"Nature made the field and man the cities"
--- Marcus Terentius Varro (Roman polymath & author; 116 B.C. - 27 B.C.)
Matamoros is one of the cities closest to the Gulf of Mexico, about twenty miles from the coast (Bagdad beach), with over 520,000 inhabitants. It’s situated up against the border of Texas immediately across from Brownsville. Said proximity made it a prime place for commerce and one of the fasting growing cities in Mexico.
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HISTORY
Matamoros is a major historical site, the site of several battles and events of the Mexican War of Independence, the Mexican Revolution, the Texas Revolution, the Mexican–American War, the American Civil War, and the French Intervention. The actual founding of Matamoros began in 1686 when Captain Alonso de León explored the area and concluded that the Rio Grande was an excellent route for navigation and that the area of Matamoros was an ideal spot for cattle raising. Today, however, most of the city's economic success depends on foreign investment of the 120+ maquiladoras; which in turn provides a large percent of the city's employment opportunities.
The city's name comes from Mariano Matamoros, a national hero, who was a Catholic Priest and rebel soldier in the Mexican War of Independence in the early 19th century.
THE GOOD & BAD
So, why is industry booming? Matamoros is a good excuse for Americans to cross the border and buy from either local bazaars called Tianguis (Tee-ayn-gees), or smaller flea markets called Pulgas (Pool-gahs: literally meaning, "fleas") that sold all the clothing and doodads you could ever want for a reasonable price, often cheaper than it would go for in America. The word tianguis comes from tianquiztli in Nahuatl, the language of the Aztecs meaning “open-air market”. Likewise, if Mexicans wanted higher quality stuff, they could cross the border into the United States to purchase it there or bring it back to resell later. I'm no expert in economics, law, or foreign policy but that's just how things were.
On the downside, the prime real estate location of the city made it a target for the drug cartels (and I say drugs but more so weapons); the worst of which were the notorious Zetas. Something else to know is that it might be best to avoid the Spanish word for Gulf or “Golfo” in public in Mexico because it might be mistaken to mean the Gulf Cartel, which is one of the oldest organized crime groups in the country. It was evident to us who the criminals were in the streets because we were always on the streets. We could distinguish between normal laymen and those who behaved suspiciously. We'd see them everywhere but for the most part, they were willing to leave us alone so long as we left them alone (In general, gang members are respectful of missionaries in Mexico). It was easy to identify the shifty ones loitering on street corners or by the loud static of the walkie-talkies on their person. Their eyes on the ground were called “Halcones” (Ahl-coh-nehs: which as you'd guess means "Falcons") and warned the others doing the crime of where the police were if they were getting too close. And the tricky thing was that these were ordinary people involved in bad things so at first glance they looked like anybody else. If I wasn’t thinking, I could easily have walked up to any one of them, as missionaries do. Rest assured nothing happened to me, but I know I accidentally did that to at least one once but he just ignored me, not even taking his eyes off his spot to look at me, and I quickly realized why so I walked away and that was that. The Church members and other missionaries warned us of places to avoid and the spirit always kept us in the clear.
WATER
Matamoros’ closeness to the gulf meant that the weather changed quickly amidst the perpetual heaviness of the air, more so than Rio Bravo which was about sixty miles inland as opposed to twenty miles (See "Chilly, Muddy, & Moving"). The mud wasn't as atrocious but the humidity was just as awful, if not worse. Perishable food perished. Bread products had a shorter shelf life. A bag of chips left open lost their crunch by bedtime. Fruit inevitably led to pesky fruit flies, that beady little drosophilae that for the same reason we can’t get enough of in Biology class because of their supernatural reproductive ability, we hate them anywhere else. Shaving razors got about two to three good uses before they started rusting. Pillows, sheets, and towels had a constant subtle damp touch to them, like when laundry only makes it through half a cycle in the dryer. We got occasional cockroaches, relatives of the termite family, which was just another reason to wash the dishes regularly. I don’t think I ever saw a dishwasher on the mission so we had to wash dishes by hand which was an easy thing to do in and of itself but not a particular favorite of anyone. Sometimes dirty dishes would accumulate in our petite sink and cockroaches would find a way through the pipes and hide under the dark cover of the dishes or inside overturned cups. This taught me to wash dishes as soon as they got dirty. I still washed my dishes by hand in college, I never had enough dirty dishes to run the dishwasher because I didn't let them pile up.
