Gina’s blog

B-I-N-G-O

nobody@vox.com(Gina) — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 16:17:30 -0700

Okay, so I know I should be studying for my class in regional economics or at least be doing the assignment for my accounting class, but I just don't feel like it. So, I've decided to go back to thinking about growing up in the borderland.

On superbowl sunday, most of my family came over to the house. My dad made carnitas (fried pork). The smallest kids weren't interested in the game. Actually, none of the family was really interested in the game, but just wanted an excuse to have a party. Anyways, my mom had an old loteria set that she found in the garage. She gave it to the kids to play. She put my 9 year old cousin in charge of "singing" the cards.

Loteria is kind of like Bingo except that instead of a coresponding letter and number there's a picture that you put a marker on. My family usually uses beans, but if really small children are playing we'll use bottle caps or slips of colored paper.

I was thinking about how politically incorrect this game might seem to someone who didn't grow up playing the game. Some of the pictures are benign like:

Loteria also has

fruit,

trees,

and other random objects

Once you get past all the boring stuff, you make it to the really juicy part. Every "classic" loteria has to have the following cards:

La sirena - the (topless) mermaid:

El borracho- the drunkard:

El Negrito- The little black man:

and El Apache

My friend and I were looking at the cards that night. We couldn't help but think that if we lived anywhere else in the US this game we wouldn't have played this at school carnivals. Someone who isn't familiar with Mexican culture is likely to be offended. Naked ladies, little black men and half dressed amerindians. hmmmm. If someone presented a game like that to me I'd probably be weirded out too. It's not just the cards themselves that could be offensive, but the person reading them off usually has a little saying about each one.

For example, a common one you'd hear at a church fair would be " El negrito: el que se comio el azucar." In English, it sounds positively frightening " The little black man: the one who ate the sugar"

Another strange one, " El Apache: Ay Chihuahua! cuanto apache con pantalon y huarache." Ay Chihuahua is a common exclamation like saying Oh Dear or Oh My God. "El Apache: Ay Chihuahua! How many apaches with pants and sandals."

Then we move on to the real fun. You can never really escape death in Mexico. You're exposed to it at a young age. It becomes part of your daily life. Loteria has at least 4 death related cards.

El Diabilito- The little devil-- Portate bien cuatito, si no te lleva el coloradito.

(Be good little friend or else you'll be taken by the little red one)

La mano- The (disembodied) hand-- La mano de un criminal

(The hand of a criminal)

La Calavera- The Skull (and cross bones usually)-- Al pasar por el panteon, me encontre un calaveron

(While walking by the cemetery, I found a big skull)

And last but not least

La Muerte- Death-- Aquí viene la señora muerte, la tilica y flaca

(Here comes madame death, the (i'm not sure how to translte tilica) and skinny)

I loved playing loteria during Kermesses or family functions as a kid. I just recently rediscovered how much fun it was. It's almost church carnival season and maybe I'll convince my friend to come with me. Maybe we'll even win a tres leches cake or a used piggy bank or some stuffed animals.

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The Strip

nobody@vox.com(Gina) — Sun, 09 Sep 2007 23:46:35 -0600

We have our own slice of Vegas here in the world's largest border community. Some of us call it "the strip"; other's affectionately call it "la juarez"; still other's just refer to it as going to j-town.

Its a location, a state of mind, and a street lined with bars that cater to the under 21 crowd but still over 18 crowd. You walk across the bridge into alice's wonderland cluttered by possible hookers, pimps, low lifes and hobos. More often than not you see women with children, they rent from an orphange, begging. When you're 18 its very easy just to look past all of that and concentrate on the $5 drink and drown. For those of you not familiar with the concept of drink and drown, its basically you pay cover and drink as much as you want until you drown in your own vomit.

My dearest friend, L, and I spent many crazy summer nights there. We were unequivocally accidental party girls. 6 nights a week were spent in a flurry of jack and cokes and cage dancing.

There is a very small window of time when you can visit "la juarez" and not be perceived as a weird-o. Visiting the strip is tolerable from the age of 17.5 and 19.8. Outside of that age group you'll find yourself out of place and out of touch with youth culture. Something about chain smoking Marlboros and kissing strangers gets old really fast. Especially when that stranger has also been chain smoking. (YUCK).

