![]() ![]() ![]() Otherwise, the grinding desperation just perpetuates itself as Ladydi observes, 'In our pockmarked world no one bothered filling up bullet holes or painting walls.' Even a temporary respite from life's troubles is welcome. Little wonder, then, that Ladydi gets drunk for the first time when she is only 11. ![]() If it's not AIDS, it's scorpions if not the poisonous herbicide spray dropped from the sky onto the marijuana and opium poppy crops, then stray bullets. There are hazards on all sides for Ladydi and her friends. ![]() She came back one year later, but was never the same. In her flat first-person narration, Ladydi remembers when their friend Paula disappeared. No one worries about her best friend, Maria a harelip ensures no one will steal her. These men traffic girls as well as heroin. Little girls like Ladydi are uglified, disguised as boys, or hidden in holes in the ground so as not to be stolen by the drug dealers who come by in SUVs with tinted windows. Yet it is very dangerous to be a woman in the desert state of Guerrero. Rita describes the situation for Ladydi's teacher: 'You men don't get it, yet, do you? This is a land of women. As a result, this is very much a matriarchal community. Like many of the men in their town who left to find work, Ladydi's father crossed the river into America, where he is rumoured to have another family. Ladydi Garcia MartÃnez lives in rural Chilpancingo, Mexico, with her mother, Rita, who works as a cleaning lady for a rich family. ![]()
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