Sew Your Future

The timid wife of our guide Jose welcomes us with a sweet smile, donating us a white cheese form, just prepared with the milk of her cows. The lodge reminds those described in fairy-tales and gives a sense of peace, thanks to the slow flow of the river, a couple of meters from the veranda. Linda tells us that it was normal in the past to cross the river, and then the border, to dine with friends. Now you cannot, because if the border police sees some boats that venture at night on the calm waters of the Rio Grande, they point the guns to the sailors to “fight the illegal immigration”.

Jose waits for everyone to go to their rooms and then he calls me and my friend. Candlelight, he shows us his treasure: he opens a box of carved wood and begins to extract small blades. They are the tips of used hunting rifles from Native Americans, found in the surrounding area. I do not know why he wanted to share him most valuable objectives, but it’s amazing to think that humans sometimes do not need to communicate verbally to convey emotions and specially to understand the genuineness of an individual.

After a deep rest, at dawn we start the most intense day to reach the village of San Carlos. The Chihuahua Desert is not as sandy as the African one, it reminds of the sea bottom, with the main difference that the plants have thick and long thorns that can cause deep wounds if the horses pass too close to them. At sunset, with the full moon that peeps among the mesas on the horizon, we reach the craved destination on the eve of “All Saints”. Surprisingly, the long journey in the evanescent sun did not fatigue me, the slow advancing of Chocolate almost rocking me, allowing me to relax and cuddle between my thoughts. During the journey silence had dominated, not because there were tensions or dislikes, but because the vastness of the desert makes you feel almost non-existent despite the presence of traveling companions. At the doors of San Carlos, in the middle of nowhere, we meet Gloria. She has transformed the former husband’s house into a B&B, in my opinion the least frequented in the hotel history of Mexico. The hostess has crazy eyes and she is a hybrid between a cartoon and a fortune-teller, she feeds us with delicious burritos entertaining us with unrealistic tales. We stopped the boring monologue a bit abruptly to go to explore the town.

San Carlos stands at the foot of a plateau in which a crystal-clear stream is set. At the top, there is an abandoned silver mine that had made it very rich and lively in the recent past. On each street, there are decorations for the celebration of the “Day of the Dead”. Men in the fifties are accompanied by teenage wives (often in the second or third marriage), the famous quinseañera (fifteen years old girls). Often betrayed and abused, women must be well cared for and helpful, and when ephemeral beauty fades away, another girl will celebrate her fifteen-year conviction.

Continuing to wander around the village, we find ourselves in a square embellished by a small church at the end. Entering the dark place of prayer, we approach the candlesticks, the only source of light, and a phrase of St. Charles Borromeo conquers my heart: “to illuminate the others, the candle must consume itself”… we cannot be an example and support without sacrifices and without engaging with constancy, dedication, and determination, but above all we must be generous. At the back of the little church, there is a vast cemetery where some women cry, shout or quarrel on their husband’s grave as if at that moment their bodies and souls were resuscitated. Some lay down a small table, others grab the tomb with glittering garlands … religion and superstition tangle in a tricky maze, sometimes reaching the grotesque.

And our walk ends in heart of the celebrations: “The Rooster Fight”. While roosters, worth at least $ 1,000 each, fight to death on a ring secured by a high cage, clandestine bets multiply in the presence of police and children. On one hand, the town, as well as the county, are considered very poor, on the other hand men wear python boots and belts, betting $500 for each fight. Linda tells us that we are on one of the main cocaine smuggling arteries with the US and that only the previous week, three drug dealers had been hanged on one of the bridge we had crossed that same morning … Festina Lente

The privilege of living in a foreign country allows you to appreciate the nuances of a culture that, as a simple tourist, would not be able to perceive. More than two years in the United States have confirmed how much our life is affected by American superpower: from politics to economics, from cinema to technology.

At the same time, I realized that the collective imagination of the United States is linked to a few cities such as New York and San Francisco which are actually the most liberal and European. The United States is extremely varied, a melting pot of cultures, traditions, religions, landscapes that cannot be uniquely defined

My experience is centered in Houston, Texas, second of the 50 states by extension (the largest of France), preceded only by Alaska. Border State, separated from Mexico by the Rio Grande. Like all bordering countries, there are deep contradictions and at the same time the fascination created by the encounter of radically different cultures.

Despite being known for oil, it is the state that has invested more in renewable energy; famous is the Marfa area where enormous wind turbines arise for miles. Yes, huge, everything in Texas is giant, from portions at restaurants, to seven-lane highway, to the population that holds the sad record of 30 percent obese.Texas, like the other States in the south (such as Mississippi, Georgia, Alabama, Louisiana), is part of the Bibble Belt, where the influence of the Christian religion is very strong, to the point where bigotry leads to the myriad of religious sects, more or less powerful, which unfortunately often distinguish different racial groups.

The Houstonians are very kind and ready to welcome you with a smile and a “Houdy” that in the cowboy jargon means “how are you?”. The Texans are very proud of their history, of the wars of independence against Spanish and Mexican domination; Fort Alamo, in San Antonio’s main square, is one of America’s most visited sites.

 Texas flags waves everywhere and combative spirit and nationalism are synthesized by two sentences: “Do not mess with Texans” and the famous “You can all go to hell, I’ll go to Texas pronounced by David Crockett right during the Battle of Fort Alamo.Associated with a peasant economy and breeding, Texas is actually the US financial engine and Houston embodies this role: it is the fourth largest city in the United States, thanks to the oil industry, Nasa and the biggest US medical center. This range of opportunities attracts young professionals from all over the world and it is easy to meet people who have lived in at least three different continents. This mix makes it dynamic and intriguing despite the preservation of a relaxed and informal lifestyle that allows you to be comfortable in the most diverse environments. American order and schematic attitude are however overwhelmed by the massive presence of the Mexican and South American communities that have a profound influence on cooking and nightlife.

Young city, born just over a hundred years ago, after a tsunami destroyed the Galveston Coastal Community. It is not architecturally beautiful but is very green given the torrential rains that occasionally cause the rise of the Bayou, a small river along which the most luxurious residential area, the Upper Kirby winds up, with Hollywood style villas and secular oaks. Looking at the map, Houston has a shape of a three-circle concentric target. The economic and cultural life take action in the 610, a huge freeway running around downtown, the River Oak residential district, the prestigious Rice University and the Museum District.

Although morphologically flat, the “Lone Star State” can capture breathtaking scenery, particularly in the Big Bend National Park area where mountains, canyons, and mesas alternate, while at sunset they take on the shades of marvelous colors while, in the spring, wild flowers, with lively colors, give life to the immense desert that you have to cross to reach it. In this area, where up to just 20 years ago it was not possible to eat ice cream for the lack of electricity, there are towns of few thousand inhabitants, people who by choice have taken refuge from the stressful competition and the frenetic consumerism of the few big cities and they have dedicated to breeding and art.

Right here, in this border area, my reflections began …Festina Lente.