Border encuentro/meeting

Today I met Daniel Watman who is a promoter of Border Meetup Group.

 

The philosophy of the group is to create events where people from both countries can meet on the border, on the beach and make an exchange. The events take place every month (except January and December). Each month has got different topic to communicate and make an exchange.

I love the idea of this art program, which is:

"Our goal is to bring people together by finding a theme that has no borders, often has a direct effect on improving the region, and always results in friendships across cultural boundaries".

 

More information and contacts you can get from the website:

 http://www.borderencuentro.org/pages/home_01.html

Soldiers

Today few mexican solders were waiting in front of the border gate with cute little poppy. I could not help myself not to go and stroke it. Especially when it looks like little Pixel (dog what I take care and lives with me) - dos colores, blanco y negro.

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Pixel

One solder knew English so we communicate like that: he was speaking single words in English I was speaking single words in Spanish. I turned out that poppy doesn't have a name and they asked me to choose it. As poppy is a female and will be a little solder - I proposed Marina. So today I gave a name for Mexican perrito soldado :).


Today I also plant wild strawberries, cantaloupe (it was so sweet to eat) and eleven varieties of lettuce and leek.

Lettuce

Cantaloupe & leek

Green house for wild strawberries

Wild strawberries

Lost letters - things good to know about Mexico

1) Post office
I do not recommend to use a mexican post office. First of all, it's not cheap. Secondly, your family, friends probably will never receive letters, postcards from you!
I sent my bill from the visit at the dentist to the insurance company in Poland and unfortunately after almost two months they did not received it! At the same day I sent postcards to many places in  the world and my friends have not seen them yet... and maybe will never see.
It looks like mexican post office is sending all mails by ship through the ocean. Although, even if we skip the ocean my friend from Pennsylvania did not see it in his the mailbox either...

2) Streets
You have to be careful walking on the pavement in the city... Streets are not only full of litters but also have got 0,5m deep holes. I was close to brake my legs few times, because I was watching shops and surrounding instead of put my head down and staring at the sidewalk...

3) Water
It is not recommended to drink water from the tap, even to boil a tea. Water in the bottles are in every shop. If you are planning to live here longer you should buy a big glass bottle (about 10 liters). When you are run out of drinkable water it is easy to replace it on the full bottle for 15 pesos. The car with fresh water is driving around the streets every day.

Cornbread

Today I baked my first cornbread. As the tortillas are the basement of everyday life and are made of cornflour I decided to use this gold to make a kind of cake. It turned out very well - soft and plump. Not to sweet. It is enough for one bigger tray or two small ones. I made in two small cornbread in  different shapes.

 Recipe:

1 cup yellow cornmeal
1/2 cup flour
3/4 cup sugar
1 tsp salt
1 cup buttermilk
1/2 cup milk
1 egg
1 tbsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda

1. Preheat oven to 400F.
2. Mix flour, cornmeal, sugar and salt.
3. In another bowl, mix buttermilk (you can make a cup of buttermilk by adding a tbsp of lemon juice to the milk and letting it sit for 5 minutes) with regular milk and egg. Stir in baking powder and baking soda.
4. Add wet ingredients to dry ingredients and stir until combined.
5. Pour batter into pan. Put tray to oven and bake for 20-25 minutes.

Tortillas

Except trolleys selling churros, tamales, tacos, fruits every corner ... there are many people selling corn on the stick - grilled or boiled covered with butter, chili and salt.
Corn is one of the main and  most important raw material in this country. From the corn flour are made tortillas - kind of bread, corn pancake. You do not need a lot to make tortillas, just corn flour, a bit water and salt. You mix all ingredients, divide dough into equal pieces. You make a ball from each piece and flat them using a special tool...

At many places you can pass tortillas "industries"

Colonia Federal

"Colonia Federal" is a neighborhood at the border. Here you can visit La Casa del Tunel - Art Center. In neighborhood you can find few buildings which were a part of an art project.

And of course you can see the line of the cars and people to cross to the USA side... and people can not cross this border but would like too...

Empty, abandoned market place

It is a very little neighborhood with big empty market, closed stores and restaurants, which were waiting pointless for tourists, who did not come because of the bad economy in the USA, in Mexico and all over the world...

Stroller to sell tamales, tacos, churros, juices, corn or something else...

An Arch which you can see from Colonia Federal

Children playing on the rooftop

La Casa del Tunel - ART CENTER

La Casa del Tunel is in the Colonia Federal in Tijuana. It is located like 3 meters from the border wall with the USA.

"La Casa del Túnel: Art Center (The House of the Tunnel) is located in a neighborhood of Tijuana called "Colonia Federal," a place where within the last five years artists of all disciplines have congregated to live and work. "Colonia Federal" is has special characteristics. Originally, this area was created to build housing for employees of the Mexican Federal Customs Office. Due to the demands of the job, the government decided to give these employees an opportunity to build residences near their workplace. A great part of this neighborhood was used to expand the customs facility"

http://www.cofac101.org/casa.htm#

La Casa Del Tunel used to had a tunnel that shuttled people and drugs into a parking lot on the US side. COFAC is an organization consisted of arts group, which recently remodeled the building  to the residency and gallery.

This is how it looks like from above...

http://maps.google.pl/maps/ms?hl=pl&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Nuottaniementie+2,+80140+Joensuu,+L%C3%A4hdesuo,+Finlandia&msa=0&msid=208931677335325684175.00049a868e279853c9b2b&ll=32.541721,-117.031839&spn=0.002017,0.004823&t=h&z=18&layer=t

On the other side of this wall are Mexican solders guarding a border

 

This is the building where artists can have got a residency. It has got a shape of a ship, on the ground floor is a little apartment (over there was a famous tunnel!) - place of residency for the artists.

 

On the first floor there is a gallery and on the rooftop is a kitchen, nice tables set and a great view :). It's a perfect place to run international, multi- cultural cafeteria - Eco Verde Cafe, which features rooftop views of Tijuana and the United States.

In front of the la Casa del Tunel is a white car or rather residues after car. There is more bullets holes than the metal cover. 

Here you can get more information about La Casa del Tunel: http://www.lacasadeltunelartcenter.org/programs.html