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The only thing better than getting to see the world is getting to see it along with someone who means the world to me – thank you for everything…
… I can’t wait to see what comes next!
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My phone rang tonight with an unfamiliar area code, and from a noisy room, a woman’s voice came through : “I’m calling on behalf of Leonicio Delgado, who spoke to you this summer…”
It took me a few moments to understand.
“About his daughter, about Elizabeth?” I ask.
“Yes, about Elizabeth – he’s calling to see if you’ve heard any news, have you heard anything?”
Laura Elizabeth Delgado went missing over a year ago, in August 2009. She called her family from Nogales, Sonora and told them she would be crossing the border soon with her neighbor, Concepcion Tlatenchi. Concepcion also contacted her family just before they crossed.
No one has heard from either woman since.
I stumbled across this story learning about the border, the risks people will take to cross it – and what happens to their families.
Concepcion’s daughter called agency after agency looking for her mother before she turned to the press. She spent hours on the phone with me and sent me family photos by email before agreeing to let me visit her on the east coast. She also told me about Laura Elizabeth, and gave me Leonicio’s contact information.
I don’t speak Spanish – I say I’m working on it and I am, but it’ll be ages before I have the fluency to talk comfortably or do a thorough interview. But for people with common purpose, there’s always a network.
My phone call was answered by a family friend, whose email I trouble shot in exchange for help translating questions and answers that slid back and forth electronically until Laura Elizabeth’s story and then her photograph appeared on my laptop screen.
I finished the story, and told my editor I wanted the photographs to run as large as possible – they can never run too often or too large for me. If anyone responded with information, I promised the families I’d pass the information on.
I didn’t know what to expect – where the articles would run, who would see, who would care. I didn’t know if anyone knew anything. The desert doesn’t pick up the phone and call in.
And it’s been silent.
With other stories and assignments – and the rest of modern day life – competing to fill the gap, I’ve only thought about the story when people ask what I did this summer or what I’ll do next. It’s been far too easy to think of the project as complete because the edits are finished and the story hasn’t been picked up. It seems to float, motionless, on the site – static. Over.
But for Maria and Leonicio, it’s not. For Maria’s three children, her husband, her brother, her sister and their father, it’s not – just as it’s not over for Leonicio and Laura Elizabeth’s young daughter, who’s two or maybe three by now.
Tonight, Leonicio’s friend called me on his behalf from a noisy restaurant in New York, asking if I had news. Through the upbeat music in the background, I couldn’t help but picture the father who has missed his daughter ever since she didn’t arrive at his door.
I live with someone’s stories for a few hours, a few days, maybe, if I’m lucky, a few months. I won’t forget that you live with your story every day.
 Concepcion Tlatenchi with her husband in Mexico |
 Laura Elizabeth Delgado before leaving Mexico |
Whether it’s halfway around the world or a few blocks down the street I live on, sometimes the smallest things can make a trip to the grocery store fresh again.
Luckily for me, I had my phone handy yesterday when these details included sugar Coke mixed in with corn syrup Coke, new brands of orange drink, several fruits & vegetables I’d never seen before and Hannah Montana piñatas…
Just a short drive from Phoenix to Mesa, yet learned about something completely new to me at the Mesa Arts Center…
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A little belated – hopefully, there’s a grace period during fall semester final project time? – but here’s the first of two last posts from October 2010 here in Arizona…
We met up with good friends and drove to Mesa for a Día de los Muerto event, which in Mexico is celebrated on November 1st but in Arizona was celebrated on October 31 (a Sunday, so no school or work closings that way).
Anyway, along with the arts and crafts booths, there was music, dancing, art demonstrations, and at the end of the afternoon, a candlelit altar procession.
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Because I can never pass up an opportunity to photograph a good meal : food photos from Tuesday’s reporting trip to San Luis with Cronkite NewsWatch reporter Laura Yanez (the story about SENTRI is here, and check out other Arizona news at the main Cronkite News page)
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Extra photos from Tuesday’s reporting trip to San Luis with Cronkite NewsWatch reporter Laura Yanez (the story about SENTRI is here, and check out other Arizona news at the main Cronkite News page).
I take a lot of photos when I travel, but I’ve read that the sense of smell is possibly the most powerful sense when it comes to triggering memory and personally I find taste to be right up there too. I know I said this was a travel blog and keep writing posts about food, but for me the kinds of food you find can tell a lot of information about where you are – and I’m always up for good food.
Also, sometimes it’s not possible to take a full blown trip but you can get a taste of the experience by finding the right restaurant – then, grabbing lunch or dinner can be an excellent mini-break, especially if your table is close enough to the kitchen to catch all the sounds and scents of cooking. I wish I’d snapped a photo of the gorgeous vegetarian appetizer plate, too – but the fact that it was empty before I thought to should give you an idea of how good it was.
When it comes to the Phoenicia, located just next to ASU’s Tempe campus, there’s an extra bonus to stopping by and eating delicious Mediterranean food. The Phoenicia isn’t just a restaurant, it’s also a grocery store where you can buy the ingredients and try to creating an experience in your own kitchen – or at least get an idea of the spices, rices, and other ingredients that you can find in other places.
I don’t think I’ve managed to go there yet without buying something for the road…
…whether it’s short trip or a long trip back to home.
I went down to the coffee shop near my house tonight, and noticed while walking over that the wind was picking up and the air smelled different. Since the coffee shop was crowded, I found an empty chair outside and enjoyed the rapidly dropping temperature. Wind whipped into the complex’s courtyard bringing electricity with it and sure enough, lightning started soon after.
At this time last year I learned how quickly a torrential downpour can burst out of nowhere, so I grabbed my bag, magazine and drink and headed home, noticing how many of my neighbors had their windows open on the way. Sure enough, by the time I’d made it up two flights of stairs and started opening my own windows, fat drops had started spattering the screens.
Unfortunately, my cat, Antonya, was far less impressed by these exciting developments than I had hoped. As the sound of the pavement getting soaked and voices of people caught in the downpour drifted up, she turned her back on the window and is now sleeping on her favorite chair with a distinctly offended attitude.
But we haven’t been able to open the windows in months, so I’m stubbornly thrilled that there’s air moving through the rooms and not just because of the constant ceiling fans. Things have settled down now, and people are returning to their porches and sidewalks, but there’s still splashes each time a car goes by, and a fresh breeze…
While the break in the heat will probably only be temporary till October, nothing clears the air like a good storm.
The Air is Full of Spices 