The city’s elevation was at most 26 feet (9 meters) above sea level so when it rains, the water has few places to go so there is a lot of flooding (which is why it thrived in agriculture). When the pipe system filled faster than it could carry away, the drains would overflow and spout a back run of smelly water or sewage through the man covers which didn’t help the cause. So when I talk about floodwater in Matamoros, it’s not freshwater streams I’m talking about. Add that to the garbage and roadkill on the street and you know that you want to avoid floodwater at all costs. Disgusting flood water was referred to as Aguas Negras, Black Waters.
THE ANIMAL LIFE
Although it was a big city, it was still rural, especially depending on which part of the city you were in. I saw snakes on a few occasions too; dead ones, but still snakes, large and small. As opposed to dusty Reynosa, Matamoros was greener and had taller grasses and vegetation where snakes could hide; maybe not quite as green and leafy as Rio Bravo but in the same ballpark. Again, there were no lawnmowers and if it was unused property, it was unkempt. Some land was reserved for horses or sheep to graze on. I recall one particular plot of unkempt land between our house and the chapel that was in essence a crater in the ground. When it rained, it filled like a pond. I'm pretty sure that's exactly how it came to be too, like the grand canyon carved by water. One such rainy day, I heard a quiet but rapid clicking sound proceeding from it. Upon closer inspection, I noticed parades of small white crabs about the size of a quarter emerging from the dirt and down the street. Based on my research, I can only presume that they were Gulf Ghost Crabs. As a fun fact, Gulf Ghost Crabs have the ability to change color like a chameleon or cuttlefish which is pretty cool for a crab since it has an exoskeleton instead of skin. I have no idea how an exoskeleton can change color. Natural is a wonder.
Occasionally, not exclusively Matamoros, heavy rain caused hordes of frogs to come out of hiding. It was like one of the ten plagues except instead of running rampant, they’d more often than not get run over flat like pancakes of skin, their seemingly boneless bodies no different than other roadkill; it was faintly reminiscent of my Biology class in eighth grade.
In the northern parts of the city, on at least one occasion I remember flocks of dead birds just scattered everywhere, probably poisoned by the contaminated groundwater. Pollution is the universal cost of production and consumption. Whatever the matter was, Matamoros wasn’t a jungle, but it was a sort of urban wilderness in fairness. All it takes is for a group to be environmentally careless for the rest to conform and believe that their small contributions are insufficient to change the problem of pollution. I’m not obsessed with environmental health but I do believe in doing the small things like putting garbage in a garbage can; if we all committed to taking care of this world that God created for us, we could prevent future problems from intensifying.
A HOME OF SORTS
Like Monterreal, we lived above an elderly Church member named Oscar. I don’t know what he did all day because he was a small fragile man with a hoarse raspy voice who moved at about half a mile per hour. Physically, he kind of looked like Yori Nakajima, the old Asian man from the Marvel show "Falcon and the Winter Soldier" but a little older still. He was a professor for many years so he had a million books to choose from; it was the closest thing to a home library I had seen in a while. It was a miracle that I understood his Spanish despite my newness and his quiet breathy words. He’d left the Church for years but came back and that just added to my respect for him as for all who come back into activity in the Church. We would have a delicious dinner with him and his younger friend/caregiver, Humberto most Sundays (they fed us the most amazing giant street tacos on flour tortillas with all the trimmings) and we’d in return usually share a scripture thought. Humberto was like a younger version of Oscar, a little bald on the top with black hair on the sides, a goatee, and a smile always on his face.
One time, on our P-day on Monday, June 8, 2015, they took us out to this awesome high-class Chinese restaurant towards the Northmost part of Matamoros which had a classic Chinese water pavilion with gorgeous reds and gold and green. The interior was decorated with arts and stone sculptures and water features (fish tanks and waterfalls) illuminated by red lights and lamps. The steps were replaced by bridges and the cleanliness was great. All the waiters had their black vests and the personal piano player told us to "make ourselves at home". It was all-you-can-eat too. I ate egg rolls, chicken, noodles and rice, sushi, broccoli, and strawberry flan for dessert. Awesome! Stepping outside, we could see what I was told was the Rio Grande and Texas soil in view, but I have reasonable doubt.
