Observations

Just came back from a short trip to the seven-eleven. This city is definiteley different to every other place I have ever been to - except Manila, possibly, but my stay in Manila was too short to even get a grip of the reality there. (See FloHo Singapore for the Manila story)
Walking down the streets of "my" part of Mexico, I felt real fear for the first time while just walking down somewhere. I mean, it is day, but you rarely see someone passing by, and the people in the cars seem to believe that driving fast is driving secure - which might be true here. Alejandro said that some people once pulled him out of his car on the open road, argumenting with a gun - so he was quite responsive. The part of Mexico where the IPADE is can't be considered of a better one, it is one of the more wrecked, unsecure, instable, dirty, whatever ones, and you feel it. Most of the houses are surrounded by high walls - by high I mean some 3 meters minimum - and I even saw an electric fence topping a wall. Scary. Maybe it's the amount of stories the Mexicans told me about being robbed (yeah, they got me some months ago, and him, and his sister, and some of my friends, but normally they just take everything you have and leave), maybe it is this mysterious atmosphere of old houses, closed curtains, locked doors and high walls that sums up to the feeling of fear. I came across three young gals, and I was highly alert to what they did, if they came near, etc - I felt fear and I felt guilty for feeling this fear, because they had given me no reason for believing they did anything else than just walking somewhere. But I couldn't help it.
The next days I have to take my cam with me and make some pictures of the area - maybe that could give you an idea of what I just described.