We crossed the border and made our way toward the pseudo-mexican culture of Nogales. It was more carnivalistic and money driven than I recall from earlier visits. This trip was more to me than haggling over the price of a badly painted porcelain pig. It was more intended to give some insight to my "Mission". Even, if only for a day, I wanted to enrich myself in a culture that was not my own. What I realized (and what I guess I already knew) was the culture I visited wasn't real, but contrived. It was a border culture, more closely related to a circus or carnival. Where carnies with their crooked smiles entice you to buy their worthless Knick-Knacks. This wasn't the "REAL" Mexico I had intended to visit with its rich culture and religious customs. It was a playground for conmen and women to match wits with unsuspecting people like myself, who would fall victim to the poverishness they parade. Little children, no more than 5 years old, forcing 10-cent gum in your face and asking a dollar in return. The old haggish looking women, who wrapped in filthy blankets, lay waiting on the sidewalk to force an empty cup to your over-filled wallets. Only to quickly retrieve the money from the cup and hide it under the blanket and once more appear victimlier to the next passer-byer. I saw them laughing, I heard them talking in secrecy to one another, showing there stashes of riches cuddled under their dirty dust ridden blankets. It's a production where we "Americans" with our hearts in our wallets, are the unsuspecting actors who deliver our lines on cue.

Upon realizing the facade of this culture, I sat back and watched. I watched and listened as the Mexican vultures circled the crowds and singled out those they knew to be effortless targets. They would lure their targets into their raggedy shops and attempt to convince them their wares were of greater craftsmanship than the others. For those that got away they would be badgered until they were in the safeguard of the next shop owner, who was prepared to start a dance of his own. This would continue until either our pockets were empty or we grew too tired to go on.

After only a few hours, we were in fact too tired to push our way through the welcoming streets of this "so called" Mexico. I felt robbed, deprived of what it meant to visit a country so different from our own. I think I was most disturbed in realizing that it wasn't much different at all. It's a place where people care less about others and more about rising above someone else regardless of the expense. I purchased that badly painted porcelain pig as I waited in line to cross back to the security of home, where I could drink the water and remain unscathed. I realized that the "REAL" culture of Mexico was far beyond this "borderess" town of greed. I'm left longing for an adult experience to what it really means to visit Mexico. As a teenager, I spent weeks working in the central part of Baja California where I witnessed a much different culture, one far from the charade of these visually malnourished misfits. What I wanted was the opportunity to see the culture, which I understand to be so different from that of our own, through the eyes of the adult I've become. I will have to find that from another trip, one much more to the meat of Mexico.