky and more than a little tipsy, I give the nod of agreement, a nod which Eric returns.

When in Rome right? Eric, myself and the rest of Cesar’s family pile into his SUV and speed off towards his home in Tijuana. When it occurred to him to do so, Cesar busted out some cervezas (Mexican beer) and sent them around the back seat. By the time we got to the gas station we were all feeling good. When his family got out of the car to stretch, Cesar got serious. Addressing the three of us, he said, “I’m the man of my house so I have to tell you this…I’m a poor man but I will welcome you into my house because I want you to see what Tijuana is like and not what you see on the news…but I am trusting you. I have a wife and a daughter and my family is the most important thing to me.” Tony reassures him in Spanish that our hearts are pure at which point Cesar apologizes and admits that he has never before taken anyone into his home that he didn’t know, friends of friends or otherwise. He lightens the mood as quickly as he had become serious, and says that tonight we will eat “a real Mexican meal.” After filling up the tank we head towards home. On arriving, Cesar again tells us that he is a poor man, but that, “mi casa es su casa. My home is your home.” His tone was so sincere that none of us had any doubt that he meant it with all of his heart.

The house, as promised, is not that big. There is a kitchen of modest size, a fairly large living room, three bedrooms and two bathrooms for Cesar, his wife, and their 3 children. The house was built on a hill and Cesar took us outside where we could see the lights of San Diego shimmering in the distance. For Cesar, these lights meant opportunity, the chance to give his children the life he never had as a kid. As we stare at the lights, Cesar says to nobody in particular, “One day I want to move to America with my family. It’s like I tell my kids…nothing is impossible unless you say it’s impossible.” Cesar was given the house by his parents and had lived there his entire life. He points at the houses directly below his on the hill: “That one is my brother’s.” Pointing to the one next to it, he says, “That one is my aunt’s.” I stood there inspired by the familial bonds so crucial to Cesar as evidenced by the glow in his eyes as he related to us his proximity to the houses of those he loves. Cesar then whisked us inside. “Come,” he said. “I want to show you something.” Every time we passed by the fridge we stopped to pick up beers…I felt like a Nascar driver taking a pit stop, but I wasn’t bothered by this, as drinking beer is one of my favorite pastimes.

Upon entering the house, Cesar brought us over to a picture of his son, Cesar jr., in a graduation gown and cap hanging on the wall in an ’08 frame, which was puzzling to me as Cesar Jr. looked no older than 10. “You see?” he said to us. “This is my son’s pre-school graduation.” Cesar paid 3500 dollars that year to send his kid to the best private school he could afford. It occurred to me that Cesar was likely as proud that his son graduated as he was that he could afford to send his son to such a school. “My father never did nothing for me,” he said, “that’s why I want to do better for my kids. My whole life I do for them.” We would later learn just how true that was. 5 days a week, Cesar wakes up at 3 AM to drive across the border to San Diego where he works as a welder. While I thought I understood what it means to put your family first, Cesar taught me what sacrifice for family really means, at times getting 3 hours of sleep in order to spend time with his kids after work. At 18$/hour, he makes in an hour what the average Mexican worker makes in a day. Cesar excuses himself to help with the dinner preparations. As Tony, Eric and I sit on the couch in his living room, Tony turns to us and says in admiration: “Do you realize this is all for us?”

As I look around, it is clear that there are now more people here than when we started. The whole family has come to help entertain the guests and prepare the food. When dinner is ready we after called outside (after stopping by the fridge for cervezas, naturally). Awaiting us is a feast consisting of beef, home-made salsa, warmed tortillas, and guacamole made from 3 freshly-picked avocados. Nobody will touch the food until we have done so first. The only thing that tasted better than the first tortilla was the 2nd 3d and 4th one. As we ate, they played Spanish music from the car’s speakers. We danced, ate, and drank well into the morning. The happiness and love in this humble family gathering truly was palpable. When the yawning began around 2 AM, Cesar informed us that we’d be staying in his daugher’s room. All three of his children, aged 6, 13, and 16 shared one mattress in their parent’s bedroom in order that we would sleep comfortably.

The next morning, we were anxious to leave as our flights to the East Coast departed the next day, but Cesar insisted that we stay for breakfast, which was as delicious as dinner was. Before leaving, Cesar pulled us aside and told us that we were a part of his family, and that we would always have a home with him and with his family. In what some call the slums of Tijuana, I found more love than I could have ever imagined. I learned what the term hospitality truly means; I learned what it means to open up your heart and open up your home. Cesar is still making the commute across the border every morning, which despite 24 lanes of traffic takes between 20 minutes and 2 and a half hours. I hope you visit Tijuana one day if you ever have the chance, and if you do, try to make it past the first mile of tourist traps into the real Mexico. Ironically, as of 2006, the murder rate in Washington D.C., the location of the very state department that issued the warning against Tijuana, was higher than Tijuana’s…