That's My Story

FREEZER BURNED FISH

Originally Published in Western Outdoor News the Week of Feb. 14, 2006

It’s not an easy place to find. It is an easy place to forget. Many folks do.

I can’t tell you the address. There is none. The calles (streets) have no names. You just drive through the various barrios and colonias with names like “Colonia Leon” and “Barrio Trabajadores”. . .Names ten times grander than the little shanties and casitas staked out within and way on the other side of whatever hotel you’re checked into.

Take a left from the super mercado grocery store near the marina where dock workers laze the afternoon passing the time with cans of beer or bags of chicharones waiting to clean the fishing boats and pangas,

Head up the dirt street in a permanent haze of traffic dust and go past the old church and the barbershop advertising haircuts for 30 pesos. At the Pemex gasoline station bear left. Those ruts in the road from the last rains can bust an axle. Head straight past the line of faded pastel concrete houses with graffiti walls and patchwork fences of plywood, corrugated tin and chicken wire. Sunning dogs too lazy to get out’ve the road barely blink an eye as you thread past. Be careful of the kids playing soccer kicking up their own clouds of ever-present powder-fine dust.

Past the crunching gravel (or is that broken glass?) of the dry and trash littered arroyo and you’re there. It’s against the hillside. There’s no sign, but that’s the one.

In it’s day it might have been someone’s fairly grand house. Somewhere under the dusty faded pastel green, a coat of fresher paint once lay, but now muddy splashes go halfway up the sides where they dried from the last rains. Windows too caked with soot and plants long in need of those rains cling precariously to the planters.

It’s a metaphor for the folks inside the big steel gates. The air changes as you go inside. Quiet except for the suble whirring of an old ceiling fan. Vacant shadows. In their day, they were grand, vibrant, colorful, but like the house itself and the directions to get here, they are forgotten and not easy to find. They sit in chairs along the walls. They stare. They don’t talk. Rows of sitting silent people. Eerie.

Every town in Baja has it’s Casa de Viejas. Old folks home. Too old or infirm to be with families. Or more tragically, simply forgotten or left behind, this is where you’ll find the folks that never get a mention in the travel brochures; the humanitarian projects; or the donation drives from “sister cities.”

Understandably, everyone remembers the kids. But even the locals can’t remember what happens to the old or even how to find them.

No gringo fishermen bring bags of extra clothing and old toys here. No fishing tournaments are being held to build a new “recreation center.” Benevolent church ministries aren’t having bake sales in the U.S. to raise money for a new computer or re-building the baseball diamond. Good hearted doctor groups aren’t usually donating vacation time to come fix teeth or eyes.

In our own wealthy country, we often forget our seniors. In Mexico where 50 percent of the population is below the poverty level, you can only imagine what it’s like to be in a facility here. This isn’t the “Golden Years Retirement Villa for Active Seniors” or “Leisure World.”

But, wherever, I’ve lived in Baja, we often brought the excess fish left by the fishermen to the casas de viejas. No shuffleboard. No “group exercise.” No trips to the beach. No senior dance night. Wednesday afternoon, there’s no cookie social in the parlor. No TV. No books. Just the silence and the occasional creak of someone gently rocking. And that awful tinge of pine cleaner and Clorox that clings to everything. They sit and sit some more. And wait. And the air sits heavily.

I was told once that the bags of bonito, roosterfish, and jacks I brought were the first they had eaten in months and the only “meat” they had eaten in weeks. This was the “junk fish” that didn’t fit in the coolers headed back home. I didn’t ask what these folks were fed the rest of the time. So, if you ever wondered what happened to that extra fish you left behind, now you know.

As I leave, the tired but grateful director always says, “Te Dios te bendigas” (may God bless me) and that they will say a prayer for me.

I get back into my own dusty car. I slam the door and wend my way back through the trash and dust. Criminy. It’s me who says the prayer for them…the forgotten. And I’m the one who’s thankful our fishermen were lucky today and their coolers were too small to fit all the fish they caught.

That’s my story. If you ever want to reach me, my e-mail is riplipboy@aol.com.