just a suggestion
by mjd74
I would recommend that you go to Chihuahua instead of Ciudad Juarez. It is a few hours away by car, but the city is so much friendlier as well as a heck of a lot cheaper.
Chihuahua is one of my favorite cities in all of Mexico Looking at the bad 80's hair cuts.
Maquila: Thank/(F***) you NAFTA
by sambarnett
Downtown El Paso was dead, only south of Paisano and El Paso Avenue did the sounds and signs of life, en Espanol, make themselves audible. Store after store blared music and advertised things in a language I can only barely comprehend. Not another gringo in sight, this would scare 90% of the people in my hometown to death.
At the river I hand a woman a coin, take a few steps and, wahlah! I'm now International. And I'm sticking out like a sore thumb. "Hey boy, you wanna taxi? Hey, get back here! Hey, you better get back here now boy!"
Cheap street shoping! Lucha libre! Cerbeza mexicana! Visit El Paso/Ciudad Juarez!
Initial feelings? I hated it, no place on Earth could be so foul, so wretched. As I head back to the safety of Uncle Sam a little girl walks up to me, hand out. I have nothing to give her. I put my hands out, palms up. Her mother, in Spanish, says something mean about me. I dare not even think anything.
You see, time does soften a man, I have no reason have such anger.
What is Ciudad Juarez? It's one of the largest drug trafficking spots in North America.
It's the maquiladoras and the women who work there. (They're more docile than men, more nurturing, less likely to cause trouble.)
It's where your job went, former American factory worker.
It's where over 400 women, mostly from the Mexican countryside, have been kidnapped, raped and murdered.
It's where your "American" car is made.
The "lucky" ones sweat 16 hour days and earn about $40 US a week in those awful maquiladoras; yelled at and abused, dreading "that time of the month" when they must prove to their supervisors they're not pregnant. The boss rips their pants off. If sperm has joined egg, they're fired, if blood is found the only suffering is humiliation and another month of long hours and a "fair" wage for them.
I see how it works: A "fair" wage for them, a nice profit for the CEO, cheap goods for us gringos.
Ciudad Juarez is interesting for all the wrong reasons.