23.5.4
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I have so many things to say and so little time to say them... work is okay so far... it is so far worth going back tomorrow,,, yes, Sunday and Saturday have flown by and I.... I am still waiting for my first paycheck... Friday the 28th. We shall see if they pay me what I asked for... or if they remember all the damned overtime I had to put in my first week! I finally put two and two together, after five weeks of staring at the burnt out ISSSTE warehouse down the street. What do I mean? I mean I finally realized the ridiculously obvious: THERE ARE RUINS RIGHT HERE IN NUEVA TIJUANA! Heh heh heh... the ancient civilization of the giant government ISSSTE supermarket warehouse that burned down two or three years ago. It's huge flat floor is now a playground for neighborhood kids and pooping spot for street dogs. But, now, for me, it is a ruin. I stood there surrounded by stained black fire-scarred concrete walls on the edge of the flat, scraped-clean cement floor, staring east by northeast toward the jagged backbone of Otay Mountain while Tere was around the corner calling her niece on the telephones in front of the Supermarket. The ISSSTE supermarket ("Supertienda") is still there. Our landlady told us that when the warehouse burned (and destroyed all the artifacts from the vanished ISSSTEteca civilization, all the washers and dryers and refrigerators and stoves - it was a treasure trove of ancient artifacts, yes, destroyed in the ancient days, two years ago) when the warehouse burned they evacuated all the residents for several blocks around - it was evidently a huge fire, the end of that civilization - they evacuated everyone from blocks around, and the bomberos - firemen - put up a huge struggle, and yes, they managed to save the supertienda but not the warehouse. AND NOT ONLY THAT BUT THERE ARE MORE RUINS Yes there are. As the three of us walked along the street full of booths and plastic tents and makeship restaurant stands and selling selling selling everything everything everything, Michael looked up and said, "What the hell is that thing?" He was pointing up at a five story tall abandoned steel skeleton. "Oh, I call that 'los olvidados' - after Buñuel's movie in the junky outskirts of Mexico City back in the 1940s." As always I explained too much as always. "Jeez, Dano, it's another frickin' ruin, Goddam but don't you just love Mexico! Look at it, all rusted and nothing happening... it probably dates from when this colonia was first laid out, eh? What... another dinosaur from the Oil Boom failure?" "Yeah, maybe so, it's about the right time, and this street is named Lopez Portillo, the man who would defend the peso like a dog and then turned tail and ran ran ran...." And that was when it hit me... that Nueva Tijuana is liberally sprinkled with this kind of ruins. The burnt out ISSSTEtihuacan warehouse, the half-built unfinished houses with their barren second floors of cement blocks, and undreamt of third floors only trembling castles of rebar rods sticking up toward heaven inacabados techos de castillos tambaleantes sí sí sí hay ruinas por acá there be ruins here, surrounded by hundreds of living, breathing houses, shops, offices etc. etc. etc. You know what, I said to Tere as we walked home, "I suspected I might enjoy living here, but I never dreamed how much, how very much....
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not apo strophe remember |
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copyright 2004 Daniel Charles Thomas |