Three Roads and a Dirt Field

Driving is a little different in Mexico. I can’t actually read any road signs so I pretty much have no idea of whether or not I’m breaking the law. That’s ok though, since near as I can tell nobody else has any idea either. I’ve been told that it’s ok to go through some red lights as long as you don’t hit anybody/thing/cars. Mexican drivers are pretty horrific. It’s unclear to me whether they subscribe to the Boston school of driving (they have no idea what the rules of the road actually are) or the New York school (they know the rules but consistently decide to ignore them). Either way, on a daily basis I am thankful that I went to the Yankee Stadium training academy for aggressive drivers.

And it’s not just learning to drive here; figuring out where I’m going presents its own set of challenges. We have a portable GPS in the car which would be helpful, but it doesn’t seem to know any of the smaller roads. That’s not too big a problem, since I don’t like small roads. Muggings and carjackings happen on small roads. Big roads are safe(r). Besides, when you move to a new place the easiest thing to do is figure out two or three big roads. Remember where those new roads are and then fit everything into your mental map from there. Sure, sometimes you end up going twenty minutes out of your way, but at least you don’t have to ask for directions (and now that I can’t understand the language I have an actual reason to not ask anyway). I learned three major streets when we got here. We crossed the border on street 1, the street that the Leggy Redhead works on is street 2, and the street that gets us from those two streets to our house, which I creatively remember as street 3; all major streets, all easy to drive on, and all easy to find on a map. Simple enough.

Until last Wednesday. It was a nice normal day and I was just getting ready to pick the LR up from work. Easy drive…right turn, bear right, right turn again, and then work is on the left (granted to actually get to the building you need to go past it and make a crazy u-turn across three lanes of traffic, but hey when in Mexico…). That is, until the security alert email.

“There are major police actions against drug cartels occurring on street 3. In response the cartels may be targeting random cars for drive by shootings. We advise everybody to stay away from street 3 if they must drive today. ”

Now I get to try and find an alternate route. I understand that this shouldn’t be a big deal. After all, I have a map. This is a large city; there are lots of ways to get wherever you need to go. How hard could this possibly be? For starters it took me fifteen minutes to realize I was looking at the wrong side of the map. Once I figured that out, though it seemed to be smooth sailing. I figured out where I was going and memorized a string of lefts and rights in my head, and then out the door I went.

One might have expected me to take the map with me. Well, one might be ascribing way more competency to me than I actually have. And two turns into a drive that should have taken me six minutes, I lost the ability to tell my left from my right, zigged where I should have zagged, and ran out of road. Literally. One minute there was pavement in front of me, the next dirt. And not like a dirt road kind of dirt, but more like giant bumpy uneven dirt field kind of dirt. I want to say that I proceeded undaunted. But I didn’t. I proceeded quite dauntedly, driving over this dirt field and praying there was a road on the other side.

Then, like manna from heaven, I saw a billboard. For the last week I had only been driving on three roads, and usually during rush hour. That meant plenty of time to stare at the pretty pictures on all the giant ads around me. Lucky for me I have the attention span of a gnat and wasn’t actually paying attention to the road those mornings, because I remembered starting at the sign of a guy sticking his tongue out at a watermelon; a sign which I could now see over the trees in the distance on the other side of this sea of dirt.

I later found out that the sign I used as my North Star was an ad for a grocery chain, and that those billboards are all over the city. Kinda wish I didn’t know that now. Oh well, at least now my geographic knowledge consists of three roads and a dirt field. I guess its progress.

This blog has been drug gang related violence free for: 19 days

Body Count: zero