NOTE: This is my first post in English, please excuse me for any misspelling and/or errors found in this article.
I would like to invite you, but my house needs a severe clean up.
I've been thinking lately, about inviting some friends to visit me here in Monterrey, Mexico, and the idea that one I appreciate a lot wants to come next year is bothering me. Not because of how we will spend our time together, not because I can't think about many things to do in a industrial city wich is not so touristic as another cities in Mexico, but because of the violence we're going through.
First of all, let me describe Monterrey, my birthplace. Monterrey, Located in Northeast of Mexico, capital of the State of Nuevo Leon is also the name for the Metropolitan area that encircles the city by itself. The Other cities in the Metro-area are: Santa Catarina, San Nicolás (in which I live), Escobedo, Guadalupe, San Pedro and Apodaca.
Before 1870, Monterrey (from now on if I mean the City, I will specify it) was no more than a bunch of small towns. After that year came the rail road and Monterrey was located exactly halfway to the USA (from central Mexico), that meant industrialization was bound to come. And it did, by the end of the 1800's and beginning of 1900's huge industries were born in the City, like Vitro(right now in the middle of a crisis), Cemex, Cervecería Cuauhtemoc-Moctezuma (also known as FEMSA; now part of Heineken), Fundidora de Monterrey (Monterrey Foundry), and so on. These industries gave the city a demographic and economic boost.
Today, Monterrey is the main HQ for said industries and many more. It also hosts a big number of foreign industries in different branches, like (the growing) Aeronautics, Steel, Pharmaceutics, Machinery, electronics, etc. It's mainly industrial and is the economical motor of the country, I mean, where most (or at least a lot) of the country's money is generated. This is a city filled with Entrepreneurs, we create companies and make them big corporations, that's how we work.
Then... what the hell is going on there?
Well, we're living a battle between drug cartels, who want to control the path for the drugs. Did you notice that I said "PATH"? why? because drug dealers want to sell the drugs in the USA, thats a better market than selling their product here in Mexico. So, right now the fight is between the recently formed Zetas (Z's) and Del Golfo Cartel (the first one was part of the other, they saw the chance and now they're enemies).
Before 2004, if you went out by night and someone said "please take care and avoid getting robbed" you would answer: "C'mon! this is not Mexico City!". But after that year, a cancer was spreading fast in the city, you noticed how many police officers were involved with the organized crime, until the recently elected (and current) president Felipe Calderón declared war on the Drug cartels. Hell broke loose. The cops did whatever they wanted to do, and the inefficient Justice system couldn't do a lot to help. We were screwed, that's why the President made the call to the only institution we could trust: The Military forces. and since then the war is on.
How would you feel if you saw a robbery, but you can't call the police because they are going to acuse you? if you were about to get kidnapped by some cartel, and then you go with the local police to stablish a complain and they give you up to the cartel?? that's exactly how we feel.
We can't trust our local police, for shit! If you gout after 12am, you'll see empty streets, no one wants to be in the middle of a gunfight or being, carjacked or worse, kidnapped. And don't forget that you can't open a new business, because there's the risk that some cartel will come and ask you for money or pay the consequences, that is an awful restriction to our entrepreneurship.
Right now drug cartels are killing cops like flies in ambushes, chases, etc; but they deserve it. We're not happy about it tho, because civilians are getting hurt (and dying in some cases) in the crossfire.
The military is doing a Kick ass job in the city. The army (which has it's HQ north of the city, and its main task is the defense of the country) has received a lot of applauses and ovation from the citizens during the independence parades, we love them, we need them, and they have answered us back. The Marines (They are the offensive arm of the military) are doing a Fantastic job too, they are arresting and taking down drug leaders in all over the state, and we are grateful to them.
In the mean time, a new unique police (the new State police, because each city has it's own and there's also the state one) is about to receive 300 new and trusty elements to their rows, they include new cars, ammo and equipment, hopefully that will be the beginning of a new era.
Sadly 40% of the news are gunfights everyday or drug-related operations (and there's a lot more that the news don't/can't cover), 20% (lame) sports, and 20% weather and entertainment. But not everything is bad (or lame) news, some other things have been happening sine 2006... good ones I mean. Besides the massive cultural event held in 2007 (Forum de las culturas Monterrey 2007), Monterrey has suffered from changes in its educational and economic sectors.
After the crisis, there has been a lot of companies interested in invest in the state, that means a lot of jobs for the people and local companies have seen a great grow in their economy. And since 2008, Monterrey began the process to turn itself into a Knowledge-city, for that to happen, new Research centers and labs were created, the Universities had changed their career plan in order to be even more competitive around the globe. That and the fact that the Government, the Industry and the Universities formed an alliance to boost the research and development capabilities in the city, helping the Industry to do better products and have more efficient processes. Also, at the elementary schools, English as a second language is being taught in 1st, 2nd, 5th and 6th degree, Nuevo Leon is the first state in Mexico to do that. All of these, happened in just 3 years.
How dangerous is it right now?
well, you can't take the Highway in the direction to the US-Mex border, because there (the Highway) is no-man's land. Also last January I had a close encounter with drug dealers when Iwas at a prom in a saloon, it was terrifying for sure but nothing bad happened to me or my friends. Altough, I still hold my said: This is pretty random, you just can't say "OMG I'll in a gunfight" because the city is just too big (4.5 Million of habitants) for something like this to happen, the odds are very low.
As I said, I would like to invite you, but it's still pretty dangerous here, we need to clean up first.
