Rheana's Travels

                     
    The 16th of September is independence day in Mexico. As I wrote before, it’s a really fun month to be here. Everybody is very happy and proud to be Mexican. Which is an interesting phenomenon in itself. I was born and raised in a country whose history is full of success stories. We began by helping beat the French in the French and Indian War, won our Independence and the War of 1812... then went on to become the most powerful country in the world in an unbelievably short period of time. As an American I was raised with the implication of these actions unconsciously imprinted on my brain. Although I am certainly not proud of everything this country has done (not by a long shot) I will be the first to say that we are incredibly influential.                             
    The opposite is true here in Mexico. The Spaniards came over controlled the country for three hundred years. Once the Mexicans won their independence (it took two wars and a lot of blood to do so) they have never achieved worldwide success, power, or money. They lost half their country to their northern neighbors, have a history of an unbelievably corrupt government, and have a class system I’m beginning to believe I’ll never fully understand. The Mexicans, however, have found ways to be proud of their country in spite of these facts. As an outsider it’s fun to watch.
    On the night of the 15th it's tradition for people to go out to their plaza and participate in something called "the shout." Among other things the president/gov/mayor stands up on a balcony and shouts "viva ____" and the crowd responds with "viva." In the US it would be like the governor shouting "Long live Washington, Jefferson, Franklin, Oregon, and the USA... and us responding with "live" after every one. Only the Mexican version is much cooler.
Anyways, Morelia has over a million people, so the plaza gets pretty crowded. A group of about 8 of us went out to dinner near our houses, and then had to take taxi's to the center of town. Since we didn't all fit in one we split up. Arian (who's been here before), Emily (from U of O), Jessica (from SOU) and Andrea (who's been here before and is basically fluent) all took the first taxi while Sasha (PSU), Della (who's on crutches) and I waited for the next taxi and befriended a strange Mexican man named Jose. Once the four of us got downtown we realized it was too packed to find the other group, so just planned to meet at a bar afterwards. I bought a flag, sombrero, and Pancho Villa mustache and we were having a pretty good time pretending to be Mexican.
    After the very last “viva Mexico” we heard a loud bang, but thought it was just a firework or something similar and promptly forgot about it. A couple minutes later one ambulance made it's way through where we were, but we figured that since nobody was panicking someone had just fainted or passed out. At about the time the fireworks ended I got a text from Jess saying "there's a bomb. Get out of the city." It was weird and we didn't know how to react. Nobody was panicking around us. There was absolutely no reason to think that the text was anything more than a terrible joke. We started trying to make our way out of El Centro and towards the bar. Then things started to happen. We could hear more and more ambulance sirens and an increasing amount of security guards kept running (or attempting to; the crowd was still very packed) by us. The cell network was too busy for us to call or text one of the other four for a while and the other girls I was with brushed off the text. I thought it was really odd though, because I knew Jessica wasn’t the type to send those types of texts. We were in the middle of a huge crowd trying not to lose each other, so there was nothing I could do. When I finally was able to get through to Arian we found out that the girls had been about six ft from where (what has turned out to be a grenade) exploded. They were hit by debris, but were not physically injured. Once the grenade went off they took off running, and were pretty freaked out about it. It was hard for them because people who weren’t close to where it detonated didn’t know what was going on, and wouldn’t make room for four American girls to get out of the crowd. The latest news that I heard was that there were three grenades, eight dead and a lot wounded. Luckily none of those people my family here or people I know.
    The city has been in a state of shock ever since. All everybody keeps on saying is that “that stuff doesn’t happen here” and “Morelia was so safe, I don’t think we have anything to worry about.” There’s nothing I can really do (again) except for go about my daily routine while being extra careful and aware.

    Michoacan (the state that I'm in) and Morelia (the capital city) have had an increasing drug problem for a couple years now. Since the US has cracked down on the drug trade in Columbia, but the American demand hasn't decreased (US policy seams to be "say no" and people will only like Columbian drugs so lets stop them from making it and not focus on people actually not wanting the drugs) a LOT of drug production has moved to Michoacan. For example it is now the main producer of crystal meth in Mexico, most of which is going to the US to places like Oregon (where it is now harder to make it there).
    The new President of Mexico is from Morelia (I’m not his biggest fan, but that’s another story), so since he got elected in 2006 he's spent a lot of time and money trying to crack down on the drug problem in Michoacan. This is meant an increase in Federales (since a lot of the local police are actively involved in the drug trade as a second job) and so they drive around in the back of their trucks with their SWAT uniforms and automatic weapons. Which has been really weird. They walk around places like Wal-Mart... making me double check my pockets to make sure that I haven't unconsciously stolen anything.
    There has also been an increase in the Army’s presence since the bombings. It doesn’t make much sense to me to fight the drug war the way that they’re doing it, but it certainly looks good. I feel safe because from a drug lord’s perspective it doesn’t help them to target Americans. That will only make their lives harder. What they do want is money, which makes the lives of rich Mexicans here much more dangerous.       
    I guess all I can say is it’s a crazy world we’re living in. I’m reminded of that every morning when I check my google news, and turn on Mexican CNN while eating breakfast. I hope that people can start really comprehending what is going on in their world before they are directly affected by it.