I ended up here not by chance, and not even as a tourist. I came to meet new relatives, a family that took in my sister. Wonderful people, with whom I am sincerely glad to be acquainted. Probably, without this reason, I would never have ended up in this state. Certainly not as a place for a first visit. A small town where I spent a month, even smaller than my hometown of Podolsk, but instead of the oppressive impression of an aging province, a lively city with its own life, people who are trying to start their own business and complain about the difficulty of finding workers. Probably, it’s not about the city, it’s about the country, but I’ll see the country another time. And before that, I’ll definitely get a driver’s license, because everything here is not built for people, but for cars. From almost complete lack of pedestrian crossings to extensive parking lots for every building.
The main goal of the trip is to get to know people, and the main impression is people. Here, the difference between generations is blurred. Adults in their fifties communicate with twenty-year-olds on an equal footing, become friends. There is no closedness in communication between generations: no one limits themselves with additional taboos. Here, openness in communication with strangers and hyperbolized politeness are accepted. If you accidentally end up in the field of view of a stranger, for example, walked between him and the counter he was looking at, you must apologize.
Well, the first impression of a country is customs. Here I got an entertainment of an additional inspection, which is essentially just an interrogation. Unlike the Georgian procedure, where a KGB agent in a cozy room fills out a formal, albeit very detailed, document, or even just sends your answers to someone on WhatsApp, and at the end offers to stay in the country to work, “if you are a good IT specialist”, American border guards take a more mature approach to the interrogation. There is a special space, made like a waiting room at a pickup point, where a huge table separates clients from vendors, only instead of vendors, there are border guards. They asked me the same question several times, getting annoyed when I answered in different wordings. They got even more upset when I said I didn’t know my sister’s address and needed to call her to find out. They categorically refused to let me use my own phone, and only after about ten minutes of playing games of looks with the customs officer he believed that I didn’t know where I was going and allowed me to make the call. In parallel, I inadvertently did several things that proved I am a fool. For example, when asked why I rented a hotel if I was going to my sister’s, I said it was because they lived in a track. When he reacted with surprise and said “what”, I realized I had to rephrase and say a house on wheels. A moment of English: “track” is a car with an open trunk, RV is a house on wheels, although “house on the wheels” works too. Anyway, the game of “catch Anton on a contradiction” ended as soon as I said I had a bachelor’s degree in applied mathematics. The customs officer abruptly stopped being aggressive, became politely American, asked his questions, and let me go.
By the way, the attitude towards law enforcement officers here is clearly special. Locals say that there are too many police officers (although I only saw them once). Each car has a radar detector that beeps at sheriffs and other things that can fine you for speeding. In contrast to the police, the attitude towards the military is much better. And there are a lot more of them. At the airport, you can see soldiers flying on their next mission, and visiting friends and just walking on the street, there are veterans living on military pensions. Respect for the military is subtly felt everywhere. From “thank you for your service” in private conversations to signs about discounts in stores for those who have served or are serving. One of my new acquaintances is actually a combat helicopter pilot. And he is the only person I have met here who speaks Russian. Falling in love with a Ukrainian woman in Poland, he started learning Russian. Like him, I sincerely hope that if he ever comes to Russia, it will only be as a tourist.
By the way, everyone here talks about politics. Of course, we discussed Ukraine with them, but they quickly switched to internal issues. The most notable discontent among the locals is the policy towards migrants. Here’s the algorithm for getting a green card:
- You come to Mexico
- You pay the cartel to transport you across the border
- You surrender to the police
- 50% chance you get a $1k fine and a green card (which means financial assistance from the state)
- 50% chance you get deported to Mexico. Then you have to repeat from step 2.
But that doesn’t mean they’re not happy to see migrants. About half of the people I talked to advised me to move here permanently and even gave some arguments in favor of this decision. Moreover, the phrase “he traveled all the way from Moscow here” impresses people. No one accuses anyone of anything, they just show curiosity about what’s going on in another information bubble.
Well, the main difference of the state is its nature. Wikipedia calls New Mexico the Land of Enchantment. People come here, both workers for retirement and tourists for the nature. This is why there are so many elderly people among the sellers in local stores. But let’s talk about nature. There is a desert here where locals ride motorcycles, buggies, and anything else that can be driven on it. There are mountains for hiking and even forests if you look a bit harder.
Local tourist trails are not burdened with embellishment, which creates the impression of hiking along an unexplored trail rather than a prepared attraction. The impression is amplified by the abundance of wild animals here. We saw deer, rabbits, and snakes running past us. In the canyon, a huge bird, which had built its nest on one of the ledges, ominously shouted at us, expressing its protest at the presence of people near its nest.
One of our hikes was to a cave. When we got to the cave, we met a man sitting at the entrance in a Turkish pose. His name was Sebastian, and he comes here twice a year for a couple of days to unwind and meditate. Usually, he spends this time alone because not many people know about this cave. Sebastian was very friendly and took us on a tour of the cave. He told us not to touch the black dots on the walls, which are bat droppings and can make you sick. He showed us several climbs and explained what would happen if we climbed them, but advised against doing so without proper equipment. In the end, we reached the point where safety ended, and it was only worth climbing further if you knew what you were doing. But even where we had reached was deep. My internal meter estimated the distance at 150 meters. After walking around the cave, we headed back to make it before sunset, and Sebastian returned to his position at the entrance to the cave. After a few minutes, he started playing music on some wind instrument. We heard this music almost the entire way back. Despite playing it softly, the wind managed to carry the melody to us.
