The Furious Spinner

I've been exploring a variety of borderlands during the last six weeks. I've taken a some photos of these places, so I've made some slideshows for you to look at. The first one is of Agua Prieta, Mexico, where we went for lunch while on a break from the jaguar conference in Douglas. The town was rundown and nearly deserted—we hardly saw any women. When I asked someone about this later, she suggested that the women were probably at the Maquiladoras, factories mostly near the borders, mostly owned by U.S. companies, all paying extremely low wages. I think I mentioned this before, but it was rather creepy walking around this town with hardly any women there. And the men seemed hostile—or at least suspicious of us. Several Wal-Mart carts hung out near the entrance to Mexico. For us, these photos of the empty Wal-Mart carts seemed to sum up the devastation NAFTA and CAFTA have brought. The last photo is a kind of mosaic of a woman, and it was in the borderland (along with other figures) just as we left Mexico.

We also went to places near Arivaca, Arizona which is near the border. It's a beautiful and potentially dangerous place. I talked about this in a previous post, and you can go here for more photos. We were there near dusk. I took photos of the wash where animals and people have left their footprints. Washes, rivers, borders, edges, twilight, dawn are all thresholds, all places where things change, move, where the potential for transformation is not only possible but probable.

And (nearly) last but not least is that particular borderland commonly called kitsch. I'll just put a few of those photos right here. By the way, I was not trying to take a photo of myself in the mirror, but it kind of works in that kitschy way I have of taking photos of myself.

This is a Best Western hotel and restaurant.




This was near Arivaca.


As we headed north in California, the rain came. One black cloud was huge, bigger than any cloud I've ever seen. At one point it was above us and feathery black fingers seemed to reach down to us. We both wanted to stop, let the storm fall down on us. We moved away from that cloud, but others crowded the east horizon.

Labels: Arizona, migrant issues, photos, travel

4 comments

4 Comments:

We must go to the Longhorn Grill!

By  Will Shetterly, at 9:23 AM  

Yes! Do you think they have great vegetarian meals there? Mmm-good! Instead of tofurkey, they might have barely beef or leaf horn or....

By  Kim Antieau, at 8:10 PM  

darn -- wish I had known you were in the area -- although it looks like the time you were in Douglas overlapped the time I was in Southern CA. But I wonder what chances are that you and Jeff and Da Boy were in Tombstone at the same time...

By  Maryelizabeth, at 7:38 AM  

We actually only drove by Tombstone on our way to Mexico and Douglas. It was very very very dry. Now it is is very very very wet here in the PNW. Hope you had fun in Tucson!

By  Kim Antieau, at 2:59 PM  

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