Our favorite dive was Reno's, a converted chinese restaurant with a sign made of poster board and a second floor which resembled a rooftop enclosed in chicken wire than a chic big city terrace. You're entrance ticket was a big letter R written in highlighter on your left hand (isn't that confusing?) and verified with a portable black light. Incidentally, The Tequila Derby employed the same technique and one $2 cover was all you paid for both bars. That was almost as good as flaming dr. peppers, but not quite as great as liquid heroins.

The music at Reno's can be described best as eclectic as could the clientele. The playlist included Outkast, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Garth Brooks, Sublime and A-ha. The attendees can best be described as young. That was the one link between every person in there. Well youth and the desire to get drunk. Everything else about them was different. Clothing style, dialect, hair style, social subcultures were all mixed in perfect harmony. Fights were quickly diffused by tough as nails Esther and her posse. People rarely left bloodied and if they did it was more likely because they fell and broke a glass then because a preppie guy was eyeing a punk girl.

There was however one evening at reno's that was less that the best. I was walking out of the bar with my arm linked to my friend, L. We didnt make it to the next store front when this massive guy picked me up by the waist and started walking. I was freaking out and hitting him in the head with my purse. My friend didnt let go of my arm and i was being pulled in different directions. We screamed for our guy friends to come help. They were a little bit ahead of us and they quickly came to our rescue. The guy set me down when he saw some males approaching and we continued our trek towards the USA.

The Tequila Derby is more accurately described by its pet name: The Dirty Derby. Its a massive whirpool of writhing half dressed, sweaty, disgusting bodies. It was dark and dingy and you prayed that you were stepping on someones spilled drink. The nights at the Derby that weren't drink and drown were usually characterized by $0.25 shots. For a quarter, you were given the choice between Red (furniture polish), Blue (windex) or Green (anti-freeze) liquor.

I recall a story related to me by a friend. It was the first time her cousin had ever gone to the strip. She was visiting from Arizona and wanted to have the best time that $5 could buy. They entered the dark, dank, stinky alternate universe that was the Derby and her cousin made a bee-line for the bar. "I'd like 5 shots of tequila, please." The bartender, thinking that she was with other people made a cute little line of plastic party cups and poured one shot into each. She knocked back one after the other. When she got to shot number 5, she didn't quite make it. She started to puke. My friend had to drag her to the restroom. Right after she finished puking, the walked over to Reno's to continue the fun.

Some of the wildest nights were spent at the beach. Anyone who is familiar with the topography of el paso knows that the closest thing we have to the beach are miles and miles of sand. The Beach is a bar. If it can be called that. It looks like it was really nice in the 80s. There were jungle scenes painted on the walls, cages, a catwalk for dancing, a huge dance floor, a second floor which housed the dj booth in a speed boat. We often took our music, and seeing as we were the only customers (until it suddenly came down with a bad case of cholo) they did as we asked. The Beach hooked us when they said guys $5 drink and drown and girls $3. We knew that we had found a true bargain. I had the most potent jack and coke there.

I remember a night when a baker's dozen of us ventured across the border and made way to the beach. We ordered a bucket of beer and an assortment of mixed drinks. That was the night the "ice game" was invented. It wasn't really a game per se, but rather the fast track to mono. Ice was taken out of either a glass or the drink bucket and passed from mouth to mouth until the ice melted or someone dropped or swallowed the ice. Later that night, several buckets and rounds of drinks later, C and O dissappeared into the men's room. The bartender/bouncer/probably the owner made them get out of the restroom. Our original thoughts were that one of them was puking and the other one was helping or that they were doing some sort of drugs. We always thought that O was gay... He is.

Every night before we left, we made sure we had our 35cents to walk back over the bridge. This was when most of us finished our puking, lost our shoes, and held eachother up. Then came customs. The most dreaded part of the night for those who lost their license at the bar. I loved it when Mr. M was our cbp agent. Mr.M was a substitute teacher when we were in high school. He was in his early 20s when i was a senior in high school. He was pretty cute and funny. He was an EMT in addition to being a student and a substitute teacher. He finally finished whatever higher education he was pursuing and became a border patrol agent. I was often really drunk and had he not been on duty we probably would've been hooking up.

You had to cross a minor obstacle course to make it back to the car. The most important part of the night is what we called the poor man's breahalyzer. It involved jumping over a concrete traffic barrier. If you made it over without help, you were sober. If someone had to help you up or if you decided to walk around, someone would have to drive you home.

I was always driven home by someone else.

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