San Felipe - Mas Limpio!
It's the end of May, 2008. The traffic on the highway
has bottlenecked near San Felipe at what at first glance
appears to be an accident. Nothing out of the ordinary.
But then as you edge beside the police car with the
strobing lights, you see the shoulder of the road is
not hosting the expected carnage of an all-too-familiar
misfortune. Instead a group of people are bent over
trash bags, plucking tin cans and plastic chip wrappers
from roadside thickets and foliage.
Ah, you think, convict labor. A
chain gang. But then you see some people who look
distinctly un-chain-gang-like. A middle-aged
woman in a T-shirt; a corpulent man stooping to push
a bottle into the lip of a plastic bag. Further down
the highway a small group of students shoulder bulging
trash bags while crossing the blacktop. A half mile
later several Marines in uniform are walking along the
highway's border, also shlepping trash bags.
It's madness, you think. Some experimental
Russian satellite ray has struck the town. This
kind of thing just doesn't appen here.
At the arches a stage is set up with Heffer-sized speakers
that belch morale music up the highway to all the ankle-level
ears that mark the terminus of a hundred outstretched
arms. Beside the stage is a large sign that exonerates
the Russians. It seems Mexicali is sponsoring this very
anomalous project. And about time too. San Felipe has
been a holiday back porch for vacationers from Mexicali
for far too long, a place to throw empties and then
close the door.
A clean San Felipe is going to be a difficult thing
to wrap the mind around. Of course, if Mexicali was
really serious about the intent, it would shepherd its
sweepers more than just a few feet beyond the tarmac.
There are literally countless acres carpeted with trash
along almost every ancillary dirt road that veins away
from the town. But of course tourists don't see those
places. And because highway cleanups are the fruit of
political agendas, what's out of sight (as any politican
can tell you) is out of mind.
Hopefully Mexicali will make this a regular function
of their responsibility to keep their holiday porch
presentable to others who might like to use it. Like
the citizens of San Felipe.
Click
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