. . . allow coyotes to seal you into a tanker truck to drive you into the desert, purportedly to reach the other side in only three hours.

Tito will never do it again.  And I'm telling you: just don't do it. 

The Jaguar's Children is a book of survival, of living and dying, of family and history and the future.

it is so good.  Do I dare to compare it to Anne Frank?  Yes, I do.  She had a diary, and he had a cell phone, but as far as the importance of the content and the beauty of the writing, they are equals.

Although this is fiction, we've all heard the stories of the thousands who try to cross borders and never make it to the other side.

if you decide to read this book, be prepared for difficult scenes that are hard to sit through, but also you will find this to be meaty with lots of food for thought.

"The human soul was not made to know such things and live." -- Tito, Day 2

Progress updates as I was reading through the book:

http://redthaws.booklikes.com/post/1158876/on-the-subject-of-famine 

 http://redthaws.booklikes.com/post/1159299/what-would-anyone-do 

http://redthaws.booklikes.com/post/1159325/free-mind-full-stomach-all-will-be-well 

"The battery is getting low now, and the life of the phone is not the only one that matters."

". . .  I left the city and went back to the pueblo to be with Abuelo. By then he was close to dying and it was a kind of silent bargain we made – I took care of his body and he did the same to my soul, telling me of all the changes he saw and how he made it through.

He also reminded me of something Mexicanos are being taught to forget, and that is how to live without money. One day, he said to me, 'M'hijo, everyone knows life for the Zapoteco is hard, but we are lucky too and we are forgetting this. Who else can grow all their food – sweets and spices, herbs and medicines, corn and beans and squash, even oil for the hair – on one hectare upon the side of the mountain?  Everything you need is right here – the sun, the seed, the forest, the water.

'If you can read and grow your own food then your mind will be free, your stomach will be full, and you can survive no matter how the wind is blowing.',

All his life, Tito's father has told Tito -- he must prepare himself to go to el Norte, so Tito can take care of his papa, his mama and his sister.  Tito has learned English, and gone to university, and in hours he is set to allow himself to be locked into a tanker truck with a dozen other migrantes and be driven across the desert.

". . .  I'm wiping my eyes and trying not to choke on my beer because I want to be hard, but it's hard to be hard, especially when someone's telling you the world that made you is being killed in front of your eyes and what can you do but wait for some men you don't know and don't trust to take your life in their hands and drive you someplace you never been before and all you have is your uncle's phone number and with this you're supposed  to make some kind of life because the old one is broken and you don't know how to fix it except to do what everyone else is doing and go somewhere far away with bad food, cold weather and people who hate you.

You know what I'm saying?

What would you do? "

 Once my mother brought him a kilo of oranges from el centro. Oranges don't grow in the mountains where we live and he ate them all with the skin and everything. This is not because he was ignorant. It is because he grew up in the time of la Revolucion with no father and he never forgot what it was to be hungry.