June in the Sonora Desert

 Sunset from Don Ramon Cenadureria, Hermosillo, Sonora, June 24, 2010.

An unexpected turn of events suddenly has us in the Sonora desert at 117F and getting hotter. I love the desert, an acquired taste from childhood memories of scorching trips through Mexicali to Arizona, but the climbing temperature has practically turned Hermosillo's streets into a ghost town. Life here mostly exists within the protective confines of walls where window box air conditioners drip and blow air full blast.  Outside the sun rays against the asphalt create distant mirage dreams... 

The little I have seen of Hermosillo has been gritty and worn, an asphalt and concrete city surrounded by rocky golden hills. Buildings are rectangular with low ceilings making the already wide streets seem wider. I feel a fleeting familiarity in the language, the shshing of moosh-shA-shhO (muchacho) the asphalt, the heat, grit and dirtiness. The over exposing sun light, the grease, the boiling menudo  and pozole on the menu, the dryness, the non-stop double entendre of words. I can't help but think of my grandfather, my grandmother, my uncle Sam and even my mother... There is something in the desert of Northern Mexico and the Southwest US that is like coming home to a place I don't quite know.