A different view of Mexico and ones safety in visiting.
One Journalist's View
By Linda Ellerbee
Sometimes I've been called a
maverick because I don't always agree with my colleagues, but then, only dead
fish swim with the stream all the time. The stream here is Mexico.
You
would have to be living on another planet to avoid hearing how dangerous Mexico
has become, and, yes, it's true drug wars have escalated violence in Mexico,
causing collateral damage, a phrase I hate. Collateral damage is a cheap way of
saying that innocent people, some of them tourists, have been robbed, hurt or
killed.
But that's not the whole story. Neither is this. This is my
story.
I'm a journalist who lives in New York City, but has spent
considerable time in Mexico, specifically Puerto Vallarta, for the last four
years. I'm in Vallarta now. And despite what I'm getting from the U.S. media,
the 24-hour news networks in particular, I feel as safe here as I do at home in
New York, possibly safer.
I walk the streets of my Vallarta neighborhood
alone day or night. And I don't live in a gated community, or any other
All-Gringo neighborhood. I live in Mexico. Among Mexicans. I go where I want
(which does not happen to include bars where prostitution and drugs are the
basic products), and take no more precautions than I would at home in New York;
which is to say I don't wave money around, I don't act the Ugly American, I do
keep my eyes open, I'm aware of my surroundings, and I try not to behave like a
fool.
I've not always been successful at that last one. One evening a
friend left the house I was renting in Vallarta at that time, and, unbeknownst
to me, did not slam the automatically- locking door on her way out. Sure enough,
less than an hour later a stranger did come into my house. A burglar? Robber?
Kidnapper? Killer? Drug lord?
No, it was a local police officer, the
"beat cop" for our neighborhood, who, on seeing my unlatched door, entered to
make sure everything (including me) was okay. He insisted on walking with me
around the house, opening closets, looking behind doors and, yes, even under
beds, to be certain no one else had wandered in, and that nothing was missing.
He was polite, smart and kind, but before he left, he lectured me on having not
checked to see that my friend had locked the door behind her. In other words, he
told me to use my common sense.
Do bad things happen here? Of course they
do. Bad things happen everywhere, but the murder rate here is much lower than,
say, New Orleans, and if there are bars on many of the ground floor windows of
houses here, well, the same is true where I live, in Greenwich Village, which is
considered a swell neighborhood — house prices start at about $4 million
(including the bars on the ground floor windows.)
There are good reasons
thousands of people from the United States are moving to Mexico every month, and
it's not just the lower cost of living, a hefty tax break and less snow to
shovel. Mexico is a beautiful country, a special place.
The climate
varies, but is plentifully mild, the culture is ancient and revered, the young
are loved unconditionally, the old are respected, and I have yet to hear anyone
mention Britney Spears, Lindsay Lohan, or Madonna's attempt to adopt a second
African child, even though, with such a late start, she cannot possibly begin to
keep up with Angelina Jolie.
And then there are the people.
Generalization is risky, but— in general — Mexicans are warm, friendly, generous
and welcoming. If you smile at them, they smile back. If you greet a passing
stranger on the street, they greet you back. If you try to speak even a little
Spanish, they tend to treat you as though you were fluent. Or at least not an
idiot.
I have had taxi drivers track me down after leaving my wallet or
cell phone in their cab. I have had someone run out of a store to catch me
because I have overpaid by twenty cents. I have been introduced to and come to
love a people who celebrate a day dedicated to the dead as a recognition of the
cycles of birth and death and birth — and the 15th birthday of a girl, an
important rite in becoming a woman — with the same joy.
Too much of the
noise you're hearing about how dangerous it is to come to Mexico is just that —
noise. But the media love noise, and too many journalists currently making it
don't live here. Some have never even been here. They just like to be
photographed at night, standing near a spotlighted border crossing, pointing
across the line to some imaginary country from hell. It looks good on
TV.
Another thing. The U.S. media tend to lump all of Mexico into one big
bad bowl. Talking about drug violence in Mexico without naming a state or city
where this is taking place is rather like looking at the horror of Katrina and
saying, "Damn. Did you know the U.S. is under water?" or reporting on the
shootings at Columbine or the bombing of the Federal building in Oklahoma City
by saying that kids all over the U.S. are shooting their classmates and all the
grownups are blowing up buildings. The recent rise in violence in Mexico has
mostly occurred in a few states, and especially along the border. It is real,
but it does not describe an entire country.
It would be nice if we could
put what's going on in Mexico in perspective, geographically and emotionally. It
would be nice if we could remember that, as has been noted more than once, these
drug wars wouldn't be going on if people in the United States didn't want the
drugs, or if other people in the United States weren't selling Mexican drug
lords the guns.
Most of all, it would be nice if more people in the
United States actually came to this part of America (Mexico is also America, you
will recall) to see for themselves what a fine place Mexico really is, and how
good a vacation (or a life) here can be.
So come on down and get to know
your southern neighbors. I think you'll like it here. Especially the people.
__________
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