Mexico's Safe? La Realidad para mi familia.

“Oh Mexico is safe,” she told her colleagues at lunch. “As long as one isn’t involved in drugs, illegal activities and minds their own business there is nothing to worry about.”

Before last week I would have probably said the same thing. Today I just wanted to scream at her, “Callate, you know damn well that’s not true!”

Years ago her statement was true. Today the reality for people in Mexico, including my family, is different.

On Tuesday, March 24, 2009, three masked gunmen broke into my grandmother’s house while she slept. They violently woke her, my aunt G and my aunt M (who has down syndrome) up demanding money. It wasn’t a crime of opportunity. They had been equipped with the right tools to break the iron doors and avoid the dogs.

I found out about the break-in while I was working on my homework at my usual coffee shop in Adams Morgan from a quick message my sister left. I was unable to reach my grandmother’s house because the men cut the land line had been cut, and destroyed the cell phones. I couldn’t reach my mom in AZ or any of my aunts in Mexico; I was clueless.

After my class on Tuesday I was able to get a hold of my grandmother. I spoke with my aunt G, and she told me everything that happened. EVERYTHING. Where she was sleeping, first thought when she realized someone was in her room, what they said, what weapons they had, their demands and threats as well as the sections of the house they were walking through.

G was reliving it, and I was witnessing the situation take place again.

I went from feeling clueless to feeling angry and scared.

Angry because someone tried to hurt (kill & kidnap) the people I love (G and M are twins and only a year older than me. We grew up like more like sisters than aunt and niece). Angry because I wasn’t there or even close enough to get in my car and drive over to be with them.

Scared because (a)I almost lost my family, (b) there was nothing I could do, (c) realized how vulnerable we all were, and (d) they were still out there and we didn’t even know what they looked like.

Once I hung up the phone and just started crying, and was unable to stop. Sitting on my living room floor, knees to my chest, I cried all night into Wednesday morning. Wednesday was the same. I was angry, scared and just a sobbing mess. By Thursday I was just exhausted.

It’s been a week since the break in and life is slowly getting back to normal, although it will never be “normal” again. Not for them or for me.

It’s hard to say when the situation in Mexico deteriorated. What’s not hard is explaining why things are so bad. As we saw on Anderson Copper 360 (http://ac360.blogs.cnn.com/ last week from Mexico everything can be traced back to drugs (no surprise). The money is too good and the demand is high. The largest consumer of drugs - the United States.

If you consume drugs, you contribute to the violence. Fighting the war on drugs requires that we fight drug usage here at home. I’m a strong believer that if we prevent drug abuse, we also fight poverty and numerous social issues.