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1. 

   People in the Neighborhood

   A blog by fotofreak

   • 11
     entries
   • 33
     comments
   • 198
     views

   Recent Entries

   • Jessica
   • Johnny The Shoeshine Man
   • Two Alleys - summer 2015 video
   • Rafael aka The Chiclet Vendor
   • Yolanda

   

   Latest Entry
   

   Jessica

   Jessica is another one of the American women who moved to TJ following her boyfriend.  This was around 2014 or so.  The boyfriend was a dud and she wound up in Zona Norte, selling her snatch to pay for her significant heroin habit.  She has been using since she was 15.  I believe she is around 32 now.  I met her through an artist friend who paints street scenes and portraits of putas.  He's actually painted a few of my photos over the years.

   She went to school in the United States and reports that she has lots of computer skills. She is also an artist and poet. She says many of her clients don't really even care about sex; they want the companionship and a sense of connection so she uses that to her advantage and even tells some of her clients that she loves them. Jessica says she does care about them but she has also stolen from them.

   This is Jessica from the fall of 2015.  The box of used needles was her "trading" box.  Back then, you could exchange three dirty needles for one clean one.  That program stopped in 2016 but a few other similar programs are still around.

   

   At that time, she was living in a spacious hotel room, relative to Zona resident standards.  Her novio Chucky, a deportee from San Diego, was in prison for a stint during this time.  The bathroom didn't have running water though and you had to use a bucket of water to flush the toilet.  Things went downhill from the time of these pictures.  A few more early shots of her.

   

   

   Chucky got out of prison in December 2015.  Jessica got one of her PLMs to cover the rent in a new place for them.  This new room did not have its own private bathroom.  It was a shared bathroom with the 50 or so other residents and only had a cold water shower.  

   

   This photo of Chucky is one that my friend later painted.

   

   His painting:

   

   In spite of her heavy drug use, Jessica was generally a fun person to be around.  She loved when I would shoot her.

   

   One evening, we were standing in the alley, just chit-chatting and smoking.  A client came up and I stepped off to the side.  They struck a deal and Jessica went with him into Cuantos Teresa.  But within less than a minute, she came running back out to me on the street.  "Hey! Do you want to shoot our session?" she asked.

   Of course I did.

   The session lasted about 17 minutes, per the time stamps on my photo files.  He paid her $40, if I remember correctly.

   

   

   And this is one of my all-time favorite photographs.  It will remain permanently in my portfolio of work.

   

   One of the last photos I took of Jessica was about two years ago.  She was worn out from TJ and her lifestyle.  Probably a month after I took this photo, she left for the US to get clean.

   

   She got in to a great residential program and was doing well.  Until she wasn't.  She got someone to buy her a plane ticket back to San Diego in Jan 2018.  A few days before her flight back here, she messaged me asking for a ride in to TJ from the airport.  I didn't reply to the message.  Then I get another message a few days after her scheduled flight.  She missed her flight due to being arrested for shoplifting but would be arriving later in the week.  She came back to Tijuana and began using again.  I saw her a few times and then got a message that she was in the hospital due to an abscess on her finger.  She lost part of her finger because of it.

   In the summer of 2018, her novio Chucky was arrested for murder and sent to prison.  Jessica continued on in TJ and San Diego for a few months but left back in November of 2018 or so.  She has taken up smoking crack in the US.  Her attempts at sobriety are long forgotten.

   

   

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2. 

   B^2 Zona Adventures

   A blog by BearBare

   • 8
     entries
   • 19
     comments
   • 101
     views

   Recent Entries

   • Mothers Day por mi amiga
   • Cuatro de Mayo, saw a movie
   • 4/25 dancing man a little more
   • 4/23 quick run: Dancing Man ?? video only
   • 4/19 Damn, wheres my money going jajaja!

   

   Latest Entry
   

   Mothers Day por mi amiga

   Another year gone by since last celebrating Mothers Day por mi amiga.  I got off work at 4:30pm and jammed south.  Zero traffic. Breezed thru customs with my 6 month visa.  

   As I came down the PedWest MX side ramps, I pulled up Uber.  5 cars ? 4 mins away.  Cool. Set destination at 5th y Negrete and “Confirm”.  “Finishing trip nearby”. FUUUUUCK.  I remembered people in Uber FB group saying to cancel but I could see he was coming over the bridge.   Ok, give it a shot. 

   The nearby destination was where I was, “La Chapparell.”  Sweeet.  Lady jumps out, I jumped in. Fast and easy.  The Uber, not the Chica.  HA!!

   At 5:50 about half the florists are closed, but my favorite is one of the florists open.  

   300 pesos later have a nice flower arrangement and I am on my way to relax with mi amiga.  

   Cambio 18.1 at 5:15pm by KFC/7-11, 18.0 by PedWest mall.  

   

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