Disappeared mute girl returns home, Juarez, 2001
Maria Monteros Rodriquez had been looking for her daughter Carmen for days. She had disappeared without a trace from their central Juarez home. The “femecide,” of the women of Juarez was at an all time high in 2001 and one could only imagine the worst. I encountered Maria as she was”making the rounds,” first going to a women’s center for the disappeared, then posting notices at the newspapers and TV channels, as well as tapeing copies to telephone polls and store windows.
Complicating the matter, Maria explained, is that Carmen was deaf and mute and they -Mother and daughter- had worked out their own sign language, a language no one else could communicate in if she was found.
Then we went back up to the dirt hills of Juarez, to her empty house, with windows looking out east, over the valley of Juarez, across the Rio Bravo, toward the sister city of El Paso. Carmen’s bedroom window looked out over the wealthy U.S. city’s business district, its multi storied buildings a lure, a symbol, a counterpoint to the struggle of the people of the hills of Juarez.
We were sitting in the kitchen. Silent. There was that heavy non sound that fills rooms when death is prowling nearby. Nothing to say. Just wait. I was a guest and I knew I’d be leaving soon and, probably, like a black hole, that room would expand and fill with the silence of death, squeezing the life out of everyone who lived there.
It wasn’t looking good. Three days gone.
I hoped for her return, but in Juarez, in those poor barrios, waiting for disappeared women to return was not something one could put much hope into.
Then there was a commotiuon outside. The younger daughter, Esmeralda, came running into the room.
“Carmen is here, she’s back,” Esmeralda screamed. “Ella regresa!.”
And Carmen came into the room. In this photo the conversation is silent and intense. The sign language they had invented revealed that Carmen had not been kidnapped -every Mother’s worst fear in Juarez- but had gone on a party spree with her friends.
It was time for me to leave. This was just a family dispute now. Mom had to deal with a rebellious daughter.
Many other Moms, of Juarez, have had to deal with more: identifying the remains of their daughters, scooped up from the dust of the surrounding desert.
The fear I had shared with Maria, for a day, is magnified by the thousands in Juarez.
It’s not the only place of murder. It’s not the only place that drugs and multinational corporate pillaging have created terror. It’s just another place.
Every once in awhile, there’s a happy ending.
Juarez deserves its share.
