Saturday, March 20, 2010

A Harsh Reality

Yesterday in class, I ended up talking with two of my classmates during our break (because the class is 3 hours and who can sit through that straight?). One of the girls is from Monterrey and she was telling us about how crazy it's gotten there. People are afraid to leave their houses, the narcos recently took control of some universities in the city, etc. I was really interested and kept asking questions, especially since I'm going to be doing research on narcocorridos and northern boundary issues.

The other girl, from Leon, said that although it wasn't quite as evident here in the center of Mexico, there was still quite a bit of drug trafficking in Leon and Irapuato, especially since they're both on the way to Michoacan. I mentioned that I wasn't really aware of any of this and always felt really safe.

She told me, "Well it exists. They killed my cousin, and lots of my other relatives are in jail right now for being involved with drugs."

Ouch.

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