I’ve always had a deep love for the elderly. My experiences growing up in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints gave me many opportunities to meet and serve the elderly and I have known many who have passed on over the years. We can learn so much from them and I feel like we owe them a lot. After all, they're us just a few chapters ahead. We always made extra sure to be on our best behavior seeing as we were practically guests and didn’t wish to cause any extra work or problems for him at his age.
To enter our "apartment", we had to scale a dangerously steep wooden staircase which was added onto the exterior of the house. I say "apartment" but it was really an amateur attempt to convert an upstairs into its own space. Its look made it obvious it was out of place; I assume it was built some time ago for missionaries to use so we wouldn’t have to go through Oscar’s house to get inside. The staircase was only about the width of a man’s torso and each step required you to lift your legs high over it. Climbing the stairs was like doing lunges up a mountain. It was very much like a cross between a clubhouse and a treehouse entrance. Like the tightest of alley spaces between two buildings that are not really meant to be trespassed. It made carrying groceries upstairs that much more physically tedious. The bottom entrance to the stairs was a doorway with a lock so the space between the door and the ascent did not provide much wiggle or headroom (sometimes you'd need to take off your backpack to get through in and in order to close the door behind you). If I had to guess, we probably only had 3 feet by 3 feet at the bottom to get in and out of the staircase. The top of the stairs was attached to a small balcony area that led into our place which meant that you actually came out of a hole onto the balcony. If you poked your straight head out, you were facing a wall, and the door was behind you to the right which meant that you had to step up onto the balcony floor which was the roof of the stairs. If you weren’t careful, you could easily miss your footing and fall through the hole and back down the stairs. Fortunately, that never happened to anyone as far as I know. But if you weren’t careful, you could drop something in between the plank steps and have to resort to a long-reaching object like a broom to retrieve them which did happen more than once, especially with keys. If you can imagine then, the balcony was just a balcony until the addition. I honestly don’t know how Elder Lopez fit the stairs.
The living space was muggy and cluttered despite the frequent housekeeping I tried to do throughout the week and deeper cleaning on P-Day (I know the if photos don't speak to this). Bunk beds sat on either side of the front door that someone had tried securing a magnetic bug screen to. I slept on the top bunk. Any time I wanted into bed I had to spring off of the bottom mattress, swing my legs over and twist and pull myself up because there was no ladder.
The bathroom had no door and was concealed only by a curtain that didn’t reach the floor entirely. The shower was connected to something that was more like a jacuzzi than a bathtub but didn’t work (which we wouldn't use as a tub anyway) but it quickly accumulated dirt and mold in all its intricate ornate cracks and crevasses on a weekly basis. Like in my previous apartment, the incline of the tub wasn't quite so that the water would slide into the drain instead of just sitting flat on the bottom which is why it got dirty so easily. The dirt off our bodies was just transferred to the floor.
The kitchen and study area was nothing special either but the house had several bookshelves, drawers, and dressers which were something of a luxury. Furniture of any kind wasn't common for us to have. The fridge was located in a separate room that required one to jump off from the doorway about eighteen inches down onto the floor of the next room below (I think there were supposed to be stairs there but they were gone if you were wondering about the architectural design logic). In truth, that room was so bizarre, there was no architectural logic to be had; it was more akin to a Dr. Seuss drawing than anything. That room was partially connected to Oscar’s place separated only by thin makeshift walls made of plywood that didn’t even reach the tall ceiling so I guess you could call it a tall "half-wall". The high open ceiling and empty design of the room we used as a storage closet made the smallest sound echo up and over the wall and through Oscar’s house so we tried to be quiet, especially if we wanted music. There was no outlet for the fridge so we had to run a long extension cord into the kitchen which made it impossible for us to close the door to that storage room to be quieter. I think the only thing that was kept in that room was a couple of tables with old paper supplies on them and miscellaneous junk that didn't really belong to anything or anybody but we didn't want to throw out either "just in case". I think the wooden stairs that were supposed to be the way in were there on the ground too but we didn't have the tools or time to install it back on, hence the sudden drop-down and the inconvenient climb back up.
