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The Situation

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It was very interesting for me to listen to the latest BoA:Audio episode about the topic of the "Santa Muerte" with Tony Kail, who did extensive research and recently published a book about it.

I am not familiar with this topic at all. One time, some time ago, while changing the channels on my cable box, I listened to someone in the Infinito channel talking about it, but I didn't have the chance to finish listening to the entire show.

Tony Kail talked a lot about the city of Nuevo Laredo, in which I lived for 10 years. I went to high school, then got my University degree and got my Engineering title before moving to Chicago, Illinois in the 90's.

The only mistake I found on his interview was about "El día de los muertos" (day of the dead) which is celebrated in November 2nd and not November 1st like he mentioned.

I found it very interesting when he was talking about this famous case during the 80's that took place in the area of Matamoros (a city nearby my hometown). A group of people were conducting human sacrifices and I remember the media said they were satanic groups. That was a very scary case, that was way too close to my hometown.

Nuevo Laredo used to be a fairly safe place back in the 90's. Of course, I had my many scary moments while I was living there (nothing compares to the quiet life in the US). But aside from all those scary moments, my friends and I were able to wait outside for public transportation to take us to school even if it was dark in the morning. Or I was able to walk long distances incident-free, most of the time.

As Kail mentioned, when a murder happens, some of the newspapers will show the picture of the murdered person "as is"; which I always found way too creepy. One time, I remember seeing the picture of a college professor (which we all knew). He was murdered (stabbed multiple times). His picture was also there ... black and white and very sad to behold.

It was very interesting to learn all this information mentioned about the "Saint of Death" and how it was related with the drug cartels. That was new information for me. I knew very little before I listened to the interview.

Something that I found intriguing is that, back in January, I read a very interesting column by Lesley on BoA about the year 2010 . Later, I also remember reading this article, which was directly related to México and the year 2010, on the internet.

Soon after, the problems related to the drug cartels got out of proportion. Drug cartels incidents have been part of México for as long as I can remember, however, the situation did not used to be as dangerous as it is today. Now, my friends and relatives tell me about extremely dangerous incidents every single day. It's no longer safe to walk in the streets of downtown at any time of the day. I have a friend that found an undetonated grenade near her house. Then they have the situation that the city mayor and mainstream media are not saying anything about any of these. This upsets people, but at the same time, who can blame them? Not too long ago a candidate for governor of that state was assassinated. Mainstream media locations have been under attack and that's all I am going to say.

I just pray that my someday peace is back in my country and hometowns. I really feel for my relatives and friends living such a terrible situation. I would also love to be back to visit someday without having to worry about the dangers around.

Like I said before, I don't know if this is a coincidence, but definitely 2010 has proven to be an unordinary year to say the least.


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