Day 15: Rest Day in Columbus, New Mexico

Like someone imprisoned I am learning survival skills.  When we entered the gym at the Columbus School I quickly realized that if I shifted a few of the not yet taken mattresses, John and I could have our own plug.  What bliss!  Being able to charge our electronics right in our own little corner of the world.

Columbus is a strange place.  It is just two miles from a Mexican town called Palomas.  The school where we are staying is the only large employer and it is a really big school.  One wonders why such a big elementary school for such a dinky town.  More on that later....

 Columbus is the site of Pancho Villa's raid into the U.S. in 1916 and Pancho appears to be their claim to fame.  In July 2011 Columbus had what they call "The Second Raid"; the FBI capture of the mayor, the police chief and several other town leaders, who were accused and eventually convicted of smuggling guns to the Mexican cartel.  This left Nicole, a young woman who was town clerk, appointed as the new mayor.  Bubba invited her over to talk about Columbus.  Turns out she is also an EMT.  There is an arrangement with Palomas that Columbus will provide emergency services.  Since the only clinic in Palomas is sometimes shuttered by the cartel, women delivering babies call the Columbus ambulance.  In 5 years Nicole has delivered 23 babies and she is only one of several doing this.  Each of these babies is automatically an American citizen and must be educated in the U.S.  Thus goes the school bus, every morning, down to the "portal" and picks up the kids for school in Columbus. There is apparently some disgruntlement about this because the Mexicans pay no taxes for the maintenance of the school but Columbus citizens don't have much of a platform to complain since their town officials blotted their copybook with the smuggling thing.

About half of our group went over to Palomas for lunch at "The Pink Store.  While Columbus is dreary and appears largely deserted, Palomas is a very happening place.  Just one long party, at least to the casual tourist.  It was there I learned that margaritas are like t**s on a woman:  "One is not enough and three is too many". The Pink Store is a combo shop and restaurant and the minute you enter you are offered a free margarita.  There is lots of beautiful Mexican pottery, leather, jewelry, booze, clothing, etc.  We had a really nice lunch there and I am glad that John and I took advantage of the side trip because we are not likely to be any where near Mexico again.