I recall two or three cheap electric fans to cool the place down as best as we could but it was of little use. The microwave design of the building would heat it up in the day and force us to leave the door cracked open and fans on high speed at night. We were fortunate that we were high enough off the ground that mosquitoes weren’t too big of a problem and water and critters generally didn’t enter the house. So, to sum it up, it wasn’t the best house but it worked.
OUR AREA & CHAPEL BUILDING
Buena Vista was a decently large area shaped a bit like Nevada or a lightning bolt; wide and flat at the top and pointy at the bottom. Our chapel building was about two blocks from where we lived so we generally worked around the north end since the south was so far away that finding people who’d come to church was harder down there. The building we attended was the first Latter-Day Saint chapel built in the city (9 Wards between 5 meetinghouses in the city; the Stake was organized in March of 1980) and ours showed its age (See "Church Organization"). Like all the church buildings, it was protected by a pale painted concrete wall. The sacrament meeting room had hard wooden benches (seat and backrest) and small porthole-like windows on both sides and was cooled only by a system of ceiling-mounted fans.
The classrooms were built apart from the sacrament room and each had to be accessed from the outside, unlike most chapels where everything is connected within a single building. There were only a few classrooms but each had chalkboards (not whiteboards), chairs, and not much else on the white tile flooring. Behind the building was a basketball court which doubled as the parking lot on Sundays. It was a simple place but looks aren’t everything if you haven’t picked up on that by this point. Beauty comes from understanding a holy place when you see it. To me, this was historic. This was good enough for them and sufficient to worship in. Best to be grateful than to be picky. The use of the chapel is what makes it special and not the mortar it’s made of.
ELDER LOPEZ
Elder Lopez was a giant which was even more impressive considering he was Mexican; the average Mexican man is 5 ft. 4 inches tall (1.3 meters) and 5 ft. 2 for women. Even I felt tall in Mexico (at 5 feet 8 inches)! Elder Lopez was 6 feet 3 inches tall (1.93 meters) and as hefty and strong as a bear. His hands were thick and enormous. His voice was deep and friendly. It was a surprise when I learned that I was nearly a whole year older than Elder Lopez.
His large stature was at times an inconvenience to his health. His feet were so large that he had to have shoes purchased from the U.S. because they didn’t sell shoes his size where we were. We had to travel to the northmost part of Matamoros, within view of the crossing to Texas on two occasions for a checkup on the issues he had with his feet. His mass did a disastrous toll on his feet. His shoes would quickly get flat worn through like squished bread. At night, those massive lungs produced snores like a tropical thunderstorm. My parents sent cheap earplugs which worked for a time. Fortunately, he got his snoring under control and I forewent the earplugs. Talk about “count your many blessings”!
But we must not underestimate the man within. As far as I am concerned, Elder Lopez’s spirit was as giant as his body. His heart was pure. His bear hugs were strong and he would literally carry other missionaries upon his solid shoulders. He was a jovial giant and a child at heart. Like I’ve said, he was from Sinaloa, Mexico, and spoke super quickly and I couldn’t always keep up with his lightning-quick Spanish but he was patient and just kept smiling; not just with the mouth but also with the eyes. His eyes were comforting and friendly. Some fun facts about him are that his favorite color is white, and he likes TMNT and the power rangers.
Unknown to me upon my arrival, I held seniority over Elder Lopez by roughly six weeks and as such was made “Senior Companion” (See "Mission Administration"). Elder Lopez had just barely finished his twelve-week training (See "Testimonies and Trainers" and "Intercambios"). The role of the Senior Companion is basic. Both missionaries plan and work together but it is the unofficial task of the Senior Companion to have the final say and to take the lead both in the work and the responsibility of any mistakes. I was surprised at this news because my Spanish was still in the works and supposed that the one, Elder Lopez, who had experience in the area and knew the language would be more fit to take the lead. This was a time to learn how to lead. Just the same, we were both still pretty new and had much to learn, the 19-year-olds that we were.
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