Yorch Place

The video of the attack as seen on the news. Just after the crowd yell "Viva Mexico" the bomb exploded hurting and killing the innocents that where present to celebrate. This happend on September 15th 2008, in the city of Morelia, in the crime infested state of Michoacan in Mexico. At first people thought it was a fireworks show, not a bomb, and later we (all mexicans) find out it was the first (and hopefully the last) terrorist attack in Mexico.

I have several friends from Michoacan, a nehigbor state, the difference is gigantic, Queretaro has one of the best economies in the country, Santiago de Queretaro is considered the safest city and it has the highest GDP per capita, it is an industrial, agricultural and touristic hub and had economy growth of over 7% when the country had one of 3%, it is a middle class city. While Michoacan is one of the poorest states in the country, and probably the poorest in the center of the country (the poorest are in the south)

The economy of Michoacan is based in the tourism, agriculture and the money sent by the immigrants in the USA, and largely based in the drug dealing and production, which generates crime. Actually in my college we used to joke with the people from Michoacan telling them if they too work for the drug cartels, or actually being the bosses of them.

A friend of mine is from Uruapan, she is in Queretaro since she was 17 years old, she came to study here, she told me that the very first time she was here in a holiday she was amuzed that there was no gun shooting insted of fireworks, in Queretaro is kind of hard to find guns in the houses or people carrying them, while in Uruapan is common, also she liked the fact that here there are no fights among people using guns, because jealous attacks, just because you see somebody in a bad way or just because.

Amazing how two states in the same country can be so different.

By the way Michoacan is a beautiful state, great touristic destination, and not to worry about if you are not in funny stuff.

Here is a day of the dead altar Michoacan's style, I spent the weekend in Patzcuaro, Michoacan, is located 3 hours away from my city, it is a small town of about 50,000 people, but is really beautiful, and is a very visited town (many hotels and tourists) and it is famous for their celebrations on the day of the dead, which I missed, because those took place on November 1st, and I arrived on the 2nd.

This is how Patzcuaro looks like.

You must know about the wall the US is building in their border to control migration and drug traffic, well in my state we are "closing" the borders to control migration and traffic of drug dealers and their products, Querétaro is by far a safe place, we don't have serious crime problems, it is rare to be robed in here, but Michoacan a neighbor state has big problems in safety, tons of murders, drugs, dealers, etc. etc. the federal goverment stablish something like a martial law in Michoacan, and Queretaro goverment as all the other states that share border with Michoacan had decided to close their border with them to avoid the roaches (criminals running to other places), as you see inside Mexico we have traffic problems too, many states, like Queretaro, who has no problems of crime want to stay the same, to avoid the mafia and prevent them to arrive, but we share border with an infested state.

Just another thing, the problem in Michoacan is so big that when in college all of the students that where from Michoacan everybody made jokes about them dedicating their future careers in drugs, or being them involved in drugs, because the stereotypes says "everybody in Michoacan has to do something with drugs"... So sad!

Hope the operative give some peace and calm to the state of Michoacan which is really pretty, lots of forests and lakes, but very poor.

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