The Head in the Marisma

I was surprised to learn how permeable the membrane is between economic classes in Mazatlán. While there are definitely “rich” and “poor” parts of town, there are bits of rich mixed into the poor, and bits of poor mixed into the rich. Typically, in the United States, if a poor person comes into money he will move to a better house in a better part of town. In Mazatlán, often they will stay in the same neighborhood and just improve their home. As a result, you will find neighborhoods where a house literally made out of spare car parts and shipping pallets sits next to a well-constructed, three-story home with a swimming pool in the back.

However, there was a part of Mazatlán with no rich mixed in. It was a part that I wouldn’t dare set foot in now that I am not a missionary. Whenever some lucky soul would find a way to move out, they would take it. What made this particular neighborhood so bad was the Mazatlán marisma.

The marisma is a saltwater marsh that rises and falls with the tides. It has the appearance of a slow moving river, but it is actually connected to the ocean, and the flow of the water changes directions based on whether the tide is ebbing or flowing. It smells like raw sewage that has been fermenting in a dark, warm space for months to a ripe stew. Since plumbing in this part of town was not always reliable (or present), it is very possible that what we were were smelling actually was raw human waste dumped into the marisma in buckets.

SIDE NOTE: The Mexican Spinytail Iguana (ctenosaura pectinata) is a large black, yellow and brown iguana that lives in and around the marisma and can be found there in abundance. Locals told me that they used to eat them, but they had been rendered inedible by the pollution of their habitat. They actually nicknamed them “kakeros” (which roughly translates as “crap-eaters”). They are currently listed as a threatened species.

The worst part of this neighborhood consisted of a street (it was actually a dirt path that somebody eventually gave a name to) that ran directly along the edge of the marisma. Both the families that we baptized lived on this street, so we ended up spending a lot of time there.

The Mazatlán Marisma

My companion and I were on our way to an appointment with one of these families. As we walked along the marisma, we noticed a group of about seven people huddled near the waters edge talking and gesturing excitedly. One of them looked up and saw us approaching. He ran towards us with a manic expression and, throwing his hands into the air, yelled “¡Miralo! ¡Miralo! ¡Les dará el susto de la vida! (Look at it! Look at it! It will give you the fright of your life!).”  Against our better judgement, we looked into the water close to the edge of the street.  There, gently bobbing in the brown, scummy water, was a severed human head.

We heard distant sirens slowly growing louder. Someone must have called the police.

It was gruesome scene, but I felt completely at peace. My companion and I looked at each other, shrugged our shoulders, and kept walking to our appointment.  I remember being confused that I was not more shocked by what we had just seen. At our appointment we told the family about our experience, and contrasted the panic in the man’s face and voice as he described the “fright of your life” with the peace we felt. We bore our testimonies to them of the peace that the gospel of Jesus Christ brings even during disturbing times and situations. It was a message I believe they understood differently than I, perhaps better. They lived everyday in that environment, while I only experienced it in passing.

We learned later that the head belonged to a 70-year-old homosexual man who was murdered, dismembered and tossed into the marisma by some local gang members.

SIDE NOTE: This was another surprise to me. It had never occurred to me that Mexican men could be homosexual. In my mind they were all cowboy-boot-wearing truck-driving hard-drinking meat-eating macho hombres. While the United States common culture appears to be rapidly accepting and even championing homosexuality, in Sinaloa, Mexico, homosexuals (especially men) were often aggressively persecuted.